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

English

CChris Williamson

Business NewsMoviesMental HealthTax Planning

Transcript

00:00:00A vigilante known as the Batman of Lagos de Moreno has gone viral after catching alleged

00:00:05motorcycle thieves and duck-taking them to lampposts across Lagos de Moreno in Jalisco.

00:00:11At least five suspected thieves have been found restrained to polls over the past 10 days,

00:00:15some with their mouths taped and signs labelling them as thieves. Authorities are investigating

00:00:19and say those found tied up are being treated as victims. Police have added the vigilante to a

00:00:25wanted list and are also looking into whether multiple people are behind the incidents.

00:00:28We've got some pictures of what these people look like. The guy's a real-life Mexican Batman

00:00:35that appears to be getting motorcycle thieves and duck-taking. People are also calling him

00:00:40Duck-Tapeman, but he's really doing it. Oh, that is, I mean, that's a, yeah, okay, sorry.

00:00:45So you hear duck-tape and you think, I could get myself out of duck-tape. No. That is, okay. I

00:00:50notice he's left the motorcycle with them. That seems... There's the evidence. That seems bad because

00:00:55someone's going to cut them free and they're going to disappear on the motorcycle. See? There it is.

00:01:00Duck-Tapeman. Okay. That seems... That's kind of great because normally if you see a story about

00:01:05crime in Mexico, you go, oh, this is going to be... This is going to be eye bleach. This is the,

00:01:11this is a very fluffy way to deal with crime in Mexico, it seems. How has he taken down two

00:01:16in one? I mean... I mean, they don't look particularly physically intimidating.

00:01:20They look 14 and terrified. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, don't steal motorcycles. There's a message

00:01:26there. You would be too if you'd been taped to a lamppost. The rise and fall of civilizations and the

00:01:32rise, Duck-Tapeman brings back law and order. That's true. You're talking about, uh, strong man make good

00:01:36times. They, that is the strong man that uses duck-tape. There was the case about seven months ago in the UK

00:01:42where a guy purposely left his bike, um, I think outside of the HMP in London, where all the police

00:01:50are based and put like a Apple air tag on it and it got lost. He calls up the police and it's like,

00:01:56we have the air tag. I have the address. There's nothing we can do. There's nothing we can do.

00:02:02All of a sudden, he then takes it to the telegraph, the times, it becomes a huge story. And then the

00:02:06police go, we're looking into it. So even when you have the GPS coordinates, they don't take it

00:02:10seriously. Yeah. It's a good, I think it's a crime I could get behind now. The vigilante, it's like,

00:02:15it's nice. You don't hear a lot about it these days. What was the last crime you committed, Jim?

00:02:19The last crime? I would say probably, um, probably some sort of tax avoidance, uh, was the last big

00:02:27one. I, I don't know. Like, when that whole thing happened, this is years ago now, like 12, 13 years

00:02:31ago, when it was all going on, I was like front of the papers and the prime minister was David Cameron

00:02:36at the time. He broke off from the G20 summit to comment on my personal tax affairs. That is a red

00:02:40flag. But it was all going on. I never once mentioned the millions that I've given to charity

00:02:46because I thought, well, at this point, lying's not going to help.

00:02:51Yeah. Yeah.

00:02:54Well, because evasion is allowed, but avoidance is not.

00:02:57No, avoidance is allowed. Evasion, there's a big difference. About 18 months in prison.

00:03:00Right. Yeah. Or if you ask Gary Stevenson, then, then there's a big difference.

00:03:03What was the document you watched? Have you watched Gary Stevenson's new documentary?

00:03:06No, go on. What's the documentary? I think he's wonderful. I think he's the best.

00:03:10I heard you laughing while you were watching it last night. I think he's the best economist.

00:03:13I think he's the best economist of our times. And when the Soviet Great Britain becomes and you

00:03:18guys are fighting over a little bit of bread, me and Gary will throw you a strip. So I don't want

00:03:23to say anything bad about Gary at all. Right. Because when the gulags come, Christopher,

00:03:27I'm going to be eating bread. This is the same as being kind to your AI in case an AI overlord.

00:03:32So is this guy a Marxist economist? No, no, no. He's a pioneer. He's a genius,

00:03:37Jimmy. His idea, he wants to bring in a, I think, is it a 2% wealth tax on over 10 million

00:03:45per year inside of the UK is what the policy Gary's proposing.

00:03:49That's it. I thought there was more. The documentary's called How to Become Filthy Rich.

00:03:56So what's the thesis? Tax, wealth, not work. Yeah. Tax, wealth, not work, which I actually

00:03:59think you'd like that from a copy writing perspective, Mr. Dry. But his, yeah, his whole thesis is with

00:04:07rising inequality, if we can bring in a 2% wealth tax to the UK in particular, then that will raise,

00:04:14I think about 25 billion is Gary's thesis. But quite impressively inside the documentary,

00:04:19they actually keep on, actually a smart economist who argues a little bit back with him. And his

00:04:24whole thesis is, well, actually the GDP will probably go down by about four to 5%. Because if you're a

00:04:29foreign investor, why go, why not go to France? Why not go to Sweden? Why not go to United States of

00:04:34America? I was talking about this, we were chatting about it earlier, but I think like Britain needs

00:04:38to be more competitive, right? It's like that thing of like, we're competing with other nations.

00:04:42People have the ability to move anywhere they want to move now. And there's a lot of talk about

00:04:46billionaires and millionaires leaving the UK, whatever, like you just got to compete. So that

00:04:50idea of going, the big thing, the big kind of controversial thing is I think the currency's

00:04:54overvalued. I think if you, the great play every nation has when you print your own currency,

00:04:59you could devalue it. You could devalue the currency and make it very cheap to invest in

00:05:03Great Britain and just have all the money come to you. It's like, you are, it's like a zero-sum

00:05:07game in the world. You want people to come. People want to live there. There's good schools. It's a

00:05:10great place. Wonderful people, wonderful culture. You want more people to come there. So devaluing

00:05:14the currency has always been seen as a humiliation. But every time the currency's been devalued,

00:05:19there's been 18 months of incredible growth. But you don't have inflation as the currency

00:05:22gets devalued? You could do. I mean, you've got to mitigate against that. But I mean,

00:05:26we've got massive inflation anyway. So what are you going to do? So we'd be weaker than the

00:05:29dollar. That's your, that's the car, the car mission statement. Yeah.

00:05:32Super weak, super weak currency that attracts a lot of people. Well, China have been doing it for 20

00:05:38years. They've massively devalued their currency artificially in order that people, Chinese goods

00:05:43are very cheap in the rest of the world. That's great. So they export a lot of stuff and they do

00:05:47very well as an economy. They've brought more people out of poverty the last 20 years than you

00:05:51could dream of. It's incredible. I guess the idea is then that four British guys podcast back in London

00:05:57and not America. You know, I feel like this is living proof almost of some of the troubles.

00:06:02Yeah. I mean, it's, it is that thing of like, you've just got to be better than other places,

00:06:06you know? So how do we compete? I thought when, when Brexit happened, I thought the next day

00:06:10we would have undercut Ireland. I carry an Irish passport. I love being Irish, but I thought we

00:06:15would have undercut Ireland and Ireland had the, the corporation tax of like 12%. So that's why all

00:06:20the tech companies are based in Ireland. If you get your, um, uh, whatever bill from Anthropic,

00:06:25it comes from Dublin, if you buy it in the UK, right? So, but we didn't undercut them. We just went, oh,

00:06:31no, great. Let them do that. If you're prime minister for the day, what are some of your,

00:06:35not like less, uh, maybe less obvious policies that you do, rogue policies that you implement?

00:06:39Okay. Right. Okay. Devalue the currency. Okay. That'd be the first thing.

00:06:42The Zimbabwe mission. Yeah, quite.

00:06:43It's not, not that much. Specifically, how?

00:06:46You, you could just talk it down. Honestly, you could talk it down in an afternoon. So the right

00:06:50people at the Bank of England, it's, it, it will go, it will, yeah, it will go down. I mean,

00:06:54it's going to happen anyway. But isn't that an optics problem?

00:06:56But if we went, if we went, yeah. But when, when the currency naturally devalues, when there's,

00:07:00when there's something, something bad happens, do you, do you go to the IMF and try and bail out

00:07:04the pound or just, just go, great. Things are now cheap in the UK, come the rest of the world,

00:07:09sales on. It's a bit like rope-a-dope, like I'll eat, just sort of sitting on the ropes.

00:07:14Yeah. And then you come out. I'm going to wait for them. I'm going to let him punch me in the face

00:07:19so much that he gets tired. Until our labor's cheaper than China and Vietnam. Yeah.

00:07:23But then invest in infrastructure and, you know, you have to, you have to have to make it.

00:07:28Yeah. It's a serious idea. But then the other thing that you do is energy. Energy cost is four

00:07:31times higher in the UK than America. And every business has that as a factor, right? So things

00:07:37are very expensive to produce and it's expensive to even run an office in the UK because energy prices

00:07:41are very high. That affects everyone. That's a, that's got to be like 20, 25 year problem,

00:07:45right? So you've got to fix that. You've got to be as, um, technologically advanced as seventies

00:07:50France who built 56 nuclear power plants in 10 years. If you do that, you're, you're off to the

00:07:56races. I've got to say, Mr. Kai, you're, you're talking, very educated young man. Well, you're

00:08:02talking like a man who might be having a bit of a prime ministerial run. Is that, is that on the

00:08:06cards? I think, yeah. I think now, I believe the system in the UK now is seven prime ministers in

00:08:1010 years. I think we now take a ticket like at a, like at a, um, and you just, it comes up.

00:08:16So you're up at some point soon. You wouldn't want to be, you wouldn't want to be prime minister

00:08:20because it'd be a big commitment. That always used to be the case. Now it's like, what is it? Six

00:08:23months? I'll be gone for six months. It's going to be a shop, shop sign that you turn around like,

00:08:28you know, back in five prime minister. All right. Given that we're talking about the UK.

00:08:32Yeah. Let's play a game of guess the Victorian slang word. So I'm going to say different words

00:08:37from Victorian era Britain and you're going to try and guess what they mean. Okay.

00:08:40Okay. Yeah. Lovely. All right. First one. Tickety boo. Hmm. It just means good.

00:08:47Something that is in perfect order or a satisfactory condition. That's kind of-

00:08:51Tickety boo. Tickety boo. Everything's tickety boo.

00:08:53Yeah. That's tickety boo. Muffin walloper. Hmm. It's your Saturday night, right?

00:08:58A muffin-

00:08:59Walloper.

00:09:00Uh, fat. I think it's a, I think it's a, it's a sort of, um, rather stout gentleman who enjoys muffins.

00:09:06Yeah. An idle person who sits at home-

00:09:09We can't just kick on. You've got to tell us what a muffin-

00:09:11Wobbler is. That's what I'm saying. I'm literally describing it to you.

00:09:15Oh, I thought you'd move on to the next thing.

00:09:16No. It's an idle person who sits at home eating cakes and gossiping instead of cooking.

00:09:22Muffin walloper. So you should be cooking, but instead you're sitting at home eating cakes

00:09:27and gossiping. Next one. Church bell.

00:09:31A church bell would be my, would be my guess there.

00:09:37No, it's slang, George.

00:09:38Oh, slang. Okay. Um, is it, would it be an ugly person? Like you've been hit by the church

00:09:42bell, like a Quasimodo reference?

00:09:44Oh, that's clever, but no.

00:09:46I think it's a, this sounds, I think it's a young virgin.

00:09:52A may, a young male virgin, yeah. Harry's just going to answer young virgin for all of the-

00:09:58Yeah, yeah, yeah. When did the young virgins come out?

00:10:01Karl Pilkington has that great bit, which was when he's watching university challenge,

00:10:04because he can never guess the answer. Um, he just says egg each time, because statistically

00:10:09at some point he's going to be right. There's a better chance of just-

00:10:12Sorry, gentlemen, gentlemen. I think we've, we've, there's method to the madness.

00:10:14Right. Church bell. I'm thinking a young sort of, to the left of the organ master,

00:10:21there's the man who rings the church bell, a young 14 year old.

00:10:24Oh, okay. That's actually probably way too clever. A woman who talks so much,

00:10:27her voice is reminiscent of the ringing of a church bell.

00:10:31Okay. Next one. Butter upon bacon.

00:10:35Uh, it's, uh, is it like a hat on a hat? It's too, too much of a good thing?

00:10:39Yes. She's doing too much. Yeah. Butter on bacon.

00:10:43It's butter on bacon. Yeah.

00:10:44Uh, mafeking. Mafeking. You know what mafeking is?

00:10:48It sounds Northern. It sounds Northern. I'm going to, I'm going to go with.

00:10:52You're really good at this. Some, some level of incest?

00:10:55Uh, it could result in incest. A term for getting wildly rowdy out in the streets.

00:11:03Oh, I mean, that's just mafeking in Newcastle, mafeking on the big market.

00:11:07I love the jump from it sounds Northern to some level of incest.

00:11:11Incest. Could be incest. Uh,

00:11:12afternoonified.

00:11:15Afternoonified.

00:11:16You're slacking off.

00:11:17You're no longer taking things seriously.

00:11:19Tired. Yeah.

00:11:20Exhausted.

00:11:21Someone or something that is highly fashionable.

00:11:25Afternoonified.

00:11:25That's to assume that that's because you're,

00:11:27you only dress up in the afternoon, right? You're afternoonified.

00:11:30Right.

00:11:31You wouldn't dress that way in the morning when I'm just woke enough.

00:11:34Okay.

00:11:34Uh, Chuckaboo.

00:11:37Chuckaboo. A dear friend.

00:11:39Dear friend, Chuckaboo.

00:11:40Uh, giggle mug.

00:11:42Someone who's always smiling.

00:11:44Uh, half rats.

00:11:47Bit drunk.

00:11:48Half rats.

00:11:49That makes sense.

00:11:49Half rats.

00:11:50Not rat-ars, just half rats.

00:11:51Half rats.

00:11:51Uh, evening wheezes.

00:11:53This should be brought back.

00:11:54Evening wheezes should be brought back.

00:11:55It means fake news.

00:11:58It's evening wheezes.

00:11:59Uh, and apparently it's champagne weather means it's pouring or raining.

00:12:05Coffee sisters mean besties.

00:12:07There we go.

00:12:07Some Victorian slang for you.

00:12:09Well, it is interesting, like language, like to talk about this,

00:12:11because that's the same language.

00:12:12That's the English language that we still use.

00:12:14And those words have gone.

00:12:15You never notice when something disappears, because it disappears.

00:12:18Kind of becomes forgotten.

00:12:19But the idea that it's the best example of anarchy,

00:12:22the political system of anarchy, is the English language.

00:12:25There's no central system for it.

00:12:26No one sits down and goes, that's a word.

00:12:28That's not a word.

00:12:28We're changing the meaning of that.

00:12:30It's just organically sort of emergent from the group.

00:12:33It's kind of perfect.

00:12:34And I think a lot of solutions are like that.

00:12:36You can't, you can't do it from top down.

00:12:38It just has to sort of let it happen.

00:12:40What do you, I mean, you spend your entire time

00:12:42playing with the English language.

00:12:44What have you come to think about sort of how it's developed recently?

00:12:48How it's developed?

00:12:49I don't know.

00:12:49I don't, I don't, I don't like new words.

00:12:52I mean, this is slightly tangential to the question,

00:12:55but if I, if I was on a date, for example,

00:12:56and someone was using lots of new vernacular, new words,

00:12:59I would say, it's been a great night.

00:13:02You know, that's what I'd say.

00:13:03I think simple words are the best words.

00:13:07What's the phrase?

00:13:08Big things are best said in small words.

00:13:10Yeah, it might be like a mark of intelligence.

00:13:13Like if you can get across a complex idea to a five-year-old, great.

00:13:17And if, if you need incredibly complex language, you're some kind of huckster.

00:13:21You're selling some bullshit.

00:13:22You've got an issue with like leatspeak, 21st century leatspeak.

00:13:26And that would be, if a lady wants to bag Harry Rye, she can't use too much modern slang.

00:13:33I think-

00:13:33So if she came out and started talking tickety-boo, that'd really get you going.

00:13:37Unfortunately, I've watched Peep Show.

00:13:39So for any fans of that show, they know that word's a bit of a, a bit of a turnoff.

00:13:42But I, I think I read once that the French started a revolution with three words,

00:13:47which are quite big words, but what was it?

00:13:49Egalite, Egalite, Liberté, Fraternité, you know?

00:13:52And I, I don't think you need much more than that.

00:13:54You don't need much more than that to sell soap.

00:13:56If the French are starting a revolution with, with just three words.

00:13:58What's the best example of, um, compression or to like the most simplest?

00:14:02Oh, geez.

00:14:03Um, the best, the best example of compression.

00:14:09Well, there's like a two word joke, dwarf shortage.

00:14:13And I had a three word joke, which was stationary store moves.

00:14:17He had the six word story.

00:14:19Oh yeah.

00:14:20For sale.

00:14:20Yeah.

00:14:21Children's shoes, never worn.

00:14:22Oh, Jesus.

00:14:24Yeah, brilliant.

00:14:24Brilliant.

00:14:24How do you think about words, Jimmy, in comedy?

00:14:27Do you think some words are just funny?

00:14:29Or do you, do you obsess about word choice when you're writing a joke?

00:14:32Yeah, I, I really do.

00:14:32I really think it's, it's kind of, uh, the phrasing, it's more the rhythm of it,

00:14:36but sometimes it's the, um, uh, the phrasing, like having the right word for the thing and,

00:14:40and conjuring up an image is very important in people's heads.

00:14:43So you've got the kind of concept that you, you kind of, I know this thing's funny.

00:14:47How do I get that across to someone else?

00:14:48So it's about that language, the, the, the purpose of language of like conveying, like getting space

00:14:55in their head, getting into their head and making them kind of making them draw the cartoon.

00:14:59Didn't you have stepdads?

00:15:03Motherfuckers.

00:15:04Yeah.

00:15:05That's good.

00:15:07Stepdad.

00:15:07I don't like the term stepdad.

00:15:08I prefer to say motherfucker.

00:15:09Yeah.

00:15:10It's nice.

00:15:11Just take a moment to sort of step back from it and go, yes.

00:15:13Yeah, it was right there.

00:15:14It was right there the whole time.

00:15:15I had a thing the other day that I just thought, how has no one got to this before?

00:15:18I was talking about the Donald Trump came up.

00:15:20I said, yeah, they tried to assassinate him and they very nearly did kill him because no

00:15:24one could warn him because no one wanted to sound stupid.

00:15:26No one wanted to shout, Donald duck.

00:15:29Very good.

00:15:30That's good.

00:15:30It was right there.

00:15:31But you go, well, how did the palm of everyone's hands?

00:15:33How did no one see that?

00:15:34Yeah.

00:15:34Sometimes it feels like the joke's there.

00:15:36You're just like getting, getting rid of everything else.

00:15:39I've learned from over a thousand podcast episodes.

00:15:41The easier that you make your health routine, the more consistent you'll be.

00:15:44It's like golf.

00:15:45Right.

00:15:46You want to keep it simple and not mix a bunch of pills.

00:15:48You want the eye of the tiger, not the DUI of the tiger.

00:15:51That's why I'm such a huge fan of AG1.

00:15:53One Scoop contains 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics and whole food sourced ingredients

00:15:58in a single daily drink.

00:15:59And that's why I've been taking it every single morning for nearly five years now.

00:16:01And they've taken it a step further with AG1 NextGen backed by four clinical trials.

00:16:05In those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels

00:16:09in just three months and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well.

00:16:13Plus, if you're still unsure, they've got a 90 day money back guarantee.

00:16:17So you can buy it and try it every single day for three months.

00:16:20If you don't like it, they will give you all of your money back.

00:16:22Right now, you can get 20% off a welcome kit and that 90 day money back guarantee

00:16:26by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkag1.com/modernwisdom.

00:16:30It's interesting how you have these, you can even explain some of these techniques, yet they still

00:16:39work.

00:16:39So one we discussed is the A, B, B, A. So it will be, it's not about the days in your life.

00:16:48It's the life in your days.

00:16:51Or Churchill's, yes, alcohol has taken a lot out of me, but I've taken more out of alcohol.

00:16:55Or you have JFK's, don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

00:17:01And you'll see this A, B, B, A pattern, and it still works.

00:17:05Even when you know it, even when you know it's coming, it still works.

00:17:08It's what in advertising, like everyone will know it, just beans means heightened,

00:17:12but just changing all of the last letters to be a Z was just the most genius.

00:17:16But that's another example when you do things in threes.

00:17:19So again, another one, you ever heard the Winston Churchill speech during World War II,

00:17:23where he talks about, this is when he comes in and he refers to,

00:17:26"I have nothing to give but blood, sweat, and tears."

00:17:30What's interesting is he didn't say that.

00:17:32He said, "I have nothing to give but blood, sweat, toil, and tears."

00:17:36But because we like threes, it just, it disappears.

00:17:38And you constantly see this whenever anybody actually makes a four-way statement.

00:17:41Although you look at the unit, you go, "He didn't toil much, do you?"

00:17:44Big, big fella.

00:17:45Big old boy.

00:17:47What have you got?

00:17:48Do you bring something from here?

00:17:48Yeah, I've got some stuff from home.

00:17:51Were we meant to bring stuff?

00:17:52Yes.

00:17:53I'm so sorry.

00:17:53No, I'm joking.

00:17:54I'm not doing anything.

00:17:54Okay.

00:17:55What have you got?

00:17:55So we've, do you, do you recognize what this is?

00:18:00You're going to have to lift it.

00:18:01Put it on the table for the class.

00:18:02Okay.

00:18:03What do you want here?

00:18:03So this is just, uh,

00:18:06Yeah, that looks perfect.

00:18:06That's lovely.

00:18:07Thank you.

00:18:07Do you recognize what this is?

00:18:09Yes, it's, I would say it's the woods.

00:18:11Some woods.

00:18:12A part in the woods.

00:18:12British woods.

00:18:13Yeah, Britain.

00:18:15So this is Charles Darwin's thinking path that he built around his house.

00:18:21So whenever Darwin was stuck on a problem, he would go on a walk around his thinking path

00:18:25and he would collect, he'd have stones, uh, like racked up that he would knock off

00:18:30to kind of figure out how many rounds that he's done.

00:18:33His kids would sometimes fuck with him and like put the stones back on whilst he was walking around.

00:18:37So Darwin used to use this thinking path regularly.

00:18:39Okay.

00:18:40He had 10 kids as well.

00:18:41So there's a lot of, that's a lot of kids.

00:18:43Do we know what this is?

00:18:45So let's say Yousef.

00:18:47Yousef, kidnap, chase, Arthur, Eames, limb cup.

00:18:51Oh, it's Christopher Nolan's, uh, uh, inception.

00:18:54Correct.

00:18:54This is, so Christopher Nolan was working on inception for 10 years.

00:18:57Um, and one of the, uh, things he did was actually draw the plot down.

00:19:02So you see the five part dream plot that he visualized here.

00:19:07Do you know what this is?

00:19:09Yes, but I'm not going to say it.

00:19:10Do you guys know what it is?

00:19:12Um, it looks like my, uh, my diary when I was in school, you know, it's, I don't know.

00:19:17I have no idea.

00:19:17Is that JK Rowling's?

00:19:19When JK Rowling was stuck on Harry Potter, she, uh, turned it into a spreadsheet.

00:19:23This is the fifth Harry Potter.

00:19:24Like the entire storytelling sequence into a spreadsheet.

00:19:27Is that, and how did that work out?

00:19:29Is it, is it hit?

00:19:30All right, cool.

00:19:31This, I think, does that say at the top?

00:19:34Yeah, it says, I think.

00:19:35And then it has a little diagram.

00:19:37Let me see.

00:19:37Therefore I am.

00:19:39Back, you know, back to, uh, Mr. Charles Darwin earlier.

00:19:43This is when he opened his red notebook and drew out kind of his first thoughts

00:19:47around what evolution is, like the family trees or how it all interconnects.

00:19:51Okay.

00:19:52And then.

00:19:53Anybody know what this pub is?

00:19:55Jimmy, this looks like one of yours.

00:19:56Yeah, I know.

00:19:57This looks like.

00:19:57The eagle and child.

00:19:58The eagle and child.

00:19:59It's not the pub in Oxford, is it?

00:20:01Yes, it is.

00:20:01Is it the pub in Oxford?

00:20:02Yes, correct.

00:20:02Where all the great myths of the 20th century were written.

00:20:06Pretty much.

00:20:07So, so it's Lord of the Rings, um, C.S. Lewis.

00:20:10Yes.

00:20:10It's where J.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis used to meet up, have a pint.

00:20:14Every fight.

00:20:15Tolkien would give C.S. Lewis his draft of The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.

00:20:18C.S. Lewis would give Tolkien his draft of Narnia or whatever he was working on.

00:20:23They would both read it out loud and then roast one another over a pint.

00:20:26Hey, do you want to know an interesting, here's a tangential factor there.

00:20:30So, I only found this out recently.

00:20:32So, Finnegan's Wake is a book that I've read around a lot.

00:20:34I haven't read Finnegan's Wake, but I read about it a lot.

00:20:36It's kind of the great work of literature.

00:20:39It's, uh, well, James Joyce, obviously.

00:20:41So, I didn't realize that Finnegan's Wake is Star Wars.

00:20:47So, uh, Joseph Campbell.

00:20:49You've heard of Joseph Campbell?

00:20:50The Hero Has a Thousand Faces.

00:20:52The Hero's Journey.

00:20:53All of those kind of great books that informed Star Wars.

00:20:55Basically, Star Wars is a sort of dumbed down version of those books.

00:20:59Well, before Joseph Campbell wrote The Hero's Journey,

00:21:02his thesis was on the myths within James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.

00:21:08So, he basically wrote that first.

00:21:10And then he thought, "Oh, this is really good, this thesis.

00:21:13I'm going to make this into a book about the heroes that are in all stories."

00:21:18And so, it's kind of James Joyce, and then it's Joseph Campbell,

00:21:22and then it's George Lucas.

00:21:23James Joyce is actually the root of this.

00:21:25Yes, it's a distilled version of these things.

00:21:27That's brilliant.

00:21:28I had Alex Petkus on the show, and he did a breakdown of The Odyssey.

00:21:31But, because he can read the original Greek, he's able to get much, uh, a more rich

00:21:39explanation of what's going on, because sometimes words have multiple different meanings.

00:21:42And he's digging into that, it was so good, so fantastic.

00:21:46And you see, even in that, there's turns, there's a descent, and I'm asking him at each point,

00:21:50okay, so using, you know, Campbell's idea, which was like 2,000, 2,500 years later,

00:21:56or something like that, uh, at what point on the clock face are we here?

00:22:00Because he goes around, and sure enough, even back then, even the first book ever written,

00:22:04the first thing ever written down, before that it was all verbal story writing.

00:22:09Gilgamesh, wasn't it?

00:22:11It's the myth of Gilgamesh's a bit older.

00:22:12Maybe.

00:22:13Slightly.

00:22:13Not to contradict you on your own podcast, but you know.

00:22:15I mean, feel free.

00:22:16Just to go back to that, isn't it interesting?

00:22:18Just hold this up for a second.

00:22:19Um, The Eagle and Child, pub in Oxford, where C.S. Lewis and Tolkien would meet up to

00:22:26roast each other about their fiction.

00:22:28Meanwhile, you two nerds at fucking Lifetime, over a smoothie, over a honey berry smoothie.

00:22:35English have lost their way.

00:22:37My point of bringing these is I'm working on a chapter called, um, it's around overthinking,

00:22:42uh, we've discussed it before.

00:22:43Essentially the premise is, uh, don't think with your head, think with your, uh, feet,

00:22:48your hands, or your mouth.

00:22:50So a few different premises on that.

00:22:52There's a few I didn't include then.

00:22:53So Dickens would, when he was struggling with insomnia and writer's block,

00:22:58would do what his friends described as violent walking.

00:23:00He would walk 20 to 30 miles.

00:23:02Uh, Travis Kalanick, when he was creating Uber, he had, um, uh, a racing track built in the office.

00:23:08They would do walking meetings and be constantly walking around, 60 miles a week.

00:23:12Yeah, you can't get a car.

00:23:13There we go.

00:23:14Um, and then, uh, going back to thinking with your math.

00:23:18Uh, if you go to the bottom of, uh, Mike, uh, Albert Einstein's theory of relativity,

00:23:24the paper he published about 25 pages.

00:23:26He credits nobody, but he says thank you to one person, which is, uh, Michael Besso,

00:23:31who was his friend that he would walk around and talk with.

00:23:34One day as he's talking it out loud, his friend, he comes up with this idea.

00:23:37That's why Harry's like, I call him my Besso as a result, because you having those people

00:23:41to talk to, but I wanted to kind of maybe explain, like, why do I think this is going on?

00:23:45I think you might be the Einstein.

00:23:47He might be.

00:23:51Jory's out.

00:23:52Don't take that.

00:23:53I'll take it.

00:23:55I'll be the Besso.

00:23:56I'll be the Besso.

00:23:57So, um, I went to visualize something that's under-discussed.

00:24:01Right.

00:24:01Would you spin that a little more for me?

00:24:03This idea here, um, which is kind of human step count throughout, like,

00:24:08your great, great, great N times 100 just goes like this.

00:24:12And then suddenly you have kind of the agricultural revolution here,

00:24:15and it just completely plummets.

00:24:17Like, and then you kind of go down to 10,000.

00:24:20And now we're currently, the average is around about 5,000.

00:24:23What's interesting, 18,000 for men was the, like, average step count for hunter-gatherers.

00:24:28We estimate about 15,000 for women.

00:24:31Interestingly, they said, how do you get that data?

00:24:33One way you can look at it is with, um,

00:24:35what's the, um, the current people that, uh,

00:24:38resist technology that forgot?

00:24:40Amish.

00:24:41Amish.

00:24:41So the Amish, they look at the number of steps the Amish do per day to kind of-

00:24:44Surely Amish life is slightly different to 300,000 BC.

00:24:48Hunter-gatherer.

00:24:49They look at a few different things in terms of, like, walking distances.

00:24:52That's one of the, uh, the gauges.

00:24:54Do you think it might be the same amount of steps in a lifetime,

00:24:57but they're getting them in early because they die at 35.

00:25:01Because they're all, they're all-

00:25:02Yeah, it does net down to the same number of steps overall.

00:25:05Yeah, you've got a certain amount of steps in you and that's it.

00:25:07Yeah, that's Roger Federer's got this canister theory,

00:25:09which was because he had a couple of years out.

00:25:11Basically, it's like, he got interviewed, I think it was with more than 2019.

00:25:14And he was like, like, I still got stuff in the canister.

00:25:16Because he didn't play, no, he didn't play in 18, I don't think.

00:25:20And it was this idea that a tennis player just has a canister,

00:25:22which they can either burn it out like Nick Kyrgios and just,

00:25:25well, actually, he didn't play much.

00:25:26But like, more like in the Dahl.

00:25:27And then the canister here at the end of the game.

00:25:29Well, I like that idea of, like, in relationships,

00:25:31thinking about a reservoir of goodwill.

00:25:33So you build up a reservoir of goodwill early in a relationship,

00:25:36in the kind of honeymoon period.

00:25:37And then you can spend it later on.

00:25:39So like, how many, how many fights could a friendship survive?

00:25:42Could a relationship survive?

00:25:43And it's all about how much you've stacked up.

00:25:46So you're stacking up those good memories, those good times.

00:25:48And then you've got that reserve that you kind of eat into in the relationship.

00:25:51It's quite a nice way to think about it.

00:25:53Because you kind of go through hard times with someone and you go,

00:25:55actually, it's all right, because we've done a lot of stuff in the past.

00:25:57Whereas if it's someone you've just met, you go, fuck this noise.

00:26:00Yes.

00:26:00Yeah, it's like paying into a bank account.

00:26:02Yeah.

00:26:02If you haven't deposited much in,

00:26:03you can't withdraw much before it goes into the bank.

00:26:05But I don't think people think about friendships in that way.

00:26:07Whereas you go, kind of friendships are, they're incredibly important.

00:26:09I sort of think every argument between a couple

00:26:11is one person saying to another person, you are not enough people.

00:26:15The best relationship advice is invest in your friends.

00:26:18Your partner will be fine.

00:26:19Go out and talk to your friends and then come home and listen.

00:26:24But people don't have that.

00:26:24They think one person's going to be there every day.

00:26:26I think one of the problems with talking about friendships like that

00:26:29is it makes it sound quite transactional.

00:26:31And it gives people a little bit of an ick.

00:26:33A hundred percent.

00:26:34Yeah.

00:26:35I mean, there's supposed to be something, loyalty is not just if this person can add to my life.

00:26:42Alex had this line where he imagined that one of his friends asked him,

00:26:48he'd broken down his car, he got a flat tire in his car.

00:26:51He was five blocks away.

00:26:52Yeah.

00:26:52Will you come and help me?

00:26:53And Alex would just ring a roadside assistant to go and see him.

00:26:57And he was like, well, that means that I can do what I want to do.

00:26:59My friend gets a better quality of service.

00:27:01But what it forgets is that he's not just saying, can you fix my tire?

00:27:06It's, will you give me your time and your support?

00:27:10But Alex sort of remained staunch.

00:27:12He's like the most utilitarian when it comes to a friend.

00:27:14I've been thinking about this recently a lot because so much education is now done by YouTube.

00:27:18So if you learn how to shave, and we've all got differing abilities here,

00:27:24you learn how to shave, you do it with a YouTube tutorial now.

00:27:26But you miss the intimacy of going to a father or an old friend and go,

00:27:31how do I actually do this thing?

00:27:32And I don't know what's lost there.

00:27:34But like, you would think that the aim is to shave, but it isn't.

00:27:38It's like a little communal moment.

00:27:39It's not.

00:27:39Sean has this wonderful idea.

00:27:41And I tried, you know, we was talking last time around what we call like hyper meta,

00:27:46which is this idea that the ancient Greeks or Romans,

00:27:49rather than scroll a newsfeed every day or read a new book or listen to a new audio book,

00:27:52they would have principles that they want to take seriously.

00:27:55So they'd go back and review them away more versus forgetting everything.

00:27:58And one of mine would be from Sean, which is that idea.

00:28:01He talks about just just delete the scoreboard.

00:28:03So like, a lot of people go into the start of a relationship kind of game theory 101,

00:28:07where it's like, I'm at zero.

00:28:09Christopher is at zero.

00:28:10And I'll wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Chris, Chris will do something.

00:28:13Tick, tap, tick, tap.

00:28:14You understand why the scoreboard is there to measure an imbalance in injustice and...

00:28:21Delete the scoreboard.

00:28:21Just give, give, give, give.

00:28:22Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:23Okay.

00:28:23You get taken advantage of, you sociopaths?

00:28:25You feel...

00:28:26I don't think you're even going to get taken advantage of.

00:28:27I don't think you need to be a sociopath to take advantage of somebody inside of a relationship.

00:28:31Uh-huh.

00:28:31Like, let's say that you get into a relationship with somebody and like an intimate relationship.

00:28:35This is maybe going to be your new wife for the rest of time.

00:28:38And she keeps on turning up late.

00:28:40She keeps on disrespecting you.

00:28:41And you're like, no, just give, give, give, give, give.

00:28:43Continue.

00:28:44Right, but within reason, completely defeats.

00:28:47It's almost like when I say decisions rather than experiments.

00:28:49And somebody's like, well, I'm going to shoot up a load of heroin

00:28:52and I'm going to punch a police officer to the face within reason.

00:28:55And I'm talking about people that air one way.

00:28:56So if you air naturally towards the, I'm going to wait for this person,

00:29:00then I'm going to mirror, and then I'm going to mirror.

00:29:01I think I'm with you.

00:29:02I think it's the, you can't win an argument with your wife.

00:29:05Everybody loses.

00:29:06Yeah, because if you win, you lose.

00:29:07If you win, you lose.

00:29:08Everyone's in a bad mood.

00:29:09So that thing of like going, and relationships are transactional, right?

00:29:13There is a, there's, there's like codes of conduct that you, you expect within it.

00:29:17And that's, that's kind of, that's okay.

00:29:18But then I think if you just get, if you enjoy the act of giving,

00:29:21then just, just give, give, give.

00:29:22And I do think you end up way, you end up, the other person ends up giving way more

00:29:26because you just push it so far.

00:29:28And listen, if you're 50-0 up, then yeah, walk away.

00:29:31But until you get to 50-0, just keep giving.

00:29:33It's a way better way to live.

00:29:34I think it is more, yeah, it's more enjoyable.

00:29:36But there is also, there is also no 50-0.

00:29:38Like I, there is no 50-0.

00:29:40Exactly.

00:29:40That's a good, you know, yeah.

00:29:41As soon as, yeah, I, I agree with yours.

00:29:43I think once you decide, I think you have to make a decision in life.

00:29:46And then once you've, once you've made a decision, then you've got to make that decision right.

00:29:51And I think people kind of sort of waste a lot of time in this space of like,

00:29:54I can't decide.

00:29:55I can't decide.

00:29:56And that's when maybe the scoreboard's pinging off, pinging off.

00:29:57But once you've decided, then you're the same, like you're the same person.

00:30:00I saw Alex Hormozy, he's up on the wall there, on, we met for the first time this weekend.

00:30:05I was in Las Vegas.

00:30:06And I kind of know him, like we've spoken on Zoom and I know a lot of his work.

00:30:10But I met him for the first time.

00:30:11And it was that, that kind of thing that he has this, this sort of theory on, like that,

00:30:15that thing about his, his new theory is about optionality and the idea that people are getting

00:30:21all the options they can.

00:30:22They want, they want optionality on everything.

00:30:24So they, they get five degrees and they train and they're ready for everything.

00:30:27They're ready for options.

00:30:28But until you cash in those options, it's meaningless.

00:30:30Yeah.

00:30:31I think it's kind of a genius idea of like, at some stage you, you go with what you've got now,

00:30:35or you don't go at all.

00:30:36Do what you can with what you've got where you are.

00:30:38Yeah.

00:30:39Or you just, it's like, otherwise you're like 40 and waiting for something to happen.

00:30:43So, so George kind of decided at one point in our, in our interactions that we were friends.

00:30:48I don't know when it happened, but at one point George just decided that we were friends.

00:30:52And then he started, he started just, I mean, I, I would say you're, I would say if I was to

00:30:57describe George, I would talk about your generosity and it feels kind of weird to, to speak highly of

00:31:01you because I've been, I've been abusing you a week.

00:31:03But you're, I think you're an incredibly generous guy.

00:31:05And I think that like, you know, I don't think there's any expectation of, of anything which

00:31:09comes with that.

00:31:10You just kind of like, I touched down in Austin, Airbnb sorted, you know, I touched down.

00:31:14Like it's just, I think it's a lovely way to live.

00:31:16And I do think there is a point where as Chris is like, yeah, if someone, if you, it's a feeling,

00:31:20as soon as the feeling goes.

00:31:22So that's my, that's my point on the, not needing to turn it into the metric.

00:31:26Why is it that we like to hang around with some people and we don't like to hang around with others?

00:31:30It's that there is some form and this would be Alex's argument.

00:31:33And I'm, if you're on one end and Alex is on the other, I'm somewhere in the middle.

00:31:37Alex's point would be, you are tracking a scoreboard, whether you're doing it mentally or not.

00:31:42And the scoreboard is the vibe of how you feel around somebody.

00:31:45We have friends that we've stopped hanging out with because we're like, I just don't feel like this

00:31:52vibe is the scales don't feel like they're balanced, regardless of whether or not you're keeping count.

00:31:58And I do think that that's true.

00:32:00Well, my, my rule from the film is that awful line of like, you're the average of the five

00:32:06people you hang around with.

00:32:07Incorrect.

00:32:07In essence.

00:32:08Average of the five podcasts you listen to.

00:32:10Yes.

00:32:11Then what ends up happening is you have this, you're always trying to fuck upwards if you follow that

00:32:15approach anyway, which means that by definition that why, why should those people hang out with you?

00:32:19I think a better rule of thumb is forget how much money they have, forget what they've achieved.

00:32:25Surround yourself with who you feel the most alive with.

00:32:29So I don't care if someone's a poet that's broken.

00:32:32If I hang out with them and I feel alive, it's way more interesting than as a billionaire where

00:32:36you feel dead behind the eyes after hanging out.

00:32:37But aliveness is probably the best metric.

00:32:39So I still think that you are the average, you are the average of the five people that you spend

00:32:42the most time with is fine.

00:32:43It's just, what is the metric that you're optimizing for?

00:32:46Because some people might want to be in a room with people that have got the highest net worth or

00:32:49the most well-known and highest status, whatever.

00:32:52But it can just be, and ultimately what it comes back to is if you ask enough why questions,

00:32:57I just want to feel good.

00:32:59I want to feel good around these people.

00:33:00I don't know.

00:33:01It's a weird thing on what a friendship's for.

00:33:04And I don't think friendships really pay out until the bad days, right?

00:33:09So you're going to have a really bad day before you know what a friend is.

00:33:13Because on good days, it's fine.

00:33:14Everything's fine.

00:33:15We can hang out with anyone.

00:33:16It doesn't matter.

00:33:17They're giving, they're taking, it doesn't matter.

00:33:18When you have a bad day, like if you get cancelled, which I have been a number of times,

00:33:21like it's a filter.

00:33:23It's such a great filter.

00:33:24It's like a gift being cancelled.

00:33:25Because at the end of it, you end up with fewer friends, but much better ones.

00:33:29And it's the foul weather friends.

00:33:30It's the guys that call on the bad day.

00:33:32Yeah.

00:33:32That's what really matters.

00:33:33And that's what you ultimately, I think somewhere at a deeper level,

00:33:36we're solving for that.

00:33:37We're solving for, well, if things get bad, who could I actually rely on?

00:33:40Will this person stay with me in the trenches?

00:33:42Yeah.

00:33:42What's the, when it comes to like cancellation or public criticism,

00:33:46what's the idea that's kind of non-obvious that you only appreciate,

00:33:50apart from that, once you've gone through it, that most people wouldn't understand?

00:33:53Uh, I think it's the, the impermanence of it is, is interesting.

00:33:58And the, the idea that you go, is anyone going to care about this in a month or a year?

00:34:02Or, you know, and if no one's going to care in a year, why do you care now?

00:34:05Jose's got this line.

00:34:07He says the dogs bark and the caravan moves on.

00:34:10And I quite like it.

00:34:10Mourinho?

00:34:11Of course.

00:34:12You just quoted, that's the first ever Jose Mourinho quote.

00:34:18It's good though, isn't it?

00:34:19It's like, it's, it is, it's that thing where you go, it's, it's a real sort of test.

00:34:22It's character versus reputation.

00:34:24Cause your reputation is being destroyed and your character is who you know you are.

00:34:28What was the, what was the loveliest text or cool you had?

00:34:31Like who was there for you?

00:34:32Uh, there was a few, there was a James Corden would really stand out.

00:34:35So when I got, it was the tax thing actually.

00:34:37And, and he was in Broadway.

00:34:39He was busy winning a Tony for his performance in one man, two governors.

00:34:43And he called me every night in his interval of his show.

00:34:46And he just called me and then he called me and I said, no, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.

00:34:49And then he called me the next night.

00:34:50Cause he knew it wasn't.

00:34:50And then he called me the next one.

00:34:51Wow.

00:34:51Cause he knew it wasn't.

00:34:52And he just kept on calling.

00:34:53That's amazing.

00:34:54Yeah.

00:34:55It's a, it's a lovely thing.

00:34:55And when you sort of, it just, and all it teaches you is like, I can't do that for him,

00:35:00but I could do that for someone else.

00:35:01Yeah.

00:35:02And when it comes along that thing of like being the person that calls when something

00:35:05awkward happens or when something terrible happens, phoning and saying, I don't know what to say,

00:35:10but I thought I'd call because no one remembers what you say.

00:35:13I think there's remember you with that.

00:35:15Somewhere along the way, low energy just gets accepted as a part of getting older.

00:35:19Turns out there's a reason for that.

00:35:21As we age our mitochondria, the parts of our cells that power us become weaker and make less energy,

00:35:25which is why I'm such a huge fan of timeline.

00:35:27They've developed this that helps to clear out your damaged mitochondria.

00:35:31So your cells can actually renew themselves.

00:35:33Timeline is backed by over a decade of research and has more than 50 patents.

00:35:37And it's the number one recommended mitochondrial supplement on the planet.

00:35:42This isn't just theory in clinical trials.

00:35:44People saw mitochondrial renewal increased by more than 40% in just 16 weeks,

00:35:49along with improvements in their overall energy.

00:35:50I've been using it for over two years since my doctor recommended it to me,

00:35:54way before I partnered with timeline.

00:35:56And eat your heart out, Martin Shkreli, because they've just dropped the price.

00:36:00And it now starts at $99.

00:36:02Best of all, there is a 30 day money back guarantee,

00:36:04plus free shipping in the US, plus they ship internationally.

00:36:06And right now you can get that $99 price with an additional 20% off

00:36:10by going to the link in the description below.

00:36:12Or heading to timeline.com/modernwisdom using the code modernwisdom at checkout.

00:36:16That's timeline.com/modernwisdom and modernwisdom.

00:36:20At checkout.

00:36:21I think it's just a lovely thing when people do stuff for you,

00:36:24which there can be zero ulterior motive.

00:36:27There literally can be.

00:36:28I'm trying to think of a good-

00:36:29I can give you one from my life.

00:36:31So this was the moment that I became like properly,

00:36:33properly good friends with Yousef.

00:36:35So for the people that within the last 600 episodes of the show,

00:36:39he only appears once a year, but he was most of the episodes

00:36:42for the first 400 with Johnny.

00:36:44And he had hurt his back.

00:36:47He has a bulging disc.

00:36:49He'd hurt his back in the gym doing flips or deadlifting or whatever he was doing at the time.

00:36:54And I was on my way to drive to one of our club nights

00:36:57and his house was like kind of out of the way, but not a million miles off.

00:37:00So I was like,

00:37:01I'll come over and I'll bring you something because I know what it's like debilitating back pain.

00:37:05You sort of laid up and he's like,

00:37:06no, no, you don't need to come and see me.

00:37:07Anyway, I managed to get into his house and brought him a loaf of soren,

00:37:11some ivy leaf, some nerofen and like went and got a hot water bottle for him.

00:37:15And like, he couldn't move, but he just the classic male denial of medical problems or whatever.

00:37:21And he's 25, right?

00:37:23He's made of rubber and magic.

00:37:24He'll bounce back.

00:37:25He'll be fine.

00:37:26But he was just miserable and it felt like it sucked.

00:37:29And that was a palpable moment when our friendship changed from that.

00:37:33Even though we were really good friends before,

00:37:34I could just tell that there was something that happened at that moment when I decided

00:37:39to go around with some malt loaf and pain relievers and a hot water bottle and was like,

00:37:43all right, man, I got to go and be in a nightclub with a thousand 18 year olds.

00:37:47Like, I hope you're all right.

00:37:48And then he messaged, sent me this text afterwards,

00:37:50like being teary and being like, man, that was just how wonderful.

00:37:53Like what a lovely thing to do.

00:37:55You are right.

00:37:55Like, especially in a world where everybody is looking out for the transaction, where

00:38:00effort can be so low effort, right?

00:38:02Like just sending a text.

00:38:04I think the bar has been lowered for what constitutes becoming a very good friend.

00:38:08Like you got me for my birthday one time, you got me a newspaper from the day that I was born

00:38:13and a printed off graph of the first episode and the biggest episode with the play count in between

00:38:18it.

00:38:19And I was never, I couldn't even take it.

00:38:20It was left in Mike Thurston's apartment in Dubai for like two years,

00:38:24because I couldn't fly back with it because it was so big.

00:38:27But like stuff like that, you know, it's just, it's, it's really being, yeah,

00:38:31being better at just aggressively going, give, give, give, and figure out the next life.

00:38:36Aggressive friendship.

00:38:37And figure out the next life.

00:38:38But isn't this a BDSM friendship?

00:38:39You're often very good on this kind of stuff, right?

00:38:41You pointed out this, I thought about this a lot, right?

00:38:43There's a lot of books about being a good parent, but there's no books about being a good kid,

00:38:50right?

00:38:50Which is kind of interesting.

00:38:51And there's, and really it should be a book about being a family, but there's interesting,

00:38:54there's loads of books.

00:38:55There's, you know, kind of the game and stuff about pickup culture and finding women and getting women.

00:39:01Great.

00:39:02But there's very little about friendship.

00:39:03And actually that seems to be the thing that I think friendship is upstream of having a relationship.

00:39:08I think it's not gay to practice on your friends, but that thing of like building friendships

00:39:12and building kind of, and that's kind of what's missing from, you know, rough and tumble play

00:39:17has been replaced by video games.

00:39:19And it doesn't work in the same way.

00:39:21Like there's something about like that male friendship thing and building that up over

00:39:24years, having your boys, having your guys that you're with, that's really incredibly valuable.

00:39:28And we don't do enough of it.

00:39:29Robin Dunbar's got this insight.

00:39:31So he was the guy that came up with the 150 number.

00:39:33I interviewed him once.

00:39:33He's brilliant.

00:39:34He's fantastic.

00:39:35And he says that you have your close group of friends, which is five of a slot,

00:39:41five very close friends, but the relationship takes up two.

00:39:46Relationship takes up two of the slot of five.

00:39:49And that would also mean that if you lose the relationship and you want to keep that same

00:39:52level of connection, you can't just replace your chick with a new friend.

00:39:56You probably need to replace them with two.

00:39:58Yeah.

00:39:58Well, it's also that thing of like, men tend not to do very well post-divorce

00:40:02because they outsource their social life to their other half.

00:40:04Correct.

00:40:05Especially the wife and the friends.

00:40:06Yeah.

00:40:06They're entirely isolated afterwards, which is a terrible way to be.

00:40:11Robert Dunbar we hit.

00:40:12Go on.

00:40:12You were going to say something there.

00:40:13I've lost my train of thought now, but I think, you know, I always think of,

00:40:18I think it's a lot of what we're discussing as well.

00:40:20I wonder if the American audience appreciates it as much as the British.

00:40:24Because they're so giving, dude.

00:40:25They're so, Americans don't understand just how pro-social they are.

00:40:29Like you can be on the side of the lake.

00:40:33This happened.

00:40:33This happened the other week when we went to the Jasper, Mike's house.

00:40:39And I was on the side of the lake and a boat just went by.

00:40:41We're like, do you want to come wake surfing?

00:40:43Like, they didn't know me.

00:40:45Like, yeah, sure.

00:40:47Went wake surfing.

00:40:48Like that just, you would need, in order to get to that level of friendliness,

00:40:53that would be a three-year project in the UK.

00:40:57In order to warrant being invited on to this thing that was part of.

00:41:00I don't know.

00:41:01Maybe it's because everyone's a, it might be an Austin thing.

00:41:03Because everyone's kind of a social transplant from somewhere else.

00:41:06Or it might be an America thing because everyone's a cultural transplant,

00:41:09you know, sort of historically from somewhere else.

00:41:12But I don't know.

00:41:12I noticed there's three types of interactions I'd have with strangers.

00:41:15So interaction one would be, stranger would just not look at me.

00:41:20Interaction two would be, we'd mirror one another's energy.

00:41:24So, or you give a nod and then you'd have somebody who actually says something.

00:41:28And I realized a lot of the time I'd just like mirror.

00:41:31So somebody, I'd kind of head down.

00:41:33Somebody says hello and I'll say hello back.

00:41:35Somebody gives me a nod, I'll give them a nod back.

00:41:36And if they have their head down, I'll have my head down.

00:41:38Versus, oh, you can just, you can just do things.

00:41:41You can be the leader.

00:41:42It's, you're using the proportionate force of like being in a fight.

00:41:46It's like, well, if he's got a knife, I can use a knife.

00:41:48But you just always use a gun.

00:41:50Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:41:51I do wonder if we're trying to coin this.

00:41:54Welcome to Texas.

00:41:56Coin this term, which is a British syndrome.

00:41:58And America syndrome is another thing.

00:42:00But British syndrome.

00:42:01I was out for dinner the other night with a friend of mine, and he's had this employee that he's

00:42:05kind of complained about for the last six weeks, like issues he's trying to get him to do.

00:42:09When he finally like sits down at dinner, he goes, I've realized he's not no agency.

00:42:13He's just British.

00:42:17That's true.

00:42:18Well, you had a great razor for that on, I think it was you.

00:42:22Yeah, it was like British versus America.

00:42:24So you go, the British disease is cynicism and the American disease is bullshit.

00:42:28Yeah.

00:42:29Which is, I mean, it's great.

00:42:30There's a great comic, Jeff Green.

00:42:31Do you ever know Jeff Green?

00:42:32Great observational comic.

00:42:33Yeah, sure.

00:42:33He said, I prefer America to Britain.

00:42:35I'd rather be told to have a nice day by someone that doesn't mean it than told

00:42:38to fuck off by someone that does.

00:42:41Jeff Green.

00:42:42Great comic.

00:42:43So I have a rule of thumb, which is whenever I criticize Britain, I'm going to criticize

00:42:46America as a return or compliment Britain.

00:42:48Yeah.

00:42:49Sounds like you're keeping score.

00:42:50I was thinking, have we ever had like an Elizabeth Holmes, a Sam Bagman-Friedman?

00:42:59We're just not playing at that level.

00:43:00I think that's the reason why.

00:43:02The level of brazenness that you need to pull that off.

00:43:06I don't think any British person, except maybe Gary Stevenson, has enough self-belief

00:43:10to be able to drive that home.

00:43:14You need to have banks to rob them.

00:43:16Yeah, it's a good point.

00:43:17I'm just trying to think of it like a great huckster in the UK.

00:43:21I don't know.

00:43:22That's what I mean.

00:43:24A great huckster.

00:43:24Gap in the market.

00:43:25We should do it.

00:43:26I feel like Andrew's kind of hovering over that area, but that's the British huckster.

00:43:31Who?

00:43:31Andrew.

00:43:32Prince Andrew.

00:43:33Oh, the OG Andrew.

00:43:35Right, okay.

00:43:36Mountbatten.

00:43:37Yeah.

00:43:38I got in a lift in, I was in Austin last year and I started, I got in lifts.

00:43:42They call them elevators.

00:43:43Or do we call them elevators?

00:43:45One of us calls them elevators.

00:43:46We call it a lift.

00:43:47They call them elevators.

00:43:47They call them elevators.

00:43:48I was getting in these elevators or lifts.

00:43:50And I would say, people started asking me what number I was on the elevator.

00:43:54Six, I'd say, you know, punching six.

00:43:56And I thought, I'll come back to England and I'll try this out.

00:43:59So, to Moraine Road, probably shouldn't have said that.

00:44:03Into the elevator I go, the lift I go, I say, hey, what number would you like?

00:44:10They say, number?

00:44:11I say, yeah.

00:44:12Some people say number.

00:44:13Some people, it's headphones on and it's a starkly different experience.

00:44:19Having said that, I also learned about the Californian lunch.

00:44:23Well, I've never been to California, but apparently if you go to California,

00:44:26everyone says they want to have lunch with you, but they don't actually want to have lunch with you.

00:44:30Right, yeah.

00:44:31I remember a friend of mine saying to me and I was in Hollywood and they said to be careful,

00:44:35you could die of encouragement.

00:44:39It's just that everything's very positive.

00:44:41Joey, I feel like there's two different ways into creating stuff.

00:44:47Right.

00:44:48And I feel like there's the volume method, which is like, I'm just going to write a lot of jokes

00:44:53and some of them are going to be good.

00:44:54And that sort of Prince, when he was recording music, would just make a lot of,

00:44:59he'd record a song a day, you know?

00:45:00And then there's like the Leonard Cohen approach.

00:45:02If I'm going to spend five years on Hallelujah, I'm going to write 80 verses.

00:45:07And I wonder in comedy, are you more like, I'm just going to write, write, write.

00:45:10And some jokes are going to stick, or I'm going to, I'm going to work on one joke for a good,

00:45:15for a good couple of days.

00:45:16No, I don't find working on them really helps.

00:45:19It's like they come out pretty much fully formed and then I just, it's iteration.

00:45:23It's just trying new things and the audience tell you what's going to work.

00:45:26So the audience feedback, the audience is a genius.

00:45:28They tell you what is and what isn't funny and what is and what isn't acceptable.

00:45:31And you just go back to them time and time again.

00:45:34So at the end of the show, I've still got it on me from last night, you've got new jokes

00:45:38and then you just try the new things.

00:45:39And that's like how you're writing your book, George, almost.

00:45:42Yeah.

00:45:42Do you set yourself a number of jokes to write?

00:45:45Is it like that or?

00:45:46Not really.

00:45:46I mean, there's always like, there's always new stuff to try.

00:45:48There's always like, I've got a file, it's huge.

00:45:51Like, okay, print off.

00:45:53Okay, I'll try 10 tonight and then the next 10.

00:45:56And then you sort of maybe, you tweak them a little bit, but it's not a full kind of rewrite.

00:45:59You might tweak it a little bit.

00:46:00If you go, I didn't really got that at all.

00:46:02And that wasn't clear enough.

00:46:03But it's very rare that you tell a joke and it doesn't work and you can rescue it with a rewrite.

00:46:07It tends to be just the idea is just not there.

00:46:09And if they're immediate, then that's...

00:46:11And you're looking for the triple A's.

00:46:13You're looking for the ones that are going to work every single time,

00:46:15no matter how you deliver them.

00:46:17You're looking for that kind of quality.

00:46:18So the idea of like polishing something is kind of a different...

00:46:22Sometimes it's like you change the wording a little bit and it perfects it.

00:46:25Yeah, I remember Jason Freed said this about writing.

00:46:28He said, if I write it down and it just doesn't, it's not feeling right.

00:46:31He said, I'm not going to come back to it.

00:46:33I'm not going to rewrite it.

00:46:34I'm just going to leave it, start again the next day.

00:46:35And it's like a different route in, which is funny because I have a very different...

00:46:39I don't particularly work like that.

00:46:41Do you ever hear the Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen story when they met up?

00:46:45They met up for lunch and he talked about...

00:46:48Alleluia, 80 verses, four years or whatever.

00:46:51No, no, it was like, Bob Dylan went, I think he said, how long did it take you to write All Along

00:46:57the Watch Hour?

00:46:58And Bob Dylan said, 20 minutes.

00:47:00And he said, how long did it take you to write Hallelujah?

00:47:02And he said, 12 years, because he was embarrassed that it had been 20.

00:47:06But it was like, it's a long time.

00:47:08Yeah.

00:47:09So what's your process?

00:47:09Do you sit and...

00:47:11Well, I like writing.

00:47:13I think that you can't really write, you can only rewrite.

00:47:15So I guess I'm not writing jokes, you know?

00:47:18But that thing of like, you can't write, you can only rewrite.

00:47:20Like, I think the idea of doing...

00:47:22You do masses of stuff.

00:47:23I think the reason most people don't succeed in the arts is because they get into it,

00:47:26because they like really good stuff.

00:47:27They've got great taste.

00:47:29But then they don't stick around long enough to be able to produce good stuff.

00:47:32It's like you start bad and then you get good over time.

00:47:35If I was going to give one piece of advice to anyone trying to learn to write,

00:47:38I would say, honestly, I would forget quantity.

00:47:41And I would think about trying to genuinely write one good sentence,

00:47:44or maybe even two, and then maybe just a good paragraph.

00:47:46And I feel like the real problem is people can go their whole careers

00:47:49without actually writing anything good.

00:47:51And what you really need to do is you need to understand

00:47:53what it's like to write just one thing really good.

00:47:56Because a great book is just like, it's a lot of great sentences,

00:47:58which then form paragraphs and whatnot.

00:48:00And I remember, who was it?

00:48:03Hunter S. Thompson.

00:48:04He rewrote The Great Gatsby just to know what it felt like to write a good book.

00:48:09And I do think there's something in there.

00:48:10Like he rewrote the book?

00:48:12By hand, yeah.

00:48:13Just to get the feeling of extraordinary.

00:48:16I have a collection of, you've seen it, the folder of what I like about what I like.

00:48:19And I turn it into an app as well, where it's like starts, intros, middles,

00:48:23ends, quotes, reference setups.

00:48:25What was the Orwell's Five Rules that you keep banging on about?

00:48:29Hunter S. Well, I only bang on about them when I read your work.

00:48:33I can't remember them.

00:48:34I think number one, actually number one, I love.

00:48:36It's never put, never, actually, how can we get on the internet?

00:48:39Can we look it up?

00:48:41First one is, I think the first one is just basically never put something in print,

00:48:44which you've seen in print is the idea.

00:48:46So essentially just avoid cliched all times.

00:48:49And I think if you want to quickly improve any essay,

00:48:53you could drop it into Claude, or you could just look at yourself and say,

00:48:56have I, have I seen this sentence been written down before?

00:48:58That's not what I think.

00:48:59Well, I pulled you up because you said, you said yesterday,

00:49:01I was editing your writing and you said, what did you say about Churchill?

00:49:05That's something like during his darkest days.

00:49:06During his darkest days is a really great example of this.

00:49:08It's just been said, if you go to Google search and you put it in quotation marks,

00:49:12during his darkest days will have been said millions and millions of times.

00:49:15And it's, it's the debris of someone else's thinking.

00:49:18That's what a cliche is.

00:49:19And you really want to just write original sentences.

00:49:22If you read "East of Eden" by Steinbeck, it's the last sort of big book I read,

00:49:25and you drop his sentences into Google, no one said sentences like that.

00:49:29Like the whole book.

00:49:30And I looked at the chapter you had and you drop a couple of things into Google search,

00:49:33direct quotes, and it's just been said before.

00:49:35Yes.

00:49:35It's a very good proxy for like average writing, which your book's definitely not.

00:49:39Yeah, Tolkien Lewis, baby.

00:49:41What's the drop it on the, this is one of the best ones you give me,

00:49:43the drop it on your pho idea?

00:49:45Okay. So, um, this is really about going from abstract to, to concrete writing.

00:49:52So essentially anything abstract, I'm trying to think of an example as yeah.

00:49:56So I, I, let's say someone's writing a, trying to come up with an app for, for fitness.

00:50:00And they said, I got an app.

00:50:01The idea is to regain your fitness.

00:50:04You can't, you can't really visualize regaining your fitness.

00:50:06And what you want to do is you want to take that and sort of convert it into objects,

00:50:10physical objects, which you can drop on your foot.

00:50:14So Chris, let's, let's see how we go.

00:50:16Um, regain fitness, drill into that.

00:50:19Like what drill into regain?

00:50:21What, what do we mean?

00:50:21What could we mean by regain fitness?

00:50:24Give me an object, a start, give me a starting point.

00:50:26And then an end point for regaining fitness.

00:50:29Uh, not loving your body to loving your body.

00:50:33You could drop a body on your foot.

00:50:35So that would be closer.

00:50:36What you could also drop on your foot would be a couch.

00:50:38Oh, so this is, yeah.

00:50:39A couch.

00:50:40Couch to 5k.

00:50:41Couch to 5k.

00:50:41You know where this is going.

00:50:42It's huge.

00:50:43That's the Nike thing, right?

00:50:44That, yeah.

00:50:44Because it, it, it makes it real, you know, if you can, and, and people think in, um, uh,

00:50:51analogies really, they, they can't, you know, it's like that.

00:50:54If you can't see it, it's not there yet is really good writing advice.

00:50:57So if you can't visualize it, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's not there yet.

00:51:00That's a great kind of, I mean, that kind of ad copy as well,

00:51:03the way that you've kind of got that thing where it just feels like

00:51:06that was always going to be a hit, but it, but it wasn't, of course,

00:51:09they could have just called it the app.

00:51:11So couch to 5k was done by a guy in, a guy in New York.

00:51:13I forgot his name, but he was living with his mum at the time.

00:51:15Like it was, it was sort of this crazy breakout application, which had no right to be.

00:51:19And I think then it got bought by the BBC and it's the most downloaded fitness app of all time.

00:51:23And that's like the, the, the, I think ideas, uh, but I, I feel like even ideas are somewhat

00:51:28underrated.

00:51:28Like you really just need the conviction to, to, to, to do them and those two things together.

00:51:32There was a Nike advert or Nike or an added, I think Nike, uh, during the Boston marathon.

00:51:41And it said, um, runners welcome walkers tolerated and it went, it was great,

00:51:50but it was the, the, uh, difference here was the taste of the direction it was going in.

00:51:54It was so effective and catchy that all of the people who walked during the marathon,

00:51:59which is probably most people, most people are going to walk at some point.

00:52:04And I got into a lift, fuck me in LA at the start of the year.

00:52:08And there was a woman wearing hoka, uh, mid fifties, something like that.

00:52:12Nicely dressed like fit mom, women like off to the gym or do whatever.

00:52:16And both of them were talking about how much they disliked Nike because,

00:52:19and both of them referenced that campaign.

00:52:21One of them was wearing hookers, the other was wearing rads or something.

00:52:24And, uh, they said, oh yeah, that, that campaign was just runners welcome walkers tolerated.

00:52:29They do that. So they're so out of touch now in any case.

00:52:31And they had this, everyone has a degree of, um, distaste for the top dog.

00:52:38I can't wait for that to sort of that, that, that fall to happen.

00:52:40And especially if you play the out of touch, I don't care about the every man game.

00:52:46Like there's two things that are cohesing together there to like really move in the same direction.

00:52:51They've gotten so big, they've forgotten their roots, right?

00:52:53It's like, it's a cliche.

00:52:54You're playing into a trope that makes it very easy for somebody to attack you.

00:52:57So yeah.

00:52:58Um, I think they put their foot in the mouth.

00:53:00There's like, there's, there's a few of those, aren't there?

00:53:01Kind of examples in marketing where people have absolutely shat the bed, like done really badly.

00:53:06Was, uh, was it Ratner, the jeweler in, in the UK?

00:53:10It was a guy called who gave a speech where he said, oh, we just sell fucking tat and it just shut down.

00:53:15Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:53:18Just in a single, in a single, uh, tweet, keep going.

00:53:21It was like, it wasn't a tweet even.

00:53:22It was like pre that.

00:53:23It was like an after dinner speech where we just went, it's just fucking shit that we sell.

00:53:26Yeah.

00:53:26But it, you know, like it, it's funny.

00:53:28Cause let's say you have Ron seal the, um, the fence painter and they say, what do they say?

00:53:32It does exactly what it says on the tape.

00:53:34It does what it says on the tape.

00:53:34And that's, that's, it's different to just selling tat, but like, that's cause the language of fence painters,

00:53:39that's, that's how they talk.

00:53:40Whereas jewelers, you know, they probably don't want that.

00:53:42Don't want the word tat to be used as they look at their Rolex.

00:53:45Doesn't this all just come down to your favorite word of positioning?

00:53:48Hey, positioning.

00:53:49Here it is.

00:53:49Uh, the most famous UK example of a jewelry store saying their own product is bad is Gerald Ratner,

00:53:54CEO of Ratner's group, who in 1991 described his company's products as total crap.

00:53:59This caused a 500 million pound loss in value and forced a rebranding to Signet group.

00:54:05Another recent instance, his complaints regarding the website Scarlet Jewels,

00:54:09which distinct from genuine Scarlet jewelry has received poor reviews.

00:54:13Yeah.

00:54:13Well, uh, his infamous speech stated that some of his earrings were cheaper than a prawn sandwich,

00:54:17but probably wouldn't last as long.

00:54:19It's pretty good.

00:54:22Right?

00:54:22You've got one job, mate.

00:54:23That's why, you know, sell your tat.

00:54:26That's gone, that's gone very badly.

00:54:28Sell your tat.

00:54:28It's interesting that thing of like industries that are like businesses,

00:54:30industries that disappear overnight.

00:54:32Like 19, I love the fact 1901 biggest industry in the world was, uh, whaling.

00:54:37Whaling?

00:54:38Yeah.

00:54:38Whale oil to light.

00:54:40Whaling, catching whales.

00:54:41What's whaling?

00:54:42Catching whales.

00:54:43They needed the oil in order to put the lamps, right?

00:54:47And then the light bulb comes along.

00:54:48I think whaling was the biggest industry in 1901, and it had fully disappeared by 1903.

00:54:54Yeah.

00:54:54Like there's whole towns and kind of just like shut down.

00:54:56Well, fax machines are kind of like that.

00:54:58Fax machines go from everywhere to now, and just the running the NHS and the traits.

00:55:02Horses in New York, in Manhattan.

00:55:05Horses in New York, yeah.

00:55:06And it's always the technology that's the...

00:55:08Because they brought in so many laws to get rid of horses in New York,

00:55:11because the horse manure problem...

00:55:12You know, the reason there's steps up to brownstones in New York is because the horse was that high.

00:55:17And there's the whole thing of like smelling salts like people,

00:55:19because the whole place smelt horrific.

00:55:21It was just horse .

00:55:22And if the horses died, they had to chop them up,

00:55:24wait for them to atrophy, chop them up in the street,

00:55:26and then cart them off using other horses who then died on the way.

00:55:29So the whole thing was just... It was an absolute mess.

00:55:32And they kept on bringing in new laws, new laws, new laws,

00:55:35to try and get, you know, a tax on horses and other tax on horses.

00:55:38And then Henry Ford comes along, invents the motor car,

00:55:40and people go, "Yeah, we don't need horses."

00:55:41What do you think is that now?

00:55:43What do you think five years, 50 years, 100 years will be like, "Oh, it's gone."

00:55:49Well, I think it's a very interesting question,

00:55:51because obviously the AI thing, we can see the jobs it's going to take,

00:55:54but we can't see the jobs it will create.

00:55:57But I wonder with that whether...

00:56:03I think talk shows would be quite obvious point.

00:56:05It's close to Ginny's heart, careful.

00:56:07No, no, I mean, I think you're like, from old media to new media,

00:56:12I think the idea that something like, you know, I love Saturday Night Live,

00:56:16but I can't see it being around in 10 years.

00:56:18I remember going to see a recording last year and just thought, "Wow, this is incredible."

00:56:22The amount of people to put this show on to make this happen, it was like,

00:56:26really genuinely spectacular. And then you just go, "Well, I can't imagine this being..."

00:56:30It can't compete with people just doing funny sketches on their phone,

00:56:33because the size of the screen seems to be inversely proportionate to the amount of

00:56:37money you can make. So the movie business might not last.

00:56:40I think what's funny, though, is all the sketches on the phone, I can't really recall one.

00:56:45Whereas I think of Carrot in the Box, like 8 Out of 10 Cats, Sean Locke, and I think TV weirdly

00:56:54sticks. Like, I can't remember an Instagram reel.

00:56:56Well, there's a great essay by, oh, who's the guy that wrote Abundance with...

00:56:59Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.

00:57:01Derek Thompson has a great podcast, and he wrote this essay called Everything is Television.

00:57:06And his argument was, everything is television. Television won't disappear, because TikTok is

00:57:11television. Don't think of it in that way, because it's streaming. YouTube is the biggest TV channel

00:57:15in the world. Of course it is. It's television. Facebook isn't social media. People think it's

00:57:22like, "But that would be for us to know each other and be sending videos to our family and sharing them

00:57:26with friends." That's the idea. But the reality is people watching videos that other people have made,

00:57:31that they don't know. That's television. It all comes back to it.

00:57:34It's a bit of a shame, because Gavin and Stacey Christmas special was sort of, in my opinion,

00:57:38probably actually the World Cup song right now, but the last time the UK came together for a thing.

00:57:43I've got a theory on this of why Christmas TV is such a big deal in the UK. I'm not sure what

00:57:47it's like in the States, but Christmas TV is a big deal, not because it's better than the TV the

00:57:51rest of the year, but because people sit down as a family and watch the big fat quiz. And watching

00:57:56it together, it's just nicer to do things in a communal way. Like, people used to gather around a fire,

00:58:01around the radio, and then around the TV. And it was all great. And then we went off to our bedrooms

00:58:06with our phones. It's also a more communal time if you're generally, where you're back in your old

00:58:12childhood bedroom, or your old childhood house, or whatever. You're with the families coming over to

00:58:16you, and it's a meaningful, slightly slower-paced, sedate moment there. So I think, yeah, if you could

00:58:25own anything. I mean, that has to be why Harry Potter just keeps on getting run back over and over

00:58:30again, right? It's the thing that you watched when you were a kid. This episode is brought to you by

00:58:35Whoop. Most people treat recovery like it's optional, but unlike politicians, data doesn't lie. How you

00:58:40recover is literally going to determine how good your next day is going to be. And Whoop tracks all of

00:58:44it. Sleep, strain, heart rate, recovery. It's like Dog the Bounty Hunter, but instead of criminals,

00:58:49it's tracking down your bad habits. All of this data gets pulled into a dashboard that actually tells you

00:58:53what to do with the information. And now the brand new Whoop 5.0, 7% smaller. It's got two weeks of battery

00:58:59life. It shows you how fast you're actually aging. It comes with hormonal insights for women managing

00:59:03their cycle or pregnancy or men hiding from it. Once you see the patterns, you start making better

00:59:09decisions. It's that simple. Best of all, you can join for free, pay nothing for your Whoop 5.0 strap.

00:59:14Plus, you get your first month for free, and there's a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can buy it for

00:59:19free, try it for free. If you don't like it after 29 days, they just give you your money back. Right now,

00:59:24you can get the brand new Whoop 5.0 and that 30-day free trial by going to the link in the

00:59:28description below or heading to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com/modernwisdom.

00:59:36Speaking of technology, a new study claims that an eight-minute conversation with ChatGPT

00:59:41can reduce belief in conspiracy theories by about 20%, and these effects last at least two months.

00:59:47I'm always wary of tiny interventions that purport to have large and long-lasting effects, but I don't see

00:59:51anything immediately fishy about this study, and the mechanism is plausible. I bet most 9/11 truthers

00:59:56have never spoken to a skeptic who both took them seriously and who knew a lot about 9/11, and I

01:00:03think this is an underrated and positive aspect of AI. People are worried about the hallucinations and AI

01:00:08psychosis, and rightfully so, but keep in mind that many people do not know basic, uncontroversial truths

01:00:13about their world. 37% of Americans, a plurality, believe that God created humans in their present

01:00:19form within the last 10,000 years. 40% don't understand how a control group works. 26% think

01:00:25that the sun goes around the earth. For these people, talking to a chatbot is likely to leave

01:00:29them with a more accurate view of reality. I think it's an interesting point, because

01:00:33conspiracy theories for me are a symptom of a much larger problem, which is we've lost trust in

01:00:41institutions. I think they bubble up when you have no faith in institutions, because you desperately want

01:00:47to believe in something. You desperately want to trust someone, but you don't trust the government

01:00:51anymore, and you don't trust the medical profession, and you don't trust academics anymore. So you're

01:00:57desperately searching. So these more and more incredible theories come to the fore. I mean,

01:01:01not to say that people do conspire to do things. That's a different thing. I mean, conspiracy theories in

01:01:06their traditional form, like an unforcifiable sort of theory. Let's say, for example, the coronavirus

01:01:12pandemic happened. It never happened, and it happens in 2026, which we're in. I wonder what

01:01:18the AI bots would be saying about the coronavirus. Oh, that's fascinating. Because people would be

01:01:23arguing online with other people based on what their bot had told them to derive from the facts.

01:01:30As well as you would have the Fable model, for example, wouldn't reply because it'd be around

01:01:34biology. You can't ask any basic questions to Fable right now around biology because they might be

01:01:39thinking you're printing the 3D virus. So everyone would be asking Kimmy and-

01:01:42Oh yeah, you'd be getting like- The Chinese models, which would be

01:01:45interesting, the cause and effect, the full circle. Well, how long do you think- I mean,

01:01:49I'm not- who's to say AI didn't create COVID? Who's to say that it wasn't- I mean, it seems to be now

01:01:56people are saying it was created in a lab. Do you think this technology arrived when we think it arrived?

01:02:00Or do you think it's been around for 10 years? I think it's arrived when it arrived.

01:02:04Yeah. Yeah. Because the transformer technology that you need-

01:02:07Here's my- You're my favorite, my favorite- Here we go.

01:02:10Do you want to hear my favorite conspiracy theory at the moment? Okay. So there's two terrifying

01:02:16scenarios. One is there's a Manhattan project currently underway in America, and they're working

01:02:22on an AGI. It's the big thing. It's the doomsday weapon is the AGI, and they're working on

01:02:30it, and it's called Solstice. And it's summer in America. We don't know where, but that's been

01:02:34worked on, right? Second terrifying scenario, they're not.

01:02:37Jimmy, when do you think of all your ideas? I got the days free. But it's an interesting

01:02:48kind of weird thought, right? Which would you rather?

01:02:51Well, I'd rather they were working on it. I think that it's kind of happening, right? They're putting

01:02:58ever more powerful computers together, and people are worried about the wrong thing. I think people

01:03:02are worried about losing their jobs. But I think if you point AGI at the environment, it might be able

01:03:10to solve the problem of net zero. It might get to that much quicker. And if you point it at physics,

01:03:16who knows? I mean, physics is real power in a way that nothing else is. Everything,

01:03:22every other science is stamp collecting. Physics really changes the world. And there's been no,

01:03:26you know, Eric Weinstein and Peele was always saying nothing's happened for 50 years.

01:03:32String theory has just kind of gone a different way. But if there was a unifying theory of physics, I mean,

01:03:37if that could happen, that'd be extraordinary. And whoever had that would have some power.

01:03:42But if you saw it, Sir Claude released Fable, and then they had the issues with the government,

01:03:49and then Fable's come back. And then you had this kind of cock tease, shall we say, where they would

01:03:56say, you've got access to it until the 5th of July. And then ChatGPT's released their new model.

01:04:03Sir Claude have now gone, well, you've now got access to it to the 12th of July, and they've moved

01:04:06it again. And what you're actually seeing is because there's so much competition right now,

01:04:10it's so hard for any of them to run away or create any form of monopoly. So I think the

01:04:15odds of it being a Manhattan Project, it feels way more like there's going to be 15 at Watts.

01:04:23I get the sense that the COVID thing, I certainly don't think that AI would have had that much to

01:04:30do with it. It had Annie Jacobson on the show, who wrote "Nuclear War: A Countdown Scenario."

01:04:35Oh yeah, that was a fun episode.

01:04:37Yeah. Well, her new one is about bioweapons. It's about El Ablee. And she said,

01:04:44the Russians during the '80s, when we are not working on enhancing bioweapons to make them

01:04:53more transmittable, they had programmed into the virus, they'd programmed euphoria in. That's how

01:05:03pernicious this plague was. It was called a super plague. And they'd programmed euphoria in as one

01:05:08of the side effects. Because if people felt euphoric, they would go out and dance.

01:05:14And then they would become their own super spreaders. So they'd even put a behavioural modifier

01:05:19into this super plague. And apparently this existed, but never got out, was never used,

01:05:25but probably sits in some bank, some frozen virus bank.

01:05:31Here's a hot tag, right? So in the late '80s, there was a thing called mad cow disease. Do you

01:05:35remember this? They thought everyone was going to go crazy at-

01:05:38The BS40 or whatever it was called?

01:05:40Yeah. Maybe it happened. The guy that hosts The Apprentice is president now.

01:05:45Maybe we all went crazy.

01:05:46Everyone has got mad cow disease.

01:05:48Maybe we all went crazy and just no one noticed because we all went crazy.

01:05:51I tell you what, the amount of phones I've seen in saunas, it wouldn't shock me.

01:06:00I don't have my phone on me.

01:06:02Describe your phone.

01:06:04I could sell my phone. It's a Quinn F22 Pro. It has applications, but it's too useless to get

01:06:11addicted to.

01:06:12Great. You purposely dumb phoned yourself.

01:06:15No, genuinely. Actually, I don't really like talking about it because I got it because I hate

01:06:20these people who get their new phones and it's all stupid phones and they make it their thing.

01:06:24So I feel kind of self-conscious talking about it on the show. But my younger brother, Jack,

01:06:29had this phone and he got the non-pro version, which is a bit of a mistake because it's actually just

01:06:33too useless to text on. But I got the Pro Quinn F22 Pro. But I love Jack because I was on holiday

01:06:39with him and he didn't mention it once. And I was like, "Jack, what's this phone?" And I feel

01:06:42like the way to get people onto these phones is to not ram it down people's throats.

01:06:45True. Sometimes you got to let them know because Harry came out for Austin for my birthday,

01:06:48said goodbye to him. I don't hear anything for a few days. I'm like, "What's happened to him?"

01:06:52And then he finally gets back in touch via WhatsApp on his desktop. And he's like,

01:06:56"What did you do to your phone again? You threw it in the river?"

01:06:57I threw it into the car. I didn't throw it into the river because that would have been

01:07:02disrespectful to the fishers. I threw it into the bin by the river. And then I switched out.

01:07:09If I come across a lot of money, I think it's what I would try and change in the world. I do feel it

01:07:14really depressing. You walk into a sauna in Austin and it's an epidemic of people with AirPods in.

01:07:20I'll take you to a sauna in Austin where there's people with something else.

01:07:23There is someone in a sauna right now listening to this on AirPods going, "Why are they shaming me?"

01:07:30Genuinely, look at your life if you are doing that. You might feel like you got it all worked

01:07:34out. If you have that one step, you are doing it. You haven't got nothing worked out.

01:07:38Wait there for a second. How do you feel about people that wear AirPods during massages?

01:07:45Sorry, Chris, how do I feel about people wearing AirPods? Full stop. You're done.

01:07:49Right, but okay. During massage, you're also done. It doesn't change the question.

01:07:55I listen to audiobooks during a massage, yes.

01:07:58All the time. No, no, no, no. You're being very diplomatic about how-

01:08:02Even during the happy ending?

01:08:05He speeds it up. He speeds it up.

01:08:09My younger brother works in politics and his idea is to understand what real people think. He does a

01:08:13bloody good job of that. But I said to him, "Will, what do real people think?" And I'm in a taxi with him.

01:08:17And he's got his damn AirPods in, trying to listen to what real people think. I said,

01:08:20"Will, there's a taxi driver that rare. Why don't you ask the taxi driver what real people think?"

01:08:24I think it's bonkers.

01:08:25Was he getting a massage at the same time?

01:08:26You need to stop wearing AirPods during massages.

01:08:30Why?

01:08:30I just, it is the perfect-

01:08:33Wait, is he massaging you?

01:08:35That's true.

01:08:35Why has he got this level of-

01:08:37Yeah.

01:08:38It's a client service worker dispute.

01:08:40Ah, this guy's not even paying attention.

01:08:43Listen to this gibberish as you pass on. Go on.

01:08:45I just, it is the perfect time to be with your thoughts, to do some good thinking,

01:08:51without feeling like you're wasting time, you're falling behind, being in the dark playground,

01:08:55being in a reverse version of it.

01:08:57We talked about that earlier. I think boredom is unappreciated serenity. And allowing yourself to

01:09:02be bored, like planning it, is quite a good idea. Like train travel, it's quite good to be on a train,

01:09:07be bored, be in an airport, be bored.

01:09:09I'm bored enough. I'm bored enough. I do, I do enough time and learning my own thoughts.

01:09:13When I'm having a massage, I want to, I want to have Napoleon-

01:09:16Speed lesson, speed lesson to-

01:09:17Andrew Roberts, 40 hours.

01:09:18I didn't realize Napoleon even recorded an audio book.

01:09:21This is tremendous.

01:09:23Yeah, I, I slightly disagree. To place, to play devil's advocate,

01:09:27um, how do you know you're not in the mass hysteria of-

01:09:30TV's going to give you square eyes, uh, like calculate should be-

01:09:34Luddite syndrome.

01:09:35Yeah, Luddite syndrome.

01:09:36How do you know when you're, uh, going against smoking versus being a Luddite?

01:09:41I don't know when I'm going against smoking.

01:09:44Because like, how do you know you're pushing back against something-

01:09:46Because I'll tell you what, I will tell you why.

01:09:49I will tell you why, because my, my, what I'm doing is I'm doing nothing.

01:09:53So you can't, it's not like I'm, it's not like I'm smoking cigarettes here.

01:09:55My idea of where I'm trying to move the needle is just less, less, less, less, less.

01:09:59So if you're smoking, you're doing something. If you're, if you're going skiing,

01:10:03you're doing something. What's, what's a different example? If you're, if you're say,

01:10:07if you're saying like having energy drinks, that's you, you, you, you, what's, what did Taleb say?

01:10:11Subtract. So if you're subtracting, you can't go, you can't go wrong if you're subtracting.

01:10:15That's the-

01:10:16I think there's, I think there's something to this. I think the, that whole anxious generation,

01:10:20Jonathan Haidt thing of like, it's not good for kids. And there's this kind of,

01:10:24you know, they think it's social media is as harmful as cigarettes for kids. But I think,

01:10:28I think what we need to do then is give kids cigarettes.

01:10:30Yes.

01:10:31You know, the idea of like, and there's kind of a joke on the language, but you go,

01:10:35actually, it's the, the point that he makes in that book is not just ban social media,

01:10:39it's ban social media and let kids play outside. Because they can't have infinite freedom online,

01:10:44and then no freedom in the real world. And really it's the freedom in the real world that we haven't

01:10:48quite, everyone's kind of on this idea of like, oh yeah, we'll take away the phones from the kids. But

01:10:52actually what else do they get to do?

01:10:54It's interesting that the average person spends six hours a day on screens. We haven't gained six

01:10:59hours. Days aren't now 30 hours long. So off of the time that we had previously, that's had to

01:11:04get squeezed from somewhere.

01:11:05Yeah.

01:11:06Which means that you've lost time doing other things.

01:11:08But certain smart people are getting massages while listening to stuff. So there's certain,

01:11:12there's outliers out there that have gained the system. They're geniuses.

01:11:14Outing me publicly for my, my audio book during massage, you've got a worse phone

01:11:18addiction than me, my friend.

01:11:19Oh yeah, of course.

01:11:20Harry, can he say that?

01:11:20I don't disagree. I've got, I've got, I'm horrendous with my phone. I'm saying that the

01:11:26massage is not the place to have your AirPods. That's what I'm saying.

01:11:28It is weird now that the technology, it was kind of the thing of like, I've got the new,

01:11:32the new phone, the new thing 10 years ago. Now the most opulent thing you could do is say,

01:11:36oh, we went to a cabin and there was no wifi and we just put away our things. It's the most opulent

01:11:41thing in the world.

01:11:41It's like meditation retreat with no screens.

01:11:43Yeah. What are the, what are the wealthy well doing now? What are the billionaires doing now?

01:11:47They're trying to live without that social media, without those screens. How was the retreat?

01:11:51Uh, it was intense. Yeah. To do seven days. I mean, it'll be the longest time

01:11:57since I was probably a child. There would have even been a TV in the room. Right. Uh, one of the guys,

01:12:02there was an AI, uh, interface that could help you with your practice. And, uh,

01:12:08What? That sounds like absolutely defeating the purpose.

01:12:11Look, I didn't use it. I didn't use it. If, if none of the facilitators were available and you were

01:12:17coming up against some blocks in your practice, there was a chat bot that had was on, it was on

01:12:21a laptop and had been sort of imbued with all of the principles of the thing. But the interesting

01:12:25thing, this was Timor, who was one of the. They have, they have, they have fucked up so hard there.

01:12:30I didn't go into that. I didn't go into that room. I didn't use that. However, he thought,

01:12:36am I able to find out the England score by messaging the, the, the meditation chat bot?

01:12:44Every time that I sit down to meditate, I keep being distracted by wondering what the England

01:12:48score was. Would it be possible for me to find out so that I can get back to my practice, please?

01:12:53Um, but no, fascinating Northern California. It was JANA practice, J-H-A-N-A. Um, it was also

01:12:59OpenAI's global reset week. So a lot of the engineers were off from work. They have two global reset weeks,

01:13:05which is basically enforced holiday as a way to try and sort of front run people, not getting burnt out

01:13:11by saying, Hey, you've got, you, you can't come into work essentially. So I go and there's all of

01:13:17the guys, a bunch of the guys from OpenAI, but there's also all of their main competitors from

01:13:22Anthropic and a bunch of other guys that are in there from Google as well. So there was kind of like low

01:13:27key silent meditation retreat turf wars going on between people at the forefront of AI development.

01:13:32That was kind of interesting. And yeah, like you, you kind of learn the particular school of meditation

01:13:40I was doing, which was JANA. You're learning to allow conductivity through your emotions and that

01:13:47is to allow them to move freely without any, uh, constriction. So you're noticing and releasing

01:13:52mental tension. It's like primarily what you're doing, but that drops down into emotional tension.

01:13:57What you realize when you come back into the world is how much of your life is spent

01:14:01constricting emotional tension, because there's times when emotions come up, but it's, it's not

01:14:06appropriate for it. You might feel a little overwhelmed as you're walking through the airport, which

01:14:09everybody did as we went reintegrated back into society. Well, that's not the time for you to

01:14:17talk about how I'm feel so scared and awkward. And this is too much for me. It's like, no, you,

01:14:21you swallow down the overwhelming wildfires in Europe and the fat guy presenting the football

01:14:28on the, on the screens. And you just sort of move past it. Also, it's very difficult to hear

01:14:33what your soul is whispering to you when the world's shouting at the same time. So you start to hear far

01:14:39more fleeting thoughts that come up. A lot of the thoughts that you wouldn't have been able to pay

01:14:43attention to if you're regularly even talking to people, let alone being on screens. So that was

01:14:49kind of interesting. What was your soul whispering to you, Chris?

01:14:52My soul whispering to me, probably fucking spend more time in silence. I think like it was quite meta.

01:14:57Um, it's vegetarian, which meant that almost everybody's digestion was ruined for the first

01:15:02three or four days. Lots of beans, lots of tofu, but trying to do group meditation with 40

01:15:07people in a room while there's farting going on is relatively interesting. Um, some guy,

01:15:13I have no idea how, but entered the retreat single and left the retreat with a girlfriend.

01:15:20So that is the level of game. That boy's got game.

01:15:22Mate, that's the level of game. None of us could pull it aside.

01:15:25How did the guy, did you? I don't know. Honestly,

01:15:28just sheer frame. He should be a guest on the show.

01:15:30I think just straight up frame. Oh yeah. Not like you, your tiny little forearms.

01:15:33That's true. Um, anyway, he was, it was, it was really good. Uh, enjoyed it. Very intense.

01:15:39The most interesting thing is then coming back and like having your, your old patterns,

01:15:45uh, come into conflict with your sort of new system, new worldview. And it takes a good bit

01:15:51of time. You have to like titrate your, I couldn't use my phone. I just simply cut. It was, I know it

01:15:57felt very icky, very sterile after just staring at like trees. The only thing that I was looking at

01:16:02was trees. Uh, yeah. A few points. I was saying this, uh, it's the most Chris Williamson thing ever.

01:16:08That I've been trying to get this man to take a holiday for, he's not been on what I call a proper

01:16:12holiday for five years. So then he goes and does a John, a seven day time, the meditation retreat.

01:16:16But even Gopkins is his own holiday. Um, I think an interesting question I have around the phone

01:16:21stuff. Question. Question. There's a great guy on Twitter called Chris Lakin. And his whole idea is

01:16:29that the phone itself might be Chesterton's fence. Do you know what Chesterton's fence is?

01:16:34Yes. Yeah. So it's this, uh, idea of if you see a fence, don't take it, don't take it down until

01:16:40you understand why it's there. And he helps a lot of people with a phone addiction. And then we'll often

01:16:45discover two days later they've got a bacon problem or they've got a porn problem. And actually the phone

01:16:49was never the problem. The phone was the solution. And if you actually get a little bit deeper, the phone

01:16:54addiction goes away. And I do wonder how much of the, uh, the phone addiction is actually

01:16:59a solution to a much greater problem. I think it might be that the, we've, uh, we spoke about this.

01:17:04Um, Mark Fisher talked about this before he died about the, the idea that we've, um, uh, privatized,

01:17:11uh, mental health problems. We, we sort of think it's a personal failing for people to be depressed

01:17:16or anxious. And actually I think it's a societal problem. We're not organizing our society correctly

01:17:21for people to, um, flourish. I think it's like the phones are kind of a symptom of a much larger problem

01:17:27within our society that we're quite sort of isolated. We're kind of looking for something

01:17:31to do. We're not in groups, not with other people. We'll go back to the thinking of your hands, mouth,

01:17:35feet, uh, feet, step count massively down. Hands, uh, uh, you almost, you're using your hands on your

01:17:41phone, but you're not using your hands like how most humans used to throughout history. You wasn't,

01:17:45say what, this one, go on with your gun. Uh, when Winston Churchill was going through,

01:17:51uh, the black dog, the black dog. Yeah. He would put up 200 bricks a day. Apparently he was actually

01:17:59a terrible bricklayer. The bricklayers had to go in afterwards and do it. Fix it.

01:18:01But Churchill, just to keep his mind at bay, he would do something with his hands every single day.

01:18:07Hmm. So when you lose the lack of feet, hands and mouth, I do think that can be not

01:18:12necessarily a full explainer of, uh, mental health problems, but it definitely contradicts.

01:18:16Well, it's interesting that thing of like the, how much is a hardware problem? How much is a

01:18:19software problem? Like how much of like, if you meet someone that's, if you've got a friend really

01:18:23going through a tough time, it's like, well, are they sleeping eight hours? Are they eating well?

01:18:28Are they exercising? Are they walking in nature? Are they seeing their friends? Like you cover that,

01:18:32that sort of simple stuff, but it's very difficult to regulate that stuff when you're feeling terrible.

01:18:36It's like you get into a spiral.

01:18:38But the most absurd one was when, uh, it was a study that came out. It's like a meta analysis

01:18:42of all the causes of, um, depression or the biggest treatments that have an impact on it.

01:18:48And the big headline was exercise beats SSRIs. And that was the huge thing that made like global news.

01:18:54But if you actually go into the meta analysis, exercise is the number five on the list. You know,

01:18:59SSRIs are further down. Number one on the list. It's just an absolute sleeper that nobody talks about.

01:19:04You know, dance therapy, dance therapy, outperformed exercise. And it's interesting.

01:19:09One of you have a lot of the benefits of exercise, but you're with people and you're out of your own

01:19:15head with music.

01:19:15Well, also you, you haven't got, you haven't got headphones on when you're dancing. Whereas if you're

01:19:19exercising, you have headphones. It makes me think, when did we get involved enough to be depressed?

01:19:27Yeah. I guess that there's, there's kind of, it's slightly, we're busy, busy fighting saber tooth

01:19:32tigers for a while, like too busy. I think it's that thing where we have a, but if you really want

01:19:38to know how privileged you are, how far into the future are you planning? Because I think poor people

01:19:44have no future. And I mean that literally, like people, if you're living hand to mouth and you're

01:19:48thinking about the next meal, you're not even thinking about what you're doing tomorrow. You're just

01:19:51trying to get through the day and then really wealthy people think on like, oh, I want to my

01:19:56grandkids. I need to make sure they're okay. It's like, it's a different timeframe. But I think that

01:20:00thing about having, having too much time. Yeah. We, I, my dad, I got three brothers and my, my dad would,

01:20:06well, he was a radio presenter back in the day and he'd, he'd, um, work a night shift in radio and then

01:20:11he'd work a day shift teaching radio. And he just didn't, he slept in the car for a couple of years.

01:20:16He just didn't have enough time to, to get down, you know, when you've got kids to feed it.

01:20:19Yeah. That is a hell of a double shift. Radio by night and teaching radio by day.

01:20:26Yeah. My dad's great. He was a, he was an electrician. He really wanted to,

01:20:29this is kind of a story, a little story about like the para teacher. Cause he was kind of,

01:20:34he wasn't the smartest cookie in the shed. And when he was from, he was from Hull and he was,

01:20:38he was. Disadvantage right there. He was in a, um, his, his great grandpa built Hull prison.

01:20:45Um, and he's in this little classroom and he's, he's listened to Noel Edmonds,

01:20:48the last ever radio show. Cause his, his big dream was to be a radio star. And,

01:20:51um, and he had this teacher, I can't, I can't remember the teacher's name,

01:20:54but like he thought he was going to be told off wearing a cap to cover the, you know,

01:20:58the big old headphones he used to use. And he says, what dry, what are you doing dry?

01:21:03And he says, Noel Edmonds, the last ever radio show. I'm listening to it.

01:21:06And teacher goes, carry on dry. And he went on to, he won a Sony award. He was,

01:21:11his career was very up and down, but you know, and it's just an example of like, I don't know.

01:21:15I love it when teachers just, just acknowledge actually what's important in,

01:21:20in, in kids. Um, you know, upbringing.

01:21:23Yeah. It's lovely. It's lovely. Is your father still with us? Is he still knocking around?

01:21:28Yeah, he's still knocking around. The thing in radio, I don't think you'd mind

01:21:30me saying this now, you get fired a lot. It's show business. Like you, you're in one,

01:21:34you're in one show, you're out the next. So, um, we play articulate as a fact, you all know,

01:21:38articulate, um, the, the, the, the game where you have to describe individuals and my dad would just,

01:21:43he, he infuriates us because he'll constantly just say interviewed him and we'll go, come on,

01:21:47dad. And he goes, Joan. Oh, I think he was trying to describe Joan Armatrading once. And he said,

01:21:50and he, and he, he shouts at my mother, sang, drop the pilot, interviewed him in a way. And mom's

01:21:55just like, but I, I don't know. It's kind of a great thing now because radio is about,

01:21:59I always think like old school showbiz, uh, like being an actor or being a presenter,

01:22:03you're waiting for someone to bring you flowers. You're wait, you're waiting for someone to come

01:22:07along and give you permission to do the thing that you really want to do. And now with new media,

01:22:11it feels like that permission is already is gonna, you give it to yourself. You go, well,

01:22:16no one's stopping me. I could just start a podcast and interview people and do whatever. I mean, it's

01:22:21what you did in a bedroom in Middlesbrough and it's, and it's just kind of ex, you know, you can,

01:22:26you give yourself permission. As long as you keep doing the thing kind of, it happens.

01:22:29And Substack has done the same thing for writing that YouTube did for video.

01:22:33And that Apple podcasts and Spotify did for audio. It's the same thing.

01:22:38Yeah. Substack is, uh, I used to have this joke that if aliens looked at human reading and writing

01:22:47data, it's going up. But then as soon as you zoomed in, it's just subtitles and text messages.

01:22:54Everything else is like collapsing.

01:22:57Yeah. They do, they do talk about people being kind of, um, post literate now,

01:23:01like not, they're not, people aren't reading books.

01:23:03Well, I had this realization this week. Um, what we're talking about earlier around the

01:23:07wailing going out from 1901 and then, sorry, being the number one and going out. Have you used

01:23:11whisper flow much yet? I've been told to.

01:23:14Yeah. It's, yeah.

01:23:15But from a transcription perspective, I, cause I realized I write so much that that muscle,

01:23:20and it's so that you'll know better than anyone, Harry, it's quite a, it's an arduous task or,

01:23:25uh, there's only so much writing you can do per day until you've exhausted. And as a result of

01:23:29writing so much, I'd struggle to reply to text messages. Yeah.

01:23:32Cause it'd be using the same. It's like, I've trained my triceps all day. Now someone's asking

01:23:35me to do dips legit. I'm like, for fuck's sake. And with whisper flow, I'm now suddenly getting

01:23:41so much out there. And I was like, oh, people are going to stop writing. This is going to become a

01:23:46bigger or bigger trend. People will be writing. You think speech to text.

01:23:49And read it as well. I think both of those two things, unfortunately, be short.

01:23:52So Americans are more likely to place a gambling bet than read a single book. Fewer than half of all

01:23:58adults reported having read a book of any kind in 2022. Only 38% read a novel or short story.

01:24:05Study analyzing 236,000 responses to the American time use survey found that the proportion of Americans

01:24:12who read for pleasure on any given day, from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023. Gambling has become a more

01:24:19common leisure activity than reading a book with 57% of Americans placing a bet last year, but only

01:24:26less than half reporting reading a book of any kind. And this included audio books. They included

01:24:31audio books in that. I wonder, is there, I've got, okay, my theory at the moment, here's my,

01:24:36here's my big theory. Friction is very good in life, right? All the best things involve friction.

01:24:41So if you look at a TikTok, it's very low friction, right? But then you look at a YouTube video for

01:24:46five minutes, there's a bit more friction. A TV show, that's half an hour, okay? It's a bit of an

01:24:51effort. A movie, a lot of friction. You read a book, I mean, come on, this is arduous. But you get so

01:25:00much more out of the thing, the more friction there is. Like the TikTok video, you can't remember what,

01:25:04no one ever says, oh man, you've got to see my favorite TikTok video from 2025. It's awesome.

01:25:09Like, it's just, it's nothing. It's gone. And the things that involve friction seem to be better,

01:25:14but in all areas of life, like the exercise, sports, arts, anything, more friction is better.

01:25:19I also feel like it's just a little bit about the story you tell yourself.

01:25:22So if I was, when I personally watched a lot of TikToks and Instagram and whatnot,

01:25:26I would just tell myself that I was a bit of a loser. And I walked around thinking that. And then

01:25:30when I, when I read a full book, you know, I'm like, bloody hell, like I can do things here. And I think

01:25:34you've really tried to transmit it into the day. You put me on to Stoner. That was a wonderful book.

01:25:40It is a wonderful book. What's it about?

01:25:44It's about a guy called William Stoner, who lives on a farm with his parents. And he says to his dad,

01:25:51dad, I want to go to university and learn about farming. And his dad doesn't say many words to him.

01:25:55So his dad said, okay, whatever. Pops off to, I can't remember which university, Mississippi, maybe.

01:26:00And he, um, and, um, he, he, he starts his farming course and after about a semester, he flips into

01:26:06English and he starts learning about books for the first time. There's a professor and then the war

01:26:12starts and the professor sort of gets- There's that amazing sequence as well,

01:26:15where he doesn't understand. He's like, he's reading Shakespeare and he doesn't understand what

01:26:20it means. And he goes to his professor and goes, I don't know what this means, but he's like,

01:26:26interested in it in a way that no one else is. He's like, so excited by it. Like, I've got to know

01:26:30what this means. I don't know what it means. It's like, that's kind of the pivotal bit.

01:26:34It's great. The thing I, I'm amazed you read it. The thing I took from it is he, he marries,

01:26:39essentially he marries the wrong woman. And I think it's, it's, it's a, I do think it's a book.

01:26:44It's about so many things, but one thing is about picking the person you marry, to be honest,

01:26:47because this, this one woman he marries really in a sort of, sort of, there's no, there's no grand

01:26:52moment where she, where she screws up his life. It's just sort of, it's a thousand cuts. It's a

01:26:57thousand paper cuts and, and his life kind of just sort of becomes subservient.

01:26:59Was she abused by her father? That's the, she was abused by her father.

01:27:03No, but that's like, it's never explicitly said, but it's kind of implied. There's kind of a weird.

01:27:07Her father commits suicide randomly on, on one sort of Tuesday because there was a bank run.

01:27:11The real advert is like the opening, a couple of pages of the book where it starts with his death

01:27:18and he works at this university and nobody really noticed.

01:27:23And it's such a flip of a book because most books you have the giant hero, you have the Joseph Campbell,

01:27:28whereas this is a man who lived such a mundane life that that's actually interesting that you see

01:27:33yourself or you see your potential worst self in them. One of my favorite songs ever, it's like low

01:27:39agency in a song. Have you ever heard Pearl Jam? It's called "Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small

01:27:45Talent." Long, long song title. And it's just the point of view of this 80 year old woman

01:27:51who's never left her hometown, which she did. And the guy who was her teenage sweetheart comes into the

01:27:58shop that she's in and she recognizes him and he no longer recognizes her. There's this beautiful line

01:28:05of "I changed by not changing at all. Small town predicts my fate." And every time I listen to that

01:28:11song, it's actually way more inspirational than the hero's journey and Stoner's another one.

01:28:16So how Stoner ends is the bit I'll always remember from it is he's on his deathbed. And

01:28:21before I tell you the four sentence question, which stuck with me, the author of the book has a really

01:28:26different interpretation to everyone who read the book. It's also kind of weird. The author of the book's

01:28:29like, actually, no, he lived a pretty good life and he taught and he really loved English. But the book

01:28:35ends and William Stoner is he's got his wife behind him and is one kid who's sort of become an alcoholic.

01:28:40And he says, he just starts saying this question over and over again. He says,

01:28:43"What did you expect? What did you expect? What did you expect?" And I think what he's kind of

01:28:48referring to is like, if you actually, if you fast forwarded your life, William, when you were 20,

01:28:53this was always going to happen. You were going to die in like a little small old room with your wife,

01:28:57who doesn't love you sitting by you. And he wrote one book, which he wasn't particularly proud of.

01:29:02And he had a lovely affair, which actually kind of sounds bad, but actually wasn't bad because his

01:29:05marriage was so screwed up. And he just says, "What did you expect?" And I was kind of thinking like,

01:29:09yeah, like God, like if you don't change, you know, that's how I'll die. What did you expect, Harry?

01:29:14But he did, I mean, for me, I think he changed massively because there was a guy that was toiling

01:29:19the land for the first 16 years. He was like working the land really hard. And then he made it to a

01:29:24university and he spent the rest of his life reading books and teaching other people about

01:29:29his passion for books. It's beautiful. He achieved so much, but it's like, you could compare to what?

01:29:34Well, compared to the life his parents expected, which was just physical toil and putting food on

01:29:39the table. And he like, that was all factored in. And it's like, what did he accomplish beyond that?

01:29:44Well, no, that's enough. It's enough. And it kind of goes to that Morgan Housel line of,

01:29:49uh, he talks about like happiness being, uh, your current, um, experience.

01:29:53Reality minus expectation.

01:29:54Yeah. Which is like, what did you expect? Well, maybe you expected too much.

01:29:57Yeah. Well, that's the thing because he's, uh, outstripped his parents' expectations of him,

01:30:02but underperformed on his own expectations of himself, maybe.

01:30:05Not in the bedroom. Uh, he, he found a lovely young, young woman who was, um, well, not young,

01:30:11she was actually quite old, relatively speaking. And I think.

01:30:14What is it about young women today?

01:30:17What is it about young women today?

01:30:18What is it about young women?

01:30:19That'll be clipped.

01:30:20That's a clipped term.

01:30:21In other news, if you're trying to go from Joey Chestnut to Joey Swole,

01:30:25the RP Strength app is the best place to start. I've been in the gym for 20 years,

01:30:29and it wasn't until the past few years that I had the best training sessions of my life.

01:30:32And RP was a massive part of that.

01:30:35Actual scientists built this thing around one obsession to beat up their high school bullies

01:30:39and provide the most science-backed effective path to maximizing muscle gain.

01:30:43It tells you your exercises, how many sets, reps, and weights that you need to do everything.

01:30:48So all that you have to do is show up and lift.

01:30:50If the RP app could wipe your ass for you, it probably would.

01:30:54And it adjusts automatically every week based on how you're actually progressing.

01:30:57For me, following a proper, evidence-based plan has made a massive difference.

01:31:01And if you're serious about training, it'll do the same for you too.

01:31:04Right now, you can get up to $50 off the RP Hypertrophy app

01:31:07by going to the link in the description below or heading to rpstrength.com/modernwisdom

01:31:11and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout.

01:31:13That's rpstrength.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout.

01:31:18What's your favourite joint you've ever raised?

01:31:21The last one that worked.

01:31:22I mean, it'll literally be the last.

01:31:24I try not to get attached to them, so it's that thing where you go,

01:31:27well, I like the thing that worked the other night, that worked for the first time.

01:31:30You go, great, that'll do.

01:31:31So you rip them up, rip them up, rip them up.

01:31:33Yeah, it's like the new thing, the new thing, the new thing.

01:31:35And then you're kind of putting a show together,

01:31:37and that's kind of an exciting phase, but just whatever the latest thing is.

01:31:39It's interesting, the good and the bad of any industry.

01:31:43Because the good thing for you, I guess, that you get to constantly come up with new material,

01:31:48but it's also, if you're a Noel Gallagher who has a two-year stretch and does those songs,

01:31:54the leverage of that exists forever.

01:31:57A lot of musicians, they don't want to end up in Las Vegas being a covers band of themselves.

01:32:03You know, so it's that thing where you go, be careful what you wish for.

01:32:06Like, I've constantly got to come up with new stuff, but that's also,

01:32:08the fun bit is coming up with the new stuff.

01:32:10Well, we was debating this once of, if you could imagine Impact and then doing it over time,

01:32:17you've done an incredible job of, like, doing it over multiple decades.

01:32:21But a lot of musicians, they'll have that one album, and then they can't repeat it ever again.

01:32:26Whereas some people like Christopher Nolan's probably, in my opinion,

01:32:29one of the best who's managed to keep going.

01:32:32Kanye, by the way, Kanye, like, is the best, like, college dropout, he is.

01:32:36Recent stuff's a little bit better.

01:32:37It's recent stuff. College Dropout, Late Registration, 808s and Heartbreak,

01:32:41Yeezus, My Beautiful Dots Is To Fantasy, Life Of Pablo are just completely different albums.

01:32:46Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:49Yeah.

01:32:49But they're completely different albums.

01:32:50That's very rare.

01:32:52It is.

01:32:53It's very interesting, I think.

01:32:54It's very interesting, that thing of, like, genius.

01:32:56People often talk about genius, but they don't.

01:32:58What they're talking about is, like, hyper-accelerated rationality, not genius.

01:33:03I think genius is a different thing.

01:33:05That's a big word, Jimmy, can you?

01:33:06Well, once he has that kind of level of, he's got a level of genius where you go,

01:33:11he does all the crazy stuff that he does.

01:33:13That's part of it.

01:33:14That's, it's like, it's almost like there's a, there's a mental health thing going on.

01:33:18It's a cross to bear.

01:33:19It's a beautiful line of genius and sound to your next door neighbors.

01:33:22And then they sometimes borrow one another's sugar.

01:33:24And it's one of the thoughts I've had about LLMs, that you, an LLM can write good.

01:33:29And this may change, but right now it can write good.

01:33:32But it can't write great.

01:33:33And I think there's a little bit of a horseshoe theory with great writing.

01:33:36And great writing is kind, like, next door neighbors to terrible writing.

01:33:40You've got to take risks.

01:33:41When you have something that's trained on the averages, it doesn't take risks.

01:33:44Some of my worst ever pieces are quite linked to my best ever writing.

01:33:49Yeah.

01:33:49I think that thing of, like, the average will be free.

01:33:52In the world of AI, average will be free.

01:33:54And the very good will be very expensive.

01:33:56Like, excellent will be very expensive.

01:33:57I think there's a sort of weird texture to when you believe in something.

01:34:03No one can see your belief in it, especially if it's words written down on a page.

01:34:08But I think you can feel when someone really believes in something.

01:34:12And I think the problem with artificial writing or AI writing is, like,

01:34:15you don't actually believe it.

01:34:16You just got it kind of from the robot.

01:34:17And I think there's just a weird...

01:34:20You can tell when you read something.

01:34:22And you just know that the person really, really, really believes it.

01:34:25And I think of an advert.

01:34:27I can't remember the gentleman's name.

01:34:28But he basically has this idea, I'm going to suspend a car above the chap who made the car

01:34:35to prove how good the suspension is.

01:34:37I think it was a Volvo.

01:34:39And they say, we can't get that past legal.

01:34:41So he says, oh, it's going to be me then.

01:34:43So anyway, the writer of the ad suspends this big car with wires just above himself.

01:34:48And it's one of the most famous ads of all time.

01:34:50And it's like, that only got across the line because he just really believed in it.

01:34:54And I think your conviction in an idea is more important than the idea in so many cases.

01:34:59It's often the way with comedy, especially with edgy jokes.

01:35:02Intent is much more important than content.

01:35:05And people intuit the intent.

01:35:07They just know.

01:35:08I think of Norm MacDonald.

01:35:10Like, you give his material to someone else and he's going to bomb.

01:35:13But because Norm had this weird belief in a bad joke, it would become a good joke.

01:35:18Yeah.

01:35:19What could you say that no one else could say?

01:35:21That's his whole career.

01:35:22It's like, only he could do that.

01:35:25Just a properly non-fungible human.

01:35:28One of the reasons that AI uses very strange tropes.

01:35:31I told George about this the other week.

01:35:35Most writing that AI is trained on, the corpus of writing that it's trained on, is not good books.

01:35:40Because most writing is not good.

01:35:42But it's not distinguished between the hundred greatest novels of all time

01:35:46and the millions and millions and millions of pages of anime fan fiction that it's been trained on.

01:35:53So is there no weighting given?

01:35:55It doesn't give weighting to you?

01:35:56No, no, I don't think so.

01:35:57This is Dostoevsky.

01:35:58And even if it did, it would have to be so overly weighted, right?

01:36:02Some 14-year-old's seventh sequel to the Twilight series or something that they're just

01:36:09putting out on their, like, Tumblr account.

01:36:14That should not, it would require so much, it would basically not exist.

01:36:18But it has been trained on it anyway.

01:36:19And what they did was they looked at a bunch of short stories that won a bunch of awards recently.

01:36:24And there were some very obscure analogies that we used, talking about his stomach swallowing a shout,

01:36:30which sounds like kind of evocative, but in the flow of the story felt a little bit clunky,

01:36:37and it was a bit harsh, and it didn't seem to be quite necessary so much.

01:36:41And they used this AI to trace where on the internet that piece of writing has been seen before.

01:36:47You know, you were talking about analogy being quite trite, or this sentence sounds like I've

01:36:52heard it before.

01:36:52It sounds like something that you could have, and they go and they actually find it.

01:36:55And they found so many of the source material pieces were random anime fan fiction websites.

01:37:03So that is all writing of all time, right?

01:37:06Lots of it is good.

01:37:08Most of it's not.

01:37:10And the total world that AIs have been trained on includes this, like, just endless dross.

01:37:17It's going to end up also, I think Taleb said it ends up being trained on itself a lot of the time now.

01:37:22Correct.

01:37:22And there's nowhere to go, you know.

01:37:24I think there's going to be a big sort of premium on books pre-2022.

01:37:30Because you know that they've not been written by AI.

01:37:32Yeah.

01:37:33Because you know that there's kind of no help given as well.

01:37:35There's no editing.

01:37:37They did that in the old-fashioned way.

01:37:39It's like losing weight before a Zen pick.

01:37:41Yeah.

01:37:42There's an extra kind of flex on it.

01:37:44Yeah.

01:37:45It was interesting you were talking about coping mechanisms.

01:37:48After gastric band surgery, people sometimes commit suicide.

01:37:53And gastric band surgery is quite traumatic.

01:37:56Sometimes the surgeons make really silly errors, like leave utensils inside of people and sew them

01:38:02back up, or bits of gauze.

01:38:04But the big reason that people commit suicide after gastric band surgery is that the reason

01:38:09they were overeating was probably because of an underlying emotional issue.

01:38:14Yeah.

01:38:15That's how they were using the food as medicine.

01:38:17Bingo.

01:38:17And they still have the underlying issue, but they're no longer able to use the food.

01:38:20Mm.

01:38:21Yeah.

01:38:22Yeah, crazy.

01:38:23And the same thing with the phone, right?

01:38:24What is the phone using?

01:38:26The chest and spuds, baby.

01:38:27Yeah.

01:38:27Being there to distract you from.

01:38:28So you shouldn't get a gastric band fitted.

01:38:31I guess, I wonder what, surely, can you chat GPT, Jared?

01:38:34Gastric band surgery, what's been the impact of GLPs on gastric band surgery?

01:38:39That's the wailing industry, literally.

01:38:41Yeah.

01:38:41Yes.

01:38:42Hey, very good.

01:38:44That's gone.

01:38:44Very good.

01:38:45That's gone.

01:38:45Yeah.

01:38:46Jimmy, when you're so quick, is it algorithmic?

01:38:49Or is it like, is it like a sort of algorithm in your brain, which insert topic,

01:38:54you know where to go?

01:38:55Or is it intuitive?

01:38:56What's the, say you're, say you're roasting somebody.

01:38:58I don't, I mean.

01:38:59You don't even know.

01:38:59No, I don't even think of it as being quick.

01:39:02It's often that thing of like, I'll, I'll feel like I'm sitting on it for 10 seconds

01:39:06before I say it.

01:39:07And then the worst person for this is Lee Mack.

01:39:09Do you know Lee Mack?

01:39:09Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:39:10Lee Mack, they often have to put a thing into the edit and add a pause before he says the line.

01:39:17Because he's just like.

01:39:18Just plows through it.

01:39:19He's like, it's so quick.

01:39:20It's, it's, yeah, it's amazing.

01:39:22I had a question.

01:39:23Uh, I had a question.

01:39:25It's actually, it's about position.

01:39:26Do you know who the biggest comedian on YouTube is?

01:39:29And I'll give you a, I won't give you a clue.

01:39:31He's actually four times bigger than every single other comedian.

01:39:35Well, it ain't me.

01:39:37Is it Matt Reif?

01:39:38No.

01:39:39Right.

01:39:40I'm trying to think about it.

01:39:4140 million, 40 million subscribers.

01:39:43You'll all know him.

01:39:44Are they digital first?

01:39:46I don't understand the question.

01:39:47No, no.

01:39:49I'd go Rowan Atkinson.

01:39:51Bang on.

01:39:52No way.

01:39:53Mr. Bean.

01:39:53Yeah, much bigger.

01:39:54Yeah.

01:39:54And I feel like there's, so I teach, I teach advertising.

01:39:58And they're like within Mr. Bean is the, the silent comic of say 21st century.

01:40:05And I think, um, he has, he has the best position.

01:40:07This is like the Charlie Chaplin of his day.

01:40:11If you want, if you want to get stuck in the mind, you want to get an idea stuck in the mind.

01:40:13What is positioning?

01:40:14Like, what do you mean?

01:40:15A position I would say is the space you own in the customer's mind, like real estate.

01:40:21So say you've picture like, um, picture like 100 filing cabinets or hundreds of thousands

01:40:27of filing cabinets in, in your head.

01:40:28And they've all got labels written on them.

01:40:30So if we were playing this with chocolate bars, like chocolate bar for when you're hungry,

01:40:34best selling chocolate bar in the world would be.

01:40:36Mark.

01:40:37Snickers.

01:40:37It's the best selling chocolate bar in the world.

01:40:40Yeah.

01:40:40For a break would be Kit Kat.

01:40:42Yeah.

01:40:42Sure.

01:40:42And then you go, you take this to comedy.

01:40:44Um, a good example would be like English family friendly comedian, bring the whole family.

01:40:51CK.

01:40:51CK McIntyre.

01:40:53They own that space.

01:40:54And then you've got like, don't take the whole family.

01:40:56Don't sit in the front row.

01:40:57Especially if you're English.

01:40:59Right.

01:40:59Yeah.

01:41:00Um, I was thinking Frankie Boyle.

01:41:01Or you've got read by Guardian readers.

01:41:05Um, uh, almost too clever for punchlines.

01:41:08Go on.

01:41:09Stuart Lee.

01:41:09Stuart Lee.

01:41:10Great.

01:41:10That kind of what?

01:41:11Bang on.

01:41:12It's like, it's the real estate you own.

01:41:13And I, I think it's, it's like, sorry to take Mr. Beast.

01:41:17He is the, uh, the only like most famous silent comedian.

01:41:20Oh, sorry.

01:41:21Mr. Bean.

01:41:21You said Beast.

01:41:22Yeah.

01:41:22Mr. Bean.

01:41:23Mr. Bean.

01:41:24Very, very different people.

01:41:25Yeah.

01:41:25Freudian slip.

01:41:26Um.

01:41:27You know the Rowan Atkinson story about Italy?

01:41:29No.

01:41:29So when Rowan was first doing, um, uh, Mr. Bean, he, uh, he's a big

01:41:34car enthusiast and he likes to take a holiday.

01:41:37So he basically carved out Italy on the sales of Mr. Bean and said, don't sell it in Italy.

01:41:44And then it was crazy.

01:41:44We can sell it to TV channels all over Italy.

01:41:46He went, no, no, I don't want to sell it to Italy.

01:41:47And then I went, well, why not?

01:41:48And he went, so I'll go on holiday.

01:41:49So for the first 10 years of Mr. Bean, it wasn't available in Italy.

01:41:55That's greatness.

01:41:55And then, and then after like 10 years, there was some offer or something or whatever.

01:41:59And they translated it and they put it on in Italy and it's the biggest show in Italy.

01:42:02And it's ruined his holidays.

01:42:03Yeah.

01:42:03It's ruined his holidays.

01:42:04Really ruined his holidays.

01:42:05What must have been fascinating.

01:42:06I wonder how many Americans know what Mr. Bean, he did a movie, right?

01:42:09Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson did.

01:42:10I think people do know it.

01:42:11I think kids know it.

01:42:12And it's a, it's that silent comedy thing.

01:42:14It like shines through.

01:42:15That must be great for an international audience.

01:42:16Exactly.

01:42:17I think that is the point in one.

01:42:19It's why Charlie Chaplin was so universal because you didn't, he didn't speak.

01:42:24And then I think movies started, movies then had sound again.

01:42:28And Chaplin was at this kind of crossover period of like, I can now talk, but if I talk,

01:42:33I've kind of ruined what I've done for all these years.

01:42:35So I can't remember the film.

01:42:36I think it's called the, the something grubber and it ends.

01:42:40And the only words Charlie Chaplin ever asked is a gibberish.

01:42:42And that's kind of how like his final silent movie ends.

01:42:44And it's just this perfect end to it, to it, to a film.

01:42:47Um, how would you fix, uh, like how, how do you go about fixing your position?

01:42:50What do you think?

01:42:51Well, I, I, I, so there's, there's, there's two things here.

01:42:55There's like a position is the space you own in the, in the customer's mind.

01:42:58So Jimmy's got a pretty, like, you know, you go to a Jimmy Carr gig, you're going to get roasted.

01:43:01There's going to be stag dues.

01:43:03And now it's a little bit deeper, but you know what you get.

01:43:05There's like a situation which you would, you would attend a, a, a, a gig for.

01:43:09Um, I suppose then there's something called positioning, which is how you organize the customer's mind.

01:43:16So I think Stuart Lee is a funny example of this, like when Stuart Lee, I think he retired from comedy

01:43:20in 1999 and he had a good career.

01:43:23He was a very good career.

01:43:24He won an award at Hackney prize or something like this.

01:43:27And then he starts writing on, on TV shows like Radio 4 and whatnot.

01:43:30And he returns to comedy in 2001.

01:43:32And then I, I, I saw Stuart Lee, um, live like four years ago and it was really good.

01:43:37And Stuart Lee's kind of repositioned to the competition and like very implicitly,

01:43:42well actually not so implicitly, his set design was, was one P

01:43:46um, DVDs from like modern English comics.

01:43:49And he did lots of impressions of Russell Howard.

01:43:51And I think basically Lee's repositioning is like, is like very much us versus them.

01:43:56So there's three ways to get a space in the mind.

01:43:58You can be first, you can be only, or you can be against.

01:44:01And, and Stuart Lee is very much against.

01:44:03Like he kind of pops like Michael McIntyre, Peter Kaye, Russell Howard,

01:44:07James Corden in this little box.

01:44:09Uh, you picture that being the mind.

01:44:10And then, and then that's mainstream or that's like laugh a minute.

01:44:13And then there's Stuart Lee who, and he, and he isn't punchline.

01:44:16He's like, you know, almost too clever for the punchline.

01:44:18Who else does like against, like who, who else has positioned themselves

01:44:20or what else has positioned himself against?

01:44:22So I think, I think Trump's a pretty obvious example of that,

01:44:25but also even like Coca-Cola launched in, I think 1886.

01:44:29Liquid death.

01:44:30Yeah.

01:44:30Liquid death.

01:44:31I would say, yeah.

01:44:32Liquid death.

01:44:32Pepsi versus Coke.

01:44:34It's interesting.

01:44:34Because you almost create, uh, you almost create the, you know,

01:44:38the David Foster Wallace line of the fish can't see the water.

01:44:41With like liquid death, you almost didn't even think about plastic water bottles

01:44:45because everything was plastic.

01:44:46And then you suddenly create, oh no, here's the water and here's the lamp.

01:44:49Like you're creating something against that people didn't even realize you could be against.

01:44:54Yeah.

01:44:54I, I think I, what, what do I think?

01:44:56Um, I think be against is, you probably see it more and more these days

01:45:00as the world gets slightly more polarized.

01:45:01I don't know.

01:45:02I don't know.

01:45:02I, I mean, I don't love it in comedy.

01:45:04Cause I think it's kind of the narcissism of small differences.

01:45:06We're all doing the same job or trying to make people laugh.

01:45:10And it seems that there's, there's a, there's a lovely camaraderie in that.

01:45:14That's that you're kind of missing out on.

01:45:16I.

01:45:16You're kind of punching against.

01:45:17I mean, does jealousy come up a lot in, in comedy?

01:45:20I don't think it should, but I think it does occasionally.

01:45:22I think there's that thing where for me, comedy has never been about that

01:45:25because it's not like being an actor where you go, look, there's one guy's going to be Bond,

01:45:29right?

01:45:29There's one actor that's going to be announced as the new James Bond and none of the others are going to be.

01:45:34And that's, that must be heartbreaking for them.

01:45:36You can do the stand on Monday.

01:45:38It doesn't mean that the other guy can't do the stand on Thursday.

01:45:40Like you can play the theater.

01:45:41You can, you can pack out the O2 for five nights, but the venue's still there.

01:45:45Someone else can play it the next night.

01:45:46And it's, it's also that thing of like, the more people that go and see live comedy

01:45:50and enjoy the experience.

01:45:51It's like, it's kind of like the early days of rock and roll.

01:45:53You go, yeah, the more people that go, the more people that want to go.

01:45:56And if they have a great experience, they want to go more.

01:45:58Grow, grow the pie.

01:45:59Yeah.

01:45:59You want to grow the pie and you won't be.

01:46:00And the idea that you go, well, there's different people that you like more or less,

01:46:04but everyone's kind of doing the same.

01:46:05It's the same intention.

01:46:07Certainly when it comes to content online, I think that the, uh,

01:46:10against for balance is actually skewed in against.

01:46:15I think there are more people producing critiques via content about for content

01:46:22than there is for content.

01:46:23Like, which would be relatively right.

01:46:25I mean, you know, in some industries,

01:46:27there's probably more people writing about football than there are people playing football,

01:46:33but there's far more people paying attention to the playing of the football

01:46:36than the critique of the football.

01:46:37It spreads so much more, uh, fast.

01:46:39Like being critical of something is incredibly mimetic.

01:46:42Being for something is actually quite anti-mimetic.

01:46:44So James, Element James, what was the company that was slandering Element?

01:46:49Do you remember it?

01:46:50Um, that James is doing a lawsuit against?

01:46:52Fuck, not tides.

01:46:54Yeah.

01:46:54Uh, the AI health checking app.

01:46:59Yeah.

01:46:59Like waves or something.

01:47:00They were slandering them with a load of fake information.

01:47:03They've got millions of views.

01:47:04Hmm.

01:47:04It was completely like the guys butchered all of the studies,

01:47:08all the claims that he was making.

01:47:10But then the apology gets like a few thousand views.

01:47:12Yeah.

01:47:12And it's like the, the, uh, disparity between that.

01:47:16We was looking at somebody where there's this essay writer.

01:47:19And you can see this a lot with people that become these professional critics,

01:47:23where they'll have a piece that attacks a Chris or attacks somebody.

01:47:28And it goes super viral.

01:47:29And then you click on it and you scroll back and you go,

01:47:32oh, they've been doing this critique thing for a while.

01:47:33And you go, you see when the moment they once did it, everything spiked.

01:47:37But if you go back further, it was just in the void.

01:47:40It was always optimistic or, or slightly creative content that wasn't working.

01:47:44And then this thing started to work.

01:47:46It's quite sad.

01:47:47Yeah.

01:47:47Everybody against something is once a hopeless romantic for a person that was for something.

01:47:52Yeah.

01:47:53It's like in politics, I'm really frustrated with political,

01:47:56political opinions, just constantly being against things.

01:47:59I think in UK politics right now, like, what are you actually for?

01:48:02I think is a really, it's an unanswered question.

01:48:04Like you look at all the parties and they just love to sort of disagree with each other.

01:48:08And they don't love to actually stand on a, you know, a table and have their own opinion.

01:48:12But 2012 was the year where most people voted not for the opposition,

01:48:16as opposed to for their own party.

01:48:18That was the year in America where most votes were protest votes.

01:48:22I am not voting for the person I don't like,

01:48:24as opposed to I am voting for the person that I do like.

01:48:26Yeah.

01:48:26I've been creating bots before bots were controversial.

01:48:30And one of the bots I wanted to create on Twitter

01:48:32is whenever you have like a cynic or somebody where it's just quote tweeting,

01:48:36having a go, applying everything, it's just this dossier thing that then re quotes them of,

01:48:42"You sense that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one.

01:48:46You felt that you were destined for other things, but you had no idea how to achieve them.

01:48:51And in your misery, you began to hate everything around you."

01:48:54And that's some, like, it's the perfect cynical line for the saying.

01:48:57Oh man.

01:48:59That's heavy.

01:49:01Yeah.

01:49:01I didn't, it feels to me like there's a kind of bank account that you're supposed

01:49:05to pay into or withdraw from.

01:49:07And if you find that you're critiquing more than creating, you're kind of in negative equity.

01:49:11You're sort of withdrawing from the system more than you're putting things into it.

01:49:15I've had this conversation with Eric Weinstein about like an experts only mentality where a lot

01:49:21of people believe, oh, the only way that you're allowed to talk on this topic is if you're somebody

01:49:27that has all of the requisite qualifications and this sort of esteemed history behind you.

01:49:33But the reason, the enforcement mechanism of that is people on the internet, they're going to call

01:49:37you out for it.

01:49:38See, he doesn't actually fully understand what he means by DNAR, recombination.

01:49:43And you're like, all right, man.

01:49:44Well, that just means that nobody can ever get to play with ideas publicly.

01:49:47And everyone begins to be on tenterhooks.

01:49:50And they're worried about maybe I'm going to say something that's going to get me rumbled.

01:49:55Like, I don't know.

01:49:56I, it doesn't create the, what is it?

01:49:59The, the Oxford manner, the ability to play gracefully with ideas.

01:50:03We've very much lost the Oxford manner.

01:50:04The ability to say, ah, like I, I see, I see what you were trying to get out there.

01:50:09And you look, I, you've made some, some errors of this side, but I think it's, it's interesting.

01:50:13Even if you're wrong about what you talked about, it's, it's cool that you're trying to apply

01:50:17something from your industry to one that is new or is novel to you.

01:50:22So yeah, I think that's your podcast though, Chris, like why it works is because it genuinely

01:50:26seems to fill that space of like, it's okay to not have things completely worked out.

01:50:31And we're going to work it out together.

01:50:32Like that's what I think a lot of your conversations are.

01:50:34I think that's a good summary.

01:50:36Yeah.

01:50:36I, how to understand yourself and the world around you has kind of always been the summer.

01:50:40And also to have, there's a person in front of me or a bunch of people in front of me.

01:50:44Like, how do I make them look as good as possible?

01:50:47How can I try and draw out of them the best version of them,

01:50:50as opposed to the opposite?

01:50:52There's far more people on the internet that are good at doing critique,

01:50:57takedowns and breakdowns than I am, but I'm pretty good at going, okay, what, where's some,

01:51:02as my dad would say, a streak of piss in a pile of shit sometimes, or, you know,

01:51:06like silver lining.

01:51:07And how do you do that?

01:51:08Like, how do you-

01:51:08I think silver lining is maybe a nicer expression.

01:51:11I think, I think like, I think we're workshopping writing today.

01:51:15I think maybe.

01:51:15Yeah, dad, you didn't win that one.

01:51:18I don't know.

01:51:19Just look, I, I understand.

01:51:21I think I tend to try and give people the benefit of the doubt as best I can.

01:51:25I tend to try and yes, and their ideas as opposed to no, but their ideas.

01:51:29Stress test them in a way, as you were talking about intent versus content.

01:51:33Yeah.

01:51:34Like, hey, what, what do you mean by that?

01:51:36I'm not saying it because I'm trying to trip you up or trying to be me.

01:51:38I'm trying to get you to strengthen your own argument by drawing out an area.

01:51:43It feels a little bit, sometimes you're having a really good conversation.

01:51:46It feels like running your hand across the top of a membrane and everything's kind of smooth.

01:51:50And then you feel a little divot in something.

01:51:52And you're like, huh, like the flow of what was being said there just felt a little bit off.

01:51:57Oh, that's because there's a, you, you made a, you said a word that I didn't understand.

01:52:01Or there's a premise that I didn't feel was fully fleshed out.

01:52:03Or you made this claim.

01:52:04And I didn't really understand how it linked back to what we were talking about before.

01:52:07And that's the moment where it kind of breaches the threshold of me just

01:52:10sitting and nodding, nodding along and listening.

01:52:12And then we go, oh, can I just, what do you mean by that?

01:52:15Can I ask you?

01:52:15It's quite a hard question, but we had all those five rules of writing.

01:52:19What would your five rules of communication be?

01:52:22Oh, that's good.

01:52:24Um, speak precisely whenever possible, which is not using more or fewer words than are needed.

01:52:33Um, it's never bad to ask the question.

01:52:38Why?

01:52:39As in sort of, what do you mean by that?

01:52:41Why?

01:52:41Okay.

01:52:41What do you mean?

01:52:42Like those little moments, I think allow people to dig deeper.

01:52:45Um, I like it when you say, you say it's very, quite infrequent, but you go, say more.

01:52:51Say more, like just to give someone and you know that they've got more.

01:52:55Yeah.

01:52:56Just give them a little, a little, nothing being encouraged.

01:52:58It's permission.

01:52:58They're being polite in the podcast and going, I don't want to say too much here.

01:53:01I feel like I'm, I'm monologuing and you go, no, no.

01:53:04Yeah.

01:53:04Yeah.

01:53:04Yeah.

01:53:04And you, that permission is great.

01:53:05Um, so that's yes.

01:53:07And then, uh, what else would I say?

01:53:11Using silence is probably one of the best tools.

01:53:14So just shutting the fuck up and giving the room space to breathe.

01:53:17Okay.

01:53:19Well, actually.

01:53:20And you're like, oh, there we go.

01:53:20It was just a half step off from the next insight that you wanted to give out there.

01:53:24And you're not making somebody rush, you know, you know, sort of driving them through it.

01:53:27Ah, those would be some, those would be some.

01:53:30I think that talking is the best example that the 10,000 hour road is a load of nonsense.

01:53:38Because everybody has done 10,000 hours, yet it doesn't seem to.

01:53:43Not every is a world-class conversation.

01:53:45Yes.

01:53:45But again, very, very, um, precise practice.

01:53:50I mean, me and you had this idea a long time ago.

01:53:52One of our prescriptions was if you want to get better at communication,

01:53:55have a fake podcast with a friend where you put your phone down on record once a week

01:53:58for half an hour, phones out of the room.

01:54:00You don't need to publish it.

01:54:01You don't need to put it anywhere.

01:54:02Listen back to it and listen to your verbal tics and the flow of your conversation and

01:54:06how you talk over each other or how you actually give them a little bit.

01:54:09Oh, I quite like the way that if you really, really, really want to do it.

01:54:12But the easiest way to do it is to actually have a project.

01:54:14Like somebody who thinks I want to become funnier will take so much longer to become

01:54:19funny than somebody who has to step on stage and have all of the pressure of an audience.

01:54:23Someone that goes, I really want to improve my writing.

01:54:25You're so good at writing.

01:54:26How do I improve my writing?

01:54:27You go, are you writing for anything?

01:54:29Are you publishing anything at the moment?

01:54:30No.

01:54:30Well, you don't have the pressure of developing your writing skill.

01:54:34Oh, you've done really well with your communication.

01:54:39Are you part of a project that requires you to communicate

01:54:43with enough pressure and scrutiny that means that you need to hone the skill?

01:54:47And if not…

01:54:47I think this is Hormoz's thing of like going, it's the optionality.

01:54:51People want to get like the action-perfection ratio is all wrong.

01:54:55People want to get kind of brilliant at something before they even start.

01:54:58And to have a perfect record.

01:54:59And I love the idea of like just being messy.

01:55:01Just having a messy start, trying something.

01:55:03Like you don't talk about jokes, you just try them.

01:55:05That's the problem though, what we were talking about while you were out of the room.

01:55:09The experts-only idea that Eric Weinstein has an issue with, and I think I agree with too,

01:55:14which is if you're not allowed to use the Oxford manner to play gracefully with ideas,

01:55:18you're always going to get sniped at, especially early on.

01:55:21Well, that's, you know, that's stupid.

01:55:23Like how can you…

01:55:24The early stages of anybody's work tend to be scrutinized, not with the amount of discount

01:55:31that it should have.

01:55:32And I think it causes people to, they get worried.

01:55:34They're like, "Fuck, like what if I…"

01:55:36And isn't it ironic that a lot of the current expert classes built off some anti-expert at

01:55:42one point that went against it.

01:55:43How so?

01:55:44Well, if you go back through most of science,

01:55:48a lot of… Galileo going against the Catholic church, who were the expertise at the time,

01:55:53was remarkably unpopular.

01:55:55Yeah.

01:55:56Conformity is a coffin and heresy is a cradle.

01:56:03Yeah.

01:56:03It's interesting.

01:56:04I've told you that story about Copernicus, right?

01:56:05About the fact that he had the same insight as

01:56:08Galileo a hundred years earlier and sort of squeaked it out on his deathbed.

01:56:12Yeah.

01:56:12He had this great work, De Revolutionibus.

01:56:15And he was worried about ire from the church.

01:56:18So I had the same heliocentric learning.

01:56:22And it took a full century to do the next one.

01:56:24And you might say, well, you know, stupid Copernicus.

01:56:26He should have said it, he should have shouted it from the rooftops.

01:56:28But Galileo was forced to recant, kept under house arrest for the rest of his life,

01:56:33like nearly killed. His treatment justifies the silence of the guy that came a hundred years before him.

01:56:40It's the first humiliation. You familiar with that?

01:56:42No.

01:56:43Three humiliations. So Copernicus was the first.

01:56:45We're not the center of the universe. Darwin was the second. We're no different to the animals.

01:56:51And then Freud was the third. We're not even in control of our minds. And then the fourth is AI.

01:57:00We're no longer the smartest thing. Just kind of…

01:57:05I mean, it's not that humiliating. I can live with it.

01:57:07Well, when you've created it, I think there's a degree of all of us feeling like we can't…

01:57:12That's why people have…

01:57:13Yeah, we did it. We did it, guys. We did it.

01:57:16Some Jimmy Carr bullshit will be in the corpus that it's been trained on, right?

01:57:21Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting, that thing of the, yeah, that kind of next step,

01:57:26if we get to it, if there's abundance in the future. It'd be amazing.

01:57:30We're already there.

01:57:31We're already here, right? It's already pretty bloody abundant.

01:57:35This is your indomitable optimism coming through.

01:57:39I'm very optimistic, long-term, short-term, there will be problems.

01:57:44Well, I always use the example of my morning routine.

01:57:48So my morning routine, which everyone's dying to know,

01:57:51it's going to get to max morning routine.

01:57:53Sure, sure.

01:57:54I know you had your one with Mike Thurston and got…

01:57:56Oh yeah, my four-year-old quick clip about a four-year-old's morning routine.

01:58:00Yeah.

01:58:01My morning routine is, I woke up this morning on a bed.

01:58:05I had a hot shower and I brushed my teeth, okay?

01:58:10Which sounds not that impressive, but it's Emperor Augustus,

01:58:15the emperor of Rome, slept on a sack of straw.

01:58:19Mary Antoinette, who was going to be the future queen of France at the time,

01:58:22as she was wandering around her palace of Versailles.

01:58:26They used to throw their sewage out of windows because they didn't have toilets.

01:58:30It landed on her head.

01:58:32It's even like the air conditioning, which I didn't think about.

01:58:36President Garfield, who was the president in the late 1800s,

01:58:40when he got shot because his body was overheating,

01:58:43they had to get 500,000 cubes of ice to blow over it because they didn't have anything

01:58:49near air conditioning.

01:58:49I think King Louie's mouth rotted from the inside as well because he couldn't brush the teeth.

01:58:54So even when you look at the David Foster Wallace thing, we're already in post abundance.

01:58:59He's just going to potentially keep accelerating more and more.

01:59:02But when people get there, they won't think about it.

01:59:03And we were having this argument the other day.

01:59:05He was trying to talk about how we should deaccelerate or potentially pause things.

01:59:09And it's that Deutsch line of even the United Kingdom is an artificial concept.

01:59:15And you think about it.

01:59:17Like the hunter-gatherers wouldn't have been able to live in the United Kingdom.

01:59:20He would have died on a cold winter night from the cult.

01:59:27So we're already living on Mars.

01:59:29Yeah.

01:59:30Mate, we're already living on Mars.

01:59:33But what I mean is when people talk about terraforming Mars,

01:59:35we've already terraformed the Earth.

01:59:36We're already living in unlivable places.

01:59:38That's the human thing today.

01:59:39Wonder around Bolton, man.

01:59:44How do you feel about that, Harry?

01:59:45I feel like me and George disagree on most things in life.

01:59:49We agree on the most important stuff, but we disagree on everything else.

01:59:53We were talking about death the other day.

01:59:54It was George's very pro-living for a long time.

01:59:57And I don't, I'm not pro-living for that long time.

01:59:59Oh, yeah.

01:59:59We had this debate while watching the England game.

02:00:04Who's the guy?

02:00:04Brian Johnson that wants to live forever.

02:00:05Kind of.

02:00:06Yeah.

02:00:07Jimmy, what's a good age?

02:00:08Well, I think what's a good age?

02:00:09I think it's that thing where you've got problems to solve and you have dilemmas that you just have

02:00:16to live with.

02:00:16And death is the big one, right?

02:00:18Death is in the Muslims, what do they call it, the certainty.

02:00:22And I think you have to just make peace with it.

02:00:23Like, it's going to happen at some stage.

02:00:25You don't get to choose when.

02:00:27You don't get to choose how long your life is.

02:00:29But the depth and quality, you can have a big effect on.

02:00:33And that's where you should spend your time.

02:00:35I mean, I think that thing about, it's absolutely inevitable.

02:00:39And the idea that these crazy, whatever, this guy trying to live forever.

02:00:43George wants to live until the heat death of the universe.

02:00:45Yeah, I want to keep going, baby.

02:00:47Well, there's the live forever or immortal, which is just ridiculous, right?

02:00:52Because at a certain point, you have the heat death of the universe.

02:00:54But living to 150, that much significantly different than living to 80.

02:00:58I did this research once with Claude, where I was looking at,

02:01:04if you have everybody ever to live today, the average age,

02:01:08and then you had everybody ever to live ever, the average age when they died,

02:01:11the average age of that room would be 15.

02:01:14So we were already way past.

02:01:16And I used the example, the example I thought of the other day was my dog,

02:01:21this beautiful little Bernadette called Barclay.

02:01:24Parents do.

02:01:25It makes me sad that 10 years from now, he's probably going to die.

02:01:30If I can take a dog's life from 12 to 24, is that bad?

02:01:33It sounds like a terrific thing.

02:01:35So what's the problem of going from 80 to 160 years old for a human?

02:01:38I agree, forever is a completely different concept.

02:01:40And that's a very vague language.

02:01:42But is 150 or 200 necessarily a bad idea?

02:01:46Because we're already not dying at 15.

02:01:48We're all dying with the devil.

02:01:50And it just depends how long your spoon is.

02:01:52So I'm not saying 120 whatnot, but where does this end?

02:01:57I also don't feel like it's our universe to roam for that long.

02:02:00You know, I feel like the old must make way for the new man.

02:02:04Like there should be a new George Mack sat in that seat.

02:02:07I get, you've got 10 more years of podcasting.

02:02:09And I think bring in the new George Mack.

02:02:11Let's get some, let's get some new insights.

02:02:13Like there should be a new Jimmy Carr.

02:02:13We should be taken out the back of the shed.

02:02:15Well, there is that thing where you go, people are very scared of death.

02:02:17There's a, there's a great Mark Twain said, I wasn't alive for 10 billion years

02:02:22before my birth and it didn't inconvenience me in the least.

02:02:25You kind of go, yeah, it's just, you go back to the same thing.

02:02:28We're in this brief shaft of light between two oceans of darkness and you've got 4,000 weeks.

02:02:33What are you going to do with it?

02:02:35I think that thing about it is kind of a, it does set the clock of going, okay, what am I going to do?

02:02:40And I think if you live, if you're talking about 160 years, I think there's a,

02:02:44there's a manana to that of kind of going, well, you don't have to do anything now.

02:02:48And actually the, the sense of urgency that you have, I think it's quite,

02:02:50it's kind of a rush of blood to the head.

02:02:53A hundred.

02:02:54And so, so right now, I, I, I, I don't even know where to start.

02:02:58Like, I think, I think, um, you live to a hundred and, I mean, 160, right?

02:03:01You live to 260.

02:03:03That's how many wives you have?

02:03:04I'm sorry.

02:03:06Let's just get down to this.

02:03:07Great that that's the first place that you go to.

02:03:09It's also, it's also how many kids, like you have your kids, they have their kids.

02:03:13And at some point there's like a deep heartbreak is going to, it's a really deep heartbreak.

02:03:17Go back to the dog argument and talk about why go from 12 to 24 would be the worst thing for a dog.

02:03:22But you're not trying to extend the dog's life.

02:03:23You're trying to extend your own life.

02:03:24And I do feel like, like, like what about the lions out here?

02:03:27Are we still going to be killing the cows?

02:03:28You know, is there going to be enough meat to fill these new humans who are just now powering on to 500?

02:03:33Well, that's kind of interesting when you talk about like, you know,

02:03:35we're chatting about problems in the world and you talk about the environmental crisis that's going on now.

02:03:42Are you aware of like the late 60s?

02:03:44There was a book written that was about how overpopulation, everyone was going to starve.

02:03:49And it was going to be kind of a Mad Max scenario.

02:03:52Is that Malthusianism where I got that wrong?

02:03:55Yeah.

02:03:55Malthusian trap is when you have a growing population without resources that can support it.

02:04:00Yeah. So they thought that we were going to run out of food and basically two bits of technology

02:04:05happened at the same time. So they figured out how to kind of GM wheat and grain. And they also

02:04:10found out how to do it with rice as well. And they increased productivity by like 4x in that time.

02:04:15And basically we can sustain a huge number of people because they worked out basically there's

02:04:19not enough land to support 4 billion people. And now we're 8 billion and we're fine. It's really

02:04:23interesting like how problems change. They also thought there was going to be a new ice age in the 70s.

02:04:28It's not that long ago in the 70s. And now it's kind of all worried about the heat.

02:04:33It's weird how it kind of changes over time. Well, hopefully we're sort of one step ahead and

02:04:37we solve it.

02:04:37Isn't there a Roman port that's like 100 miles off the coast from where the coast used to be?

02:04:46I'm pretty sure that because there was an ice age not that long ago and during the Roman Empire,

02:04:53the entire climate was significantly different. But their ability to invade the UK was facilitated by

02:04:59the fact that here it is. "Once a major coastal port and likely the landing area for the Roman

02:05:04invasion of AD 43 is now about two miles inland because the Wansom channel silted up." Interesting.

02:05:11Anyway, Romans, mate.

02:05:15We've gone to the Romans. This is what men are meant to do every two hours.

02:05:19Reference the Romans.

02:05:20I've been thinking about it the whole time that I've been here, sure.

02:05:22Simple question. Who do you want to be the next Prime Minister of England?

02:05:25Assuming there's no... They can be. They want to be.

02:05:28Anyone in the world, you could ship them in at a a la FedEx.

02:05:31Oh, that's good. Dominic Cummings.

02:05:34He had a go. He had a go. And I think the thing with DC...

02:05:38You didn't ask who do I think could get elected.

02:05:40Okay. Mike, you got me talking, right? Mr. Cummings. I think he's really competent

02:05:48and not that likeable. And I feel like there's a real kind of like what you want in a leader

02:05:54is really competent while also being kind of likeable.

02:05:58Okay. What was Keir Starmer?

02:05:59Neither, man.

02:06:03I mean, he's gone now, but I don't think anyone's going to forget Keith Starmer in a hurry.

02:06:09Lee Kuan Yew. Lee Kuan Yew would be good.

02:06:13Lee Kuan Yew is really interesting because that kind of Singapore example.

02:06:16There's a guy called Roger Bootle, who's a brilliant economist and a great writer. I know him a little

02:06:23bit. And I think if you look at Roger Bootle's kind of assessment of what Britain needs, it's a really

02:06:28good checklist. He says there's no silver bullet. There's no big solution that changes everything.

02:06:34And he gives these eight examples from around the world of where extraordinary things have happened

02:06:38and countries have turned themselves around. So from post-war Germany, to post-war France, to South

02:06:44Korea, North Korea, Singapore, all of these different examples of how did those economic miracles happen?

02:06:50How did people get from a relatively poor circumstance to abundance? And it's brilliant because it's like,

02:06:57it's lots of little things done right. I think he'd be a great guy to have in charge.

02:07:01And can he talk? Does it matter if he can talk?

02:07:03Yeah. He's very likable. And his thing is like,

02:07:06it's not really about the… He's a big fan of the Singaporean dude. But he's not really about

02:07:13like charisma in the leader. It's more about, okay, these are the things that you need to do. These are

02:07:18the priorities that a country needs to have. And you need to know what GDP is for. You need to know

02:07:25what are you doing this for? Why do you need this to be? What's the purpose of this nation? What's

02:07:30the point of it? And that's, he's very good on that stuff. Who'd you write, Harry?

02:07:35My, so we, I talked about this yesterday. I genuinely, the girl I'm dating, I think would

02:07:38be a good pick. Um, keep her busy, right? Bro, bring your fucking chick to work day.

02:07:44That's who I'd pick, right? Like right here, right now. I bet she's American,

02:07:47so I'm not sure how that would go down. Bring your chick to work day. This is,

02:07:50this is what's happening. You're going to implant your lady at the top of the country.

02:07:56What is she doing currently? Applied theater. Applied theater. Yep.

02:08:00She's the one for the job. It's, it's gotta be, isn't it? Yeah.

02:08:03Fine. Sold. George?

02:08:04Yeah. I want Dominic Cummings.

02:08:07Oh, you want clients? Okay.

02:08:11Who do you want? He's an old, he's an old, like Cummings is like that old labrador,

02:08:15you know, he's beamed around the track. Like I, I think fresh energy. Jimmy?

02:08:22What? If I, if I said I'd like Mr. Carr to lead us into the next century, what would you say?

02:08:29I, I'd say that we've, we made a mistake in the early eighties and we shut down all of the asylums.

02:08:36And now the crazy people are just wandering around.

02:08:40No, I think, I think, I, I, I, I don't know if you're familiar with, uh, recent American history,

02:08:44but game show hosts have become politicians recently. I'm not always with stellar results.

02:08:49Tusha, give me a, give a German. You give it to the England manager.

02:08:57It seems to be working at the national team level currently as, as we're recording this.

02:09:00That's not a bad shot. Or you could put Gareth Southgate in, given that he's got the,

02:09:03given that he's got the job free. All right, boys.

02:09:05It's the end of season. Let's bring this one home. I appreciate you all. Thank you for joining us.

02:09:09Thank you. It's really fun. Goodbye, my beauties. See ya.

02:09:15Congratulations. You made it to the end of a podcast episode without dying. Now, here's another one.

02:09:22Go on, watch it.

Key Takeaway

Economic competitiveness, modern communication, and societal challenges require targeted structural interventions rather than passive reliance on traditional institutions.

Highlights

A vigilante in Jalisco known as Duck-Tapeman has restrained at least five suspected motorcycle thieves to lampposts over a 10-day period.
Gary Stevenson proposes a 2% wealth tax on annual incomes exceeding 10 million pounds in the UK to raise approximately 25 billion pounds.
Energy costs in the UK are four times higher than in the United States, driving up business and operational expenses.
An eight-minute conversation with ChatGPT reduces belief in conspiracy theories by about 20%, with effects lasting at least two months.
Rowan Atkinson successfully kept Mr. Bean unavailable in Italy for the first 10 years of its run so he could enjoy his holidays there undisturbed.

Timeline

Vigilante Justice and Economic Policy Debates

A Mexican vigilante tapes suspected thieves to lampposts with warning signs.
Gary Stevenson advocates for a 2% wealth tax on incomes over 10 million pounds to address rising inequality.
Critics argue that wealth taxes reduce GDP by driving foreign investors to alternative nations.

Public frustration with inadequate law enforcement leads to unusual vigilante actions in Mexico. Meanwhile, economic discussions center on the viability of wealth taxation versus maintaining competitive tax rates to retain international capital in the UK.

UK Economic Competitiveness and Currency Devaluation

Deliberately devaluing a currency can increase investment attractiveness and spur short-term growth.
High energy costs in the UK place businesses at a severe disadvantage compared to American competitors.
France successfully built 56 nuclear power plants in 10 years during the 1970s to stabilize energy infrastructure.

Nations like China utilize currency devaluation to export goods and lift populations out of poverty. Replicating this strategy alongside aggressive infrastructure investments in nuclear energy provides a viable path to lowering business costs.

Victorian Slang and the Evolution of Language

Victorian slang terms include muffin walloper, butter upon bacon, and afternoonified.
The English language operates as an organic system of anarchy without central regulatory control.
Simple words convey complex ideas more effectively than convoluted vocabulary.

Language evolves organically through social usage rather than top-down directives. Historical slang offers insight into past cultural norms, while effective communication prioritizes concise terminology over dense jargon.

Creative Processes and Historical Work Habits

Charles Darwin used a dedicated walking path with stacked stones to track problem-solving rounds.
Christopher Nolan spent 10 years developing Inception and mapping out its complex dream sequence.
J.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis regularly roasted each other's drafts over pints at the Eagle and Child pub.

Creative breakthroughs often emerge from physical movement and rigorous peer critique. Historical figures relied on walking routines, spreadsheets, and structured collaborative environments to develop enduring works.

Human Mobility, Relationships, and Social Dynamics

Hunter-gatherer step counts averaged 18,000 for men and 15,000 for women daily.
Charles Dickens combated insomnia and writer's block by walking 20 to 30 miles.
Relationships require building a reservoir of goodwill during early positive interactions to survive later friction.

Modern lifestyles feature drastically lower physical activity compared to historical baselines. Maintaining healthy relationships and personal output depends on proactive investments of time and shared positive experiences.

Friendship, Cancellation, and Digital Distractions

Public cancellation acts as a useful filter that reveals genuine foul-weather friends.
Screen addiction and constant smartphone use isolate individuals from immediate physical surroundings.
Aggressive generosity in friendships builds strong social bonds without keeping transactional score.

True friendships prove their value during personal crises rather than comfortable periods. Overreliance on digital devices detracts from real-world engagement and personal well-being.

AI Interventions and Modern Cultural Artifacts

An eight-minute conversation with ChatGPT reduces belief in conspiracy theories by 20%.
Gerald Ratner infamously described his jewelry company's products as total crap, causing a 500 million pound loss.
Whaling was the biggest industry in 1901 before being entirely replaced by alternative lighting technologies by 1903.

Artificial intelligence tools successfully correct factual inaccuracies and mitigate conspiratorial thinking through informed dialogue. Historical examples demonstrate how entire industries vanish rapidly due to technological obsolescence.

Comedy, Writing Craft, and Political Leadership

Rowan Atkinson intentionally kept Mr. Bean unavailable in Italy for a decade to protect his holidays.
Effective writing relies on original phrasing and concrete objects rather than tired cliches.
Political leadership requires genuine competence combined with public relatability.

Mastery in comedy and writing demands precision, original thought, and resilience against audience critique. Long-term societal progress depends on pragmatic policy execution rather than cynical opposition.

Community Posts

No posts yet. Be the first to write about this video!

Write about this video