“We’re At The Beginning Of A Revolution” - Jimmy Carr

English

CChris Williamson

Mental HealthManagementTax Planning

Transcript

00:00:00how many shows did you do last year uh maybe oh god i don't know 250 300 something like that

00:00:06it's the it's the two shows a night thing that that ramps up the numbers and that's been the

00:00:10big kind of innovation in my touring not like going if you yeah there's no line um i think

00:00:16was bb king said it i do the shows for free they pay me to travel and i kind of feel like that i

00:00:21feel like getting there is the hassle doing the show is a joy and so i do a show at seven and then

00:00:27a show at 9 30 in most places so it's that thing of like it's one for me one for hmrc

00:00:33right one goes to the tax man the other one's just all does it really mind yeah pretty much these

00:00:40days yeah definitely be after that much scrutiny what's your relationship with worry like do you

00:00:46get overwhelmed that's a pretty intense schedule oh no no i mean not at all i think that thing about

00:00:51if anything that um decreases the stress level doing that many shows makes you less nervous

00:00:57because it's it's kind of like being an airline pilot it's about sort of hours in the sky

00:01:01so if you spend that much time on stage and then you know i i film everything now so it's often

00:01:07you're you're kind of in the shows you've got you never get bored of it because you know a good third

00:01:12of it is just that night just that show and it changes all the time that's interesting i was like

00:01:17i i sort of used to think about jealousy and envy a lot like the idea that they're different

00:01:22and one is i don't want that person to have that thing and it's a really dark energy right and then

00:01:28there's envy which is telling you what you want you see someone's got something you go oh wow

00:01:32i want that and i remember looking at like um uh matt rife and andrew schultz and their video content

00:01:39online and they were kind of blowing up and going i should i should do that i should take someone on the

00:01:43road and film it and just you know copy that methodology and i did it and i've absolutely

00:01:49loved it it's really kind of changed the way that i that i gig

00:01:52why is it the case that you're not i mean i've been backstage with you before you go out and within

00:01:58minutes before you're about to go on stage you snacking on an apple not really thinking about and

00:02:05then going out and performing in front of 7 000 people is then just reps now under the belts that

00:02:12nerves kind of don't i think it's also like it's it's quite self-selecting being a comedian at sort

00:02:17of at that level where people are you know if i play a club then people have just gone out to see

00:02:22comedy but i'm i'm not in the entertainment business i'm not in the comedy business i'm in

00:02:26the jimmy car business and people have come out to see my show so they kind of know what they're

00:02:31going to get if anyone's offended at this point it's like they bought tickets for a horror movie

00:02:35and they're complaining they're scared it's just it's like okay dum-dum it's like it doesn't it

00:02:41doesn't count it's like so it's also that thing of like the the moments you can have with the

00:02:45crowd now are because they've seen it online because they know what what you do they're they're

00:02:50expecting it okay oh wow i can't believe my luck thank you the service is fantastic there's this line

00:02:56that um made me think about the level of intensity perhaps that you go through with your touring your

00:03:03life does not need to be easier it needs to be simpler your system is designed to handle stress and

00:03:08challenge but not complication you probably handle hard things pretty well but feel overwhelmed when they

00:03:13become messy do not attribute to difficulty that which can be explained by complexity it seems like

00:03:18if what you're doing is touring and focusing on touring and doing the live shows and getting to

00:03:22the next show and being in a good mood and performing well it's kind of one thing all the way as opposed

00:03:27to trying to do that whilst number two and number three and number four and number five well i think it's

00:03:32also that thing of like it's not repetition it's like how many gigs last year you go uh you know 250 or

00:03:37300 and that sounds in a way kind of boring like it would be the same thing again and again and

00:03:42actually it's not it's never repetition it's iteration so you're changing it subtly every time you're

00:03:46changing the jokes you're trying new jokes in at every show every single show at the end of the show

00:03:51you're trying new things so it's con it's quite it's very um stimulating intellectually to

00:03:55to be writing why do you think people get stuck in overthinking uh well let's let's have a think

00:04:02about it that'll help it's like trying to sniff our way out of a cocaine problem it's just like

00:04:07correct how like the fact that you're the person asking that the the rumination king um i don't

00:04:13know i think it's like it's it's anxiety i suppose is what it is overthinking in in in a larger form

00:04:19and my sort of view on it is anxiety is thought without control your thoughts are just wild and a

00:04:27flow state is control without thought and so on stage you are in a flow state you you know what

00:04:34you're doing you know what the jokes are they're just like you don't even have to think about it's

00:04:38the next thing and then people are talking to you and you're just being sort of yourself you're just

00:04:42being loose so it's it becomes like it's a flow state it's not you're not being anxious about

00:04:47anything so finding something where you can do that is that's the secret source finding something that

00:04:54you enjoy doing that you can be in that kind of flow state a thought without control is an interesting

00:04:58insight i think helplessness a lot of people have this sensation that i can't enact my will on the

00:05:06world i can't ensure that this thing is going to uh behave in the way that i want to but if i think

00:05:11about it enough it's kind of the same as preparing for it i i wonder are we um mark fisher

00:05:17wrote about this beautifully about the privatization of anxiety and stress and the idea that we're

00:05:23blaming the individual for mental health problems when if you look at the numbers now if you look

00:05:27at the stats of how many people are suffering with depression and anxiety i think you have to

00:05:32uh conclude that it's a societal problem we're not arranging our society in a way that is uh conducive

00:05:40to good mental health people are incredibly stressed in the world and it's a collective action problem it's not

00:05:47something that you can solve on your own if you're a depressed young man you cannot solve the problem

00:05:52on your own you have a dispersed identity if you want to be happy go and make some other people happy

00:05:57it's a vicious cycle though right because the thing that you need is to rely on other people but given

00:06:04that you're around fewer people than ever before you don't have the same level of cohesion as you

00:06:08would have done a few thousand years ago look at look at what we've done everything's now for the

00:06:11individual right so what used to be a game of five aside you know you know on a on a wednesday night

00:06:17is now a personal best at the gym well that's isolating and the idea that you're tracking your

00:06:23steps every day rather than going for a walk with a friend it's like it's it's very isolating so i'd

00:06:28think of like you know think about the the manosphere um you know there's a lot kind of talk about it the

00:06:34last six months after louis through's brilliant documentary and you you kind of look at it and you go well

00:06:39it's it's the wrong prescription for the right problem there is definitely a problem going on

00:06:44so i mean my my take on it is i'm very i'm pro-gang pro-drinking pro-gambling let me let me let me give

00:06:52you the argument right so pro-gang where should men be together men are really good at checking other

00:06:58men gangs have got a bad reputation because some of them do shoot people and deal drugs okay but that's

00:07:03a very small percentage mostly it's like guys with other guys you know hanging out and they kind of

00:07:08check themselves and it can be an incredibly positive force and i'm very pro uh drinking i mean scott

00:07:15galloway has the best line on it the risk to your liver is as nothing compared to the risk of social

00:07:20isolation so i think we should like lower the drink i've set up these like youth clubs around the world

00:07:27uh they've got like jukeboxes and pool tables and they play sports on a big tv they're really fun

00:07:33uh they're called pubs and they're everywhere right and what we should do is just lean into that go the

00:07:39youth clubs are already there they're called pubs we should lower the drinking age to 16 because if

00:07:44you think 16 year olds aren't drinking well you're living in a fantasy world anyway certainly in the uk

00:07:49i don't know about how much do people drink in the us at 16 quite a bit right yeah yeah people drink at

00:07:5516 here's what you do though you legalize drinking at 16 not for individuals so you've got to bring

00:08:00three mates with you so you can get hammered in a group but not on your own yeah well you're not going

00:08:05to get hammered there's four of you you're going to check yourself you're going to make sure you don't

00:08:07get kicked out of the pub i don't know sometimes i've got friends on in a group of a group of people it

00:08:12gets worse sometimes yeah but you know but maybe but i'm very happy to i'd rather they were

00:08:16together doing that in a space with other people and people of all ages and there's other adults in

00:08:21the room i'd rather that than they were drinking in a park i'd much rather and gambling is like

00:08:26there's a there's a huge problem with gambling at the moment where people are gambling um you know

00:08:30online and sports betting that's like it's a because you're trying to game the system because you can't

00:08:34see a way out right you've got to deal the younger generation in but i think gambling should be

00:08:38it's the bigger things it's taking a gamble on yourself taking a gamble on a career that's the big

00:08:43gamble the big risk saying that you want to do something and kind of coming out someone that's

00:08:47you know ambitious i don't know i think the the younger generation sort of need to be dealt in

00:08:53in a way that they're not at the moment you know what hope is there to to buy a house and start a

00:08:57family it's not that they don't want to it's like they're not given the conditions to do that

00:09:01i don't think there should be any tax on the under 30s have you seen rory sutherland's one which is

00:09:07he thinks i think your first 250 grand should be tax free which is an equivalent that's a great idea

00:09:12yeah so you just get that first 250 000 pounds dollars and no tax on that and then the tax kicks

00:09:19in afterward it's a great idea it's a great idea i mean under 30 is just like that thing of like that

00:09:25life stage of like going just trying to get sort of to the table it's the same reason that bill

00:09:30pokins suggests giving your kids their inheritance when they're 30 because if that that book died with

00:09:36zero is so brilliant it's it's kind of about so much more than that as well that kind of what you

00:09:40should be doing at what stage of life correct so the idea that there's young people you know feeling

00:09:43anxious yeah great well we've arranged our society incorrectly then if everyone it's almost like

00:09:47we've inverted maslov's hierarchy of need you know that kind of pyramid thing where you go okay so you

00:09:54need food and shelter and security on everyone's trying to self-actualize without any friends or a

00:10:00house yeah so so 200 years ago people worried about starving but proud of their name and now people

00:10:06are you know calorifically they're fine and they're anxious it's it's it's not a great situation yeah

00:10:12it's like it's it's kind of you get into kind of i suppose slightly buddhist almost immediately because

00:10:18it's like i think happiness is a time machine i think depression is is thinking about the past and

00:10:23anxiety is a worry about a future self in the moment you tend to be fine but it's you know people people

00:10:31don't have a sense of you know being able to do that being able to kind of sit in the moment well

00:10:35it's interesting with the flow state thing because at least in my experience when you're in the deepest

00:10:39flow state possible you actually don't have much memory of what happened like when you turn around

00:10:44and think about what you were doing at that time i guess it might be the same at least when i've done

00:10:48my job we did shows within days of each other in sydney at darling harbour a few months ago and when

00:10:55you drop into the show you actually someone said how did how did that section go or how did how did the

00:11:02i have no idea what happened yeah you were in the moment because you have moved yourself out of the

00:11:06way and it's i don't know it's it's interesting that what we say that we want is more memories

00:11:10right we want to have time expand and for us to be able to look back and yet the most enjoyable way

00:11:15to spend the present moment is in a way that we won't be able to remember in future it's this sort

00:11:19of odd yeah it's an interesting yeah it's cute but i mean the worst thing is to go oh well i can

00:11:26definitely remember what happened but i remember that i wasn't there i remember that i was worrying

00:11:32about this thing that was going to come up next or that i was fearful about this or i was distracted

00:11:36i wasn't really in the moment that seems like the worst way to spend the present that's kind of the

00:11:42the eckhart tolle story isn't it you know that story about him like he was horribly depressed in

00:11:47his 20s i mean really you know kind of thinking about ending it all and he was on a uh park bench

00:11:54park bench and then he thought to himself i can't live with myself and in saying that he went well

00:11:59who's i and who's myself wait a second and just realized you can kind of separate those two things

00:12:04and get kind of beyond that and and kind of there's a equanimity in in being able to kind of separate

00:12:10yourself from your thoughts sometimes i really do think that the worry is about control right

00:12:13it's strange because no amount of anxiety is going to make any difference to what's going to happen

00:12:18but control is what controls an illusion right the way down i mean i've said this before i think it's

00:12:22i blame the plato and the um zarathustrans for coming up with the idea of heaven and perfection

00:12:29there is no heaven and perfection it's all you know i'm i'm with nietra on this it's it's embrace the

00:12:33chaos that you can't have control over what happens only how you react to it so it becomes

00:12:38very stoic very quickly because you just go well i'll i just i'm in charge of how i react to this

00:12:42stuff i definitely think a lot of people blame themselves and to some degree i understand why

00:12:48because you want to feel like you have agency over what's going on you want to be the person that's

00:12:52in control you don't have to rely on anybody else but a good question to ask yourself is am i depressed

00:12:59or is my life depressing right like am am i anxious or is my life anxiety is it is it depression or

00:13:05sadness you know if it's circumstantial then i think it's sadness i think it's much more acceptable to

00:13:09sound depressed than to say i'm sad but if it's if it's circumstantial and you could do something

00:13:14about it then then great i've been thinking about a thing recently okay i don't believe in generations

00:13:20and you won't find someone who's a bigger neil howe fan than me you know the guy that coined the

00:13:24phrase millennial but i don't really believe in generations i think like putting a whole cohort of

00:13:29people into one box it makes about as much sense to me as horoscopes so you go the idea there are

00:13:35people that are um entitled and there's people that are ambitious in every cohort you know i mean

00:13:42donald trump and joe biden are in the same generation they're very different right so you go

00:13:47well actually there's entitled people that are young and there's there's people that are very ambitious

00:13:50and the difference would be where you are where you want to get to if you want to do something about

00:13:54it you're ambitious and if you want someone else to do something about it if it's their responsibility

00:13:58then that's entitlement it's a pretty good working definition there's lots of you know you meet young

00:14:03people that are just that are you know that are great and they get lumped in with this oh millennials

00:14:08be like this nonsense but there has to be some sort of delineation and i do think that there are

00:14:15changes that occur across time right across group from a long time ago to now there are changes and if

00:14:21you just put these random bars in between them to break them up does that not make sense i don't

00:14:28think i don't think it's helping i don't think it helps um and i think it's uh well i mean listen

00:14:35you know there's me sort of saying i'm contradicting myself and say well i do think we need to do

00:14:39something for the younger generation i think we need to sort of change the world because effectively what

00:14:43have we done we've raised the school at leaving age in the uk to 21. because it's mandatory to get

00:14:49a degree now yeah every everyone you know goes to university and you know a university is a university

00:14:54degree is a luxury item it's a louis vuitton handbag right it's it's that's what it is and you go and

00:15:01if everyone's got one the value of that obviously decreases so you get into peter turchin talks about

00:15:06the end of civilizations he's a brilliant you know peter turchin right he's probably been on the show um so

00:15:11he talks about there's two things two reasons why a society collapses and one is the inequality of wealth

00:15:16which we've almost supercharged now with social media because everyone can see everything all the time

00:15:20and then he talks about the overproduction of elites so when you overproduce elites um and they

00:15:26don't get what they're promised so if you go out and you work hard at school and you get a degree

00:15:31from a good university and then you go well where's where's my four bedroom house where's my

00:15:37wife and family what's what it hasn't delivered then that elite that feels let down by the system and what it

00:15:43tacitly promised them becomes the counter elite and that counter elite fights against the system

00:15:48and tries to bring it down so i think that's why we're kind of in the in the the beginnings of a

00:15:53revolution at the moment i think that's one of the reasons why america has more prevalent victimhood

00:15:59culture than somewhere like the uk does and that's because when you're growing up in the uk you're

00:16:05not really told that you can be whatever you want to be that kind of blue sky thinking helicopter

00:16:09vision i don't think is given to british people in the same way if you diverge from the path that tall

00:16:16poppy syndrome kicks in and you tend to be chopped down pretty quickly whereas in the us for all that

00:16:20it's a horrible misogynistic judgmental xenophobic country trying to keep everybody down the american

00:16:25dream still kind of is accepted it's part of the fabric i think that most people believe and that

00:16:32means that if you did everything right and then grow up and become an adult and the world doesn't deliver

00:16:37to you that which you were promised as a kid quite rightly you feel indignant like hey where's my stuff

00:16:43i think it's the uk i don't think you want there to be some social mobility you want to be able you

00:16:47want essentially you want your kids to do better than you did in life you that's what you kind of want

00:16:52but it really i suppose and the kids also want to do better than you did as well yeah sure i think

00:16:58i think that thing about going you know from a political point of view i'm less concerned with

00:17:02equality you know peter turchin's very worried about there being equality i'm more concerned with

00:17:06abundance you know what does the future hold is it going to be um uh star wars or star trek

00:17:14in 50 years time and i'd love to believe it could be star trek i'd love to believe that there is

00:17:20abundance although even if there is we'll get used to it because the world that we live in now if you

00:17:25showed your great great grandfather your life now he would think you'd be made emperor habituation's a

00:17:30hell of a drug yeah you just you get used to this stuff right so but you know rich and poor is always

00:17:35it's going to be relative and whatever we you know but the idea that everyone's needs are taken care of

00:17:40because really people think they want more money but really money is is the is is the thing that gets

00:17:46you what we really want which is you know good health care and good education and the right amount

00:17:52of calories and you know until you start to fold status in right because one of the big reasons that

00:17:58you want money is to have more money than the guy that lives next door yeah well i think that thing

00:18:02about taking care of everyone's um physical needs in society is is a collective action problem making

00:18:08sure that there's a safety net there that isn't a hammock but but you can't take care of people's

00:18:13metaphysical needs and so the difference would be between you know a casio watch that tells the time

00:18:18perfectly reasonably and a blingy rolex that shows that hey you made a baby or whatever that that

00:18:25whatever the the the extra value you get from what it means to you rather than but i mean you you know

00:18:31get into that kind of renee gerard where we're full of kind of mimetic desires we don't know what to

00:18:35want and that thing of like not having to impress other people that's the superpower yes yeah that's

00:18:40the thing that really makes a difference to the quality of your life if you if you know what you

00:18:44want you don't have to impress other people like that really does simplify life that would be a

00:18:47wonderful gift i don't know how the hell you would give it to people but the gift of being able to say

00:18:51you don't have to impress anybody else would liberate so many people from perverse desires from being

00:18:58distracted by things that they don't actually want to do that they're only doing to perform it's the

00:19:03hidden versus observable metrics thing that me and george talk about all the time it's interesting

00:19:07getting getting stuff is fun having stuff isn't fun getting stuff is fun um and that's it's a it's a

00:19:12weird kind of lesson i mean you talk about that the 2d 3d lessons correct it's a real 3d lesson you

00:19:17have to experience that correct you kind of go wilkins was my first big 2d 3d lesson thing i read

00:19:22the book and then i brought him on the show that's like a 2d and then maybe a 2.5d lesson getting to

00:19:27sit down with him and talk about these ideas about how to structure your life and to focus on having

00:19:31fun and spending money in smart ways that brings you together with other people and then we finished

00:19:36the episode and he said what are you going to do now and i was like i'm probably going to go home

00:19:41and write the show notes for this episode and upload to get the file across to my editor and stuff

00:19:45and he says do you want to come wake surfing it's like okay of course i do went went downstairs

00:19:50he had a driver outside waiting for us we got on the boat with the boat captain who had swim shorts

00:19:55and a towel and then we did that and then we went back to his house on the lake which is the most

00:19:59expensive house ever sold in austin and then we did this thing and then his driver on the way to take

00:20:03him back on his jet dropped me off at home i was like oh that's a that's a 3d lesson like i could

00:20:09have read the book 50 times and not had the same tangible visceral experience yeah and that what

00:20:16should be what you yeah what you should be doing right now is is it's hard to get your head around

00:20:20that though i think it's uh it's not easy for young people i think it's it feels like it feels like um

00:20:28limitations are very freeing correct feels once you decide what you want to do and what you're going to

00:20:34work out and who you're going to be with life gets very simple because you you stop thinking about how

00:20:39to live and you start thinking about living well yeah i i guess an analogy would be if you were

00:20:46in a boat in the middle of the ocean if you just have to row real hard and you know the direction

00:20:51you're going in that's yeah probably not that's a muck is really a slide isn't it the uh if uh

00:20:57if you don't know where you're going no wind is favorable uh yeah yeah not not too dissimilar but

00:21:00i suppose if you're also having to direct yourself you're lost in the rumination of i i took five

00:21:06miles in that direction but maybe i should if i take a slight right here and so yeah i mean david

00:21:11epstein's new book is all about this it's all about the power of constraints and how they breed

00:21:14creativity and yeah people think that they want as much optionality in life as they can get

00:21:20homozy's very good on this i i met homozy the other day for the first time but we kind of felt it

00:21:24felt like getting together with an old friend i can't imagine two people that are sartorially more

00:21:28different than you and alex yeah it was we did we looked slightly slightly odd at dinner um yeah it

00:21:33was uh it was really interesting it was uh it's really interesting because his thing is like

00:21:37he's knew what big idea was like there's too much optionality and if you never cash in those

00:21:41options what's the point i like getting a you know an mba you know masters and then a phd in

00:21:48business it's like no no just start a business it doesn't matter if it goes bust start another

00:21:52one the map is not the territory get out there and do the thing yeah there's a i think that's

00:21:58another challenge that young people have everybody has saying young people it's anybody that is existing

00:22:03in this current world which is that your ability to say things as opposed to do things

00:22:09has never been more tuned up like you are what you do not what you'll say you do and unfortunately

00:22:19talking about the thing and doing the thing vie for the same resources right you need to allocate yours

00:22:23appropriately yeah don't tell me about your priorities show me last week's diary yeah that's

00:22:27what you actually did yeah yeah yeah and i think if the prospect of being able to kind of talk your

00:22:34way or proclaim your way publicly and privately right to yourself i'm going to put this plan together i've

00:22:39got this this is one of the issues of obsessing over productivity too much that productivity ends

00:22:45up becoming the goal not the means in order to be able to get a goal the sort of masturbation of

00:22:52of productivity keeps on happening and they're off yeah away they go most people don't realize how much

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00:23:50slash modern wisdom there's a mark manson line i wanted to get you to react to

00:23:55the small thing you didn't say six months ago has been collecting interest ever since

00:24:00by the time resentment shows up fully formed most people have forgotten what the original

00:24:03conversation even was and i think that the same thing is true for when we don't keep promises to

00:24:09ourselves as well when you had this plan you made this deal with yourself a long time ago you can't

00:24:16quite remember it but there's this latent distrust in you doing what you said you were going to do

00:24:24and no one else knows about it it's just you it's your relationship with you i said that i was going

00:24:28to do this thing and i didn't show up and i didn't show up and i didn't show up and after a while you

00:24:34begin to resent the part of yourself that makes plans because you don't think that it's going to

00:24:38come into fruition yeah well i suppose it's that thing of like you know having a six pack it doesn't

00:24:43give you confidence being the guy that shows up at the gym every day gives you confidence like the

00:24:48you you take care of yourself i think it's that yeah it's a it's a very interesting sort of i think that it's about compound interest really because compound interest on money is miraculous

00:24:57is miraculous when you when you look at you know buffett and his wealth most of it was built through

00:25:03time time is the factor that people don't take into consideration they're a very smart investor but

00:25:08really time was the thing 90 of his wealth was accumulated after the age of 60 is exactly right

00:25:14yeah it's it's like but compound interest on your skills is insane if you put the reps in if you do the

00:25:20work it's insane what you build over time but it's it's it gets back to that thing for me about your your goals

00:25:26will be beaten by your systems every time everyone's got great goals everyone's got big ambitions but

00:25:32like what are you going to do tomorrow what's the small thing that you can break off and it's manageable

00:25:36and you can do it today it's why i love kind of what i do you know mainly it's jokes and writing jokes is

00:25:42is comparatively easy because you can just sit down and write one and then you test it there's no point

00:25:47discussing it there's no point having a meeting where you go through it with some some friends just go out

00:25:53find an audience tell them they'll tell you whether it's funny or not great feedback loop

00:25:57i suppose the problem with most other projects is that you can't iterate a product and get audience

00:26:03feedback quite so quickly you can't work out whether or not you want to release a t-shirt design in one

00:26:09small chunk go through all of the process of getting the t-shirt design get it printed see how

00:26:14many people want to buy oh one person well let's update it again the iterative nature of that is is

00:26:19pretty cool yeah it's it's it's harder it's hard i mean i've you know i'm very lucky i think to be in

00:26:24a business where it's it's that thing of like if the audience like it they tell you straight away

00:26:28and they can't not tell you either even people can dislike you but if you tell a joke that's

00:26:33sufficiently funny i think that the response just sort of kicks well even if it's like my favorite

00:26:36noise in comedy is still that kind of cognitive dissonance laugh where there's a laugh followed

00:26:41by a deep where they go they're shocked at themselves for having just oh i guess you laughed

00:26:47at it because you're you're the laughter kind of betrays you i think you're laughed like it's kind of a

00:26:51deeper level of view i suppose actually i might be a little bit wrong there if you really really don't

00:26:56like somebody and you decide to sit in the third row with your arms crossed you know go on then funny

00:27:00man make me laugh i think you can will yourself or convince yourself into not liking somebody that's

00:27:09doing well at their craft in comedy i don't think that the same thing is quite so true in music i think

00:27:14that an absolute banger pierces through your defenses even more so than comedy i think

00:27:21something that would be less than that would be a conversation right conversation between two

00:27:24people on stage or some sort of like keynote speech or whatever i wasn't even that interesting

00:27:29i didn't find it engaging comedy is deeper and then music is deeper still it's like the art

00:27:34the art and the artist and can you can you separate them can someone that's done a terrible

00:27:37thing and you know they've done a terrible thing can they still be funny can they still be musically

00:27:41gifted yeah yeah i think you probably can tease it out i think it's probably fine

00:27:46peter crone's got a question who could you be in the absence of your concerns it made me think about

00:27:52that's it that's that's really good isn't it like that's that's uh you could you be in the absence of

00:27:57your concern there's a great line i have to think of which is the um uh you can do anything you want

00:28:03you only have to face the consequences it's like it's really powerful because it's that thing of like

00:28:09going you've got absolute freedom but you have to wear it like there's freedom of speech but not freedom of

00:28:13consequence and i think about st lawrence a lot you know the story of st lawrence no he's the patron saint

00:28:20of comedy and st lawrence was um he was burnt by i think it's like it's a really good name for an

00:28:26emperor some like it's something like voldemort like this emperor burnt him alive over a fire and

00:28:33as he was being burnt alive so lawrence went turn me over this side's done and it makes me think of

00:28:40bravery right that's that's a very brave thing to say in a pretty awful moment but the only reason we

00:28:46remember him is because he said that you go there's there's a certain amount of like bravery like yeah

00:28:50no say the thing say the thing good luck some people won't like it be all right who could you be in the

00:28:56absence of your concerns but me and george keep on talking about the fact that so many people are held

00:29:03back by a lack of confidence rather than the lack of competence like their self-belief is

00:29:09the biggest rate limiter on what it is that they can achieve yeah but i mean that self-confidence comes

00:29:16from mr mosey's line yeah it's you know self-confidence comes from giving the world irrefutable proof you are

00:29:21who you say you are so it's that thing of like find something small that you can do you know do what

00:29:26what you can with what you've got where you are you know it's you could wish away the first two i wish

00:29:31i had different things and i was somewhere else just you know accepting the reality of where you are

00:29:36and working with that seems to seems to be pretty powerful because you just you know start off and

00:29:40you know you can't choose where you start you just choose where you finish what's your relationship

00:29:44like with gratitude well i do a lot of gratitude practice i think it's there's a uh meister uh tole um

00:29:53said uh if you only said one prayer and it was thank you that would be enough i think that's

00:30:00bang on i think it's the the only thing is disposition is more important than position

00:30:05where you are in the world doesn't matter your disposition is everything and the only thing

00:30:09that seems to shift disposition is a sense of gratitude so across sort of time and space like

00:30:14we're lucky to be here now and we're lucky to have the friends that we have we're lucky to have

00:30:18living the world that we live in it's extraordinary that we're in a privileged position uh and i think

00:30:24acknowledging that on the regular is is great are you able to take time to celebrate when you're

00:30:29moving so quickly yeah i kind of think that thing of like celebration and gratitude are kind of linked

00:30:34i think done correctly celebration is gratitude in action like you you know you throw a party and you

00:30:40invite everyone you celebrate and you you know there's kind of a there's something lovely about that

00:30:44kind of connection to other people and and kind of doing it with others i don't think you can really

00:30:48celebrate on your own i think being grateful with other people is really good as well

00:30:52you can sit down and chat with other people about how great is this it's really nice i think a lot of

00:30:57people struggle especially when they're at their busiest to take time away from doing the thing

00:31:03to think about the thing and to realize how fortunate that they are to be in that situation yeah well

00:31:07chairman mao isn't it uh you can't smell the roses from a galloping horse i think i should i should

00:31:13put together chairman mao quotes i should i should put together a book i was thinking about this and

00:31:17put together a book of like incredibly wise stuff from dead by shitty people like it'd be quite a good

00:31:24quote book of like going well i guess you know stop watches right twice a day it would be nice to

00:31:28have the quote on one page and then the person that said it on the next page yeah oh equanimity with

00:31:33impermanence wow hitler oh damn it yeah that's ruined that for me yeah uh but uh not that he

00:31:40never said that it is a it is it is an interesting challenge right when things are going well and

00:31:45everything's busy and you're not really paying that much attention that is the time when gratitude is

00:31:50probably most available to you but you're so busy and the calendar is always packed and you're moving

00:31:55forward you're excited about the future so taking time to reflect on the present is pretty tough and

00:32:01then when things slow down and stuff starts to go a little bit worse that's when you wish that you'd

00:32:05had the gratitude from before to be able to rely on and you retroactively trying to think about it's

00:32:10the frames as well it's how you think about stuff it's like problems right problems are a feature not

00:32:16a bug a problem just means something needs your attention and i think i think people have a crazy

00:32:22notion if they stop and think about it that one day their problems will be over they'll have dealt with

00:32:27everything and it's done and it's it's well obviously not there'll be you just level up

00:32:32all you do is level up and you get more complex complex problems if you can solve really complex

00:32:37problems you're doing very well in the world you know elon musk is a trillionaire why because he

00:32:42solved some very complex problems and there's money to be made doing that right so you go so problems are

00:32:47a bug a feature not a bug that they're they're great it just means something needs your attention you

00:32:52should be grateful for that someone needs your time someone needs you need to take this call you need

00:32:56to deal with this thing boredom i think is um boredom is unappreciated serenity it's just you're in a

00:33:04serene moment there's nothing going on great doesn't happen often like i can get to where tibetan monks

00:33:10get to in an airport lounge in detroit nothing going on as long as you don't get your phone out yeah it's

00:33:16fine just yeah well that thing of like we're kind of we're carrying the phone everywhere with us now

00:33:21the the the it's it's like the mobile labor camp tracking our every mood crazy i was in the gym

00:33:30a couple of months ago of course you were look at you yeah and one of my friends was talking to me

00:33:36about how his wife keeps on complaining at him that he uses his phone at night and he's always sending

00:33:40messages organizing stuff running businesses or whatever and he came up with a very fortunate

00:33:46but uh i think actually philosophically pretty interesting excuse which is he said

00:33:52i've got a mind that likes to solve problems i'm just trying to give it good problems to solve

00:33:58i think lots of people have a problem solving brain yeah but only some people have great problems that

00:34:03they're going to solve with it well that's what i think of with anxiety like my mind is often racing

00:34:08often like wake up um with i suppose what you call a panic attack at like four or five in the morning

00:34:14i wake up when my mind's just on and i'll worry about stuff and it's it's often counterfactuals

00:34:21worried about you know things going wrong people getting hurt you just kind of ruminate on

00:34:25crazy stuff and if i give it like oh we know but we need to write a joke about keir starmer

00:34:31or andy bernie or something you go okay right great give it something to do

00:34:37so using action as an antidote to anxiety then yeah i love that i love the idea that you go well that's

00:34:41that cures it pretty pretty well it's very difficult to worry about the future when you

00:34:45feel like you're moving yourself toward it and yeah that that problem solving brain thing is interesting

00:34:50because i wonder how many people are churning themselves up inside because they have a brain

00:34:56that likes to solve problems but they don't have any good problems to solve so they pay attention to

00:35:02politics or porn or their ex or this situation that's outside of their control in some foreign

00:35:09country that they they can't get access to well have we is that not what the news is though i mean if

00:35:13you were trying to design something to um engender mental health difficulties you'd make someone aware

00:35:19of a problem and and give them no agency right and that's what reading about the middle east is right

00:35:24so you just go it's a absolute clusterfuck of a situation and there's nothing good luck dealing with

00:35:30that we can do about it there's nothing we can there's nothing that you can do about it yeah

00:35:34because if i don't know i wonder whether it would feel better or worse for the situation to

00:35:40actively have nothing you could do about there's an asteroid coming to earth no one can do anything

00:35:44about it it's the the simulacrum that someone could fix this but not you yeah i mean we're not

00:35:51we're not in that game it's uh yeah it's it's very i think that thing about having uh agency at a i think

00:36:00i think that okay there's a there's a bigger thing here which is i think we give maybe empathy to

00:36:05people that we like and agency to people that we don't like so if you imagine there's two marches

00:36:13right and one of them is like super far right uh dudes marching with skinheads and jack boots we

00:36:20give them agency if they put a brick through a window we say right lock them up and throw away the

00:36:25key right and then there's another um march and it's people marching for social justice right and we we

00:36:32and they throw a brick through a window we go well you know that's the language of the the streets you

00:36:36know the unheard at that thing of like so we give them empathy and then agency and actually you should

00:36:40give both both you need agency and empathy for everyone like the idea that you go believe that

00:36:48people can handle it and believe that they're you know everyone's got like um a part to play

00:36:55we need to be responsible for the things that you did but also you're enmeshed in the situation that

00:37:00sort of brought you to that point too like the motivations of what got you there but yeah that that

00:37:05that problems thing i really do think i i wonder how many people would all that they need are better

00:37:13problems to solve all that they need is something to focus their time and their attention on in a

00:37:18better way and yeah if you've got this situation that's occurring overseas i came back from a

00:37:22meditation retreat last week i'd spent seven days without my phone almost exclusively in silence and i

00:37:27came back and i was flying out of sf and walked into the departure terminal and one of the pieces of

00:37:33advice that we've been given was to put sunglasses on and put airpods in because you've basically been

00:37:37in silence for a week and no screens no nothing like it's a lot of stimulus to go from zero to a

00:37:43hundred i went and sat down in this some airport restaurant thing i looked up at the screens and

00:37:51it was wildfires in europe raging that was the first thing i saw on a screen basically since i'd got

00:37:56right off of this retreat and i remember feeling this strange constriction inside of me and i'm like

00:38:03right i better get a hose why yeah why the fuck is that what's on i'm aware like is it newsworthy

00:38:09like yeah kind of but like what is it do it's it makes us feel like we're being informed about the

00:38:15world but really all it's doing is just piercing our nervous systems and making us feel worried about

00:38:19the stuff strange and yet i want to be informed about what's happening in the world i feel like i

00:38:24i'm so i guess addicted to that like i like knowing what's going on i like thinking about what the

00:38:28solution might be but i guess you don't you know you get to chat about it but you don't really get to

00:38:34uh influence what happens before we continue most people in their 30s are still training hard their

00:38:40protein is dialed in they sleep better than they did in their 20s discipline is not the issue but recovery

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00:39:51and modern wisdom at checkout the gratitude points is michael smoke's got this line where he says i have

00:39:59a hard time celebrating my achievements because in my mind it was my obligation to achieve it a lot of

00:40:04people that are high performers have this sense that the higher that you climb the further you have to fall

00:40:09as you get better your standards are always going to increase so you're always going to suck in

00:40:12comparison to what you think that you should do that's great because it continues to push you to work

00:40:16harder to improve but also it means that success isn't a cause for celebration it's just the minimum

00:40:24level of acceptable performance and anything less than success becomes a failure yeah well i think that that

00:40:30that thing then you need to you need to be in a state of um uh i guess imposter syndrome once every 18

00:40:40months two years you need to level up constantly where you feel like you're in a space where oh well

00:40:45this is this i can't believe i did that that was good uh like push yourself a little bit i think try

00:40:50and do something else is that difficult when you've got close to the top of your game

00:40:54well it depends what game you're in you can change games you can you sort of do things a little bit

00:40:58differently so that thing of like going it's um it's about i suppose you know my my business is uh

00:41:04you know you i'm in the service industry right i make something that people want i make them happy

00:41:10and no one seems to remember any of my jokes but they remember how i made them feel and the show tonight

00:41:16is nothing more than an advert for the show when i come back next time that's the way i'm kind of

00:41:20thinking of it and then you're trying to find these moments now i've the show's changed over the last

00:41:25couple of years where there's moments in every show there's like a moment someone will ask something and

00:41:29you'll chat to them and it'll be slightly more um heartfelt and they'll always be kind of they're

00:41:35kind of sweetening the pill with laughter why did you change that i i think it was i don't know what

00:41:41happened i don't know what you know went on that i suddenly started chatting to people in the audience

00:41:47and we started to connect in a slightly different way it's been really lovely and people i think

00:41:54i think comedy is it's a i love that line laughter is the shortest distance between two people

00:42:00and i've often done this thing i've spoken about it i think to you before about um

00:42:04if you your best friend is the person you have the least filter with right so so if you meet someone

00:42:09on a plane and you go wow i see the world cup it's a good game on it nothing right surface level and if

00:42:15you say oh my god you have to see these hemorrhoids it's incredible like it's a you know it's connecting

00:42:20at another level you're just like you've got no filter with that person that's your best friend in

00:42:23the world and if you treat the audience like that you get paid back um 10 times over like people feel

00:42:29that oh okay there's no he's treating us like adults he's saying the things that he thinks are funny

00:42:34and there's a real there's a connection there and then increasingly like people aren't talking about

00:42:39things in the in the in the media in the mainstream media so there's a gap there to chat about things

00:42:44that you know what's going on in the world isn't it interesting that what you're looking to do with

00:42:49comedy to kind of say the thing that maybe lots of people think or hadn't realized that they thought

00:42:55and to say it with a degree of uh no fucks slash bravery that mean that you're the person that

00:43:03that uh pushes the boundary in that regard well i think the overton window like people talk about

00:43:07the overton window in politics the idea that you go there's what's the most left-wing and what's

00:43:11the most right-wing thing you could say that's socially acceptable at a dinner party right that's

00:43:15the overton window of conversation right and it's expanded massively in politics the last couple

00:43:19years to the left and to the right for better for worse i think comedy does that for conversation

00:43:25i think the real benefit of going to a comedy show isn't necessarily the two hours you spend laughing

00:43:29at the jokes at the show it's the conversation you have on the way home where you've the conversational

00:43:34overton window has has broadened i don't think people were as open talking about sex and politics

00:43:39uh before and after george carlin and richard prior came along that's interesting they expanded the

00:43:45window and i think you know someone like you know chapelle's out there expanding the window

00:43:49of what you can and can't talk about so you've got that with uh i don't know what to say

00:43:54how to categorize it spicy topics uh um insights that might be somewhat controversial or inflammatory

00:44:02or on the edges of what people would typically do but there's another dimension which is the sort of

00:44:07level of sincerity or earnestness or emotionality a depth maybe uh uh unapologetic

00:44:17self-deprecating sometimes exposing look how people are motivated and maybe how you are motivated or

00:44:25maybe how somebody in the audience feels about something and that almost feels like another type

00:44:30of overton window and it's separate from the first one it doesn't all need to be um you know you talk

00:44:35about the incredibly controversial thing i'm very happy to talk about third rail topics and try and be

00:44:39funny about them but i'm also very happy to to be earnest and to be sincere about it there's a level

00:44:44of earnestness as well which is commonly publicly accepted and there is a level of earnestness and

00:44:50depth which pushes outside of that as well kind of obsessed with this idea that people are desperate for

00:44:55authenticity but they're allergic to sincerity that people love the idea of someone just being themselves

00:45:01speaking their truth forward but when you see a father break down crying because his wife left him

00:45:09there's a a lot of the internet has this sort of allergic aversion response to that

00:45:14that the there is a we want people to show themselves i think if you if you're going to do

00:45:18anything that's that's even vaguely out there you've got to turn off the comment section yeah other

00:45:24people's opinion of me is none of my business just you do your thing and you go you've got your

00:45:28audience and they come and they enjoy it and we have a good time great like anyone kind of you know

00:45:33throwing shade on that and going well you know how can how can you talk about serious things he's

00:45:36he tells offensive jokes okay well i mean we all contain multitudes you get what i mean though here

00:45:41right like you have the classic overton window and then you have this emotional overton window as

00:45:45well which is how how deep are you prepared to go in a live show how how edgy are your jokes

00:45:51allowed to be and how earnest are your conversations allowed to be and there is a limit there is a

00:45:56not even a limit but there is an expected bar beyond which oh like that people really

00:46:02sort of prick their ears up and pay attention and have a kind of they have a more animated response

00:46:07to it and i think that one of the areas that you can dig into is like holy shit like he really

00:46:12he really went there or when you're sat down with a friend or you have having a conversation with a

00:46:16friend over dinner and it's you know bouncing between the level of emotionality that's normal

00:46:22and then it descends into one that is not so common well i think it's a thing about what are you what are

00:46:29you solving for in a comedy show like laughter is the main metric right for comedy you want there

00:46:33to be three big laughs a minute and you want to have that frequency with the jokes but also silence

00:46:40don't be don't be afraid of silence like a silence where there's a poignant moment and everyone

00:46:44has a little thing good fine we can have that as well but it's nice that it's changing because i

00:46:50mean it keeps it very exciting for me that you're not you're not doing the same thing again and again

00:46:53it's not like you're doing the same show that we've got kind of different flavors certainly

00:46:59you're looking to optimize for memorability to a degree as well like for people to go like yeah i

00:47:04really really loved that sensation as opposed to what did you do what was it like to go and see this

00:47:11artist last year and you're like i can't remember well the memorable is interesting because if someone

00:47:14choosing to come and see you live it's a big deal right but really i think people want to go out to

00:47:19festivals see music see they want to see play but also like we used to gather around the fire and talk

00:47:27right and then we gathered around the radio and we talked and then we gathered around the television

00:47:32and we talked and even something like the royal family you know that remember that sitcom in the uk

00:47:37right yeah it's like a distant memory people watching tv like that because now we have the phones

00:47:42and people are on their own they're watching their own thing they're watching their own stream even if

00:47:47they were in the same living room together each person would be on a screen of their own that nobody

00:47:52else is looking at and i suppose hey have you seen this thing but yeah you are right the royal family

00:47:57which i guess americans are definitely not going to understand the reference but people sitting around

00:48:01watching the television together as a family and you would watch shows that you weren't necessarily

00:48:05that into because mom liked it so you go oh i guess we're watching desperate housewives whatever it was

00:48:10there's only one tv as opposed to five tvs per room i was thinking about this recently about the

00:48:16the idea of social media and the the issues around it the bigger picture there used to be a thing

00:48:22when i was at school where people talk about um the native american peoples having this belief that if

00:48:28someone took their photo it would steal their soul okay and i remember thinking oh that's crazy that is

00:48:35ridiculous they think their photo is going to steal their soul and now i think yeah i mean it might

00:48:41not be one photo but a thousand a day that'll do it that'll absolutely do it that will that will break

00:48:47you away from who you are that'll you'll you'll be alienated from yourself and then i was thinking

00:48:52about that even the language of it it's not hiding it's nets and webs the internet

00:48:58how so it's the web right it's the internet what do nets and webs do they catch people

00:49:05that's what it's doing i think aldous huxley was right about this our power will not be taken from

00:49:10us by some overlord i think we'll give it away for cheap dopamine and aldous huxley said it was uh soma

00:49:16which was the tablet right and he was even right about that it's just a different kind of tablet

00:49:21so not some equivalent here of uh treating people like slaves caused them to not work as hard as

00:49:28you might want them to and they would rebel and sometimes they would be lazy but if you can manage

00:49:32to create a system where people actually want to work as hard for you as you want them to work by

00:49:38incentivizing them on the back end then you'll get them to continue to drive themselves insane as they

00:49:43work harder and harder i guess it's kind of the same here but with regards to distraction and freely

00:49:49giving away your information and giving away your attention as well you don't need to demand it from

00:49:53people you just need to make the incentives align that they want to give it to you yeah it's i mean

00:49:56it's a really interesting time i think we haven't got this it's a very new technology as well these new

00:50:00technologies are coming along we have to sort of integrate them into our society i think it will be

00:50:05ultimately the trajectory will be up and it'll be better but we have to learn how to work with this stuff i mean

00:50:10ai is the other thing that everyone's kind of talking about you go we haven't quite figured out what it

00:50:14is yet i think ai is like a musical instrument and anyone can sit down at a piano and make a noise at

00:50:21the piano but it takes time and attention and practice to direct it into creating a symphony right it's

00:50:30it's it's like an instrument you're we're going to be using that tool but how do we use it and at the moment

00:50:35it's it's very sort of early stages it's that thing of um my take on ai is like i don't have religion i

00:50:42don't think we were made in god's image but i think we so wanted there to be a god we created one in our

00:50:48image it's all-knowing all-powerful can create miracles and lives in a cloud well what am i talking about

00:50:57i think it's like that that's it's hegel and nietzsche had the idea hundreds of years ago the idea that

00:51:02the god wasn't there for the big bang but the universe is a device for creating god

00:51:10and then we are the universe experiencing itself everyone's very impressed with ai

00:51:16because they've forgotten what they are yeah we are much more impressive than ai ai is really good

00:51:21at left brain chip really good at left brain stuff but the right brain stuff and and the left brain

00:51:27um apprehends but the right brain comprehends it's all ian mcgilchrist's stuff and that idea that you go

00:51:34the gestalt the whole the complex stuff it can't do it can do the complicated though so well so in a

00:51:40sense maybe it'll take away the drudgery of life and allow us to be more human and to do more artistic

00:51:47fulfilling fun things with our lives that make us feel more connected that's the dream yeah that's

00:51:54that's the dream that's being put forward i think a lot of people have kind of forgotten about the

00:52:00connection comprehend side of things of their own existence so much that if there is a threat to the

00:52:10drudgery being taken away and that's not to say that that's all it's going to do right it very

00:52:14well might take away everything else as well well but we can only see the jobs that will take away

00:52:18because they already exist we can't see the jobs that will create because by definition they don't

00:52:22exist yet so it's that thing of like going well it's it we're in this we're in a pickle now and it's

00:52:27this has happened before this is precedented the industrial revolution really made physical strength

00:52:34obsolete you don't need that anymore to farm the land to to to make things you don't need physical

00:52:40strength machines do all of that for us and then this is taking away some of the the drudgery of

00:52:45white-collar work but hopefully the creativity will become will be uniquely human favorable conditions

00:52:53never come there are always plenty of rivals to our work we are always falling in love or quarreling

00:52:58looking for jobs or fearing to lose them getting ill and recovering following public affairs if we let

00:53:03ourselves we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really

00:53:08get down to our work the only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that

00:53:12they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable favorable conditions never come yeah that's

00:53:18really good isn't it but just there is this sense that at some point in future my problems will be out of

00:53:27the way and i can finally get down to doing the real thing as opposed to thinking this is the situation

00:53:35that i'm existing in i'm always going to be faced with problems there is never going to be a time

00:53:39where i have none like completing a video game and arriving at a level where there's no more enemies

00:53:43that's just what life is yeah well you want people to have some idea that there's a future that there's

00:53:50a um that they want to start families that they want to um live a life you know there's you know

00:53:57shocking statistics about the abortion rate in the uk you heard this i don't know so it's i think it's

00:54:04one in three viable pregnancies now and an abortion in the uk which you know put the morality to one

00:54:10side um that's not my business but the idea of going well what does that really suggest that people

00:54:14feel that they can't start a life they can't build a family they can't you know settle down they don't

00:54:20feel able to with the you know the the climate that we have at the moment yeah favorable conditions

00:54:25never come yeah the favorable conditions you want people to feel like they can you know that life's

00:54:29going to be better for their kids well it's going to be better for them wouldn't it be wonderful

00:54:32if favorable conditions felt like they were here even when they weren't like that's the kind of

00:54:37world that you want people to be in right an abundance mindset as opposed to a scarcity mindset

00:54:41like believing that you need to wait for favorable conditions in future is by definition a scarcity

00:54:46mindset right now is not enough and in future it may be better if i can construct the world into this

00:54:50very specific kind of a way it does feel like we're living through a very kind of unique time

00:54:55i mean i suppose everyone always thinks this but like did they in the 90s there was nothing

00:54:58going on in the 90s there was i mean you you lived through it you tell me yeah relatively

00:55:02quiet right yeah it's the kind of the end of pax americana and really since this phase of history

00:55:09sort of starts in 89 91 it's the berlin war collapses the soviet union's gone and suddenly you go from

00:55:15being a bipolar world to a unipolar world and no one noticed for you know 30 years but just as the

00:55:21american navy got smaller like the canary in the coal mine was the somali pirates like that never would

00:55:28have happened when the us navy was at full strength with an enemy in russia that it was you know it

00:55:34would have policed that no problem at all safe navigation yeah they would have they would have

00:55:38schooled them and and then suddenly sort of things fracture suddenly you've got all these sort of

00:55:43different things we live in a multi-polar world now and it's very confusing it's you know on a

00:55:48geopolitics level it's it's a very strange time and you're seeing this revolution go on

00:55:53you know if you take revolution to mean the replacement of elites like the mainstream media

00:55:59is being replaced um the the academia there's a replication crisis and they've lost a lot of

00:56:05credibility um politics now the the major parties in the uk may never win another election uh the ones

00:56:12that we've had the last hundred years it's it really is kind of a a fracturing of our system

00:56:18i suppose it gets back to robert frost and the idea of civilization is a clearing in the forest

00:56:23and we have to re-litigate and rebuild all of this stuff did you know your gut controls your

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00:57:20at checkout do you think that people are going to look back in 50 years time 30 years time at 2026

00:57:26and go those were the good old days the nostalgia that a lot of people have for the 90s i don't know i

00:57:32think there's there's something about the uh the what's that lovely quote the uh strong men make

00:57:39good times good times make weak men weak men make hard times hard times make strong men and so it goes

00:57:46and i think there's something about we're in a very tumultuous time now like the tech you think this is

00:57:52hard times yeah yeah i think this is this is hard times i think it's it's very tough out there for people and

00:57:58um i think that there's a lack of leadership and there's you know you look at how countries are

00:58:03being run it's it's yeah it's clearly these are these are hard times you know the idea of kayfabe

00:58:09right that thing from wwe where it's all about the kind of the meta game that's being played the optics

00:58:14it's everything is unreal and surreal and definitely if you look back i mean there was that um debate

00:58:22analysis between obama and i can't remember who it was that he was going up against uh in sort of 2012

00:58:322008 and before they begin they just wanted to i just wanted to say my opponent i respect him very much

00:58:39and i appreciate that this thing and then you roll the clock forward to this literal wwe event

00:58:47where there's personal insults and swearing and back and forth and you think i i don't know the the

00:58:55is statesmanlike behavior unnecessary stodge is it this sort of uh the prim and proper

00:59:04pomp and circumstance which isn't needed or has something there been if not lost like caricatured

00:59:12sort of turned into this this uh uh exposition of itself this sort of ridiculous role-playing

00:59:19game everybody's larping is what they're supposed to be and it's all being turned to extremis

00:59:24it certainly feels very extreme at the moment i mean it really it really does but i think i don't

00:59:28think it's unfixable i think we've been in worse spots than this in the past you know there must

00:59:33have been there must have been people sort of in 1943 going this is we're in the middle of a world

00:59:38war this is bad isn't it this is bad what's going to happen how are we going to straighten this out

00:59:42i think about that a lot i think about how sort of kinetically and literally things were significantly

00:59:47worse at almost every period in human history up until now but i wonder whether sort of metaphysically

00:59:52and symbolically things were quite as bad i wonder whether we have the most sort of confusing time now

00:59:59even if it's not the most kinetically dangerous time yeah i don't know i don't know i mean i think

01:00:03there's there's solutions out there and i think it's a it's a question of um i think statesman is

01:00:09really the thing that you you need you need great leadership in these kind of times he's someone

01:00:13that's good thinking about sort of 20 years in the future rather than the election cycle what's

01:00:18happening in the uk at the moment i've not been back for a while the uk is not it's not in a great

01:00:21situation and i mean i think andy burnham's gonna take over and uh i wish him well and i don't know

01:00:27what's going to change i think it requires some sort of radical realism you know if you were going to

01:00:33fix the uk what would you do i think the fundamentals are it needs to be more competitive as a nation

01:00:40and what makes a nation competitive well two percent on income tax either way or changing the stamp duty

01:00:46laws it's all kind of nothing just rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic they need someone to

01:00:53come in and actually address the real problem there's four things that affect a country's competitiveness

01:00:59i think there's the currency the rate the currency there's the energy cost there's the amount of um

01:01:06uh would you call it um red tape bureaucracy uh and and there's that well and then hang on i'll have

01:01:14a drink culture no no uh sorry i'll give you that again um so you've got the currency yep you've got

01:01:23energy costs you've got um red tape and you've got tax and you can do things to all four

01:01:29of those to make the country more competitive and really britain needs to be competitive on the

01:01:33global stage when you know when we left europe for better for worse people voted for for that

01:01:39and we never really did it and we never really competed so i mean if i was in charge right if you

01:01:44if i was in charge for the day i devalue the currency i devalue the pound i think pounds overvalued

01:01:51and you know why applying 750 in london well because it's overvalued as a currency uh the the idea that you

01:01:58you would decrease the value of the pound people talk about redistribution of wealth to the north

01:02:03we keep it high because of the city of london and actually i'm not really concerned about the

01:02:08exchange rate affecting your holiday in france being more expensive for two weeks of the year

01:02:12i'd be more concerned with the other 50 weeks of the year where you work we've got to be a net

01:02:17exporter of things so our things need to be cheaper and in order to do that we have to lower the

01:02:22the currency value which is relatively easy to do people say that the uk is the seventh biggest

01:02:27economy in the world but it's not it's the seventh biggest city in the world surrounded by a very poor

01:02:32country yeah and then but you want it to be redistributed you want there to be you know

01:02:35factories being as far away from london as you can get yeah yeah it didn't feel like the wealth of

01:02:40the city of london was reaching newcastle and middlesbrough and we have the most expensive energy

01:02:45in the world i think it's like four times higher than no way and you go it's crazy we you know and

01:02:50it's systematically being um being i mean is this green new deal stuff is that why well there's a

01:02:56bit of that but i mean it's like we i'm all for the green new deal just give me a long enough runway

01:03:01give me 25 years and i'll give you net zero not 2013. but but what i want to do i want to be

01:03:06as technologically advanced if you can imagine this for ambition as technologically advanced as france was

01:03:11in the 70s so france in the 1970s built 56 nuclear plants they've got the cheapest energy in europe

01:03:18they give a what russia says or what's going on in the middle east because they've got their

01:03:22they've got their energy sorted do that do that and then but it's a very long range anyone that says

01:03:27can fix energy in in a in two months like you're living in a dream world it's a very long range

01:03:32problem and then regulation the red tape the regulation just cut all of that cut all of that

01:03:37we're like we're like the sort of it's like the end of the soviet union the amount of regulation you need

01:03:42to do anything in the uk now they could cut an awful lot of that red tape and and kind of free people

01:03:48to be more um entrepreneurial everybody likes the idea of being in a country that's got an illustrious

01:03:53history it's so esteemed like how long it's been a rise god you get a guy comes out he's got this mace

01:03:58and he dots his cap and there's wood everywhere everything's fucking mahogany you go yeah that's

01:04:03great but you also do accumulate a lot of along the way and a lot of bureaucracy and there's a lot

01:04:08of hurdles that you need to jump over in order to get stuff done you know the tax thing as well it's

01:04:12very close to my heart but the tax thing is like if you go to like estonia post the soviet era they

01:04:17went oh we've got to do something and they didn't have much time to think and they've got one tax form

01:04:22estonia has one tax form estonia has a law where the government can't ask you for the same bit of

01:04:26information twice so if you give it if you give your address to your doctors they assume that the taxman

01:04:32knows your address and everyone else because it's all joined up right so and that the tax form is one

01:04:37page and they have a flat rate of tax and they collect an awful lot of tax i'm not interested in

01:04:43equality i'm interested in abundance like what would be the thing that would just get everyone living in

01:04:47britain we just have to compete with other countries and get people to come to us start businesses and want

01:04:52to live where we are we've got the same number of universities in the top 10 as america does but we

01:04:58produce five times fewer entrepreneurs get out of those universities i think we probably produce the

01:05:05same amount of entrepreneurs but they end up somewhere else they're not in great britain

01:05:09brain drain yeah they're all somewhere else yeah which is i think it's like that it's possible to you

01:05:14know to change it i mean listen that's that's what i would do with the uk i'd go right currency lower that

01:05:19energy you need a you need a 20-year plan for energy in the uk regulation you cut a bunch of that and

01:05:25you have a flat rate of tax and and then just you would you would see if that works and then if it

01:05:30doesn't you would you would change it but i think that's that'd be a kind of a positive thing to do

01:05:34i think america's like america's like i think i could fix america in two moves okay all right so i would

01:05:42have um open primaries for congress senate presidential everything would be open open so

01:05:52people would have to they'd have to go to the center you wouldn't be appealing to your constituency

01:05:57you'd be appealing to the center 90 of people agree about 90 of everything and then i would have term

01:06:03limits for senators uh and congress because it like i don't blame donald trump for being powerful i blame

01:06:11the checks and balances for not checking and balancing they haven't done their job it's an

01:06:16amazing piece of technology the american constitution but you've got to you've got to work it it doesn't

01:06:21just sit there you've got to it's it's an active thing i mean i had bernie sanders on the show and

01:06:25he's been in government longer than i've been alive yeah all right i mean it's pretty intense yeah that's

01:06:32it i think the idea like 20 years maybe 20 years doesn't sound that sounds reasonable is the term

01:06:36limits in the uk um no right but there were term limits that there didn't used to be a term limit

01:06:42on president i think it was they brought it in with roosevelt right roosevelt did i think three times

01:06:46he was trying to go for three yeah yeah well anyway yeah that's we solved the problems of the world

01:06:51that fixed it yeah it's super uh have you heard david ogilvie's line you can't save souls in an

01:06:56empty church heard it a couple of weeks ago and i've kind of been obsessed with it since this sort of

01:07:01idea that if you believe in something you have a moral duty to spread that message around and that

01:07:10a lot of people insulate themselves from having to have their ideas meet reality

01:07:16by it's just so it's so sophisticated and refined that's the reason that it hasn't managed to become

01:07:22sufficiently popular it's like being the underground band whose music is just you know it's it's very

01:07:27it's sort of virtuoso type that it would be very hard for you to the the the proletariat they

01:07:32wouldn't be able to understand how sophisticated it is that we're doing um but yeah you can't save souls

01:07:36in an empty church to me makes it kind of incumbent on anybody that believes in a thing to find a way to

01:07:43get that message out and to monday morning quarterback whatever it is that you care about whether it's

01:07:49climate or young people or suicide or the birth rate or art or taxes or whatever yeah it is kind

01:07:57of incumbent on you to find a way to i don't know yeah i mean i totally agree i think that idea of

01:08:02like talking about those things that are uh third rails and getting a message out there is really good

01:08:07it's probably the most um difficult but the most kind of beautiful bit of my show at the moment is uh

01:08:14uh i talk about suicide in the show and i say why i tell people the terrible truth which is suicide

01:08:23doesn't work people commit suicide because they want to get rid of the pain but you can't get rid of

01:08:29the pain all you can ever hope to do is redistribute the pain to the people that loved you

01:08:36and it's a big moment it's like a people that are you know and there's a non-zero number of people in

01:08:43the audience that are suffering that go oh right oh this is this is my burden to carry it's a it's a

01:08:51tough thing but it's it's kind of it's interesting to talk about that stuff it's interesting to have

01:08:55that platform and to feel like okay i can i can say that that's a terrifying realization

01:09:04yeah yeah it's it's it's big but but if if if if one person listens to that and goes

01:09:11oh right okay yeah that means i can't great there's some data from the george from the tin men

01:09:18told me that i think 90 of men who took their own lives had sought help from a mental health

01:09:25practitioner before they did it so the we just need people to sort of open up and talk to the

01:09:30professionals thing it doesn't seem to be working in the way that we anticipated it to yeah it's it's

01:09:36real charisma feel everything beauty and terror no feeling is final yeah well unfortunately it can be

01:09:42if people decide to make that make that decision yeah i am there's a something similar from blake

01:09:49burge one of the best pieces of advice i ever got if you want to calm a life you need to address small

01:09:55problems while they're still small the cost of dealing with an issue rarely gets cheaper with time

01:10:00procrastination turns uncomfortable things into unavoidable things basically like if it doesn't fit

01:10:06eventually it'll hurt wearing it yeah i think that's that's really that's again it's on the that kind of

01:10:12compound interest yeah on the positive things and you know if you're saving money it works if you're

01:10:17building skills it works but also if you have problems you don't address them it's going to get

01:10:22worse over time um so addressing that and having that tough conversations i think getting a quality

01:10:28of your life is kind of is you could probably track it with how many uncomfortable conversations

01:10:32are you willing to have or do you feel comfortable to have right how many people around you can you speak

01:10:37to with no filter and then there's the other half of that which is who can you sit in silence with and

01:10:41not need to fill it the most it's the way that you can work out who your best friend is

01:10:45yeah make a terrible podcast yeah but it would be wonderful regulating for the two guests that were

01:10:50there just don't publish those ones publish the ones where you talk with no filter yeah but

01:10:54yeah it's uh i don't know i i really feel like we're on the cusp of something happening

01:11:04where okay we've got these new technologies and they're atomizing people and they're distracting

01:11:09them and then everyone kind of becomes a little bit aware of the fact that maybe they're dangerous

01:11:13or maybe they're making us live our lives in a way which is maladaptive and although immediately

01:11:19gratifying uh ultimately becomes kind of destructive and now we're just about getting to the point where

01:11:26people are thinking i probably need to take some really intense action to try and get rid of that

01:11:34out of my life i need to join a run club i need to start going out to shows i need to force myself

01:11:38to head to a coffee shop i don't want to be working from home anymore but the self-imposed working

01:11:42from home i'm going to go back into the office i'm going to spend time around people i'm going to

01:11:46you know try and change the scope of my sniper rifle to adjust for the wind which is blowing

01:11:53toward me so that i can start to shoot more toward the target that i want to live my life like

01:11:57but yeah like people's ability to adapt to new technology technology is able to move so much

01:12:01more quickly than our habits are and that means that for a long time last decade decade and a half

01:12:07people were on the receiving end of it and now i think people are starting to realize okay well yeah

01:12:13i mean i think it's knowing what we are as well it's that it's that great quote of the uh paleolithic

01:12:18emotions medieval institutions and godlike technology well let's roll the dice on that and

01:12:22see how we do i mean it seems kind of it it's crazy and it's only going to get worse i think now with

01:12:28um the interface of ai the idea that this this new technology has kind of come along and how's that

01:12:34going to change the world so it's kind of shifting sands i just think people people do you know we are

01:12:40we need to be connected and that's kind of the business model of what i do is like getting people out to

01:12:45shows and to sit in a room together and to laugh if i'd put pants on it's a big deal yeah okay but i

01:12:52do think that thing of like that's what people kind of crave going out and being together but

01:12:55they don't necessarily even have to know the other people just to be there it's like sort of it's

01:12:59like church they're kind of coming together and finding something you might not believe me but this

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01:14:04slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom at checkout yeah the addressing problems while they're small

01:14:10thing i think works very much personally as well like the way that you degrade your trust in yourself

01:14:17like we were talking about earlier on happens with one missed promise with one uh attempt at a change

01:14:24that you decided against doing or that you couldn't hold yourself to doing and this is why

01:14:29yeah small changes do end up compounding it's also why it feels very unfair that people can look at

01:14:34someone who's at the top of their particular industry and say well like why is it that all of

01:14:38the gains accrue to that person it's like well because the compounding interest is working in

01:14:42their favor and the same thing happens in reverse unfortunately too that people kind of spiral up

01:14:46but it's another thing i do worry about the the arts for that reason like the um uh oligarchy of the

01:14:53arts there's an oligarchy in the arts now where you go with movies um it's existing ip or it's sequels

01:14:59or prequels that dominate i mean really dominate it's like five big movies a year that dominate like

01:15:0490 of the box office and with music it's the uh oligarchy of like five huge artists that dominate

01:15:11globally yeah you know and it used to be a hundred artists or 200 artists that all sold pretty well

01:15:16books is the same you know books are the same um you know i hope comedy is broad enough that there's like

01:15:22people can pick their favorite stuff and it doesn't get dominated too much by big names that you you

01:15:27want it to be so that there's lots of different people enjoying it i think i mean my big kind of

01:15:32driver is i want to get more people interested in doing comedy rather than just going to see it i mean

01:15:37i've written this book um on jokes with my friends um abby grant and amanda baker and it's like how to be

01:15:45a comedian really essentially how to how to write jokes can anyone become funny i think so yeah i think

01:15:50so i think everyone's got kind of a story to tell and if you think about what stand-up comedy is right

01:15:54it's um ordering your thoughts writing them down and finding your own authentic voice

01:16:02that strikes me as an incredibly worthwhile activity that should be taught in schools

01:16:06that's probably got more um going for it than learning music music's very valuable to learn as

01:16:11well but you go grade eight on the piano won't come in handy when you're doing a best man's speech or a

01:16:16presentation at work or talking to your partner and actually having that ability to um write down your

01:16:22thoughts and find find some perspective in life which is also kind of what comedy does it's it's

01:16:28it's very good at um waking us up i think about what jokes are right it's it's kind of like cardamom

01:16:35is it cardamom um uh thinking fast and slow canada canada okay so um first order and second order

01:16:43thinking so the setup for a joke is first order thinking it's it's you you make an assumption

01:16:48about what the guy is going to say and then the punchline kind of snaps you into oh i actually had

01:16:53to think about that oh okay so it's that idea of the brain way to think about it the brain is designed

01:16:59to not have to think it's your brain is designed to yeah it's a brain's an llm yeah it's it's pattern

01:17:03recognition it's exactly llm yeah right so and then comedy makes you kind of oh oh okay i'm thinking

01:17:08i've got to think about that in a new way they've actually got to think about that thing it like

01:17:12snaps you awake i think it's quite childlike in a sense because children really think

01:17:17and grown-ups tend to be like beyond a certain age you're just pattern recognition you've seen

01:17:20this all before and so comedians have this ability to already think about stuff it's very attractive

01:17:26um uh way of being i think teaching that is is a i'd like more people to kind of get into it i think

01:17:32they'd enjoy watching it more if they knew a little bit more about it and also i think the idea of

01:17:36going there's so many great it's quite a new medium comedy it's not been around for as long as music

01:17:42you know what the um well hang on i'll have a drink i'll tell you a story

01:17:51you heard of gregorian chants yes okay do you know why you've heard of gregorian chants and i will

01:17:57tell you don't panic okay so pope gregory i don't know a thousand years ago is wandering around the

01:18:04vatican and he goes to some local churches and they're all singing the songs differently

01:18:09and he goes well this is some nonsense i want them all to be sung the same

01:18:13um write down the music and the guy the bishops or whatever go ah the thing is though you can't write

01:18:20down music because it's sort of ethereal it's like from another um realm and it just has to be it's

01:18:26about soul and a groove and whatever the they said and he went here's the thing i'm the pope write it

01:18:32down and so they wrote down the music and we know what gregorian chants are now interestingly fast

01:18:39forward 400 years from that and you have bark and mozart beethoven which couldn't have existed

01:18:48without musical notation so writing down comedy like there's too much magical thinking in my business

01:18:55there's too much oh that guy's just got funny bones or oh he just gets up there and does the

01:18:59thing and oh he just wings it he's just funny no it's like jokes they're jokes it doesn't it doesn't

01:19:06diminish the um enjoyment of jokes to know how they work i think it's uh and and the less magical

01:19:13thinking the more everyone can go yeah can you learn how to be funny yeah kushka kushka and you've got

01:19:19a story to tell and you've got a voice most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave

01:19:24with a song unsung i don't want that to happen i'm on jokes right so you're kind of arguing that unlike

01:19:32music or acting or writing comedy's never had a a shared vocabulary and you can invent one you've invented

01:19:41one why do you think i suppose it's about putting it together i mean you're standing on the shoulders

01:19:47of giants you kind of didn't invent anything you just spotted what was there in the same way as

01:19:50musical notation doesn't create music it describes music that already exists yeah and then can you

01:19:55reverse engineer it and and see if it works so i'm working on i've written the book that's coming out in

01:20:00october and then or we've written the book it's abby and amanda and i um and then we're working on

01:20:06putting together a kind of a course like like kind of an interactive course whereby you could sort of

01:20:13there's such great teaching methods out there especially using ai as a teaching method it's really

01:20:18it's really interesting like what what can you achieve with that i mean is it going to grow corn

01:20:23can i can i build a comedian with that if i can then great you say that you've got the first scientific

01:20:28theory of what actually makes jokes work well i don't know if it's a scientific theory you know

01:20:34we've got it's it's kind of it's it's all in them it's a bit inside baseball but that thing of like

01:20:39the different ways the jokes work and the i mean it's it broadly speaking is that thing of like um

01:20:45taking that that pattern recognition and reversing it like making sure that you're waking up the mind

01:20:52the sudden revelation of a previously concealed fact it's it's so simplistic in a way but that

01:20:57trick is just delightful have you ever felt guilty at giving the trick away like do you think that

01:21:03other comedians are going to get annoyed at you for demystifying it no it's like the it's like the

01:21:08everywhere had a a guild right everyone had a um a secret society it's like the magic circle

01:21:15of comedy i think most comedians that i know don't really know how they write jokes

01:21:20they kind of they find it on stage or stuff occurs to them and they they note it down and

01:21:24they remember it and but they don't have like they're virtuoso musicians but they don't know notation

01:21:28yeah it's a it's a they wouldn't be able to teach it because they haven't thought about it in that way

01:21:32great but they're doing their thing and they're doing great fine and but i think the idea of being

01:21:36able to be more systematic about it is is a really sort of positive idea and i'd like to have that

01:21:42i'd like to give that gift to people to to be able to um throw the rope down and say come on

01:21:49we can all do this is writing harder than performing i think writing's that yeah writing's the job and

01:21:55writing is self-assignment you've got to sit down and no one ever tells you there's no point in a

01:21:59comedian's career career where their manager sits down and goes all right you've got to write

01:22:02it's like people just assume that um and you know and you you that's the preparation that's the reason

01:22:09that you sort of you know succeed or fail you've got to sort of deliver on that how do you feel about

01:22:15comedians having writers or buying jokes off other comedians i guess you know if you write on tv shows

01:22:20or whatever it's the absolute norm as like on eight out ten cats or last one laughing or any of those

01:22:25shows that i do we've got like a writing room and we they're brilliant absolutely brilliant some people

01:22:29are great at writing some people are great at writing and they don't really want to perform so

01:22:32that seems pretty valid yeah there must be a comedian today he thinks sort of embodies everything the

01:22:38books trying to teach and then presumably there's someone who you think is great despite discarding

01:22:46many of the rules well i think you know it's comedians you're dealing with so i mean i think

01:22:49knowing what the rules are is the first step and then breaking them all will be who do you think

01:22:54breaks them the most uh in terms of comedically i'm just trying to think of like someone um that's

01:23:01funny and i mean it might be someone like bob mortimer um which i don't think vic and bob might

01:23:08be slightly lost on your american audience but the like really surrealist comics where you kind of

01:23:12absurd i can't quite put my finger on why that's funny but it's really really funny and it's taken me

01:23:18kind of back and by surprise and out of nowhere is that stuff less formulaic is that a little bit more

01:23:24kind of the jazz virtuoso improvisation yeah it's less fungible i think so but i mean but

01:23:30vic and bob love jokes as well so i mean it's it yeah and no and it's it's whatever you want to be i

01:23:36mean they're they're very unique i think also they kind of fall into that thing of going this if done

01:23:42correctly i think learning how to write jokes and then you put yourself into it so it's that thing of

01:23:47like with comedy you you don't want to be the best you want to be the only there's no best in comedy

01:23:54there's no oh he's the best comedian like a top 10 list is meaningless because it's what makes you

01:23:58laugh what do you like and the more someone is themselves on stage the the more people sort of

01:24:04gravitate towards them so the idea of going it's it's like it's not a competition it's like it

01:24:08doesn't matter how many people do well it just makes it a bigger pie let's say that you had

01:24:14six months with someone completely unfunny to try and make them as funny as possible what would

01:24:20you be teaching them first i think the i think the first thing would be to recognize you know

01:24:26that their story what do they want to say what could they say that no one else could say

01:24:32what's their story what's their take on life what's there and it might be they want to tell a personal

01:24:37story it might be they want to talk about politics it might be that they're interested in sports or

01:24:40whatever they want to talk about you sort of assess that and then okay how do we how do we get into

01:24:45that how do we get how do we make that surprising and delightful to listen to it's nice because i think

01:24:51everyone needs i think everyone's got a sense of humor it's like everyone's got like like you say

01:24:56someone unfunny everyone's got a sense of humor how dark or sardonic or sarcastic it is that varies

01:25:03and what you like varies it's it's that thing of like your taste in comedy is like your taste in

01:25:08food and sex some people like spicy some people like vanilla it's great what about timing what's

01:25:16the secret to comic timing there seems to be a pattern in rhythm that's the kind of the the

01:25:24the proximate speed of development where if you speak at about sort of 92 beats per minute if you

01:25:30speak in that kind of in that rhythm um that tends to be not just for comedy actually for spoken word

01:25:36for political speeches as well that seems to work very well for people that they they get into that

01:25:41that rhythm and you can see the audience kind of respond to that so if you if you're it seems almost

01:25:47kind of um magical i don't think it is i think it's like a uh there's something about that cadence of

01:25:52speech that just lends itself to an audience being able to kind of tune into what you're saying and focus

01:25:58and some people kind of they rush it and it feels a bit garbled and they're all over the place and that

01:26:02doesn't mean speaking far fast or slow it's like it's where you put the the intonations where you

01:26:06put the beat so i think the rhythm is incredibly important uh i have a dream is at 92 yeah i think

01:26:14there's a winston churchill one as well obama's obama's 92 and he speaks quite slowly but he's he's

01:26:19on that on that beat and he's a magnificent public speaker what joke template do you think has survived

01:26:26longest what's the most classic the most classic is i i guess you know the the pullback reveal

01:26:33where like it's almost like a comic strip where you you're kind of looking at this thing and then

01:26:36you pull back and he's on the bus you know that that thing is that seems to work sort of universally

01:26:42across time and there's wordplay i mean i think that you know jokes are the the ha-ha and the ah-ha

01:26:48are very similar they're often kind of insights into something and when people kind of um realize

01:26:55something i think the oldest joke is the uh it's like there's a the lover of laughter it's an old

01:27:04roman book of jokes and it has a joke in it that still works i think

01:27:10where a guy's in the barbers getting his haircut and the barber says how do you want your haircut

01:27:14and the guy says in silence it's almost like four thousand years old it's joke shaped i wouldn't open

01:27:22with it but yeah what's been the change since doing more of the crowd work stuff and putting

01:27:33that online so seeing an awful lot of that at the moment i think it's it's made it slightly uh bigger

01:27:38um in terms of the audience is like you know it's growing um i think it's there's there's more of a

01:27:44connection to people now so you kind of come up and it would have been you know five years ago people

01:27:49might come up and say well i saw the show and i thanks a photo and now people kind of want to have

01:27:54a conversation about something it's very nice it's deep in the connection yeah i think so i think i'm

01:27:59trying to kind of okay so it was like i had my stand-up sort of persona on stage telling jokes

01:28:07and then this kind of you know podcast mode and they're merging and i'm really excited about that i

01:28:12really like it i really like the idea that there's like there'll be don't don't panic there'll be 90

01:28:18minutes of bang on one-liners in the show but they'll also be half an hour of this chatting about

01:28:24stuff and life great how much has that influenced you because obviously you know you were pretty well

01:28:29established doing the the jokey thing and then even though you've been well read and you did the

01:28:36university stuff and all the rest of it the it does feel to me like there's been a pivot and you know

01:28:41fortunately me and george have been able to like be a part of that and like be friends and hang out

01:28:45and stuff how much is the wisdom verse come podcast world influenced that i think it's been a huge

01:28:53influence it's also that thing of like it it's what are you interested in talking about you know it's

01:28:58it's like it's not it also you want to be one note like like if you see a band play on stage and they

01:29:03and everything is a is uh a floor filler but sometimes you want to slow it down you need a

01:29:10couple of ballads in there so it's it's nice to have a mix in the set where you go okay well i know

01:29:15you know you go out there and you 20 minutes of just one-liners great but then you want to have a

01:29:20little bit of a chat with people and see where the evening takes us and to also make it feel like

01:29:24it's just live in the room and this is happening now and it's not going to happen again the quick

01:29:29silver of it's really nice the idea that it's like okay this is happening now and then the moment's

01:29:33passed yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i i've been thinking a lot about some of the

01:29:43reliance that me and the boys have had on like really trying to drill home a bunch of core principles

01:29:49and i came across this nabeel qareshi quote that said a cursed fact of the world

01:29:53is it the most important life lessons you learn are the hardest to communicate to others

01:29:57because they always sound like cliches yeah and i understand why permanently drilling the same

01:30:06or what appear to be variants of the same kind of like trite insight around well you know you

01:30:12fake it until you make it you need to believe in it beforehand is it right though well i don't think

01:30:16it is i think it's like that thing if you go through but it's also that thing of like if you read the

01:30:20comments you know it would be someone being terribly kind of um above it all going rubbish oh oh systems

01:30:29beat goals oh whatever yeah okay what have you done well there's definitely a question of if if you're

01:30:35so smart how come you still haven't done it like if you get bored of people talking about cold dark

01:30:40quiet for your bed yeah okay why is it that your sleep still sucks yeah it's it's okay as well it's okay

01:30:46to go through that i think you know early 20s is really the best time for that if you want to be

01:30:50super cynical and on everything great do you think and then at some point you go right who's who what

01:30:56can i do what what i like because it's that thing of like there's two different ways of learning like

01:31:00sometimes some lessons you have to go and like the reason to write the book on jokes is i feel like

01:31:05i macheted my way through the jungle to become a comedian i feel like it was not a well-worn path

01:31:12you have to kind of right get there and how do i write this and how do i put on a show and

01:31:15how do i do the thing and okay doing two shows and whatever that thing was i kind of i've created

01:31:20this career for myself and i feel like now it's incumbent on me to help and to say well look just do

01:31:29this do this do this that'll help that'll definitely move you that won't be wasting your time if you

01:31:34want to do the same thing as me just that's how you write the jokes great then go and do your own

01:31:39thing but i i think the idea of like not repeating the stuff because you think well people heard this

01:31:45before well maybe but i think it is that what's that great quote about um in the work of genius

01:31:53we see our own discarded thoughts yeah so the idea that we we're constantly uh we're hearing

01:31:59stuff that we kind of know a lot of the time it's like there's nothing that i'll say that people

01:32:05will go oh that's totally new but they might go oh i've kind of forgotten that i think if it's

01:32:09something that is totally new often people probably will be more likely to discard it

01:32:14i've got no anchor point at all you need to be incredibly uh brave and have quite high conviction

01:32:20around whoever it is that you're listening to to pivot your entire world view based on something

01:32:24that you had no reference point prior to but yeah i don't know what the critical mass is of people

01:32:30needing to hear an insight before they become convinced by it but i know that it's usually not

01:32:34once and with that in mind yeah i i look i i really like trying to drill home

01:32:42pithy insights that are condensed down in a way that you can remember like my memory is not that great

01:32:47so for me synthesizing or condensing down a big idea into a pithy little aphorism or a mantra but

01:32:54it's almost like it's what remains right so let's say you read a book and it's 500 pages long you

01:32:58remember one little quote from that book well that's what remains that's the the thing that you just can't

01:33:03get rid of you can't get out your head it's just it's in there and you go well that's that's kind of

01:33:08brilliant this is great that's that's the the nugget that you were looking for and then you

01:33:13you walk with that and if it changes how you interact with the world a little bit then fantastic

01:33:17has your opinion on trajectory and position changed given that your trajectory has sort of continued to

01:33:24rise now to i think whatever the most dates in the world or something like that that you did last

01:33:29year or the was it the biggest global tour by tickets sold in comedy something like that

01:33:33you'd struggle to find anyone to care right but yeah it's like i think the trajectory is is very

01:33:38good it's kind of it you know it's building nicely and i think more important than that i think when

01:33:44are people happy when they're getting good at stuff i think competence is the um it's such an important

01:33:52thing for people like to get good at something it doesn't matter what it is and to feel like they're

01:33:56getting better as well and you think about like kids kids learn lots of different things they learn you

01:34:00know how to ride a bike right so you couldn't ride a bike and then you struggled and then you could

01:34:05it's really fun to learn how to do stuff right and then some people get better at it and they

01:34:08could do tricks and mess around or whatever comedy is something that there's endless amounts of tricks

01:34:12so you just keep on getting a little bit better all the time i really like that um is it kaizen

01:34:18i think is the name of the japanese thing like getting very like british cycling does it really well

01:34:23getting very slight improvements incremental improvements over time brings an awful lot of

01:34:28satisfaction i kind of think that thing about going that's very exciting to me and then trying to put

01:34:33myself out of my comfort zone every 18 months or so trying to put on bigger tours or play different

01:34:38rooms or do it in a different way that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable maybe try and hold

01:34:43some silence and space on stage for people in a way that feels new to me you know what else

01:34:48is interesting about the spiraling up or the compounding of doing things and becoming brave

01:34:53at trying new things with a bigger skill set underneath i think that uh people's sensitivity

01:34:58to cynicism keeps them in place and as they don't do much more than the basically zero that they're

01:35:06doing now their fear of cynicism just stays the same you need to be able to kind of get past it

01:35:11because there are going to be people that just say i don't think that that's cool or that's a silly

01:35:15idea to try and do something new but the fewer fucks that you give the more you become acclimatized to

01:35:20not giving a fuck which means you give fewer fucks over time which means you can be more brave and

01:35:24you can be more experimental you can take bigger swings with a bigger skill set underneath but if

01:35:28people are welded in place by their fear of criticism or skepticism or cynicism yeah i mean they don't get

01:35:38started yeah that's a really it's a it's slightly tragic i think like worrying about what what other

01:35:44people are thinking of you the whole time and they're not wanting to i remember like mid-20s i remember

01:35:48when i um i left my job and i told my friends that i want to be a comedian and i'd left my job and the

01:35:56reactions were really like oh i think jimmy's having a breakdown i think he's because obviously

01:36:01they didn't see this they didn't see where it ended they just saw the beginning of it like going

01:36:06no no you've got a good job what are you doing you lunatic and it was like i was like yo ho ho a

01:36:12pirate's life for me and it's like seemed kind of crazy but if you'd listen to that it was that

01:36:17you talk about it very nicely that the the lonely uh chapter yeah where you kind of go you have to

01:36:22slightly leave who you were behind you have to say goodbye to that and there's a grieving to that

01:36:27and you have to sort of move on to that that new phase well there's two things there's a grieving of

01:36:32where you were and there's a fear of where you're going because you don't know that the next step has

01:36:37actually got any promise for you and again if you're in a world where you don't have an abundance

01:36:43mindset which i think a lot of people don't there's so much complexity and uncertainty and chaos what's

01:36:48going to happen in future i don't know if this thing's going to go completely terribly wrong

01:36:52why would i give up a certain five out of ten for an uncertain eight out of ten because it might

01:36:58be a three out of ten and that would make me feel really bad and if you've got high inequality too

01:37:03you can see not how high you could climb but also how low you can fall you know oh fuck i really don't

01:37:08want to fall low that looks horrendous to me yeah i mean it's it's um uh there's two most important

01:37:16days uh the day you're born and the day you find out why and the finding out why is like what could

01:37:23you commit to what could you say well i'm all in on this i'm going to do this thing i mean i'm a big

01:37:29advocate of specialization you know find the thing that you enjoy that you can't stop thinking about

01:37:33what's play to you and work for them that's kind of where your edge is that's going to be the thing

01:37:38that you're going to do you know better than anything else and the the safe option is you know

01:37:44it's it's fine you know some people some people don't find that in work they find that in you know

01:37:48hobbies and other pursuits and i was chatting to someone recently about someone in the crowd was

01:37:52asking about music and saying you know i'm i'm a you know musician you got any advice and i don't

01:37:57know anything about music it was like well if you would do it anyway then do it like it doesn't have to

01:38:02be the way that you make money doing something creative and fulfilling could be the hobby

01:38:06and if it if it becomes the way you make money well great but you should be it should be something

01:38:10that you would do anyway there's an interesting relationship between discipline motivation and

01:38:17obsession so discipline is saying i will make myself do the thing motivation is i want to do the

01:38:22thing and obsession is i can't not do the thing and a lot of the time when we look at somebody who

01:38:30on the outside appears motivated what they're actually doing it's just the cooled off version

01:38:35of a past obsession it's this thing that they were obsessed with 20 years ago that is now just

01:38:40it's formed into a part of their identity that's somebody that goes to the gym but they were

01:38:45completely obsessed with this is me like when i was in university i would not go on nights out and

01:38:50i'd stay in and read bodybuilding.com forums and i'd get up and make sure that my protein was right

01:38:54and all the rest of it and i'm like that's fucking lame at the time but now when i go to the gym it

01:38:58doesn't really take discipline to go and do it and not superbly motivated it just is who i am

01:39:04but people are kind of serial obsessives some people are serial obsessives but if you don't ever allow

01:39:10that obsession to sort of climb inside of you and and really weigh your life for a little while kind

01:39:14of like a puppet you don't get to benefit from all of the accrued gains down the line because this

01:39:21obsession isn't going to last forever it's this weird but those forearms are alignment this is true

01:39:25these these these are going to be the heat death of the universe is going to be gone before these finish

01:39:29up um it's like it's like talking to popeye that's true yeah but no spinach the uh the problem i think

01:39:37that people come up against is that if you don't allow yourself if you're not prepared to let that

01:39:41obsession kind of really really get inside of you and drive you forward you miss out on this like

01:39:47beautiful opportunity like lots of people go their entire life without having an obsession that's worth

01:39:52anything and sometimes people can become obsessed with that they really shouldn't be right which is the

01:39:56politics porn your ex gambling video games stuff like that unless video games can be quite fun but

01:40:02if you're the sort of person that is consistently becoming obsessed with stuff like that's good i think

01:40:07that you really should allow that to embrace your life for a period because it's this it's this odd

01:40:14alignment of like motivation and opportunity and skill set and timing and life situation it's all of this

01:40:22shit kind of comes into alignment in one go and then this weird kind of magic i don't think you can engineer

01:40:28obsession particularly well you can force discipline right which is why people love it people are obsessed

01:40:32with discipline because if you're prepared to pay the price it's always there right motivation is halfway

01:40:39house you kind of engineer it a little bit maybe you start to spend a lot of time around other people

01:40:44who do the same sort of thing it involves a bit of a feedback loop i think to a degree you can have some social pressure

01:40:49maybe you can listen to your favorite playlist you know get yourself amped up that motivation's

01:40:53halfway between the two but obsession you can't really engineer and that means that when it comes

01:40:57along it's got a a certain sort of magical quality to it and it's temporary that is going to leave

01:41:03you're not obsessed by the same things typically most people aren't obsessed at 50 by the same stuff

01:41:09that they were at 30 and that i think means okay if i'm gonna have people that are you've heard of

01:41:16correct because i think the people the people that have got that like because again it's the compound

01:41:20interest they've really like that really builds up over time if you can keep doing that thing if

01:41:26you're still interested in that thing it's the freest discipline and motivation that you're ever going

01:41:30to get right i can't not do the thing i it's what i think about when i go to the toilet it's what i think

01:41:36about when i fall asleep at night it's what i think about when i'm eating my lunch it's what i think

01:41:40about when i'm waiting in line to get into the airport all of every single part of your life is

01:41:45cohesing to get you toward this thing and that's cool and i know we have society has a really bad

01:41:52relationship i think with obsession because it comes laden with a lot of baggage that no people either

01:41:58don't understand it or they fear it well i guess it's it's linked to addiction you know i think people

01:42:03with addictive personalities never really get over the addiction they just get addicted to something

01:42:08else yeah so some of my best friends that are in you know a would have been then addicted to the gym

01:42:13afterwards or addicted to eating right or addicted to shopping whatever the next thing that comes along

01:42:18is but they'll be addicted to it that it's compulsive behavior but if you can direct that compulsive

01:42:24behavior to something that builds and and grows and feeds back then fantastic that's the problem

01:42:30solving brain thing again right it's like give yourself good problems to solve give yourself an

01:42:34obsession that's worth something and again you can't generate all of them but i think you can kind of

01:42:40help to to guide yourself so yeah i just that really is the the freest way to become great and it's your

01:42:47insight around like do what feels like play to you but looks like work to everyone else the bar's line

01:42:52if you can manage to i don't know find something that is positive sum and pro-social and isn't going

01:42:59to destroy you or the world around you yeah like that just let it let it fucking weigh you for a bit

01:43:04as long as it's not fentanyl great yeah well you know there's tranq now which is like fentanyl's

01:43:09fentanyl they just keep on releasing new versions that are more powerful at all i think fentanyl really

01:43:14scares me i think you know a drug is powerful if if you're using heroin to take the edge off it

01:43:20i'm gonna come down this is a bit strong i might put some heroin in this yeah like okay i cut my

01:43:25fentanyl with heroin enough now yeah yeah there's a there's a there's an argument that the fentanyl

01:43:30crisis is uh is china's revenge for the opium wars what were the opium wars because i've heard

01:43:35this but i don't know what the opium was it's when uh the british went to uh china and forced them

01:43:40to trade with us and we sold them a bunch of opium that's what that's what fentanyl is mostly landing

01:43:45in america yeah so the british started it and the americans are paying the price on the receiving end

01:43:51of it yeah but i can i can definitely see a connection we are we are greece to america's room

01:43:56right you know we're kind of part of the same thing really i mean i know they had the war of

01:44:00independence but come on a lot a lot's coming over the southern border through mexico yeah the fentanyl

01:44:05crazy yeah i've seen some videos there's this area in philadelphia i think uh where like constantly

01:44:14youtubers are going and filming the these like it's skid row skid row yeah it's so intense now i've seen

01:44:21it in some in some cities around america it's really uh it's well i mean look you know what happened

01:44:26though we we shut down all the asylums in the 80s because we saw one flew over the cuckoo's nest and we

01:44:31decided asylums were terrible places we didn't run out of crazy people you know there's a lot of crazy

01:44:36people out there so i think that thing of like going you know the homelessness problem is ultimately a

01:44:41you know a drugs an addiction problem and uh and a problem with um mental health and we need to treat

01:44:48that and and to take it very seriously rather than you know it's uh you know building new houses is a

01:44:54part of that but it's a very small part of it well the safety net in america doesn't sweep people up in

01:44:59the same way as it does in the uk i don't see in the uk the same kind of shuffly shouty at the sky

01:45:07clutching up there's still there's still too much of it there's still i mean it's like it's really

01:45:11it feels like a um there's other places you i mean i travel maybe 50 countries around the world

01:45:17on tour and you become very aware of the it's my favorite quote will william gibson the sci-fi

01:45:21writer from canada said the future is here but it's not evenly distributed i think the more you travel

01:45:26around the world you see how different places deal with different problems you sort of go oh right

01:45:30it's kind of like we could have a utopia if we took all the elements from all these different places

01:45:36like having the perfect outfit but you'd have to go to 55 different stores yeah yeah yeah that's

01:45:40interesting where's had the least intense problems with homelessness that you've been to

01:45:46well i think lisbon really turned it round because lisbon was one of the roughest towns in the world

01:45:50lisbon portugal was one of the roughest towns port town in portugal was really rough big heroin problem

01:45:55and they um they legalized drugs but that's only half the story it's a very small bit of the story

01:46:01so they legalized drugs but they basically said we're going to ring fence the money we spend

01:46:05fighting the drugs war i'm going to spend all that money on rehabilitation and education

01:46:11and uh some housing so they basically took that money legalized drugs and then went okay anyone that

01:46:17wants to get off drugs you come here anyone that needs to be housed you go here anyone and they

01:46:21basically solved the problem they ended up with very few people on heroin um that they can get from

01:46:28a pharmacy and the crime rate obviously falls off a cliff when you take illegal drugs out of the

01:46:35situation because people don't have to feed their habit and they don't petty crime goes goes down

01:46:38massively presumably organized crime as well also has the arse pulled out of it yeah a lot of it so

01:46:43it's that thing where you go that kind of solved the problem i think it's slightly creeping back a

01:46:47little bit now because the ring fencing that money you can do for a certain amount of time

01:46:51but then politics gets in the way and people go actually we need that money for something else

01:46:55and you because you take for granted the progress that's been made sure so the problem creeps up

01:47:00again but the idea of going there's always going to be you know uh a problem around that we're going

01:47:05to need to fight that it's kind of like the uh strong men make good times but the equivalent

01:47:11for government in relationship to well it's like kesterson's fence they forget why they're spending

01:47:17that money on that thing it only happened like 10 years ago yeah 15 years yeah yeah it's um yeah

01:47:22it's not yeah it's it's interesting those kind of problems that are solved i mean i've got quite

01:47:27i've got quite spicy views on drugs all right here's my here's my take on marijuana do you want to

01:47:31hear my hot take on marijuana i think it should be illegal for the under 30s right because it's

01:47:36it's kind of the opposite of a performance enhancing drug it's a performance inhibiting drug it takes

01:47:41away people's drive and ambition and in those kind of you know early mid-20s years when people really

01:47:47need to have that drive because you're out of the kind of school system and on your own and you've got

01:47:51to be a self-starter and you it's it's you know self-assignment right so bad 30 to 50 it should be

01:47:57legal okay you're a grown-up you make a decision as to what you want to do what you want to put in your

01:48:01body 50 and above mandatory and not because i think it's a good drug i don't think it's a good drug but

01:48:08i think it would it would redistribute the wealth to the young because old people would be slightly

01:48:13high and out of it right okay so you're going to pharmacologically retard the people that are old

01:48:20yes and make the playing field more even for the people that are coming up yeah okay yeah i'm down i'm

01:48:26down i hate weed it does not it does not agree with me at all but uh yeah i think it's a an interesting

01:48:33theory i i on the portugal thing i really get the sense that the more we try to legislate our way

01:48:45through things those are kind of like the one good article per hour long doom scroll on x insights that

01:48:55encourage people to keep chasing red tape and it's like ah but what about that one thing that went well

01:49:00and therefore we just add bureaucracy and add bureaucracy and add bureaucracy i would be fascinated

01:49:05to know what the relationship between organized crime and the government is because it's one of those

01:49:13nationwide slap downs that completely cut off at the knees an entire universe of like pretty dangerous

01:49:22pretty nasty guys who are all trying to like cartel their way to to wealth but it is a single move that

01:49:29would be able to basically put a huge industry of people out of business they're all just in an underworld as

01:49:34opposed to listed on the ftse 500 there must be so much pressure between a government and then you

01:49:40imagine if you're part of some organized crime group how many different favors you're going to call in to

01:49:44try and not get this thing passed because it's going to stop your entire business i don't know i feel

01:49:49like i'm writing a new tom hardy series i like the idea though of the the cartels getting getting a

01:49:54lobby group together to go we can't have drugs you're putting us out of business this would be terrible

01:49:59for our business plan exactly think about the gangs what do you think what are you thinking about

01:50:03the gang the year on year is going to fall behind yeah yeah i i i like what you're saying though

01:50:09about young people really need to use that drive and it's kind of like the obsession thing that

01:50:15a lot of the time people talk about nobody is coming to save you as a line but nobody is coming to

01:50:20save you also implies that nobody's coming to stop you well yeah and nobody cares more than you

01:50:26i think that thing about you know empathetically you you want to have there be a great safety net for

01:50:31everyone right you you want there to be universal basic income which essentially we sort of have in

01:50:36the uk under the benefit system yeah there's there's a version of that where you know you'll get

01:50:41something from the state and you'll be you'll be okay you won't go hungry uh we hope um but the idea

01:50:47of going the universal basic income is a bit too close to we don't need you yeah you know and i worry

01:50:52about that i worry about purpose being one of the key things of like if you take uh morgan hausel has a

01:50:57great um he's got great equations morgan hausel he's got this great equation on happiness being

01:51:02it's um freedom and purpose if you have those two you're pretty much on you're on a good road because

01:51:08everyone wants there to be benefits available for everyone right everyone wants there to be a um a

01:51:14safety net but no one when you think about it no one wants that for their kids no one looks at

01:51:18their newborn and goes oh wow i hope he hope he gets really great benefits you want him to have uh or her to

01:51:24have a fulfilling life where they they go out and they they do something and they add value to society

01:51:30that's what we want it is an interesting

01:51:35challenge i suppose where we want to be able to support people we've got this future of automation

01:51:40coming through we know that purpose is important but if you clear off all of the bottom levels of

01:51:46maslow's hierarchy of needs which was all that anybody was obsessed by for almost all of human history

01:51:50yeah but self-actualization you you asking the question am i self-actualizing is actually an

01:51:55indication that you're in a really wonderful position yeah across the expanse of human history yeah but

01:52:01that is much tougher to answer i think where do i get my next meal from i think it's a false read

01:52:06though on the i think we're in liberal democracy we've oversold for the individual um the liberal bit and the

01:52:14demos is underutilized so there's not enough connection between people so the idea of like going

01:52:20it's the um the the family and the friends and the community beyond that so it's it's that smaller

01:52:28level stuff those connections is what people are i think missing um so i i do think that kind of

01:52:34it's the safety security you know calorific you want to take care of the basics for everyone you know education

01:52:40and healthcare and uh you know making sure everyone's okay to a level and then you want to give them the

01:52:48you want it to be abundance you want it to be that everyone can have an exciting fun time you want that

01:52:54for your kids and if you want that for your kids you want it for everyone yeah yeah the intergenerational

01:53:00competition theories i've never even thought about it before but what you said earlier on you want your

01:53:05kids to do better than you did and also your kids want to do better than you did yeah but that means

01:53:12that there is this like embedded growth obligation that everything always needs to be getting better

01:53:17all of the time well there's another way of again morgan housel is such a genius writer he's wonderful

01:53:22but he has this idea of going there's uh the biggest inflation in the world is not currency inflation

01:53:28it's expectation inflation but there's another word for expectation inflation we expect so much more

01:53:32than we did in the 1970s right i remember the 70s and it's so much better now but the expectation is

01:53:38so much higher than it's ever been but the other name for expectation inflation is progress that's

01:53:44what progress looks like you just factor in all the stuff that's there and you go yeah and we want

01:53:49more and that's a good thing ultimately i mean if you look at it on a global scale as well you go

01:53:54if you care about humanity as a whole like getting everyone up to our level would be an incredible

01:54:00achievement you know that's the the biggest things in the world are not talked about like the worst things

01:54:06in the world the easy fixes that we just ignore because they're not sexy like burning biomass kills

01:54:12three million people a year there's burning like uh wooden peat and stuff inside inside homes it kills

01:54:20three million people a year from asphyxiation yeah uh well it's it's cancer right it's it's horribly bad for

01:54:27people smoking is a much bigger problem than we think it is because we've solved it here

01:54:32solved in america and kind of the english-speaking world really but in south america and africa and

01:54:38asia it's smoking is a huge problem and it's so easy to fix we could just the playbook is there

01:54:43we know exactly what to do but we don't so that's the future being distributed to a different area from

01:54:48our future to theirs like i think it's peter singer is is very good on this stuff the uh oh no um is it

01:54:56derek parfit's got really good things on like the the debt that we owe to future people and to

01:55:01geographically you know disperse people the idea that we should care about that stuff at least

01:55:07i had william mccaskill on the show he's the long-termism guy what we owe the future and um i think he was the

01:55:14youngest philosophy professor the youngest tenured philosophy professor in the world william and uh

01:55:23anyway he's he's talking about yeah what we owe future generations but people don't really think

01:55:28about that in quite the same way they think about it's all that thing of like because you go like net

01:55:32zero is a really good example of that of like going well we have to uh decrease our reliance on fossil

01:55:37fuels but in the short term like that's very very difficult to do yeah and it affects the poor um

01:55:44disproportionately yeah so the idea of going well that should be an aim in like 25 years but you go

01:55:49but you have to start building the nuclear plants now in order to make that happen and then you could

01:55:54have that eventuality that that'd be great but it takes statesmen to look on those timescales

01:55:59and everybody just wants to get elected for their next four-year term or whatever it is yeah and it's

01:56:04that thing of like going you know what you know britain i think uh could could put its feet up now

01:56:09in terms of going it's had a big effect on the world but the idea of being a an example to other

01:56:15nations of how to do that that would be the flex that would be the thing to do to go to get there

01:56:20before anyone else because you go well we built the plants so in 25 years we look like geniuses and

01:56:25also if you get energy down to essentially zero cost how many businesses would that attract to to the uk

01:56:33when it comes to culture british culture what do you wish more british people understood or knew

01:56:39what culturally yeah like i i for me the british culture has an awful lot of charm to it but there's

01:56:47some kind of like lethal poisons thrown in with it like the tall poppy syndrome is one of them the

01:56:54sensible maybe a lack of mobility the quite ossified class system that in the us what somebody earns

01:57:01kind of determines their yeah current level of class but in the uk it's where you went to school

01:57:06or it's your accent is there something that you wish more british people sort of if you could uh inject

01:57:11something into british culture what would it be i think it'd be uh i think there's a i think it's

01:57:15oinkophobia is the fancy term it's the hatred of one's own culture i think that people need to take

01:57:20a bit more pride in that you know it's not immediately apparent that a place without a past has a future

01:57:26and i think having that shared um belief in what what we've done in the past i mean it's you know

01:57:32we beat the nazis and we ended slavery it's not nothing it's it's it's big and going and the english

01:57:39language is a beautiful thing i mean it's really uh george mack's got a good line on this on like

01:57:43if you had top trump cards for great britain and you go well name a thing okay music the beatles

01:57:48okay physics all right stephen hawkin or you know a biology okay well tim burners lee for the

01:57:53internet whatever we've got lots and lots of kind of we've done great things and we continue to

01:57:57punch above our weight and people should take some pride in that i think taking some pride in

01:58:01where you're from is is quite an important thing and the local communities are kind of there's

01:58:06there's that kind of at a lower level i think people like where they're from have a sense of

01:58:11that heck yeah jimmy carr ladies and gentlemen jimmy love you appreciate you coming for coming through

01:58:17no i i really enjoy i think you know you're right i think coming on this show and doing this kind of

01:58:21thing has really changed me as a as a performer it's been really incredibly valuable to me hopefully in

01:58:27the right direction yeah they'll decide look at the comments section until next time thanks bye

01:58:33bye everybody dude yes is that right yes thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode

01:58:42youtube knows who you are deeply it thinks you're gonna like this one even more go on press it

Key Takeaway

Mastering high-volume creative iteration, structural simplicity over complication, and systemic community engagement transforms both personal performance and societal well-being.

Highlights

Performing 250 to 300 shows per year across two nightly sets builds on-stage comfort and reduces performance anxiety through high repetition.
Mental health crises require collective societal adjustments rather than purely individual solutions, as isolated habits like fitness tracking increase alienation.
Lowering the drinking age to 16 exclusively within supervised group environments like pubs provides built-in social peer checks and prevents isolated drinking.
Eliminating income tax for individuals under 30 or exempting the first 250,000 dollars helps younger generations overcome severe wealth barriers to establish households.
France built 56 nuclear plants during the 1970s, establishing the cheapest energy in Europe and full insulation from international fuel shocks.

Timeline

Touring Volume and Reducing Performance Anxiety

Executing two shows per night across 250 to 300 annual performances builds professional resilience equivalent to an airline pilot's hours in the sky.
Filming live sets and altering roughly one-third of the material nightly prevents creative burnout and maintains constant intellectual stimulation.
Audience self-selection at major solo shows eliminates performance nerves, as ticket buyers already understand the specific comedic style.

Performing multiple nightly sets transforms travel into the primary logistical hassle while making the stage a place of joy. High repetition of live material removes performance anxiety through sheer volume of execution. Constantly filming and updating jokes during every single show creates an iterative feedback loop that keeps the material fresh and intellectually engaging.

Anxiety, Flow States, and Societal Isolation

Anxiety represents uncontrolled thought, whereas a flow state on stage represents complete control without conscious thought.
Modern metrics like gym personal bests and daily step counts replace collective games with solitary, isolating tracking habits.
Widespread depression and anxiety stem from collective societal structures rather than individual psychological failures.

Overthinking and rumination stem from a lack of control over racing thoughts, whereas true flow requires action without mental interference. Contemporary society privatizes stress by shifting communal activities into isolated personal metrics. Treating mental health solely as an individual problem ignores the reality that modern social structures actively prevent human connection and community cohesion.

Reforming Public Spaces, Drinking, and Taxation

Pubs serve as existing neighborhood youth clubs featuring jukeboxes, pool tables, and multi-generational adult supervision.
Legalizing drinking at age 16 strictly within supervised group settings forces peer moderation and prevents isolated consumption in public parks.
Exempting young people under 30 from taxation up to 250,000 dollars provides the necessary financial foundation to buy homes and start families.

Existing public spaces like traditional pubs naturally provide communal gathering points that foster positive social checks among peers. Allowing supervised alcohol consumption in groups at an earlier age prevents dangerous isolation. Reforming economic structures to eliminate taxes for young adults early in life directly addresses the systemic impossibility of building financial security.

The Illusion of Control and Overcoming Rumination

Circumstantial sadness is entirely distinct from clinical depression, and external life conditions often require direct practical changes.
Overproducing university-educated elites who fail to secure promised housing and stability creates a dangerous counter-elite class.
Abandoning the search for perfection and embracing chaos shifts focus entirely to personal reactions rather than external outcomes.

Distinguishing between genuine internal pathology and a objectively depressing environment clarifies what actions to take. Mass university attendance transforms degrees into luxury consumer items, devaluing credentials and fueling societal revolution when expectations go unmet. Embracing stoic principles ensures that attention remains strictly on personal reactions rather than illusory control over chaotic external realities.

Status Metrics, Optionality, and Action Over Words

Getting possessions brings temporary excitement, whereas long-term possession fails to generate sustained happiness.
Accumulating endless optionality through degrees and credentials without taking decisive business risks wastes productive time.
Actions reflected in weekly calendars reveal true priorities far more accurately than verbal proclamations.

The pursuit of status symbols like luxury watches stems from mimetic desires to impress others rather than fulfill actual functional needs. True leverage comes from committing to specific paths and cashing in career options through direct execution. People consistently overestimate what they can achieve through verbal planning while ignoring the stark reality of their actual logged behavior.

Compounded Skills and the Mechanics of Comedy

Compounding skill acquisition through daily reps produces exponential capability over time, mirroring financial interest accumulation.
Stand-up comedy relies on immediate audience feedback loops that instantly validate whether a piece of material succeeds.
Cognitive dissonance laughter reveals deep psychological engagement when audiences laugh at shocking or unexpected truths.

Financial wealth and professional skills both scale exponentially through the sheer factor of time and consistent daily systems. Writing jokes provides an immediate, frictionless testing mechanism where audiences instantly confirm quality. Treating performance standards as a moving baseline prevents self-satisfaction while driving continuous artistic improvement.

Gratitude, Boredom, and Problem-Solving Brains

Mindset and daily disposition carry vastly more importance for overall life quality than physical position or external status.
Boredom functions as unappreciated serenity rather than a negative state, offering a mental sanctuary from constant stimulation.
Problem-solving brains experience severe anxiety when lacking meaningful, high-value challenges to tackle.

Practicing active gratitude shifts disposition and cuts through the constant habituation to modern abundance. Problems represent features of complex living rather than bugs, signaling areas that require focused attention. Minds designed to solve problems run wild with anxiety when starved of worthy challenges and flooded with uncontrollable global news.

Empathy, Global News, and Achievement Standards

Human empathy and agency must apply universally across all ideological groups rather than selectively based on personal preference.
High performers often struggle to celebrate achievements because meeting high standards feels like a mandatory baseline duty.
Laughter establishes the shortest distance between two people by cutting through filters and building authentic interpersonal connections.

Consuming unfiltered global disasters via screens constantly pierces nervous systems without granting any personal agency to fix those issues. High-achieving individuals view success as a minimum standard of performance, making imposter syndrome a regular catalyst for leveling up. Treating an audience with absolute transparency establishes deep, high-bandwidth connection.

The Overton Window of Emotion and Social Media Webs

Comedy expands the conversational Overton window by addressing third-rail topics and introducing raw sincerity alongside humor.
Social media platforms operate as structural nets designed to capture human attention and alienate individuals from authentic selves.
Artificial intelligence functions as a musical instrument that automates drudgery while requiring deep human practice to yield symphonies.

Audiences exhibit an allergic reaction to extreme emotional sincerity despite claiming to crave absolute authenticity. Internet networks systematically extract personal attention for cheap dopamine in exchange for user freedom. Advanced technology absorbs cognitive drudgery, leaving uniquely human capabilities focused on high-level creativity and social connection.

Favorable Conditions, Geopolitics, and State Competitiveness

Waiting for ideal external conditions delays meaningful work indefinitely, as favorable circumstances never spontaneously arrive.
Transitioning to a multi-polar geopolitical world creates systemic confusion and shatters legacy political and academic institutions.
National economic competitiveness requires lowering overvalued currency, reducing energy costs, cutting bureaucratic red tape, and flattening tax structures.

Achieving meaningful progress requires seeking knowledge under unfavorable conditions rather than waiting for an empty calendar. Geopolitical shifts fracture traditional political parties and media establishments, forcing societies to rebuild institutional clearances. National renewal depends on aggressive structural reform modeled after successful historical precedents rather than minor tax adjustments.

Systemic Fixes, Responsibility, and Writing Comedy

Establishing open primaries and strict legislative term limits forces political leaders to appeal to the central majority.
Suicide prevention requires communicating the harsh reality that suicide redistributes unbearable pain directly to surviving loved ones.
Systematic instruction of joke writing demystifies comedy and proves that humor relies on learnable technical structures.

Political systems stabilize when term limits and open primaries eliminate entrenched career politicians and force consensus. Openly discussing the devastation caused by suicide shatters illusions and forces individuals to seek alternative solutions. Treating comedy as a structured craft with technical rules rather than magical innate talent opens the medium to aspiring creators.

Obsession, Skill Compounding, and Cultural Pride

Pure obsession operates as the freest form of motivation, driving relentless focus across every waking hour.
Compound interest on hard skills and professional reps produces extraordinary career outcomes over extended timeframes.
National cultural pride and historical appreciation serve as essential antidotes to cultural self-hatred.

Allowing an obsession to consume daily life for a period unlocks disproportionate career gains through unforced dedication. Compounding execution ensures that early professional struggles eventually scale into massive domain authority. Cultivating pride in historical contributions, linguistic heritage, and national identity builds a resilient foundation for future societal progress.

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