Rabbit Hole: Does Tim Ferriss Dream In Japanese?

British supremacy in messaging services. We need to try and get everybody to use WhatsApp. This superior messaging system and Americans refuse to use it. You know what I think? >> We was talking about this earlier as to why Americans don't use WhatsApp more. One of the theories is that America had free SMS before anybody else. So, us Brits had to pay. How much would it used to be for a text back in the day? >> 15p maybe. >> 15p. >> 10p. 10p. >> That would ramp up very fast. Well, that was why people used to use elite speak, right? That was why you was there like ly because you were trying to snap everything to under 160 characters. >> Yeah. I once when I was 14 years old had my first ever girlfriend and we would text and we would text and we would text. >> You [ __ ] bankrupted yourself. >> Well, my dad's obviously [laughter] my dad comes down one day and you know when you have like A4 that you'd stack in a printer, he just drops that. [laughter] So on the phone bill and I'd racked up about £800 itemized bill text messages. Yes. >> Wow. >> So I then sent her >> That's a lot of texting at 14. >> I then sent her one final text which was can't do texts anymore. Let's do calls. So we did calls all the time. Next next month. >> So I had to pay off about 1,200,300 of debt to my father. >> Still paying it off [laughter] >> payment plan. Dad, you're [ __ ] blocking me. So that's how >> 14. I'm trying to get I'm trying to get my credit up. But yeah, I just WhatsApp's are superior. Tim uses WhatsApp. Tim's good on WhatsApp. >> I mean, look, I use every new inbox that is slowly eroding the sanity of everybody who's listening to us. [laughter] >> Do you guys see the Nikita Beard tweet a long time ago? It feels like um he said something like um every time I use WhatsApp, it feels like I landed in a third world country. [laughter] >> You're allowed to say that. >> Okay, fair enough. >> You're allowed to say that. >> No, I'm really I grew up on Long Island. I think I'm allowed to say it, too. >> Rewed Sean for you. >> Fair enough. That's the primary reason. >> I think I'm sitting in the same spot. >> That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. People like Sean lost weight and the beard's gone. >> This is the designated seat for the minority. [laughter] >> Uh, you grew up on Long Island. >> I didn't know that. What? >> Oh, yeah. Way out by Montalk. Back when there were potato farms. >> That explains a lot. >> That has changed. Now they're nightclubs that make all the locals crazy. But yes. >> So, is that beyond the Hamptons? >> Yeah. Montalk is the end of the line. So if you take Long Island Railroad out from New York City, it will end in Montalk. And uh it was it was perfectly fine place to grow up. I didn't realize how strange it was until I got older because >> strange. >> Well, when you're growing up, what is around you is normal because you have no reference point. But you're growing up in a location where you have a barbell of income and wealth distribution, right? So you've got all of the let's just say the broad Hamptons that people know which would have like the $100 million homes on the beach and all these famous directors and financeers and little white shorts playing tennis and then you have on the other hand like affordable housing when I was growing up like crack epidemic in certain parts. So I didn't realize how much was missing from the middle of the whole thing. >> Okay. Have you ever seen Mickey Mantel's questionnaire answer on the 50th anniversary of the Yankees stadium? >> This I feel like this is the kind of question my dad would ask me. He's like, "Do you know >> Henry Rubenstein from 1839?" I'm like, "No, of course I don't." >> Mickey Mantel describes in basically a yearbook for the Yankees Stadium. It's the 50th anniversary of Yankees Stadium happening. Mickey Mandal, everybody has asked, uh, tell us what your most outstanding experience at Yankee Stadium was. Uh, and this was sold for $242,000 not long ago, a few years ago. He said, I consider the following my outstanding experience at Yankee Stadium. It's like like a questionnaire. He goes, I got a [ __ ] under the right field bleachers by the Yankee bullpen. And then below that, it says, this event occurred on or about. Brackets, give as much detail as you can. says, "It was about the third or fourth inning. I had pulled a groin and couldn't walk at the time. She was a very nice girl and asked me what to do with the [ __ ] after I came in her mouth. I said, "Don't ask me. I'm no cocksucker." Signed Mickey Manel, the all-American boy. And that was sold about 5 years ago for $242,000. Wow. >> Speaking of Speaking of hedge fund managers, I'm sure that's in the guest bathroom of some hedge fund manager's third home. >> It's a bargain. [laughter] You don't think that's a bargain >> in Monttok or thereabouts? Yeah, >> I don't know, man. I mean, like, baseball's got a lot of superstition, but that feels like it's taking it to an extreme. There's like a baseball player that had never washed his helmet or cleaned it or did anything for his entire career. >> Literally, the the helmet look I think it's Craig Beio if I'm not mistaken, but the helmet was just and he he believed in that so much that it had to be that way. Never changed. seen the guys walk out and they go right glove, left glove, tap tap on the foot. It's it's goes from being uh preference to routine to superstition to ritual to basically something sacred. It's essentially a rain dance that every >> or mental illness. >> I think those two crossover >> refer to all of [laughter] my mental illness as a rain as a rain dance from now on. >> I'm going to take these suckers off. That's enough. That's enough [ __ ] PO POV porn, which actually was the reason that we wore these when we had uh Bonnie Blue on the podcast, so we could put POV in the title of the episode. >> Has she done one of those with PO with these? >> I'm sure if you go dark enough and deep enough into the Only Fans rabbit hole, you can find whatever you need. >> Let me take my toothpick out of my mouth before I address the table. Um, one of the things that I've been fascinated with for a while, I know you have as well, Christopher, I don't know about you two, gentlemen, but uh, uh, ethmologies of everything. So, [snorts] um, I was trying to rank my favorite ethmologies or history of certain parts of language. One of them is, um, uh, not English, but it's Malaysian, and in Malay Malayan culture, they use double rather than plural. So rather than tables, they will use table table, which is one of my favorite things. >> What if it's three? >> So it doesn't scale. So it doesn't go [laughter] >> that would be a nightmare. If you're a table factory maker, >> the same way we just use plural, we'll say tables. We could say four tables. They would say >> I assume the number then table. Table. >> Wow. >> Which is such a more fun way of saying things. >> The same in Indonesian also. >> Yes. >> Like orangutang, man of the forest. Orang orang is men, right? Man, men >> man of the men. That's something different. >> Well, not a man of the man. I think that's >> something you're biopic. [laughter] >> Man, >> but it's it's so much better than a >> lot of heavy editing in there. [laughter] >> Um, one of my favorite ones though is the word soon. So, the word soon, I will be there soon, [snorts] was the Anglo-Saxon word for now. But because so many people kept saying I'll do that soon and didn't do it then we then created the word now to replace it and soon is what it is today. >> It soon got shifted down in terms of how urgent it means >> generation by generation. What's interesting now now has that effect where somebody says I'll do that now. You don't really take them literally unless they say I'll do that. I'll do that immediately now. >> Yeah. So, it's interesting that you're seeing this drifting of now now occur as well. >> I wonder if literally is the same as that because when people say literally, they don't mean literally. Like, I literally couldn't believe it. >> Exactly. >> Well, no, you could believe it. >> Yes. >> Which is the entire point. >> My friend Allesio, he's Italian and he talks about how he has a different personality when he's speaking in Italian. The Swedish writer Henrik Carlson, friend of mine, he talks about how he can access different thoughts in Swedish rather than English. >> You speak multiple languages. >> Yeah. What's Japanese Tim like? [laughter] >> Lot more polite. Curses less than Long Island. >> Are you totally fluent in Japanese? >> Yeah, I can speak Japanese. >> Amazing. >> What's the story of learning that? [sighs] My first international trip, real international trip off of Long Island out of the US was to Japan as an exchange student at 15 for a year. I went from east coast to Tokyo and it took him about 3 weeks just to accept that I was in Japan because I couldn't believe it. Uh that's how that happened and it just stuck. I was there for a year. I went to a Japanese school, all of my classes in Japanese. I misunderstood what I was told before getting there, which was, "You're going to have Japanese lessons." And I was like, "Oh, great." Like, "Japanese language lessons." And they're like, "Here's your class schedule." And I was like, "I can't read any of this." And they're like, "Physics, world history." I'm like, [laughter] "Wait, what? >> My lessons are going to be in Japanese. I'm not going to have lessons allowed." >> Wow. >> So, that will especially I was lucky because this was pre-smartphone internet, not much to speak of. So I could not coming back to WhatsApp, right? I couldn't procrastinate or avoid learning Japanese by constantly communicating with anyone in English. >> There was no escape. There's just total immersion. There's no escape. >> That seems to be I I get it. People go and do um university courses in in Spanish and stuff and it's not just the language. Sometimes they're learning about the history and the culture and other stuff like that. But if you're trying to learn a language, and I I did in school, we have to do at least one language in our GCSEs. typically the uh 11 to 16s in the UK and I did Spanish and apart from the most basic stuff that I've probably remembered because I've gone back out to the country I basically learned nothing. It would be if you just wanted people to learn a language doing a six week immersion would what teach you maybe the same as a year of weekly classes. >> You could do a year and six weeks no problem. There's um [clears throat] there's a method called the Michelle Thomas method. And Michelle Thomas, male, uh was Holocaust survivor, then became an intelligence officer, ended up speaking five or six different languages and developed a method of getting people up to basic conversational fluency in a week. >> Wow. in a rush in a weekend in terms of giving them the scaffolding of the graph the the grammar and so forth. But it's a lot like learning some type of very fine motor skill. Right? If you wanted to learn how to play tennis, it's like if you're playing once a month, you're never going to learn tennis even once a week. You're just not getting the density of practice and the reinforcement >> for you to go from the like unconscious uncompetence to conscious competence to etc. etc. Right? You're just not getting the proper density. So languages I think you can learn languages a lot faster as an adult than you can as a kid actually. >> Why? >> Uh because you already have the base layer of labeling and concepts and so on and different types of abstraction in the form of let's just say grammar or a a subjunctive let's say if you had a million dollars what would you do? Like a hypothetical that is counterfactual. >> These types of things I can explain that to you. You can't explain that to a three-year-old. When's the last time you talked to a three-year-old? They're not actually very good [laughter] at speaking a given language. >> The reason that people mistakenly believe that kids learn faster is because the kids have no choice. The kids have no mortgage. The kids have no job. It's just like >> they're forced into immersion. >> You have no choice. >> Have you heard Nasam Talib's um description of how to learn language? Said the best way to learn Russian is to go into a Russian jail. >> [laughter] >> It's a I mean that's a harsh That's a harsh trade. Quickest way. Yeah, true. Life or death scenario. >> You have to really want to learn Russia. >> But you will you will learn. Do do you think can you think in Japanese, Tim? >> Yeah, I would say that there's uh typically an English interface. But when I was in Japan for a year and then came back to the US, it took me about a month to get back to speaking English. She like I remember >> the first few days when my mom would come in and wake me up and I would just start speaking to her in Japanese in this >> days and it took a while to get back to things. The the soon is pretty funny the emology of that and it makes me wonder if the much like the say Eskimos and snow right or Hawaiians and water or whatever that it depends on the historical punctuality of a culture. You say that the Italians have got five words for >> Zoom. Well, I think it probably is something like that, right? Because in Japan, it's like now is now. There is no second, third, fourth way to say it unless you're maybe being really polite cuz the honorifics in Japanese it's like 12 languages in one if you really want to be sophisticated with it. But uh I don't know if they do it in in uh UK but in uh South Africa they have now then they have now now [laughter] >> just like in in certain places in in Latin America they have like a like now and then they have a like a is kind of like now but like when you get around to it right or when I get around to it and then like Aita is like hey [ __ ] now actually what uh what do you think's the latest nationality on the planet? H >> Brazil >> the latest >> latest if you were to I'm going to organize a dinner with somebody and I can pick a bunch of different nationalities. Which one's going to arrive on average last? [laughter] >> I feel like they got like the Olympics but in reverse. >> Have you ever have you have you ever heard of Indian Standard Time? >> I'm not even sure [laughter] it's actually real cuz it's 1 hour later than it's actually supposed to start. >> So turns out a long time ago people would go to the movies. >> Yeah. And you know the movie doesn't start on time which is absolutely hilarious. You're everybody just expects and then the whole term Indian standard time came about which is absolutely hilarious but it's typically referred to as 1 hour >> past something after the actual time. >> I've heard Brazilians refer to Brazilian time also. Well, what is the what is the least punctual? It's anywhere that's got good I think you can talk about culture and people and stuff like that, but what's more interesting is to just talk about what is the lifestyle of that particular ecosystem. So if you're going to go Spain, Italy, you know, Portugal, they're just you've got wonderful weather, late nights throughout the summer, everyone's smoking, having a red wine, like you've been to Palmer Yorker or wherever, and you see people outside sat on rot iron chairs having a pre-dinner cigarette at 10:30 p.m. at night. These are old people. They're not going out, oh, this isn't the beginning of them going out to go and party and head to the club afterward. They're not going stk for a, you know, nighttime party brunch. Uh, so I would say maybe some of the Mediterranean places like that. I guess as I think further a field, I don't know much about India, but perhaps other issues. >> Neither neither do I, but >> it is um genealogically you do. >> Tim, you know a lot about Denmark. I'm like, I don't know. >> I wonder this is this is really hippie crack [ __ ] Um, but this is what we're here for. >> Now, now we're getting >> Now we're getting that. I wonder it's like that Safia Warp hypothesis of how much >> Oh, lost me. That didn't sound friendly. The idea is that um it's the Vickenstein quote of like the limits of my world are the limits of my language. And we think that we shape language, but language shapes us. And it feels immediately like so trivial, so esoteric to have the conversation. Everybody kind of dismisses language as it's almost like neural linguistic programming that we shouldn't take it seriously. But how much the words that we use? So I wonder um obviously uh England, Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa share this English ancestry, but how much then that they have the same language keeps the culture similar as well versus if you fork the language do you change? >> I don't know, man. If you go and meet a South African and you compare them to a Scottish person, they're quite different. >> So true. Both angry. Both very angry. >> So there you go. And we had this at my birthday in the middle of nowhere. >> I didn't realize the spectrum exists when it comes to how people think as well. So, we had my friend Billy and my friend Cameron. And Billy can't think uh visually at all. So, he can only think in words. Yes. >> Cameron can't think in words at all. She can only think visually. >> Mhm. >> You know, there's a test that you can do like imagine an apple in your mind. What level of detail can you see the apple at? >> Could you pull that up, Jared? The Apple visual test. >> The lack of it. I think it's called aphantasia. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Aantia. How do you guys think? Do you can you do you think more in words? Do you think more in visuals? >> Imagine an apple in your mind. What level of detail can you see the apple with? >> You know, when growing up there was like this whole um people with like very um the visual memories or what whatever they would just like look at something and then effectively recite, you know, >> idetic 50 word. >> Identic is what people think of as photographic. Yeah. >> The photographic stone. >> So Billy, for example, would be number five. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. He could he would just think the word apple. Yeah. Fascinating. >> And then the uh Cameron could see the apple, but if you asked her to create that to see the the word apple in her mind, she couldn't do it at all. >> I asked her how does she count in her head and she said it's stairs. [laughter] >> She literally visualizes stairs. >> I mean, I would I'm about 10 out that direction. Like I have super hyper visual memory. Like I can remember almost every floor plan of every restaurant I've ever been in. What's the mo like [laughter] if >> Yeah. No, I mean I'm not I'm not trying to store that. >> So 1010 where we went for dinner the other evening. Can you remember >> the table? >> What was on the table? >> I don't remember the name of the number of the table, but it's like this the server door was directly to our left. >> Right. We were effectively the last booth at the edge. The bar was >> to my right. Nero was to my left here. Right. you were here uh sort of at my like 2:00. So, we ordered way too much edamame garlic and we ordered the right amount of edamame which is too much edamame. It's just the only amount of edamame that's >> it. It depends on how many gallons of oil you like on your edetamame. >> Yeah, it's true. I think salted edamame when you start to try and spice up edamame too much ruins it. >> But here's what I would say just to quickly put something to this. I don't want people to feel badly if they can't go out a few standard deviations towards like the hyper uh like hyperia, right? The opposite of amnesia because >> uh when you have my dad has this as well, really exaggerated development of certain types of memory. It can make it really hard to let go of grievances. >> Wow. >> Slights against you. the email that you sent that ended up whatever it is, right? Like there there is an advantage. There are some tremendous advantages to forgetting. >> And so when you when you're not as selective, you could argue it's almost counter evolutionary past a certain point to have an overly developed memory. I would say, >> yeah, I think I I can recall like one of the things that I was talking to somebody about was that [clears throat] I have vivid um face recognition like almost like uh like the face ID type situation and I can remember faces that I've seen only one time 15 years ago. >> Mhm. >> Problem is this becomes socially awkward often times you meet >> there's a massive asymmetry, >> right? You're like, I I I know everything about you because we met once and this was 10 years ago. >> But you can't really bring that up. >> Okay. You freak. >> Yeah. It's like it's it's it's very creepy. >> You sound like a stalker. >> Exactly. But I did not research them. Similarly with quotes and visuals. I think I personally have a very very vivid like visual element and I can probably look at something once and then 10 years later if you quiz me I would probably get about 90% of that correct. >> Yeah. It's wild. Do you want to tell the story? the forgetting part. I was crazy. >> Do you want to tell the story about the first elevator we ever got into together? >> Oh my god, yes. [laughter] I actually um [clears throat] I think there was a new appointment of an Xbox CEO and she was like some I I made a tweet about it. I was like, "Wait, she doesn't really have any experience with gaming." >> Mhm. >> And um and then Chris and I were in elevator and turns out she was there. >> Well, you're leaving out one critical footnote. That tweet was not seen by two people. It was it was seen by millions. Millions of people saw you call out the Xbox CEO. We get into [laughter] >> I was I was just simply remarking about culture and the way that like people frame this because like that's a unique development. >> But I put my foot in it. I put my foot in it. >> Yeah, that was hilarious. >> I'm trying to big up my friend who recognizes the Xbox CEO and goes, "Hey, you're the CEO of Xbox." Who's some unassuming lady dressed real nice, had maybe a partner or security or something with her. I'm like, "You identify correctly." And she sort of sheepishly is like, "Yeah, yeah, I am. That's me." And I think you introduced >> She was very nervous about it >> a little. Yeah, she was sheepish about it, which was quite >> She was the actual CEO. I was like, "Wait, that person's usually just like so into it or whatever." >> And I said, "Well, you should you signal on on X. You you must a fantastic writer tech and all the rest of this stuff. There is a 100% chance that she saw your tweet." And immediately as soon as I said that, the [ __ ] atmosphere in the elevator went frosty as hell. [laughter] >> It was um look, I I nothing against her personally, but I tried to do something nice for a friend. It was wonderful. >> Came back to uh came back to bite you. >> No, and that that has happened multiple times. I think going back to Tim's point about the forgetting part. I think about this a lot, which is what a great feature of of the mind in some sense. like the forgetting part like I think about AI memory you know today it's so easy to build like tell AI to extract some fact and try to remember it and we store it somewhere and then you basically use it for some other thing >> it's very common people are doing it how do you forget AI how does like an AI forget me things like what >> there's no pruning >> yeah and like >> of salience >> how do you think about the world with respect to you know building sort of artificial memory constraints just like the human And the forgetting part is such an essential element like that is no longer relevant or that is not important at the moment. >> Mhm. >> We the AI systems don't really know that. >> And so when you pass in a bunch of these memories into context, which is what a lot of these companies do, turns out you get a lot of noise. >> Yes. >> And it tries to make these connections that [laughter] >> there you Well, if if people want a real exaggerated case of not forgetting, there's an old book called the mind of a neonist like pneummonic device, the mind of a neonist by AJ Lura, which is effectively an extended case study of someone who never forgets. And uh there are other ways to look at it. I think there's a doc called Brainman about Daniel Dennett. I think I'm getting that right. >> And uh >> the atheist. Uh, you know what the Dennett I might be mixing it up with the philosopher who passed away, but it's something very close to that. People can look up Braymond British. >> I taught I taught George yesterday about Savant syndrome. You know what this is? >> Mhm. >> So, uh, there was a a famous case of a guy called Thomas McHugh, British guy. So, in his early years, he was in a youth prison. Uh, was a bit of a disruptor, kind of a a hooligan type guy. And, uh, he's in his 50s, early 50s. And on the bathroom, he shits himself so aggressively that he causes uh an anur, like a blood explosion in his brain. And then as he's on the floor, he's terrified that someone's going to find him with his pants around his ankles. So he tries to pull his pants up and causes another one to go off. Completely like pops both sides of his brain. wakes up in the hospital a few days later and turns into a obsessive painter who can only speak in rhyme and paints between three or six or nine paintings at any one time. Paints for 19 hours a day and couldn't uh bear to think about suffering. So it sort of sweep the the steps in front of him >> as he was like some Buddhist guy. He just had a total come to art moment. Uh but yeah, shot himself so aggressively that he had acquired savant syndrome. I think if you're a great athlete, for example, you got to you got to learn how to forget. You guys know about yips, like in baseball and other places. So, it turns out, you know, >> it's like typically, you know, you make an error or you you do something >> egregiously wrong in sports, everybody's watching, >> right? >> And then you you're sort of had this phantom reaction or whatever and then that continuously [clears throat] happens. And yips is a is >> is like somebody throwing that ball and you know there's some famous players that have dealt with this problem and turns out >> you know you got to forget. >> Yeah. >> You got to forget. >> It's like a conditioned hesitancy or flinch orchin involuntary potential reaction. But I'm not quite sure how how it relates to you know the the memory aspect of it. Ultimately, when you're when you're a great athlete, you watch a game tape afterwards, you're like, "Okay, I I process it." And then you have to discard that. >> You learn from it, you move on. Do you guys see the Mark Andre stuff about >> retarding? [ __ ] maxing. >> Y >> that I think component wise, I asked I asked I asked Hubman, [laughter] >> how many times does that word go? >> Hubman if he's personally threatened by the [ __ ] maxing movement. >> What do you say? >> I think he is. I think [laughter] he partially is. his entire career has been built on anti- [ __ ] maxing >> and there's a lot of these people who have like you know they they they have a set of context I don't know why I refer to everything like this but um and then they they sort of keep it around but it's super valuable to discard some of that stuff because ultimately none of that really matters I think Sam Harris all this stuff go >> no I think it was it was just really interesting the present matters the most >> people tend to focus on the future a lot more anxiety, the worries or whatever and then they marry that with the past. And I think this is this is one of the things I personally am like how do I live in the moment, think about what matters and focus on a few things from my experience. >> Exactly. But you learn from it, but you don't dwell on it. You don't ruminate on it. You don't I think people I had to I had to move neighborhoods from a breakup because every time I walked around I can viv I could vividly feel the moments that occurred in that place >> from a a coffee shop to I don't know like a flower shop a dog that you regularly see >> I walk in a restaurant I'm like I sat there you know this person was next to me I knew exactly what we talked out. >> Mhm. >> I knew exactly how that moment ended. >> And [clears throat] I could replay that every single time I took another step. >> Dude, one of the best stories I've heard about this is from Alander Boton, and he's describing being in Paris, and it's a early summer day, beautiful weather outside, a little cloudy, a little bit of sun, and it's sort of late afternoon, classic European fashion. This French couple are sat around a small table, rot iron chairs, and they've got a couple of espressos, and they're just so deeply in love. young couple sort of maybe mid20s something like that. He's got this line. He says, "I looked at them and realized that this beautiful memory would be one of the greatest sources of pain to one of these people if the relationship ever ended. >> It's strange that this thing that at the time is really, really wonderful, >> right, >> actually becomes the thing that's kind of the I'm never going to Paris again. I'm [ __ ] moving to Rome or whatever it is because I need to totally change my context." And that's also the same when it comes to phones, right? I I tried to stop using my phone and this still kind of works. I just changed the pocket that I put it in because I realized that for an entire decade I'd had my phone in my right pocket and like a speed shooter withdrawing his firearm. I would just put mindlessly put my hand in my pocket. The number of times that I pulled my wallet out when I changed it to look at my wallet. It's just habitu just this obsessive sort of routine. >> You guys know about this uh phantom vibrations. So, it turns out people have their phone on their pocket, right? And um I went to a meditation retreat and um no phones, just meditation. And I felt vibrations. I didn't even have my phone in my pocket. >> Do you have a vibrator? [laughter] >> Two of them. >> There we go. There we go. >> That might have been my dildo. >> Um but no one likes >> We don't call that a meditation retreat where I'm from. >> Fair enough. [laughter] >> What is body blue called? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. True. >> Tuesday. It was really interesting and it turns out I Googled it. Turns out that's actually a real thing. People feel phantom vibrations from their phone. You can go check it out. And I was like, "Wow, your body is so tuned to this over >> every time you get a notification, every time you get whatever." And most people have their phone on silent now. So the vibration's really like a thing with the haptics. >> You pavlovianly programmed yourself >> pretty much >> to expect this thing to happen. So like this this sort of device is now a potential part of your the way that you sort of feel and understand the world in this case kind of like a a touch type sense but it was remarkable and I I went down the rabbit hole and I looked at it and I was like wow this is not just me >> there's so many individuals >> it like you said if you um if I move my phone in my the other pocket the other one will completely vibrate >> my wallet's going to be vibrating >> yeah [laughter] I mean for some people that might be a wow Now, before we continue, most people in their 30s are still training hard. Their protein is dialed in. They sleep better than they did in their 20s. Discipline is not the issue, but recovery feels somewhat different. Strength gains take a little longer. The margin for error starts to shrink. And that is why I'm such a huge fan of timeline. You see, mitochondria are the energy producers inside of your muscle cells. 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That's timeline.com/modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout. to play um to play devil's advocate on the whole the ability to remember everything being a bad idea. I think a lot of these conversations rather than a light switch it's more >> dimmer and different people different occasions it will be good and bad for >> cuz a lot of people look at us being able to remember everything now very similar to when writing came along. So before writing we couldn't store any information down. So that completely changed us. But I always think of So do you guys know um I've forgotten the name of G um Grenell Tower in the UK. Have you heard about what Grenell Tower is? So it's it's kind of it's one of the biggest um tragedies that's ever happened in the UK where a council estate which will be the equivalent of your projects um was poorly designed set on fire. >> Can you get a photo of it up? >> Loads of people Grandfell Tower. loads of people um burned alive in it and it was a huge like government inquiry. How are we going to fix it? What were we going to change about it? And what was the crazy thing about the day was that as this building was on fire kind of like 9/11, >> a baby was picked up on the news was dropped from the top floor. Look at that. >> So a baby was picked up from the top floor and dropped and somebody caught it and it was this kind of miracle in this amaz like horrific day that happened >> and it got reported everywhere. There was about five different eyewitnesses and about 6 months later after the emotion of the event settled down a few physicists started [snorts] looking at it and going well hold on that baby at a hundreds of feet in the air if we just ran the math here it would just disintegrate on the catch and as soon as they started to inquire like the eyewitness testimony it was a completely hallucinated memory. So on the one hand, we'll the ability to store memories will mean that we can't let go of certain things, but it may also mean that we let go of complete fictions that we're telling ourselves that never happened or that we would invent them as well, right? Because if you're Tim, your recollection of the flames is, you know, in 4K, but the mirage of a baby being thrown out, you know, the terminal velocity of a cat is non fatal. >> What do you mean? The I can't say it any other way. >> [laughter] >> There there's only one if if I drop a cat from any distance. >> Yes. >> It's the speed that it reaches when it hits the ground >> is exactly >> on average is non fatal. >> So it doesn't >> I'm going to I'm not I'm going to just raise [laughter] an eyebrow. >> Ask Ch. A cat's terminal velocity depends on its size body position. Yeah. Whatever. Estimated terminal velocity is about 60 mph. Some studies and veteran analysis place it between Okay. So see look see depends on posture. So if you've got a cat >> around 5 to seven stories. Yeah. Okay. I mean that's higher up than I would expect. >> Some cats survive because they reach terminal velocity, stop accelerating, relax, and then orient themselves for impact. >> And look, I'm not Look, it's it's trying to caveat like basically am I okay to throw a cat out of a window? That's what chat thinks I'm doing. >> Now, this is one of those cases when somebody's like, you know, when people die, they release DMT from their brains. And I'm like, how would you know that though? Like who which families consented to have some science be like I know this is a hard moment but let me like tap your grandma's brain and [laughter] this is like >> the terminal velocity of a cat. >> No but I'm saying I injuries often increase up to around five to seven stories like I just want seven stories and wear in like Sierra Leone. They're like okay let's take these 40 cats and drop them >> just put it into one of those t-shirts >> 5 10 15 >> t-shirt fireers that they Yeah. Yeah. t-shirt cannon that they've got in pull that data from some >> Speaking of hallucinating, I just want to fact check myself. Uh Daniel Te a M. >> Pilously close. All right. What did you bring to the table? >> Hallucinating is a really fascinating subject. So people talk about AI hallucinations. >> Now we're in my >> Oh, sorry. Sorry. Hold on. This is I'm We're still going. The highest reliably documented fall survived by a cat is generally believed to be 32 stories. Sabrina in New York City 1987. She fell from the 32nd floor of a skyscraper. survived with a chipped tooth, collapsed lung, and minor chest injuries. After treatment, she reportedly recovered fully. Dude, telling you, terminal velocity of a cat, non fatal. They're able to slow themselves down, right? Effectively, >> like a parachute is I [laughter] mean, I mean, they're not flying squirrels. >> Wow. >> This is remarkable. >> What did I get you with the other day? Uh, it was when we were talking about the fact that if uh if a man doesn't have a girlfriend, the way that he behaves between 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. at night can only be destructive. >> Yeah. >> And uh I told a friend about this and >> unless there's the internet. >> Well, even with the internet, it's still destructive, right? Cuz you're just embedding bad habits and doom scrolling and it's all >> self-destructive, I suppose. However, less on >> I asked I asked a friend about this and he said, "Yeah, so my my my buddy was single and I'm in a relationship and uh apparently at like 8:30 p.m. at night, he would just receive photos of his friend headstanding just like selfies of him doing headstands." [laughter] >> What What could go wrong? >> Yeah. Yeah. All right, Nav, what have you brought? Come on, give me some Give me some hallucination thing is really fascinating. People have this debate on AI hallucinations and there's a bunch of these topics that have written in Andre Karpathy has written a bunch of this stuff and um turns out you know humans hallucinate as well almost all the features of AI today that exist um they exist in humans in some way shape or form and people are often um really baffled by it right they they hate the hallucinations I think I think of them as more of like just a replication of the human mind and how it works and turns out people hallucinate memories all the time people manipulate memories. In fact, if you look at things in the past, you're effectively removing you you you remember often fond memories or really painful stuff. The middle kind of fades away often times. I'm curious to get your thoughts on this, Tim, about like I think about this a lot because for our product, we have to like make sure these things are low and context is there. what you do. >> We're building kind of um you know, today the iPhone is kind of a when you look at it, when you go for a glance, people always tap on apps and you have to go and pull whatever you need to know. Um we're kind of building a a layer on on devices that is kind of um glancible information directly on your home screen that's entirely processed by AI. What you might want to know right now or things might be important to you. And the idea of intelligence today ex as it exists it's much more I'm going to go ask it a question create this giant prompt do all this stuff and you know basically you have to do the heavy lifting where we try to do the heavy lifting for you by making that presentation layer directly on your home screen that sort of understands what's happening already in the background and surfaces it when you need to know it. So it's kind of an agentic home screen for your iPhone. Turns out the iPhone home screen hasn't changed in 20 years. >> You're roughly using the same device, the same thing. >> Widgets, I guess. >> Yeah. And they're underutilized. I think we use them in a creative way. >> And so, and so, um, like, you know, we're not going to go, we're like two people, three people. So, we can't really build a device. We can't really invest hardcore. So, we have to operate in the application layer and utilize all the things that are affordances that the OS exposes to us as developers. So, um, creatively, we we sort of, um, build this experience, and we're a few weeks old, pretty awesome. But it's been so much fun to be able to think about the way that ambient AI will really work. >> Imagine you go into a room, there's a screen, has presence detection, knows who you are, what you might want to see or know or do. If you wake up in the morning, these are the things that will kind of light up over time. And so like this stuff might be in your life persistently if you want to with your permission. >> Have you thought about what to call it? It feels like sort of context dependent. >> Ambient is good. >> Ambient AI lovely Jordy as well. AI >> ambient AI. [laughter] >> AI we need to but I think I don't know if the terminology is there. You know it turns out all the terminology that exists in the past right? You know the hashtags of Twitter and whatnot are in invented by their users and people are like oh we should call it that. >> Bottom up not top down. >> Yeah. We're still waiting for a [ __ ] name for this series on the podcast. >> Do do you think the future user interfaces are the glasses that everybody predicts? Cuz my I was thinking the other day as somebody who has zero experience in designing hardware or products that the I think the future's probably the AirPod case where you put the AirPods in. And I heard I saw a tweet the other day that Apple have just patented cameras at the edge of the AirPods. So it could feasibly pick up the visual information here. And then with this little box that you have, it could be you could be speaking to this device. You could even have like a little signal receiver, right? >> Yeah. So, we're not always on these screens. We just had the little AirPod case ears in and then the box here. >> One of the problems you have with the the hardware is that you need some processing power that's outside of it. That was the the hardcore um I mean, you had an Apple Vision Pro before you sent it back. >> Yes. >> Um and you need if you're going to have something on your face or something that's a wearable, you need to think about ergonomics and weight. And that means you need to send the processing off to a different a different location. I don't know. I mean, you're right that >> VR is really not delivered. I think I there's always it's going to the next thing we're going to wait for the more it we comfortable the slim line down or whatever >> get there. >> You think? >> Yeah. >> How long? >> Uh until what? What would be a good like not quite touring test? It's not >> okay. So like the the sort of level of penetration that we've seen with >> Now we're [laughter] talking. with AI or with like pick any any sort of normal device but AI AI >> name your podcast >> yeah depth of p penetration >> new [laughter] new series >> very shallow very shallow um why though >> like that I don't know like a half a billion or a billion users of uh either one product or a category of products that has something to do with >> and that that type of mass adoption is is a high bar but I would say getting to the point where people actually enjoy. Let's just call it thousands of people spending hours a day using some type of light lightweight VR AI strongly AI native system >> 3 years >> maybe less. I've seen some [ __ ] that's made by Meta that blew my [ __ ] mind to their next after the next uh set of glasses and that was like absolutely wild to be able to see that. It's still they're still clunky and dorky, right? But they'll over the time that they're building this out to get it down to the form factor that you need. But I mean these things where those things are like >> they're really good. The best thing about those not an ad. Um, best thing about those is the fact that you can take a photo or a video without using your phone. >> You know, there's that famous uh video, was it? Uh, the Shond Deise on New Year's Eve, maybe 2023. And I swear it's just this street of people and all you can see, the entire thing is just phone screens from behind, >> right? Looking at the thing you're supposed to be looking at. Just phone screens, >> man. Ridiculous. >> Well, I would have you heard about me at the Lou? Have I told you this story? Um, so I had these on at the Lou in Paris being a sophisticated individual that I am. So I had these on and everybody was just looking at people's feet under the under the bathroom stalls. >> George collects George collects feet fake. So that's uh >> you can you can you can buy them. >> Um, it's no it's no longer a permit. You can't really have eye contact with people in the western culture because it's like a whatever. So people are always looking down on their feet >> and that's where George comes in. >> Here it [laughter] is. So, I had this experience at the Mona Lisa in the Lou. So, everybody was there with their phones taking a photo, but I had these glasses on. But the problem is because the Mona Lisa is so small and I'm so far back. My girlfriend now has a photo of me. So, there's loads of people taking a photo of the Mona Lisa and then there's me with my glasses in the air. [laughter] >> I'll I'll get the photo out of you. It's horrific. It's horrific. >> It is nice though to be able to record something without taking yourself out of the moment. And I think just that, yes, you know, the oh, I don't like the battery life or this thing or they're still a little bit clunky or I don't usually wear glasses or whatever. Like, I get it. I get it. I get it. But the opportunity to be able to just take a photo or a video without having to feel like, oh, I'm back on this screen that I hate. I'm back in this digital environment that kind of just compresses my memory down into one time of me being on this screen. Most people don't realize how much being dehydrated impacts their performance. Which is why for the last 5 years I've started pretty much every morning with Element. Element is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. This orange salt in a cold glass of water is like a sweet salty orangey nectar. And I really tell the difference when I take it versus when I don't. 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Fine. >> I for me taking photos doesn't get in the way of my life anywhere near as much as just the ambient pinging and navigating of of the digital device itself. the photos. I'm in and out. I I have seen some marathon photo sessions being taken uh at sunset. I went to um uh somewhere on Long Island. I can't quite remember where. Uh there was a beautiful sunset happening over a lake and 15, 16, 17 year old skull group. It was like it was a endurance sport of photo taking. I'm okay. That's something else. Like that's kind of almost pathological, but for me it's I don't know. What about you? Do you think it would make a market difference to your life if you couldn't take photos or videos for six months? >> I think it's a useful thought exercise. Uh I would suspect it would be better. I mean I have not had any >> says the photographic memory. >> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Damn. Perfect. >> I I can train people to have better visual memory. >> Okay. Can we do it? >> What was that? Can you >> It's not like a, you know, it's not like an O Pearlman like 60sec bang, you know. It's not one of those. >> But what's the like what's the paro um like basics to to get better at a visual memory >> start producing. So I would have people to get a book like drawing with the right side of the brain which is a bit of a misnomer in the way that it lateralizes things you know hemispherically but if you practice for instance this is one tool in the toolkit right practice drawing and for instance right if I had a flower and a vase on this table which would be not the most compelling way to get someone to draw but we were all practicing drawing what you would notice with most people is that they look at the flower, they go down to draw it and they start drawing their mental concept of a flower, they're not actually referring >> to the thing in front of them. And then there are different tricks you could use. For instance, if even right now as we sit in Austin, Texas, bright outside, could have you look at a tree or a bush around here, sit down, I'd be like, "Okay, draw that, but I want you to only start with the black parts." parts and you'd be like, "But it's a bright day. It's a green thing." I'm like, >> "Look again." >> And you'd be like, "Oh [ __ ] there are actually black parts. Okay, we'll start with that." >> And as you start to do that or depending on where you are, it's like when most people walk through say, I mean, in Austin, it's easy cuz it's like cedar tree, juniper ash, oak, like that's it. I mean, I'm being a little facicious, but there's not as much tree diversity as in other places. But if all you see is quote unquote trees, it's like, okay, well, let me just teach you. It's also subject dependent, right? Like the six most common trees in upstate New York, Austin, wherever it might be. And all of a sudden, instead of just seeing trees, you start to differentiate, >> right? So all of those, it's partially visual acuity dependent. It's partially attentionally dependent so that you're referencing something as opposed to referring to your concept of tree, table, person, whatever it might be. >> And then there's kind of a label dependency, right? How fine tuned or fine sliced is your ability within a given domain, right? So, if you were doing like live gesture drawing, which I think is a great way to practice drawing, and there are a number of places around Austin and a lot of places where you can do live gesture drawing, you'd have, you know, a model in front of the room. It's not always going to be a hot naked chick. I hate to break it to you guys. Sometimes it's going to be [laughter] like obese naked dude, but that's fine. And they would start with say five minute poses or they might start with like one minute poses. Typically, they'd start with like very short poses. So you can't over analyze or intellectualize what you are doing. You have to keep your hand moving and then they would go to longer and longer held poses and uh you'd be shocked how much your visual memory improves if you do that and you are not constantly self-interrupting. >> Um so for me I mean I don't have any social media on this phone. I haven't for a couple of years. I do not think I've sacrificed one iota of quote unquote being informed at all. Um, I don't have vibrate on. I do not have ring on. Um, which can produce some funny like death spirals of people trying to like call one another, but neither person has the phone ringing. >> Um, but I also think, you know, there's there's some data to suggest that if people have fewer mirrors in their homes, they are generally self-report as being happier. This is a mirror, >> right? This is the black mirror. So, I just I feel like that the less you look at this thing, haven't run a study on this, but I would bet a healthy chunk of change, I just think the less you interact with this, the better. Especially given how prevalent fake feeds are. >> It's just like the machine is an illusion. Most of it. >> Did you guys see that quote where um I think this philosoph forgot the name, but it was like man was never meant to have a mirror. >> Self-reflection [clears throat] like that is is is detrimental in some ways. We wouldn't have known what we looked like until Jared, can you find out when mirrors were invented? When was >> you know with water? You would know with water. >> Yeah. You would go to a pond, for example, and look at your face, for example. They're their nature or narcissist. >> This is why like if you look at animals, they're for a variety of reasons, obviously with intelligence or whatever, but they're often very baffled by their >> Yeah. presence in the mirror. And now we're looking at ourselves more often than ever before. The selfie cameras effectively changed the the dynamics of everything. >> During co there was something called Zoomface. There was a market increase in people getting cosmetic surgery because they were seeing themselves more because they were spending so many. >> Now there's there's AI filters on Google Meet and Zoom skin smoothing for my interview. >> Exactly. You would add makeup or whatever. Going back to your point about the photographic memory thing. Do you guys ever play that? >> Which I don't have to be clear. [laughter] No. I No. I know I know people who can do this and then 10 minutes later read it back to you right from memory. That is photographic memory. I don't have that. >> Um you know that game you used to play as a kid when somebody would draw on your back and you would have to figure out what they drew. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. >> Was actually a really interesting skill building game because then you would have to effectively imagine different senses coming together. So you feel what somebody's drawing whether it's a flower or a mountain or a sun or whatever. Always a penis. And if you're exactly [laughter] always >> also a good podcast name. >> It's always a penis. >> Um that game was a remarkable. >> All roads lead to penis. Maybe pretty much. I know you like the Roman Empire. Woods. Um I was just double checking then cuz uh about the history of the mirror. >> Can I say how much I live? How you say double? I can't even [ __ ] say it. >> Double. That's God. It >> adds like at least seven. I keep >> Irish. I'm from I'm from Rodale originally, Tim. And whenever you're in the UK, it's a big tourist scene. You'd love it. I'll take you there. You love it. You love it. Okay. Um the mirror. So the mirror um that we we had the creation of the mirror. But I as part of AI coming bigger and bigger. I've been going down like old revolutions. So the industrial revolution and the Guttingberg printing press revolution. So Gutenberg when he was creating the printing press, he was originally trying to create I think a mirror machine and accidentally or ended up morphing into what became the printing press. >> What the hell is a mirror machine that makes mirrors? >> Yeah. So there you go. So uh around >> I don't know how you get from that to the printing press. >> 1438 to 14 >> You grind sand to make mirrors. [laughter] >> 39 Gutenberg was in Strasburg running a partnership to massproduce pilgrim mirrors. small polished metal badges that pilgrims pinned to their hats to catch holy rays radiating from relics then carried home to benefit relatives. >> I like that idea. Um, >> but >> it's like a capacitor for religious goodwill. >> So, his capital was running out to appease investors. Guttenberg said he would share a secret with them. Art and adventure research that was the basis for his yet to be built printing press. >> That's cool. >> Wow. Nice. All right, Tim, you must have some heaters. What have you brought from home? Show me something. >> Yeah, I've got something. This is an article. I've got a bunch of stuff, but I'm going to take kind of a slight left turn. It's related to a lot of the stuff we're talking about, but this caught my attention. It's an article called Riding the Leopard by Pachy McCormick, >> and it was it was it was sent to me. I had never read anything of his and this was sent to me a few days ago by uh someone adjacent to one of the top AI technologists out there, which is part of what makes it interesting. So, I'll just I'll I'll read a couple of sections here and then I want to get your sense and thoughts on things. So, what a week to get to talk to room of technology people. This is a transcribe talk that Paty gave. >> Sierra just raised at 15 billion. Anthropic crossed a 44 billion run rate and launched a new company with some huge funds that have 1.5 billion to deploy blah blah blah blah. Opening eye did the same thing but with four billion. Blah blah blah blah blah this billion that billion. All of which raises an important question. Who gives a [ __ ] I mean that. Why do we care? And then it goes down and he says last night a woman who reads my newsletter reached out over subst. She said she'd been diagnosed with stage four cancer. She's now in remission. She'd been confronted with the question we've all been facing. What happens to human purpose when AI removes scarcity? Uh or in her case, the need to be productive. To answer it, this is the interesting part, right? She analyzed more than 200 sci-fi books. Across all of the these books, by far the most common thing left to solve for post scarcity is meaning. 59% of books were about the search for meaning. Identity was next at 17%. And then it goes on and [gasps] you know there questions if new technology is so great why are so many people unhappy right if we have means our ancestors couldn't have dreamed of why is there a meaning crisis and then it quotes Holocaust survivor Victor Frankle who wrote the truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided the question has emerged survival for what ever more people today have the means to live but no meaning to live for and ultimately in the piece he ends up talking about he really goes out there well I would bet that dear PY has done a fair amount of drugs but and that's meant as a compliment Py if you hear this uh but we get into non-duality we get into differentiation as moral obligation but I want to explain the the origin of the name of the piece riding the leopard and it's from Joseph Joseph Campbell and effectively he's talking about the hero's journey And I'll read two parts and then I'll stop. But the goal of the hero trip down to the jewel point is to find those levels in the psyche that open open and finally open to the mystery of yourself being Buddha consciousness or the Christ. That's the journey. It's all about finding that still point in your mind where commitment drops away. The separateness apparent in the world is secondary. Beyond that world of opposites is an unseen but experience unity and identity in us all. All right. Then this is the the sort of wellspring of the name of the piece. You must return with the bliss and integrate it. The return is seeing the radiance everywhere. All right. The goal is to live with godlike composure on the full rush of energy like Dionis riding the leopard without being torn to pieces. And it goes on. It's worth reading. It does get a little squirly uh later on, but what I'm curious about is how you guys think about if you do solving for meaning because I tend to skew I wouldn't say dystopian but hyper vigilant and have a lot of concern for the next 5 10 years. Uh not just with AI but with the reaction to AI, right? So, so it's one thing if if AI quote unquote takes jobs, but if everyone fears it is going to take jobs, there's a there are consequences of that in of itself, right? >> But I'm wondering how you guys think about or solve for meaning. And I'll just add one more thing, which is um actually no, I'll save it. I'll park that for for for maybe injecting a little later, but how do you guys think about it? You know, one thing that comes to mind, this is the weirdest thing, by the way, which is um I like aviation and there's this is all going to connect, which is, you know, um turns out airplanes crash only because there's multiple systems that go wrong, whatever. And and um the reason why that came to mind, Tim, was that um a captain has a decision to make when something bad happens. How much do you communicate what happened to the passengers? >> Mhm. >> Like what do you say? Do you do you like hey you know we've lost hydraulics we've lost stuff you know multiple systems are wrong whatever completely transparent you freaked people out um do you not share enough information people are like oh what's going on why is it turbulent how does that marry to AI the people who are building these systems how much do they communicate what they think are things that might change about the future things that might >> have a turbulent nature to them and that is the delicate art which is you know you see Daario going on pods and saying stuff like software engineering solved you know software will be free um once that happens you know you get these ripple effects whatnot all the stuff happens and there's other people who are like much more optimistic about the world which is like hey you know what every and every revolution has created jobs certainly it has eliminated them but we've progressed and so it's really fascinating I think this an interesting environment where people are like how much do you even as a a lot of researchers in San Francisco for example really believe that we've solved almost every problem roughly that that that the dominoes will fall very quickly from here on out if you have AI self-correcting self-ressearching you get to AGI what happens >> how do you solve personally how do you think of it meaning if you do it this is not a this is Not like a prejudgment either. I'm totally like what you don't think about meaning. >> You know, >> you crash capitalist. >> I tend not to I'm not a planner >> too much. You know, I I I think planning is is good in some sense, but also kind of detrimental. It occupies bandwidth that would otherwise be more useful for now. I think people tend to live in the future a little bit more than they tend they they should. >> Are you religious? >> What was that? >> Are any of you religious? >> No. No. I'd say I'm spiritual but not necessarily, you know, organized religion or whatnot. I >> Welcome to Austin. >> Was [laughter] that >> Welcome to Austin. >> You know, I think >> we all do a bit of Scientology every now and again, right? >> Do a bit of Scientology. You make it sound like we Yeah. Come on. Come on. >> We do a bit of Scientology. >> Do you guys see what Brian Johnson posted yesterday? He was like, uh, prayer. He's talking about prayer and he's like, I've been trying to pray more and I don't know what prayer means and or I don't know what prayer is. If Brian goes full circle and ends up being a Mormon again, that is gonna be >> There was a quote tweet exactly like this. He's like, "Turns out the answer to everything is just Jesus Christ." >> Honestly, dude longevity or whatever. >> There was a funny comment. I I mean, I think Bri, that's an interesting one coming from Brian. I would actually love to talk to him about that more than a lot of the biohacking given his history. >> Brian's a sweetie. >> All right. I mean, there was a I like Brian. There was a there was a comment though. They said, "Wait, let me get this straight. [laughter] Brian left Mormonism. Now he's telling us we can't drink alcohol. We can't drink caffeine. [laughter] >> I thought that was pretty good. Um, but so what is what is this? And again, I don't want to belabor this, but I actually really want to know from you guys how you think if you think about it. >> I guess there's two there's a few different parts as I'm saying. I know a lot of uber successful people who can logic and debate their way through the labyrinth of intellectuals around them who have lots of money who are ready to [ __ ] jump off a cliff like that stuff doesn't >> and do you think that that would be stopped if they had more meaning? You think the reason that they would jump off a cliff is because of their lack of meaning? I >> I think that that is one large contributor >> and there's a difference like there yes there's a loneliness epidemic but solving for loneliness doesn't solve for meaning. So totally this is there's quite a lot of strands I'm going to like unpack. Yeah. >> Um chess is an interesting one, right? That the AI can beat chess. Uh any human being at chess, but human beings still play chess. Magnus Carlson seems to have a very enjoyable time playing chess. >> Mhm. And go on. >> Well, there's an interesting anecdote there that we this idea that oh, it's going to take away everything. It's therefore humans won't have any purpose. Yet it's seemingly better than everybody at chess. Yet chess is still popular and people are still doing it. >> Mhm. >> The the big thing for me I mean >> and the question I'm asking is not whether AI will remove meaning. It's more like forget about let's we could strip AI out of completely. I'm just curious like how you guys think about it if you do. >> So the I think we've discussed it when I've been in this chair before but the idea of the precautionary principle. So the precautionary principle is human beings have a very very very very good time at forecasting problems >> but we have a very very difficult time at forecasting the solutions that will come because by definition if we had the solution therefore there'd be no problem but you have all these billions of human beings that end up working on this problem. My inevitable thing is and it's this is where I feel it's a bit of a straw man argument. If this AI is so intelligent that it's replaced us all and it's this super god, you'll probably figure out how to get us meaning. >> You feel the argument is a little bit logically >> George believes that benevolence comes along with processing power. >> Yeah, I wouldn't make that last statement myself. I know some people like the sort of extremes of techno optimism would say that. But you know the point that PY makes in his piece too, he's like >> most of those arguments tend to at some point land on like we're going to cure cancer and it's like well at this point like he's he's like there are 8.3 roughly billion people on the planet who are not going to die of cancer at least not in the near term and a lot of them are miserable. So it's like it doesn't it might solve for certain biotech and health tech >> medical problems. Could it understand the brain and then figure out why these people are miserable? This is what I mean around I'm not even suggesting this is going to be the case. There's just things that we can't even forecast. >> I mean wonderful you've done a wonderful Bernie Sanders job of two or three times now not answering the question of [laughter] how to personally think about meaning. >> I've said Scientology but you didn't want to listen. >> That's not me. That's Tim. >> I've learned from over a thousand podcast episodes that the easier you make your health routine, the more consistent you'll be. It's like golf, right? You want to keep it simple and not mix a bunch of pills. You want the eye of the tiger, not the DUI of the tiger. That's why I'm such a huge fan of AG1. One scoop contains 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food source ingredients in a single daily drink. And now they've taken it a step further with AG1 NextGen, backed by four clinical trials. And in those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just 3 months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well. Gone are the days of needing to buy a load of pills in the gym parking lot from some juice bro in a cyber truck. But if you're unsure about it, AG1's got a 90-day money back guarantee. So, you can try it every single day for 3 months. And if you do not like it, they will give you your money back. Right now, you can get a free AG1 welcome kit that includes a bottle of D3 K2, an AG1 flavor sampler, and that 90-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkagg.com/modernwisdom. How do you how do you guys um >> do you guys think this is an active >> process in people's minds? >> Yeah. Like do people really like think about it in that realm or is it just a byproduct of existence in some sense? >> I think it were a natural byproduct of existence. I I look I I would just say may maybe you see this maybe you don't. I mean you guys all interact on the interwebs. the degree of like apathy and nihilism and forboding that I think is adjacent or overlapping with a creeping dread of meaninglessness in my audience over the last 5 years is [ __ ] terrifying. >> And do you think that AI is contributing to that? >> I think that technology and look, I'm not saying technology is a bad thing. like ever since we were our ancestors used some stick to fish out you know a termite mound it's like I bet on technology it's you know I've lived in the bar for almost 20 years still very actively involved with u different types of technology but I do think that there is the equivalent of digital poison and a lot of us are drip feeding it every day so it's not necessarily AI I think AI like money power alcohol psychedelics is an It's an amplifier. It's an accelerant. >> Well, certainly most people's relationship to technology now is negative. I don't know many people perhaps except you who have a above 80% positive interaction with technology. I I was on the the treadmill in the the gym the other day and I was looking at um doing a little bit of boom scrolling on my phone and I had a screen in front of me here and then I had five screens here and then another five screens there and then there's a video wall that's got an advert here and I'm like dude I'm supposed to be in the gym and I'm trying to listen to a podcast. I'm trying to listen to a funny podcast that's just a safe space hang. I'm not supposed to be thinking and I'm supposed to be tuned into this. And every single different screen had subtitles on. Some of them had adverts on. This one's my 600 pound life. That one's the news from from New York City. This one's that. And I'm like, dude, I can't. It's even I have to actively avoid screens now, even if I choose to go screen free. So, yeah, I think most people's relationship to to technology is proto negative. So when they think about if this gets more that is more of the negative and it's already removed it for me a bit. I had a really interesting conversation with Nick Bosram. So he did his second book which is kind of like a spiritual sequel to super intelligence. What if things go wrong? And then the next one was what if things go right? What are the problems of a solved world? And um he had this really interesting example where he said basically everything that we value in other humans can be refined down to the fact that you need to negotiate with a world that is scarce. Why do I like motivation in someone else? Why do I like discipline? Why do I like the ability to tell the truth? Why do I like prudence? Why do I like good judgment? Because you need those things to be able to navigate through a world which is going to apply pressure to you. Mhm. >> And if you remove that, so many of the traits that we look for in other people, they may not be that creates a strange [gasps] weightlessness with all of the different values that we've tended to prefer for all of human history because we've been negotiating with a world that's pushed up against us. And if we move that out of the way, then what does that mean? So yeah, I think, dude, I I think the meaninglessness thing is great. George is infuriatingly optimistic, which means that these conversations with him are always, "If AI is that smart, why won't it be benevolent enough to fix our problems?" That's kind of I guess your >> I'm not saying >> if if there had never been the if the transformer had never made the leap to the I guess GPT3 or 4 the sort of social media and digital environment in and of itself just with more of a linear growth rate as opposed to more exponential still would be a problem right >> it's just overwhelming >> so we like the AI conversation is just it sucks up all the [ __ ] oxygen in the room. Do you know what I mean? So, it's like we can strip that out. >> Mhm. >> Uh as a thought exercise, right? I mean, I'm curious how you would answer it if if and I mean, look, this is something I've been thinking about a lot because my audience, but also for me, for like my family >> and u I've thought a lot about these debates that Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris have had where Sam >> first one was a [ __ ] car crash >> where where Well, yeah. I mean, look, they've they've had car crashes, but one of the takeaways for me was like, can any meaningful critical mass of humans from like first principles develop a moral and value code for themselves that is secular, >> that is in any way gratifying, grounding, supportive in times of great duress? Like, I feel like Sam would be more on that side of things. And then Jordan's like, it's not going to happen, right? Like that is why people needed religion >> because you have this out of the box certainty and in a world of >> um seemingly increasing incomp incomprehensibility, >> right, where there is this >> uh inability to separate fact from fiction. People need some type of foothold of certainty. And so I mean I think religion I mean it's it's I don't have I don't have to think it. It's already happening. But it's like huge resurgence in religion >> with Latin mass as well which is Latin mass is one of the if not the most ascendant uh attended uh religious services and it's a a service that's entirely done in a language that nobody in the audience speaks. And I wonder whether what what that's doing is it's almost bypassing people's ability to scrutinize it. >> Well, that's obviously not true and well, you know, I can realize >> maybe they don't want to scrutinize it. >> That's the point. That's what I think that what they're doing is they're purposefully going, "Oh, maybe it's just that it feels more archaic. It's more steeped in history, etc., etc. Maybe the music's better. I don't know." >> Um, but yeah, I I I I definitely get the sense that people are going to scrabble around to try and reverse from first principles. >> Yeah. >> How do I make myself feel good? But there is a an interesting question which is if what we're bothered about is human flourishing, humans feeling good, why not have a comforting delusion? Let's say that it's delusion. I'm not saying that it is, but why not have a comforting delusion? Like if the outcomes of religious people are more happiness, more meaning, they live longer, they've got better community, they've got better health, they've got da da da da, >> suddenly seems very rational instead of irrational. So this was what I learned from Alex Okconor and it it is Richard Dawkins speaking to Ayan Hersi Ali on stage and Ayan was supposed to be the fifth horsemen of the atheist apocalypse but she couldn't make the meeting that day >> and uh then is on stage talking to Richard and the audience is sort of half her fans and half Richard's and she said I wanted to take my own life not long ago I I was really low and religion found me Jesus found me or Christianity found me. God found me and after the lowest moment that I had um I'm really really happy to say that my mental health's in a better place and I'm religious >> and you know you get the sort of smattering of kind of like empathetic applause around the room >> and Alex told me that Richard's almost immediate response was yes but yes yes yes but do you really think that Jesus moved the stone out of the way on the third day of Arama and what you see is a guy who is playing a game of optimizing for rationality whilst ignoring effectiveness. And you go, how can you say that it's anything but a positive when this person's life essentially was saved by this thing? >> Mhm. And I it makes me and this is one of the reasons I think that atheism is not cool at the moment that it feels in a world that's increasingly bereft of meaning. It incre It feels like really sterile and quite judgmental and quite harsh and it makes me when I think about it I'm like I don't I don't it just doesn't seem very nice to me and I'm aware uh removing comforting delusions. Why should you allow someone to indulge in their silly fantasy? I'm like, bro, I I think we're getting toward the stage where comforting delusions are allowed because if not, I don't know. So, maybe it is maybe it is Mormonism. >> Do you guys um intellectuals often times um get in this territory where they try to use proof by counter example? So that they'll try to find one counter example in something that you're saying and then effectively void the whole thing. Mhm. It's a very common thing because this is what you do in a math setting or anything. And they they tend to do that in kind of a religious setting as well. And it's like that's not applicable here. [laughter] Just because XY X is not true doesn't mean invalidates the rest of it. Um and this is why people tend to like, you know, I think Richard Dawkins is like religion is a pick and choose kind of buffet. You know, you can you can go pick and believe in something. >> He also did say that AI is uh sentient, right? Yeah. >> How old's Richard though now? >> 70s. >> '7s. >> I think as soon as anybody gets over 65, you got to give them a little bit of leeway. >> Public breathing breathing room. Yeah. >> Why have you been around anybody over 65? >> Richard Dawkins. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I was on stage with him. He said that he would consider trying psychedelics. >> I managed to get him to admit to that. That was fun. >> But yeah, I >> What do you guys think of that? The Richard Dawkins play. I mean, if anybody would go around and figure out if there is sentience associated with AI, maybe Richard Dawkins might be an okay person to go and figure that out. I don't know. I don't know how much you guys, but I'm I'm curious to get your thoughts on what he discovered or how he discovered it. >> Oh, he's way above my pay grade. I have no idea. I would need people to define sentience. And also like the there whenever we get into sentience consciousness, I'm like, let's just let's make before we argue about what God does or doesn't like, let's define God similarly, right? I would just want to make sure I understand those terms because once you get into like integrated information theory and all this stuff, it's very easy to like get into these weeds and then you're like 30 pages into reading this and I don't think anyone quite defined what the [ __ ] they mean by so I don't know I don't actually know the context. >> Yeah. >> But I certainly have no strong position. >> Same thing's kind of true with meaning though. You know, I've read Bowmeister's paper on meaning happiness that kind of legendary one from 2010 I think it is. And uh hey they're good. the toothpaste. >> I don't I mean they're very tasty. I don't know what's >> uh 15 milligs of caffeine and and some tasty [ __ ] >> Sorry if I'm completely off here. What? >> But part of me thinks that well for again I hate the optimism. >> I hate to sound like I'm doing an affiliate link for the beginning of infinity which I am. I'll post it in the link [laughter] >> but problems are infinite. >> So even now is a great example. So AI which is first off we're having this hypothetical conversation about this hypothetical thing which I think could happen but it's completely hypothetical. But assuming the hypothetical is true, we first have the problem of well, if this AI is so smart, why can't it fix this? Because those two things seem paradoxical. >> We need to want to fix it. >> Yeah. Which again, um, which is a different question. But if it is so smart, why can't it fix it? Is the first point. The second point is even now are we not having quite a meaningful conversation like about this problem? Like is this not an example where this hypothetical AI solved everything yet it hasn't solved meaning and we're now constantly talking about how we're going to get more meaning for human? I don't think that the the problem is necessarily that meaning would be impossible to access, but that if you make meaning harder to access, you end up with some pretty gnarly outcomes. In the same way as it's not impossible to eat healthily, but it is harder to not be fat in a calorie dense, high processed food environment. And if you make it a meaning oasis, a me it's sparser to get to meaning, uh, then it makes life harder for everybody to find that. Can I ask a dumb question? >> Yeah. >> Is it how to open the toothpaste? >> I was I was watching you. >> Send them here. [laughter] >> Here we go. >> Back to the back to the factory. Let's talk to this copack. >> Oh my god. Amazing. >> I I want I have another dumb question which is how how do most people or normal people think about meaning? Like what how do they define it? What is the underlying element? >> I think I mean the way that like I don't know if I'm normal. probably pretty abnormal, but [laughter] I mean I mean I do think that like meaning may be the wrong term to use because you can apply it to defining a term. You could apply it to [snorts] >> was this conversation meaningless or meaningful. Well, yeah, we talked about a bunch of stuff that we is mutually intelligible. So like yeah, sure by definition it's meaningful, but I think we could say purpose like people feeling they have a purpose, >> right? there is a point to what they're doing or their life in general, right? Is sort of how I would think. I just I just the uh I I mean that's that's if if I had to put in a placeholder, that's what I would >> Western society always attributes, you know, when you go to a party, what do you do, Tim? >> What do you do? Like, you know, this is a canonical question that people ask. It's like, >> "Oh, what do I do? >> What do you do?" Like, I >> What do you do at a party? What do you do when you're out? >> Yeah, you know, >> the cocktail party question. >> The cocktail party question. I I tend to try to not ask this question anymore, but I used to. And >> it's always funny. >> Say heroin on the dark web is usually >> There you go. I mean, that would be a good >> just amazing gray. >> They're like, "Okay, >> it's better than saying podcasting, >> but like that is >> pretty similar, actually. It's a [laughter] job. the attribute of uh of of western society to a certain extent with all the focus on productivity and looking at your calendar and managing your time and you know sort of going from meeting to meeting to meeting and then having a full schedule and organizing you know a meet up month one month later with your friends and putting it on the calendar. It's so like fascinating because effectively a lot of people treat it as allocating time >> and if they allocate time that's what kind of we're people are trying to do and often times going back to this the reason why I asked what you do is a lot of the meaning elements for individuals is tied to their craft >> their job their their sort of livelihood. Is it possible to have meaning without resistance? Because I was thinking about the chess example that you were talking about, but part of the reason that the game of chess is meaningful is that you're meeting resistance. Even if the resistance is of another player and not the best player in the world, that would be a computer. >> But part of that >> requires some sort of friction in the system. There's there's very few things that I can think of that are meaningful that are also totally frictionless or just there is no challenge in it. Going back to this, like [snorts] think about relationships. We made access to relationships kind of less friction than ever. You get a catalog of individuals. Browse through, find the next person, onto the next. Wow. I mean, you've created sort of an abundant layer on what was previously scarce. >> No. >> And then you have Grinder, which is postabundance. >> Postabundance. Yeah. There you go. [laughter] >> Have you guys heard about sniffies? >> No. No. I don't know what's >> it's like a new gay sex anonymous sex app. >> Okay. How are they innovating on Grinder? What went wrong? >> This is what [laughter] I know cuz I have some friends. >> What were they serving? What were they serving that the Grindup app wasn't? >> How do you spell that, by the way? Is it [laughter] >> exactly what you can I've got to end this podcast. >> Match phones ping a second. Hold on. >> Match Group just put in $100 million into the app. Um and it's growing like crazy. People don't talk about the I used to have this thing that if one of the reasons why it was never discussed in parliament or never discussed in Congress um was who owns Pornhub what's the name uh name of the company is it MindGeek Canadian >> Mine Geek had whilst whilst the Congress was talking about the monopoly that Google had that Meta had mine had the most absurd monopoly of the pornography industry which you'd argue there's a free market solution that Only Fans came along and good old Only Fans fixing the democratizing point. >> But another example is the dating apps. If you look at who owns all the dating apps, I'm pretty sure Match I'm pretty sure they own Match, Tinder, Hinge. I don't know if they >> No, no. Bumble's public. >> Okay, so Bumble's separate. >> Rya, maybe. Uh >> Rya's separate, too. Match Group owns everything except for Rya and Bumble, right? >> It's crazy that they're allowed such a monopoly on what is now modern dating and nobody discusses it because it's sort of icky. It's hard to def the market's so difficult to define in some sense. >> Those apps are also really struggling saying recently that you Bumble is going to have my AI avatar date your AI avatar and then it will feed that back up. >> Did you see there was an interview she just did like last week or whatever and she's like this is the end of the swipe era and Bumble's introducing this sort of AI matchmaker or whatever. >> Jared, you ever considered that you might have a drinking problem? I don't consider a lot, Chris. >> Well, you drank an entire case of Athletic Brewing and Coco last night. >> But they're non-alcoholic. >> And that's not a problem. >> Sorry, man. I I just kept chugging. Wait for the regret to creep in. Never happened. >> See, most people like Jared don't want to change what they drink. They just don't want the next day to be a complete write-off. And that is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co. They make the best NA brews on the planet. You can find Athletic Brewing Co.'s bestselling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you. Or best option, get a full variety pack of four flavors shipped direct to your door right now. Get 15% off your first online order by going to the link in the description below or heading to athleticbwing.com/modernwisdom using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's athleticbwing.com/modwisdom at modernwisdism at checkout. Near beer terms and conditions apply. Athletic brewing company fit for all times. Bottoms up. >> [laughter] >> But going back to your point Chris, which was the idea the capitalism removes friction, right? Like the idea is that you have this invisible layer in society sort of that is that is fixing supply and demand such that there's this equilibrium >> at all times >> and turns out that reduces friction because accessibility I mean Door Dash you can like I I can get an Amazon delivery in 15 30 minutes or whatever. >> You got a fancy dress outfit in less than an hour yesterday. Yeah, cuz that's what I do on a Sunday. >> Needed a costume. needed a costume [laughter] on these new apps. >> I mean, it was remarkable. I was >> I need a furry with a cape >> and then went straight on to Whistler or whatever. It's Yeah, I was in I was in um I was in like a Carmel and I didn't have a bathing suit because people were going to the pool or whatever. It was like, "Oh, I can just Door Dash it >> in 30 minutes and somebody will bring me a bathing suit because I didn't have and that's that's remarkable." And I think going back to this, it's like, yeah, obviously I think it reduces value of things when the the friction goes down. I do think a great example is uh Winston Churchill. Um I posted this the other day. Churchill's biography is so good. Like you go Jesus Christ did this man um the big I think it's Andrew Roberts uh Churchill biography. First off, Jared, could you pull it up how many times Winston Churchill nearly died? He outbeats a cat. Like the number of I think he almost drowns. He gets the terminal velocity of [laughter] he gets he gets run over. But Churchill used to and famously a sufferer of depression as he called a black dog. >> He used to plant uh sorry he used to lay 200 bricks per day for a a significant period of his life just to keep himself busy. >> What was he building with this 200 bricks? >> Apparently apparently he wasn't actually that good. So the stories that the actual players came in afterwards but he would always do Yeah, you can have a look. So here we go. like yeah he battlefield dangers in Cuba, India, Sudan and South Africa escaped from yeah he was he escaped from the bore prisoner war camp frontline combat in World War I got hit by a car >> believed he was preserved for a purpose felt he was walking with destiny >> well Winston Churchill famously said when he was a I believe a teenager that I will save Western civilization which is up there with John D Rockefeller saying I will become the richest man ever to exist called the shots but for every Churchill for every Rockefeller there's a thousand decades massive survival in Newcastle right All right. So, I I got in trouble, speaking of the UK, uh I got in trouble for comparing the UK to where it would rank if it was a state. And I thought that this was a relatively innocuous thing to say because me and George both [ __ ] on the UK quite a bit. You know, you're allowed to. You're allowed to. As immigrants, having moved from your own country, you're allowed to sort of cast a SP. Well, this is why I left, so to speak. We were the second in the world in millionaire exits not long ago, second only to China, who's got, you know, like 30 times the population or something. So, uh, I decided to post this chart and this chart explains if the UK was a state where it would rank on the list. Here it is. If the UK were a US state, where would it rank among 50 states? So, life expectancy first, lowest homicide rate first. Lowest gun deaths first. Lowest prisoner population first. Healthc care coverage first. Paid maternity leave first. >> Lot of high numbers. >> Statutory paid holiday first. Years in education first. Lowest road deaths first. Lowest drug deaths second. minimum wage third, pupil performance fifth, environmental performance fifth, human development index ninth, lowest obesity 10th, and GDP per capita 51st. >> Uh, >> what do you what do you attribute that to? >> Well, I mean, >> 51st. >> Uh, the fact that it's 51st, the fact that the US just absolutely rules when it comes to capitalism. >> You guys are like Floyd Mayweather. Would would most countries I know that the UK is not Europe, you know, Brexit is Brexit, but like would would other would countries in Western Europe also look like this in terms of GDP per capita? Probably, right? I I would guess so. Well, I mean, what people on the internet got mad at me for is, well, these are stupid things to judge. Obviously, you've got the lowest gun deaths because you cucks gave up your guns. Uh the paid maternity leave doesn't matter when this thing the statutory paid holiday is pointless because the level of productivity the road deaths are because you don't have big enough roads or something. The drug deaths don't matter because you've got no cool drugs. The minimum like there was there was basically an American excuse for every single one of these. Uh even the lowest obesity. Um, and I was like, it was just surprising to me cuz for the most part, British people are very prepared to laugh at Britain, very prepared to point and we very British thing. >> We've I've done episode I've done entire episodes on this is what's wrong and this is what's wrong and this is what's wrong and this is what's wrong. But as soon as you begin to compare the US to the UK and in some areas because oh the whole joke here is that there's lots of things that we're ranking better than the US in apart from one of the most important things which is how much [ __ ] money we make. >> Uh and yeah they're selective but >> sing it. >> Huh? >> You can sing it if you want. >> Sing what? God save our gracious [laughter] king. God save us. >> Right. So, >> uh I just got in a lot of [ __ ] and I was surprised. I thought that Americans would be able to uh take this with a bit more humility. >> I do tend to think the Americans >> also humility. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, lowest drug deaths is I mean like why >> America will be lowest obesity at some point very soon >> with the advent of GLPs and >> they're going to be someone I saw this thing the other day that um read a true tide is going to be one of the most successful drugs in history >> for sure >> they're one of the most widely used drugs. >> Uh Scott Galloway has the uh idea he says it's the best America is the best place to earn money and Europe's the best place to spend money. >> Yeah. Well, the UK is a wonderful country to be poor in and a horrible country to be rich in. And America is a great country to be rich in and a horrible country to be poor in, >> which is kind of interesting. If the um the value of the dollar goes up, it's American productivity, GD GDP or whatever goes up, then it's Americans will go and spend it to Europe, right? And get the best value for the bang for the buck or if you will. >> Yeah. I do I mean I I do think uh the UK is is is the greatest the country of all time. I do think that's like a fact. Um, but America's America's going through its golden age right now. >> Just we're living on borrowed time, mate. You know my position on this. I think that we're living on borrowed time. And this is seen uh nowhere more clearly than the arrests countries with the most arrests for posting on social media in 2023. United Kingdom 12,183 uh coming in at nearly double second place which is Bellarus with 6,205. uh and Russia is down with 400, China with 1500. Might be some reporting problems in a couple of those countries, but uh that number which is from the times, it was a times [laughter] a great >> of social enforcement isn't returning there to be part of [laughter] >> 12,000 arrests for posting on social media in 2023. And that number is from the Times with Freedom House uh stats. So that's legit. >> Mhm. >> 12,183. And that was one of the most common. How many people uh like where would you rank if it was uh the number of people that have been and I'm like also first actually so >> yeah we have made some mistakes over the years Alan Shuring >> Oscar Wild yeah >> not good we don't treat our gays well no >> we haven't >> Alan Carr's pretty good >> treated well yeah Douglas Murray treated relatively well >> I had this because I I I find now that every time you bring up some negative about the UK I'm going to bring up something positive to counteract it um like the angel and the devil or the north the northeast and the northwest which is I was back home um in London, central London and I was walking around these beautiful buildings in London and I used to live in a house that's older than America >> and some of the architecture that exists in the UK like New York has some quite like the New York City library is beautiful. It feels like you guys have stolen that from us. And even the uh the Statue of Liberty is from France, right? >> But like a a lot of the architecture in the US, my friend summarized it great, which is everything looks like the back entrance. SO EVEN THE FRONT [laughter] LOOKS LIKE WHAT would be the back entrance. And I feel as a Brit being in America, like my parents have the most beautiful place in the world and I'm around this mess of a house where the people are just it's a lot more functional right now. But the UK is the architecture is stunning and you don't make buildings like that anymore. >> We're really grasping at [ __ ] straws though when we're talking about the AR. >> Big Ben's good. [laughter] >> Big Ben's good. >> That's the difference between the US and the UK is that it feels that everything in the US has or a lot of things in the US I shall um fix has a functional name. So I was like why is it called Joshua Tree? It's like oh it's cuz it has a lot of Joshua trees or like you have Temp Street. Why is it 10th Street? Cuz it's next to 9th Street and before 11th Street. Whereas Big Ben, nobody really knows why it's called Big Ben. We think it was after some bloke called Ben, but it's not actually been, >> right? The big big Ben is the It's not the actual clock, it's the bell that's inside of it. I think >> have a look cuz I remember I went down big rabbit hole and I couldn't find it out. Yeah, >> it's remarkable how if you think about it in the grander scheme of things, young how young America is. It's like what is it like a teenager >> maybe less or something with respect to civilization or modern civilization and um turns out everything is kind of whereas if you were to create a blank slate of a country and now use the best of whatever exists and maybe try to create what Dubai's done right in a way like you think about Dubai from an infrastructure standpoint it's just totally like artificial >> yeah it's it's absolutely just plowed its way through the desert and said how do we want to have our roads how do we want to have our I know that there's lots of uh road accidents that you can be doing 70 mph and looking at Google Maps and you're 3 minutes from your destination which is in the middle of a builtup area. You're just like pounding it and then you peel off on this perfectly modern designed fly over and then you're deposited outside of the fountains at the bottom of the Burge or whatever. Uh so that's kind of interesting. >> Whereas if you drive in London it would take you like 30 minutes. London's okay, but I mean once you've been to LA, everything feels >> totally [ __ ] unbelievable. [laughter] >> Well, I mean, you and I have chatted about this before, but I'm just increasingly bullish on neurom modulation, brain stimulation, and there was there was a piece in the New York Times >> um could at home brain stimulation reduce psychiatry reliance on SSRIs. And I think part of the framing challenge around and just to define terms here. So brain stimulation in this particular case I believe in that New York Times piece is referring to something called TDCS where you can basically use I think it's TDCS where you can basically use a 9volt battery. It's a headset that you can wear at home and it's intended to treat depressive disorder. And then you have other types of neurom modulation. And I use that term because you might not be stimulating. You might not be exciting something, you might be inhibiting something. So that would include uh TMS, which I've spent a lot of time with. So transcranial magnetic stimulation. So you're using magnets with different targets depending on what you're trying to do. And uh I think those are just it's the very very it's the model T of what's coming with with neurom modulation. And I think there's going to be a lot of acceleration in the next 2 years. I think it's going to move a lot faster than people expect. >> How does it work? >> Well, so for instance, you might have uh in say my case, right? So what I figured out took me my whole life to figure it out but a few years ago is that even though I had kind of been diagnosed and diagnosed myself prior to that as someone with some type of depressive disorder uh I think that it was a combination of a few things. One was Lyme disease, which is like very much multiple times verified real Lyme disease, not like chronic fatigue masquerading as Lyme disease from Long Island, which is if you look at the CDC map, the Center for Disease Control, it is like >> bullseye. >> The is the bullseye uh outbreak, pun intended, because you sometimes get a rash that looks like a bullseye. I think that a lot of psychiatric conditions are downstream of acute infections that then led to chronic neuroinflammation. That's taking us a little further a field from the point I was going to make, which is you can use these magnetic pulses. In the case of something like accelerated TMS and in my case, I realized that it was actually anxiety and rumination. So, a combination, the DSM constantly changes in terms of how you would diagnose these things. Psychiatry is kind of where surgery was like 300 years ago, I would say. M >> right it's very early days but if I do an f fMRI right so you're getting this imaging of the brain you identify targets for say anxiety like anxious target you can inhibit or excite depending on what you're trying to do a target with these magnetic pulses inter intermittent theta bursts is what it's called and it just feels like a light tapping on your head that's it it's very tolerable and In my case, you might do, for instance, in the latest round of what I've done, take something. It's a drug. So, you take a neuroplasticity agent beforehand. And there are a lot of things that can increase neuroplasticity, but in this case, it's a somewhat uh antiquated maybe antibiotic called descloer. So, you stick it in your mouth, you let it dissolve for an hour before the stems, and then you're doing 3 minutes on the hour or maybe even every half hour for 10 stems. And that's it. And I got 3 to four months of going from say a eight or nine out of like generalized anxiety and just OCD, rumination to like a zero or a one. >> Wow. >> Different people. I mean, those are two different lived experiences. and >> and then after 3 or 4 months it it >> starts to creep back in and then you can go get say a booster of some type and I know people with depression specifically there's a lot more data on depression of different types who basically similarly got taken from like I can't move I'm at home some people are cutting and they go from like again this I'm not a doctor I'm not giving medical advice and these are anecdotes but there are also published studies that people can look into there's a great scientist named Jonathan downer unfortunate name for someone looking working with someone in depression but amazing scientist dn people can look him up uh I think he's at the University of Toronto >> and uh you see durability in some people including the the son of a friend of mine 18 months >> so instead of 3 to four months you get like 18 months and so you compare you start to wonder it's like all right if we look at let's just say SSRIs which are miraculous for some people But the general chemical imbalance theory of depression or anxiety is pretty much thoroughly debunked at this point, right? You're not depressed because you have low serotonin levels by and large. And when you take pharmaceuticals, I'm sure it's true with GLP1s. I don't think there's a very rarely a biological free lunch, but let's put that aside. Uh with psychiatric medications typically you have offtarget effects, right? They're going to be side effects. They could be sexual dysfunction. They could be whatever. They're weight gain. There a million different uh options and often they stop working or people don't need them anymore and then there's no plan for deprescribing and off-ramping these people. So they just stay on forever, right? So the idea that you could use electricity is super super super interesting. And um I think I'm hopeful that it will displace a lot of the blunt instrument approach to using overprescription. We'll see. I mean it's going to take a lot of tech innovation which in this case AI >> Mhm. [clears throat] >> go team AI is going to accelerate things a lot. Certainly already seeing it >> at like a personal level. What's it like going from did you say a nine to a one? Yeah, like an eight or nine to a one. >> What's that like? Is like a felt insomnia gone, >> right? Like instead of taking 30 to 60 minutes to fall asleep, like lay down and 5 minutes later I'm asleep without any sleep medication. >> I mean, that alone is just it's impossible to overstate the effect that has on your daily life every day, right? >> Uh easier to get over just kind of the scrapes and bruises of life, right? Little issues. You basically for me it was like I find it very useful like if I'm using the toolkit of stoicism or mindfulness or whatever like it's a [ __ ] struggle right it's not native to my constitution [laughter] but after this like oh wow suddenly I can meditate for 20 minutes and I feel like I've been doing it for years as opposed to constantly like >> slapping my monkey mind on the wrist right so really tremendous and I I I what we will see is that you can also use it I this is not that controversial but for performance enhancement right like you can um I believe you can affect like handedness trait hypnotizability like you can and it's not risk-free but compared to a lot of the mech the the medications that you might get people for these conditions the risk profile is pretty good. It's interesting that you can have an intervention that makes other interventions more uh effective. >> So, if you can do some sort of TMS thing >> and that makes your trait hypnotizability more, that means that you've now opened up the world of hypnotism. >> Yeah. You're you're Exactly. So, you're choosing the right domino to tip over first, >> right? >> And I mean, >> it's not the time to get into a porn habit then straight after this. God, god damn it, I just locked this in. and it brings >> Whistler or Tickler or whatever it's called. >> Yeah, >> Tickler. >> Also a good podcast. >> Um, [laughter] >> this podcast is sponsored by Tickler [laughter] >> when I sit down for a good wank on Pornhub with my athletic brew >> brewing company. >> Tech, [laughter] >> do you want a man to come around in two minutes? >> Man on man. >> Uh, [laughter] life and times Chris. Uh it a lot of I mean a lot of what I think about is just sequencing right like there's a lot of stuff out there off the rack that works kind of right but if you figure out the right sequence like you can suddenly this is the true with language acquisition too like where most of the mistakes are made I think is in the sequencing and you just fix the sequencing you shuffle things a little bit you put the right domino in front and it makes a huge difference and also this is true with like psychedelics in the sense that like golan who's at UN uh UC Berkeley. She used to be at Hopkins, but her sort of framework of reopening critical windows with the use of psychedelics is very interesting. So, and underground facilitators have known this for a long time, but it's like the two or 3 weeks after a psychedelic, which in this case would include MDMA, although that's a longer conversation, you have the ability, and this could extend to say stroke patients who are trying to relearn motor control or speaking things that >> typically is limited to a very short, relatively short window as a child, right? you can basically reopen the malleability to develop those things using these drugs in the subsequent 2 to 3 weeks. So for instance, if you've just done a bunch of psychedelics, maybe a very bad time to suddenly do a bunch of overdosing on porn and and sort of instilling habits that you would otherwise maybe come and go, but in this case could really stick. Like your Play-Doh is has been warmed up in the microwave. So, you want to be careful about those two or 3 weeks afterwards. I think that could also apply to TMS potential. >> I did a a two-sided SGB at the start of this year. And the same thing is true for that. It's >> like, hey man, you've got a window here where your nervous system is unusually >> uh absorbent. >> Yeah. >> So, treated with appropriate care. >> Yeah. >> That was wild though. That that SGB that I heard, >> you should explain what that is maybe. >> Stella ganglen block. So um there is a bundle of nerves on both sides of your neck uh that are essentially running to the rest of your nervous system and you can get an ultrasound guided anesthetic injection that goes into it and it essentially shakes the etch sketch of your nervous system is a way to think about it. It is a relatively hard reset and you do one side and then you do another. You can't do them both together because it actually makes half of your face and half of your throat go to sleep. So if you were to do both, I think that you you might die. Um you certainly wouldn't be able to swallow. You can't do much stuff. >> So like problematic. >> You end up you end up with one side of your eye is sort of eyelids half closed and speaking is a little bit difficult. Anyway, I did one side one day, one side on the other with Matt Cook at Bio Bio Reset, who's kind of the number one in America for this. And um it was fascinating. Really, really fascinating experience. >> Would you do it again? >> Uh I would. Yes. >> What were the benefits? Uh it was an interesting an interesting slate clean of some nervous system buildup. So just agitations uh the sort of ambient buzzing that you often have rumination reduced. Uh it was it was very interesting. But I think the the thing that's always fascinating to me because you've got a felt sense of how this thing impacted you. And because our felt sense is so subject to did I sleep well? Am I in a good place with this person? Have I got the you know how's business going? What's happening in my life? But when you see in data too and because I track everything with Whoop, it was a 30% increase in HRV. >> I was going to ask you about HIV. a 30% increase in HIV overnight and that held for I mean I'm what 3 4 months now after it started to tickle back down now but uh that held for a long time and uh resting heart rate also did the same not quite as much but it was basically a 30% change in HRV and that stuck about for a while um and they do this it's a one-stop shop for uh PTSD in soldiers it's really aggressive uh intervention for guys that are like super super super struggling and it >> [sighs and gasps] >> It just gives you a little bit more room to breathe. And I was I was interested in it and I trust Matt, the guy that did it, so I was like, "Okay, you mentioned before um risks >> with the the the TMS type stuff. What What are some of the risks?" >> Uh generally very low. I mean, I would say that again, not a uh not a PhD or doctor. Don't play one on the internet. So do your homework, talk to your professionals. But uh my understanding is that well I can give you my personal example right [snorts] uh occasionally in the case with my target with my brain >> uh after the treatment you can have what's almost like a rebound exaggeration of symptoms for a short period of time which is pretty unpleasant >> where you might have insomnia for a few days which I did I've had that twice >> and you've you've done this twice. No, I've done it probably five or six times and it's it's not it has not worked 100% of the time which is very frustrating. It's part of the reason why and I'm supporting uh a nent brain stimulation lab here at UT Austin um getting involved with a couple of the companies because I want to like I actually know these machines and I've talked to the technicians and I've talked to the scientists and I'm like I can actually be very I think helpful here. So, I'm hoping to figure out how you can make that much more reliable. It's also just pure self-interest, right? I want to be able to use this. >> And I also want to figure out how to get durability out further, right? Instead of three to four months, it's like, look, if it's one day every quarter like and it goes from a nine to a one, fantastic. But if it only works once out of every four shots, then that sucks. >> Yeah. >> Uh in in in a lot of respects. So some of the side effects the insomnia that I mentioned uh in very very rare cases people will get uh temporary tinidis they'll get like a ringing >> uh these are these are all pretty uncommon uh and I should say that the using this for [snorts] generalized anxiety disorder OCD etc is very much tip of the spear stuff. So the sample size is not very large. The with the depression there's much more data and you can go on PubMed or elsewhere. Consensus app is another uh decent op option if you want like an AI interface >> and look at the published papers. Um they're right there for you. Um if you are like smacking down your sympathetic nervous system. Okay, this is the perfect place to talk about this on a p large podcast. Um, after my first effective TMS treatment, the first one that worked, I could not ejaculate for like 2 weeks. And I [ __ ] lost it. You can imagine. I'm just like I'm like, is this a good news bad news situation? Like, yeah, good news, you're not as anxious. Bad news, you're never going to ejaculate again. I was like, what the [ __ ] And the doctor's like, yeah, we've never seen that before. I was like, oh, fantastic. Uh but eventually mechanistically he was like it could be a dosing problem where we're basically we dialed down the volume on your sympathetic nervous system too much because >> parasympathetic to get erect sympathetic to come >> yeah they say point and shoot parasympathetic >> sympathetic damn >> yeah and I was like okay well maybe we try a lower dose which I think is part of the reason why it didn't work for me because I try I was like hey if that was at the time that was five days and I was like >> I really didn't enjoy those two weeks So, let's try let's try two days. I'm a big fan of a jagling. [laughter] You know, >> sounds like we found the >> uh >> Yeah. Yeah. You need to get on Whistler. >> So, I need [laughter] to get >> tickler. >> Uh yeah. >> Uh my podcast is accepting sponsors. Tickler. Um so, >> then I tried two days, nothing. Right. Then I tried three days uh a few months later, nothing. Right. And then uh eventually got back to 5 days, still nothing. >> But then went back to adding the the descarerian this plasticity agent beforehand. one day boom and I was like okay >> now that is when I became much more it's called the one it's just called one day protocol >> and Jonathan downer who I mentioned is one of the if not the sort of innovator in the space behind that along with um Don vaugh and some other people but that one day when that worked I was like now this is interesting because currently the insurers are slowly coming around but all this stuff a lot of innovation starts with people with money spending way too much money. >> Right. >> Right. That's just the way it is. Right. That's true with electric cars. It's true with Uber. It's true with a million different the the early generation iPhones, right? Didn't even copy and paste. Are you [ __ ] kidding me? Right. Uh these early adopters who have money and they're willing to spend it. Like the accelerated TMS protocol, some of the early rounds that I did, it's like all in 30 grand out of pocket. I mean, it's expensive. And when it got down to one day, I was like, okay, now it's about reducing sort of unit cost and increasing throughput with these devices. Because putting aside the out-of- pocket cost, >> a lot of people, they cannot take 5 days off of work to do this. >> Y, >> but once you get it to one day, now I'm like, okay, that just went from a very small sort of addressable patient population to a much larger. still too expensive, but let's try to work on getting it down. And that's just TMS, right? You have other things like focused ultrasound that might be interesting for different types of addiction, for instance, where you could actually get enough penetration that you would hit you could hit the nucleus cumbent and other anatomical structures associated with chemical dependence. It's like, okay, this is very, very, very interesting. >> Who's the best company in America for this at the moment? >> I mean, there there are a couple of really good ones. Um the the two older ones are uh that have the most uh kind of time on the market are Brainsway which is uh out of Israel. Very good machines. Um it's a it's a publicly traded company. Full disclosure I you know invested in them when they were public traded company. Uh, Mag Venture has a device as well which I've used and then the company that I'm involved with is called AMPA and they that is the smallest form factor and the people behind it develop the one day protocol >> and uh I think their sort of the trainability of that device instead of taking weeks or certainly instead of taking weeks let's just say to train a technician properly you can do it in a few hours and it's something that fits in the trunk of a car like a Corolla as opposed to being the size of a refrigerator. And I think they're really otherwise it wouldn't be involved very well positioned to finally scale this treatment to millions of people instead of a hand like a few thousand. >> Mhm. Um, so those like all three of those are on the market and the lowest cost would certainly be AMPA, but all these devices either health >> um and we'll see. We'll see. I mean, I am I'll be I mean, not just because I'm involved because it took me a long time. I did a [ __ ] ton of due diligence. Um, I don't think a lot of folks don't realize like how much due diligence I do before I put something in my newsletter or whatever. Like I guess this is OCD like harnessed when I am in full throttle >> being used very well. Wait, being friends with you is is highly useful in situations like this. In the same way I went to go and get LASIK >> in the UK. Uh, Ali Abdal, productivity dude, British guy, um, >> ex is a doctor, right? Was an MD or the equivalent of an MD, GP in the in the UK. And um I knew that he'd got LASIK and I was like, "No one's done more research about who's the best uh obstitrician operator in in all of the UK messaged Ali and he's like, "Yeah, I spent three weeks speaking to all of my friends and doing all of the reviews and looking at the the particular the particular machines." I was like, "Okay, who was that?" And he introduced me and it's funny. This is good. I just get to speedrun all of the work that you did. canary down the mine. >> I'm at the end of the guy in the human centipede, but I'm benefiting. >> Yeah, [laughter] you want to be first in line. >> No, I'm I'm at the end, but it gets better progressively as it goes through. >> Yeah, >> that's cool, man. I'm I'm glad that it's I'm glad that it's helped. It's exciting. >> It's it it is exciting. I mean and I mean I think it's I think it's saying something when you know as somebody who's been so active in funding the science related to psychedelics and psychedelic assisted therapy since 2015 that in the last 3 years I've done almost almost no psychedelics. It's been purely focused on the neurom modulation. I think it's that important. Uh we'll see because a lot for a lot of people like psychedelics are nuclear power for the psyche. Like you just they are not suitable for all people. There are plenty of people I would carve out for exclusion from >> many times you end up with a Chernobyl or a Fukushima. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's just it's it's a lot squirrelier. It is u you need to be really careful with that stuff. And it has to just not being able to come. >> It has its place. Yeah. Can I zoom in more on this? Yeah. >> What was that like at the end of a few weeks? [laughter] You know, you said you know you said you went from a nine to a one. Did you hit a minus seven? >> No. No, I didn't. I mean, I was fantastic. >> I was pretty I was pretty Fukushima. >> Yeah, I was pretty [laughter] >> I was uh understandably concerned. >> Had you have known that it was going to end after two weeks, presumably you would have just been the fear was this is going to be >> forever. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So now the >> but you couldn't feel the anxiety. [laughter] >> But but but interesting interestingly for for like the every time it has worked for me I've had that side effect. But now I know that there's an end point. So don't freak out >> and it's fine. >> Yeah. You just know that you're going to get a couple of really good weeks where you're kind of like a stallion. >> Babe, I can just, you know, don't worry about me. [laughter] >> How do you um I had a question for you. You know, on on the other side of the spectrum, have you seen these devices that stimulate your vag nerve or whatever? Yeah, I know. I know a lot about >> them. What are your thoughts on those? Like >> most of them are bunk. >> Are they? >> Yeah. Uh there there's um scientist you might want to have him on at some point. He's incredible. Uh named Kevin uh Tracy. He is the most credible. He wrote a book called The Great Nerve. He's the most credible publicly and not really u educating scientist credible very highly published uh scientist who talks about this. Uh most of the non-invasive vag nerve stimulators or that are purported to be Vegas nerve stimulators don't don't actually hit it the right way. Um and they're they're neck based, right? And then there's earbased >> um the neck TBD but uh there are they've been cleared FDA cleared for I think it's either migraines or cluster headaches. >> Yeah. >> Some people seem to benefit. I had a friend who tripled his HRV using a neck based device. I think it was either true Vega or it was the prescription equivalent of True Vega >> and it worked really well for him. This can be pretty >> I' I've used them. I had a friend I was talking to. I I suffer from migraines. Yeah. >> And um >> so I have to carry around medication all the time and um somebody told me about these things and they were like okay it has all these benefits of like HRV you know increase of HRV all sorts of stuff. It's a temporary state if you will but ultimately >> you just use it daily. It's like a few minutes in the morning a few minutes at night. >> Yeah. It's kind of reset the nervous system. That's kind of the marketing terminology that they've been utilizing. >> Yeah. I mean really it's what it's doing is it's stimulating the vagus nerve which is really like two transatlantic cables on either side. It's like 100 roughly 100,000 fibers on either side >> and it it intervates >> everything just about >> organs, GI tract, etc. And when you stimulate it, you can um guess the right way to put it activate isn't quite right, but something called the inflammatory reflex. >> And so it can be applied to things like rheumatoid arthritis, different autoimmune disorders, can be applied to something like asthma attacks. Um it's very very very interesting. Um so it could be worth looking into for you, right? The the neck based devices tend to also activate the superficial muscles of the face. So >> pulls your face down. It's >> depends how high you turn it up. >> Yeah, it depends on how high you turn it up, but it can be a little uncomfortable. The earbased devices >> you use, you say you've used No, I somebody recommended me the earbased device. >> Most of the earbased devices are not actually in the right place. >> Got it. >> It needs to be very very very precise. Um there's it's called the Simba Koncha. It's going to be hard to see. It's right here kind of where this fold is. at the bottom of that inside like right there. >> Most of the devices being sold on the market, including devices that have lots of fancy names and lots of fancy institutions on the website, they're not in the right place. And a [ __ ] ton of money behind some of those companies. >> Yeah. A very few fibers make it to the ear. Got it. >> Um I've got a couple of things. I had a few things sent to me. I had one that's a handheld device with the two-prongong and you can kind of just stick it on like you want >> just tase yourself. >> Yeah. like that. And then uh there's a pair of headphones that have a lug that comes down and sits here. And um obviously that one's way way more convenient. But there's some weird stuff with that. You've got to lubricate the end of the adapter because it needs to be able to have quite a smooth surface to be able to So you have to change the again Whistler. Uh you have to change the little heads out on this thing and put that in. I I didn't do it consistently enough to be able to say whether or not it was effective. Yeah. I think I I think for for migraines it's worth looking into. >> What's your uh migraine manifestation? Do you have aura with it? >> Oh my god. Yeah. >> Which one? >> Um what >> what do you mean which one? >> Alactory visual. It's visual. >> Visual. >> And it'll come on and I can I I've had these since I was 5 years old and people were like the [ __ ] is going on? I I didn't even know. And yeah, you get these auras. It's like almost as um you're on like an acid trip and every bit everything just looks blurry but moving in in a weird way and then and then after a while if you don't take medication during that period um >> then it kicks in. >> Then it kicks in. >> What what do you take? N >> uh sumatript. >> Has one just kicked in? >> Yep. >> Oh [ __ ] Sorry. >> It's No, no, it's all good. It's I don't even know. I think I I typically track it with um it's either lighting. >> Yep. um it's environmental like weather changes weirdly enough or the last element of it is either I have caffeine or uh wine without any food >> right >> and it's it's really fascinating because you know they they ask you to keep a diary of your day and to figure out retro retroactively what caused it there's no other mechanic and it's so people don't know why people don't know for what reason people some people think it's autoimmune some people think it's not and it's a fascinating Um, so I have to carry medication all the time and I was recommended this. >> Yeah. This So the the prescription version of True Vega spelled T R U V A G is called Gamma Core. >> Got it. >> G- A M M A C R is FDA cleared in the US for both acute treatment of migraine pain in adults and prevention of migraine episodic and chronic. Uh few practical points real the effect evidence is real but modest compared to top tier migraine medications like CGP inhibitors. uh appears to work best for people who treat attacks early, migraine with aura, patients who want to reduce medication use, those who can't tolerate tryptoins and CGPS, >> right? >> Speaking of those devices, by the way, have you guys seen there's some companies that are being um now that there's sort of reinvention of input into computers. So, for example, less keyboards, more voice, more like natural types of interactions with with technology and devices in general. Um, there are these devices that are coming out. One of my friends demoed this to me. I think Apple just acquired a company where you just put sort of a a small device that listens in this sort of region and um without you actually saying anything, it can detect um you know as if you were talking. >> Makes sense. roughly. It's it's remarkable and and um you can imagine a lot of scenarios with this as as technology and the input layers become much more natural, much more um conversational. Um and you know, you don't have these affordances to speak all the time where imagine that device can effectively read what you want to say without you ever having to say it. >> Yeah. >> Um and it lives roughly in this region, can detect all this. >> Any idea why it's sat there to detect? Is it as if you're moving your mouth but not talking? >> I'm not sure. Let let me let me just sidebar real quick. Uh >> just because I want to make a safety point. We're talking about the relative safety profile of brain stimulation or neurom modulation with these devices. >> That does not mean anyone should DIY this stuff. You can the brain factory on your head. >> The bra the brain is incredibly sensitive. If you hit the wrong target, you can [ __ ] yourself up >> or make your symptoms a lot worse. So, do not DIY this. Go to a decent clinic for people who want to explore it. I have no stake in any of these. Acacia clinic in Sunnybell in California. Salience, which I think is in Dallas. They may have other locations. Uh Owen Mure M UI R who's in New York. There are a couple of clinics that I know have very good reputations, but like work with somebody who knows these. No 9 volt battery and a one of those >> pads that people use for their abs. >> I was about to go home battery. [laughter] There's also it's not I don't think indicated for migraines. It's I'm pretty sure it's specific to RA to rheumatoid arthritis, but Setpoint Medical has an implant about the size of a small omega-3 that they It's like an outpatient procedure in the neck and then it just stimulates like twice a day the Vegas nerve. >> No way. Yeah. >> That was on the front front. It was on the front cover of the New York Times the day that I interviewed Kevin Tracy who was involved with the development of that device. Yeah. >> Wow. And so they implant it directly into your neck. Yeah. >> How do you recharge it? Induction. >> Uh I'm not sure exactly. >> Yeah. I mean it does get a lifetime. [laughter] >> It's magnetic charging on your neck. Could you imagine? only uh device that kind of reads your thoughts. One thing you you um discover as you get more into meditation is just how sometimes your thoughts aren't even you. Like the ultimate example, even if you've not experienced any form of meditation, would be like a song that's stuck in your head. >> Yeah. >> I wonder how the device would differ between a song that's stuck in your head and something that you actually want it to do. Cuz I remember a great meditation technique. I'm just imagining my ruminating given a microphone in my ear. >> I think the distinction being that there's sort of this concept of mind reading and or expression of a thought and the expression of a thought is typically you know when you when you're starting to speak it roughly you would have to >> it's not purely like a thought reader in some sense you would have to have an intent associated with it. To going back to your previous point on devices though, >> my thesis is that the device that you'll probably wear when you interact with AI or whatever if you want to has not been invented yet. >> Mhm. >> And it will have this combination of input output that is much more um less visible. Didn't Didn't OpenAI claim that they were going to have a three product or something? And obviously they've got Johnny IV in the guy that made the the iPhone, the original iPhone. And >> then they bought his company which was called Yeah. IO. And then there was this very cool sexy video of him and Sam in a totally not fake bar somewhere >> having a conversation. >> Uh I think it'll be the AirPods. >> Yeah, they're they're actually building a phone apparently. >> Okay. Um, they said three different things and one of them is something that no one's ever seen before, which makes a lapel thing, a little button or something like that. >> The AirPod case makes the most amount of sense cuz we're already using them. People wear them 24/7. The AirPods are what's that stat around if the AirPod was a startup, it'd be like one of the most eighth in the world. Really? That's why just just that alone >> and half that's me contributing to um should we talk about that? We've never spoken about this. I've uh see if I blow it up. >> Going back to your three devices thing. I think there's probably one device that is an affordance that's kind of listening and or >> ask me your Wait, you were a raw dog that took a deer like let's get rid of this [laughter] free advertising. >> There's this sort of one device that probably listens to input in some mechanic or or or tries to process what you want in possibly a new way. That could be like a device that's kind of have a microphone or whatnot. There's another device where it's like a her type situation where he's wearing that earpiece and constantly speaking to it. >> And then maybe that third device is kind of this glancible world, right? Where you have this phone. Um, turns out now, you know, applications are becoming less like people are using chat GPT or clawed for everything, right? Like you go, I want to set a timer. You can do that in chat GPT. You don't necessarily need a dedicated app. Maybe you want one or whatnot, but the idea of the app ecosystem being less valuable than it was before given >> Elon's big on this, right? That you he thinks that all apps are going to go away and your phone is just going to create whatever you need whenever you need it. >> Roughly. Exactly. And and I think generally um today it's possible to build that type of device without having this ecosystem effect that was necessary in the past. I wonder if that would open up uh a hole in the market because at the moment the dominance has been pretty tough despite the fact that Apple have kind of [ __ ] the bed a lot. >> You know, they the phones have really started to peter out in terms of the progress at least from what I notice as a user. You like, yeah, I can zoom in 15x, I can zoom in 20x and at some point it's like what? It's a slab of glass and a combination of things. Like what do you do? It's a bit the screen's brighter or sharper or something, but it's less noticeable. You remember when it was what the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 12 and each time it was a noticeable leap forward. Almost the same that's been happening with the the AI models, you know, that it seems to have started to at least in terms of noticeable user experience for me. It seems >> I think iOS gets worse every time I upgrade. the the keyboard at the moment just [ __ ] sucks. >> What I'm >> um But my but they do have an incredible war chest. >> So what do you think against a guy with a massive [laughter] pile of money? >> Well, I'm just what they can do is they can buy companies. So I'm wondering I don't know. You have any thoughts on who they should buy? You know, there's there's a group of people that think that Apple's like the smartest company because they've let the world sort of play itself out. People spending a lot of money and they're just waiting to see where it hits and then effectively um do what they do best, which is never enter the market first. >> Yeah. >> But be the best. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It's exactly what happened to >> cell phones or smartphones. Exactly what happened to kind of AirPods. There's all these some some wireless >> they did with the iPod too. iPod too. Um yeah, the iPod was the first element of it, even the computer in some sense. Um >> plenty of MP3 players. >> So it's like they've saved all of this cost for a capax. >> Um never spent anything like >> go forth and split test these products for us, my minions. Yeah, exactly. A ton of other companies. >> They effectively let others do the R&D work to a certain extent and then refine that world potentially. And you know, >> there's an argument to be made that that is a >> you don't need to be first, you just need to be. They also make what 20 billion per year from Google >> Google search for free. >> So Google keep going up and up and up. So yeah, they're not going to >> dabble with touching that which is why >> what we haven't discussed is how much revenue you contribute to Apple on an annual basis. I think I'm on my um 17th AirPods. Um a lot >> because they're because they're a slippery bar of soap. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] No, no, it's more I've had a few stolen. I' I don't like having things on me as well, so I'll just like leave things. So, like the amount of times I've left them at Deans, but one just a gift to the universe over and over again. >> And the most frustrating thing is to him is you can see where they all are. [laughter] >> So, there's one in particular right now that's in Cameroon and I can see where his house [laughter] is. Right. So, no, no, I still No, because I'm a sad little man that I'm not willing to I'm not willing to find a Cameroon to confront the man, but I am willing to press the play sound button. >> Oh [laughter] my god. >> Do it at night while they're sleeping. >> Yes. >> Isn't there Isn't there a single AirPod that's in the uh uh like WHO building? Yeah, that was that was K's AirPods that were in the WHO building. Yeah, just one AirPod was in the single AirPod that he was playing this sound through in the WHO building in New York City. >> There you go. It's just there right now. Oh, he's in Ghana. He's in Ghana. >> Oh, >> there we go. >> Eight minutes ago. >> Have you guys ever uh >> That's That's incredible. But what what a great I mean I never leave my house without my AirPods. >> This is why I think it's power user such a power user. >> I keep sounding like a broken record here, but I assume the device is a little little pod thing that we have now. Headphones in, cameras in, but then it's almost you could have a like a holographic screen, so people aren't on these glass screens as much and you can make it big, make it small. that feels inevitable. >> I mean, there is rumor that the next AirPods, like you said, do have visual the cameras, and that's that's crazy if you think about it. You're walking around, there's sort of two spatially aware cameras around you. >> Well, it's kind of like uh what was it? Dark Knight Returns or Dark Knight Rises when they had the cell phon. Yeah. >> I mean, what do you think Apple's going to do with that data? I don't understand how they're going to do the whole Neurolink thing that you mentioned of they will read your thoughts because of the fact that some thoughts I have I didn't want to have. It wasn't me. There's this meditation technique I once sat in which is it's a real cool one. >> So it sounds like you're pretty serious in meditating. >> Yes. Yeah. Um it was originally to fight off a skin condition and then it ended up Yeah. Gemini fixed that. So the story there was >> I fix your >> syll the that's uh non be fixed my >> is [laughter] here man >> sniffer gave me the syphil >> no um the I had a I had subatomic driisitis for about 2 years >> subatomic suboric domteritis >> basically my face my face would break out like red and I wouldn't want to go outside the house so I spoke to a few different doctors a lot of them recommended topical steroid creams uh a lot of them said it was because of stress so I got deep into meditation I stopped eating like so such little sugar that I once flagged I once got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Um which was a complete false diagnosis one is pretty hard >> which is another side story but I won. Then when I was away I tracked my skin for years and nothing would work. Nothing would work. So when I was away on holiday I just uploaded the file to Gemini and it just >> the file you mean a photo? >> Yeah. know all the photos that I have and it just said, "Oh, just put niserol shampoo on your face." >> Oh wow. >> And it's never it's not had an issue ever since. >> So it was fungal. >> Yes. So the biggest the biggest recommendation I would give >> is ketoconazol for people who are wondering. Yeah. >> This for dandruff and I do it once again. >> This for dandruff. >> Uh it's also very effective for topical fungal >> infection. I did it once every two weeks now and it's completely >> [ __ ] crazy. >> It's completely gone. So any recommendation at home like a practical thing would be just upload a photo of yourself to Gemini or chat GPT and just say hey based off what you can see with my skin recommend me moisturizers recommend me everything and it'll be better than do you know anything you've done before >> what do you use what do you use Gemini for versus other models >> I I'm I'm a an LLM [ __ ] Tim like I I [laughter] shift >> he's like the Andrew Hubman of LLM. >> Yeah I'm shifting each Oh but to sorry I didn't finish the story. So the meditation point there, there's a great question um which I ended up learning was asking your mind what thoughts going to come up next >> and it's like your mind gets a bit it's almost this Mexican standoff and the problem with these devices I once asked myself that and my mind went quiet for 6 seconds and then for whatever reason there's this former biomunic winger called Iron Robin and it's just him checking in on the left foot in my head and it's like that was that me why is that there so if I have a neuralinking device. It's an interesting one of how does it know what was me versus what's just my monkey mind doing strange behaviors. [laughter] >> You know, um >> I can't wait to see the first failed demos of, you know what I mean? Like these epic software demo fails. Someone gets up and it's just like [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] [laughter] >> Especially like penis penis. >> Especially given that the likelihood of it being Elon to do the first presentation is quite high. A man with a mind that I don't think anybody wants to see broadcast out into public. Did you see that demo of the uh Cyber Truck where he was on stage window and he [laughter] smashed the window and he's like, "Wait, that's not supposed to happen." >> Um, >> the best film I've watched all year, it's a British film. It's probably one of the best like storytelling examples I've ever heard. So, people will know it from the Brits award. It was this horrific incident where Michael B. Jordan went on stage and somebody shouted the N-word out and it was this huge controversial incident. But what actually happened was it was a guy who has one of the most severe form of Tourette's >> and he was subject of a film. >> He was subject of a film. So he was at the bath. So the film is called I swear. And it's incredible because this guy grew up in Scotland which is like think about all the stereotypes you have about England. Like the further north you get the more like harsher it essentially is. >> Yeah. People from Abedine are some of the most like brutal people on the planet. So this man grew up with extreme Tourette's in the 70s 80s England when nobody knew what the condition was. So the film's amazing because it's just him like walking to the shops going fat [ __ ] and he go and he's just getting the [ __ ] bean out of him and he can't explain what it is. So he's constantly getting into fights. There's a scene where he's walking his dog and this is real. So he's walking his dog um across the um about to go across a busy road and he loves this dog but there's a car coming and he goes walk forwards now. And then he has to grab the dog. He's >> Tourette's. He's fighting against himself. >> Yeah, he's fighting against himself. It's so good. It's such a good film. >> Oh, where can you see it? >> Um I sw if you just search I swear. [laughter] >> [ __ ] you. [ __ ] you. >> So >> I missed it. >> [ __ ] you. >> From Living with Chris. The man's a bit of a boomer. >> And I'll often like give him a recommendation and I'll go he'll go, "Where can I see it?" And if it's not on Netflix, he can't get it. >> No. No. Just Google it. Just figure That's not fair. That's not that's not fair and that's not true. But my response is what can I watch it on >> and I'll just say Google it. >> Right. But that's a fair I I feel like this is a little bit like >> here's a fantastic new restaurant. Okay. What streets it on? I just want a little bit more information. And the fact that you want me knowing what you know, which is that you might understand what streaming service it's on. >> Saying to me that I have to go and Google it when you could just say it's on Netflix and me and Tim this side of the table. >> We just expect a little bit more decorum. You know what I mean? >> This is why I This is why I want AGI to come because it gives me >> So glad you brought me to [laughter] this [ __ ] All right. All right. All right. >> Wait. Going back to the um photo thing. Do you guys know what people are utilizing um chatbt and whatnot for when they upload photos of themselves? Looks maxing. >> Oh, that's interesting. Do you know codes? >> What do they what they upload a set of photos? There's these apps on the app store too now that kind of do a rapper experience. But the idea is that effectively, you know, you upload photos to to Gemini or Chad GBT and then it suggests things that you might want to do whether it's >> smash your cheekbones with this type of >> medical procedure, you know, jaw surgery, um having a symmetric face, even things like hairstyle make a huge difference or a beard or whatever. >> Skip that section. And roughly it's it's really interesting that people are doing this because um obviously there's this huge craze of looks maxing and whatnot and um turns out huge use case for AI. >> Dude, check out Codes. I've just sent this to you Jared. Um co so look at this. So this is glow up without surgery. Get your personalized facial analysis and transformation plan. So I know the science team behind it. The science team behind this are absolutely sick. So look at the guy on the right and then like you should be able to do a transition. You see how you can get the middle of the guy's face. You should be able to click on it. Yeah, exactly. So move it all the way to the right. >> You was worried about mean intent. Look at this. >> And then go to the left. >> Wow. Got it. So it's like drive by shooting suspect to soap opera star. >> Exactly. >> Uh get more career opportunities, boost your self-confidence, make a stronger first impression, improve your dating life, enhance your quality of life. So basically it's go uh let me see the one on the left again. >> Go the swing it. She's really attractive. >> I feel like that's one of those like Sandra Bulock. Oh, she takes off the glasses and walks out and she goes from >> Yeah. You're like, "Wait, the supermodel." >> That's all she did. >> Uh, she's shaped a face. Do it again, Jared. >> Show me. >> Slow it down. Go really slow. >> [ __ ] hell. >> Uh, slow. >> You [snorts] know, this is just IRL Facetune, right? Um, >> yeah. So, if you There's like Facetune has all of the Facetune. I don't Do you guys know what Facetune is? >> I learned about it from Freyer India a couple of weeks ago. one of the most it it came out very a long time ago Israeli company and u >> and it's it's just a easy way of manipulating the way that your face looks and you know slims your jawline or whatever gives you way >> like as in on a photo not not actually so so it turns out every Instagrammer or before they post any time people post photos um they typically went through the same workflows and facetune was kind of a um you know just a bunch of tools that you can utilize. And now with AI, >> oh yeah, >> um, holy crap. I mean, the possibilities are quite limitless. And so, you know, it can regenerate that photo. And so at the bottom there are all these like AI filters and um, people use them so so so much. And often I I heard this story where uh one of my friends met somebody from Instagram and you know they had a they had all these photos and uh she looked nothing like herself real life. >> Well, let me give you this from Freya. Um when >> from Freya >> Freya India is a a girl writer who just released a book called >> Girls the Nordic God. >> Uh she does look a little bit like that blonde hair. She's like the what would what's the female equipment of the Uber mench? Ubering or whatever it's called. >> Uber. >> Yeah. Uh she's that um Yeah. She uh she was telling me that when groups of young girls are out and they're taking photos at a party, everybody fights to be the one whose phone is used to have the photo taken because that means that they're the one that's in charge of the face tuning. [laughter] >> Yep. >> So that they can work on themselves a little bit more and dial. It's actually it's actually a huge social phaua if you >> post a picture where you look good and the other person doesn't. >> Stitching that is stitching your mate up a little bit. You know there's a famous uh English footballer called Ashley Cole. Can you just search Ashley Cole squad photo and this How long is this 10 years? Uh yeah he was when he was at Roma so it's and he's retired. Do you want to tell us story? >> Was just a a squad photo. It's it's one of those I know it when I see it ideas I guess. Um, but it's just a football photo of the entire Roma team and Ashley Cole, who's this Brit, is like trying to mingle with these Italians. Iconic. Yeah. Top left. Cuz he's just awkwardly leaning on the outside. So then he gets me'd everywhere. >> This became one of the biggest memes in the world. [laughter] >> For a long time, it's a team. It looks like >> the headline. Scroll down a little bit. [laughter] >> Ashley Cole appears to be an outcast in an incredibly awkward Roma team picture. The amount of times me and Chris have been out with like a group of guys and I'll do the ashy call like two yards >> just moves off to one side ruins. Absolutely ruins it. All right, boys. Let's bring this one into land. You all rule. Uh Tim, what have you got coming up? Where should people go to check out your things? >> Uh you can find everything at tim.blog. I'd say that's probably the easiest. Yeah, check out the newsletter. It's been going for like 10, 12, 14, god knows how many years. Five Saturday. >> What was that one that most recent article about uh uh self-improvement? what I learned from however many years of self-improvement. >> Ah, yes. Yeah, that was it's called the self-help trap. What I learned after 20 years of quote unquote Yeah. improving myself. >> That's awesome. >> Yeah, that's a long form that's on the blog tw 102 pages. tim.blog Friday. Sign up for the newsletter. A lot of the stuff that we're talking about like go back if you want some also another reason to check out neurosimulation. go back and look at the Brainsway stock graph for the last two or three years. [gasps] Um, so that type of stuff you'll learn about before other people. >> Okay. >> Not I'm not a registered investment adviser. I should make blah blah blah blah lose money. Yeah. >> Um, no, I appreciate you guys having me on. Um, our our app is called Sky, Sk. [clears throat] And it's a fun little experience. It's kind of a new way to experience your phone. Um, it's kind of ironic that we're, you know, I talked about that having, you know, we talked about the digital de detox or whatever, but our goal is to kind of really make you stop using as much as you would otherwise by surfacing the things that you might care about before. Essentially, you don't go into this doom scrolling world or whatever. Uh, imagine something that exists there. Um, it's there when you need it, it's gone when you don't, and we don't really have anything else. So, it's a fun little thing. We couple people and uh we've got tens of thousands of people on a wait list right now. So, we're trying to fulfill that inference is very expensive, but uh it's been the time of my life to build this. I'm I guess I I love technology so much. Um, and I [clears throat] love interfaces and I love thinking about the world with respect to how the future might be in terms of people interacting with the with the with the technology in a in a meaningful way, not necessarily in a um doom scrolling sort of this world that we've kind of built. So, I don't know where we'll go with that, but it's been it's been an incredible time building. Um, and uh what a time to be alive. as if you're if you're any type of builder today, it is probably one of the most remarkable times I've ever witnessed. I'm baffled every day. Um, and so it's been so much fun. Uh, and uh, we're just getting started. So, I'm I'm really excited for that. >> And at Signal on X with two L's, s i g n u l if you want to see you call out the Xbox CEO a little bit more. >> That's pretty hilarious. I wonder if she's going to watch this. >> Signal [laughter] sniffies. >> Sniffies. Sorry, I I need to take that username from that app. >> Yeah, match match with me there. Um, my end high agency.com/books. If you want to get a breakdown of all my best books, you told me to do this. There's going to be a a book breakdown, a list of a load of different books, but the personal one of uh Oblamov, a Russian man from the 18th century who the first 50 pages are about him getting out of bed. So, there's there's more resources like that. Get my best books and articles. That's it. >> Heck yeah. All right, >> let's go. >> See you next time, everyone. Yo, cheers, gentlemen. >> Yes, there we go. >> Fun. >> Congratulations. You made it to the end of a full podcast episode. 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