Video summary
The podcast opens with a discussion on social signaling and the reliability of self-reported success, introducing several mental blind spots that distort our perception of reality. The speakers argue against taking claims at face value; if someone brags about their wealth or happiness, it is likely exaggerated by half, whereas downplaying achievements suggests they are actually double what claimed. This dynamic is illustrated through a classic "midwit" meme where individuals misidentify themselves as the most intelligent person in the room because of an inability to accurately assess status relative to others. Similarly, overt signaling on platforms like Instagram or Twitter often indicates insecurity rather than genuine success, leading to phenomena such as live face-tuning and curated feeds that present a false reality akin to a metaverse where everyone is essentially an animated character. To navigate these deceptive signals, the speakers propose specific "razors" for clearer thinking. The first involves using trusted intermediaries or third-party validation rather than self-promotion; when introduced at social gatherings, friends should describe one's achievements objectively to bypass the need for individuals to brag themselves. A second tool is the Instagram razor, which reminds listeners that any attractive photo seen on a feed represents only the single best variation out of hundreds taken and edited in post-production. The third concept involves studying meta-games by observing tangible results rather than marketing claims; for instance, an effective personal trainer should be visibly fit regardless of their sales pitch, just as David Ogilvy's genius was evident simply because he did not need to explain his own brilliance but instead sued a magazine that questioned it with a question mark. The conversation shifts to the psychological impact of narcissism and envy, suggesting that people are far too busy worrying about others' opinions of them to pay significant attention back to you. The speakers use Winston Churchill's famous anecdote from Parliament—where he told a young MP that his true enemies were not on opposing benches but rather "the snakes behind you"—to illustrate how we often project external threats onto the world when our real adversaries are internal weaknesses or self-sabotage. This leads to the conclusion that personifying the universe as an evil adversary is counterproductive; instead, one must recognize the fundamental indifference of the cosmos and turn attention inward to address personal flaws rather than blaming a hostile environment for life's difficulties. Finally, the discussion addresses conspiracy theories and political confusion through "Schultz's razor" and the "Cummings razor." Schultz's razor advises against attributing complex events or group behaviors to conspiracies when they can be better explained by simple anxiety about cancellation or social standing. This is expanded upon with Dominic Cummings' observation that politicians often lack strategic dashboards, reacting daily to newspaper stories rather than managing long-term metrics like homelessness rates or obesity statistics. The speakers conclude that while ideas and concepts—such as electricity or critical thinking—are enduring and vital entities far larger than any individual, the modern world suffers from a lack of strategy where leaders operate without clear design, making it essential for individuals to maintain skepticism against manufactured narratives driven by fear rather than malice.
Read the full video transcript
if someone brags about their success or
happiness assume it's half what they
claim if someone downplays their success
or happiness assume it's double what
they claim the map is not the terrain
a hundred percent
and there's obviously exceptions to the
rule but I think that's quite a
consistent rule that I see when I hear
someone particularly if it's money or if
it's things like that when they're
bragging over there probably don't
really believe this but if someone's
kind of playing it down there's a few
subtle towels it's the classic midwit
meme right you've got the probably my
favorite meme of all time which is the
low IQ guy on the left the kind of
Midway in the middle and the super high
IQ guy there where the low IQ guy says
I'm the guy on the left the guy in the
middle says I'm the guy on the right and
the guy on the right says I'm the guy on
the left so and you see this with wealth
as well you see the super rich try and
hide the welfare is it's the kind of
people who were like the money Twitter
crowd screenshot the Shopify store and
things like that where it's but why are
you trying to signal that when you're
trying to overtly signal you're probably
trying to compensate for something again
there's exceptions to the rule but when
someone's signaling so hard it's
probably a sign that they don't have we
were in fact we were in uh a location in
Austin over the weekend and a Gentleman
came up to us and one of the first
sentences out of his mouth was 1500
people in the world have started a one
billion dollar business I'm one of them
right now I believe you even less now
anyone who's seen Carl pilkington's
[ __ ] if you wanted to go
[ __ ] yeah yeah I um I think what it
kind of suggests when somebody does
steaming and
um
start with achievements first is or any
kind of bragging basically suggests to
us it's a low status very
easy to fake signal of authenticity
right like a hard uh signal of
authenticity would just be show me a
bank balance or Show Me Your Capacity is
someone telling you how smart they are
is way less reliable of a signal than
someone having a conversation with you
that flows perfectly and you think holy
[ __ ] like that's really cool so yeah I
you know we're into personality quirks
here around people's desire to be seen
and their needs for validation from the
world around them but I think generally
the bragging razor of thinking
if
I want to come across well allowing my
achievements to arise as a byproduct of
someone asking me about what I do this
is another thing that happens in in
Austin that
I had to introduce you to which is
since I've been here when you join a new
group at a party or a gathering or
whatever and you get introduced by the
one person that you probably do know in
that Circle they usually tell the group
what you do and that allows everyone to
bypass the bragging razor because your
friend bigs up your best achievements
but again it's a reliable adjudicator
presumably I'm not gonna lie about what
you know he's got a 17-inch penis and
I'm pretty sure that he's got the world
high jump record and he's like the first
man on the moon like I'm not gonna say
that right I'm going to say the things
reliably that that people can can assume
so next one I love this one instagram
razor when you see a photo of an
influencer looking attractive on
Instagram assumed that there were 99
worst variations of that photo you
haven't seen they just picked the best
one 100 and me and Josh my business
partner when we travel around will be in
sometimes very nice restaurants and we
see the beautiful couple all kind like I
don't think it's them necessary but
they're kind of Tommy Fury Molly main
looking couple not referring to them and
he's just kind of there staring into the
distance and she'll be there just going
through her phone of like infinite
photos of her and then on this girl
trying to find the right film one of the
biggest red pills I had recently was
where I was at a bar and then I looked
over and there's a girl on a photo of
herself and she was face tuning it live
in real time and I now realized you it's
the classic where's the sausage made and
you've got to realize that everything on
Instagram that you see is absolute
it's just it's just not true it's the
metaverse it really is the amount of us
Everyone's an animoji character
completely edited it's it's bizarre I
love the fact that
you have to assume as well that this is
the best option out of what everybody
had and especially if it's someone
that's got a pretty well curated
Instagram feed that I suppose that's one
of the advantages of as you get to a
particular level with creating content
online you don't even know what's going
out it's you know the spin the wheel
thing I have no idea what video goes out
each day like the shorts team finds
things that they love and sometimes
they'll be like oh this bit with Mark
Normand was really fun like you should
maybe put that out but they treat me
like a child like they've got a strategy
and they know what they're doing so I'm
like oh okay well I guess I'm just like
[ __ ] close your eyes and put your
hand in the celebrations tin and pull
out of today it's a bounty tomorrow it's
a malteser a good razor as well kind of
related to this is both these razors are
trying to avoid signals and then try and
actually study the noise oh so like not
not the noise sorry but the actual thing
So Meta games I think are super
important because you can learn a lot so
I have this rule which is
if I want to work with a personal
trainer I want the personal trainer to
be an insane shape and that's way better
than any marketing Spiel he can give for
me if I see a SAS product which is
selling landing page software I want
when I click on their landing page for
that software to be incredible like the
landing page should look if you're if
you're the landing page software guy and
your landing page isn't great that's a
site one of my favorite one of my heroes
throughout history in Market space is
David Ogilvy and David Ogilvy I forgot
which magazine it was they wrote a
headline which is is David Ogilvy a
genius question mark
and Ogilvy was a great marketer because
the way he marketed himself he replied
to that headline by getting his lawyer
to sue them for the question mark or at
least that's the story that he released
I go even within that you can see how
good he is at Market he doesn't have to
say like what he's done there is genius
so whenever you can study these meta
games which is not what people say what
they do or how they carry themselves is
super super important
narcissism narcissism razor
if you're worried about people's
opinions remember they are too busy
worrying about other people's opinions
of them 99 of the time you're an extra
in someone else's movie yeah and then
just when you realize everybody else has
a separate video game that they're
playing
and you're just they're too busy when
you're thinking about them and you're
worried about them assume the amount of
thought you give to other people they're
giving to you and then you realize how
delusional that is one of my friends was
chatting about Envy recently and he was
talking about how he wants to get rid of
Envy as a thing I mean one thing that's
useful With Envy is to realize that
there's somebody out there who's
so envious of you who probably checks
your Instagram checks for these things
and constantly is thinking about you and
when you view it through that frame you
go Jesus that's really bad I'm actually
not that worthwhile being envious of and
you realize oh [ __ ] everybody else
thinks the way I think and that then
enables you to go to like third person
shooter and begin to zoom out and just
see oh
I'm not that important no there's that
quote of
um we would care far less about what
other people thought of us if we
realized how rarely they did yeah
um there's this other one did you see
that story about Churchill that I posted
of the young guy he was showing around
the houses of Parliament this is good so
a young MP was being shown around
Parliament by Winston Churchill as he
wandered through the halls and offices
he asked questions about how the
building was put together Churchill
obliged and gave the young man advice on
how this world worked upon entering the
House of Commons chamber Churchill's new
friends started referring to the MPS on
the other benches as the enemy Churchill
reportedly said that's the opposition
Dear Boy the enemies behind you and what
I loved about that was it became
obviously what he's talking about is the
fact that like the people who you need
to be concerned about are the ones that
are on your team because you have
something that they want that's the
opposition you know that they're out to
get you to the people behind you that
the snakes that will stab you in the
back but figuratively or symbolically I
think that
I love that story because it reminds us
that we are Our Own Worst Enemy most of
the time that we see the world as being
some sort of
um adversary that is trying to do things
against us the world gives zero [ __ ]
about you the world doesn't care less
literally the entire universe is
indifference to all of our existence
right nope not a blind blink and I
imagine that this is one of the reasons
why when we get to look at the night sky
it fills us with a degree of dread and
awe and insignificance that I think is
very important to keep our egos small
because realize that everything's just
going to keep on turning but also
this goes back to the cynicism
skepticism thing you can personify the
world as being a thing you know you hear
people say stuff like this like you know
the world is an evil and mean place and
it will try and break you down I've even
nodded as Goggins said something similar
on the podcast and I there are degrees
to how it can be useful to see
um to be um alert to threats out there
and to have resilience ready for things
that are difficult to occur in the world
but the world's [ __ ] indifferent to
you the world doesn't care and
personifying it and creating a an enemy
out of the world I think is pointing the
finger in the wrong direction it's like
it needs to be turned inward you are the
person that knows all of your weaknesses
you can say the most disgusting terrible
things to yourself you know all of the
trigger points that you should go
through you chastise yourself for
falling short even though you've tried
your hardest like you are Your Own Worst
Enemy there will never be anybody that
can be as brutal to you as you can to
yourself
realizing that
helps you to ameliorate this adversarial
view of the world the world's just a
tool yeah it doesn't care about you that
there are some people out there who
genuinely have enemies right but it's a
rarified Strutter of people and they've
done something
yeah exactly yeah I think so there's the
nihilistic version of that or it could
be framed as an honestly pessimistic
which is or nobody cares about you
and therefore what's the [ __ ] point
then but it goes back to the root
opening of the conversation which is
ideas are probably more important than
people like the concept of electricity
is so important or the idea of critical
thinking or whatever it is this is why
ideas are so much more important and you
can find
as a atheist or an agnostic you can find
God to some extent in these ideas
something that's way bigger than you
that can last way longer than you
that is so so damn important there was a
one that I came up with this is my my
first one I'm adding it into the mix
which you'll have seen before Schultz's
razor do not attribute to group act
group conspiracy that which can be
explained by cancellation anxiety so
that that's a [ __ ] great one there's
the Cummings razor as well which kind of
forks on the idea which is Balaji one of
my favorite followers on Twitter tweeted
out
why don't why doesn't every government
in the world have a dashboard so you can
see how well they're doing it is well
think of the core map you could debate
over the core matches you can even
debate how you measure them and maybe
have different parties
and things like that but all the core
measurements number of homeless people
on the street obesity rates death rate
why why don't we have a bbc5 channel
where you can just tune in like a CEO
checking their dashboard and we don't
operate that way
um and Dominic Cummings Boris is former
right hand man retweeted that and said
and I call this Cummings Cummings razor
which is whenever you get confused by
politicians or you think it's some great
conspiracy theory it's basically this
which is Cummings wrote I can confirm at
the time Boris does not have a dashboard
that he checks every day it's not run by
it like a CEO he just reacts to
newspaper stories that come in each day
if everybody saw this they'd sell
everything and flee and that's a
fundamental problem is yeah there's not
actually a lot of malice that's going on
it's just a complete lack of strategy
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