Video summary
The podcast segment focuses on Wilbur and Orville Wright, presenting them as the ultimate examples of high agency individuals who achieved what was deemed impossible by their contemporaries. The narrative begins with a biographical sketch of Wilbur's early life marked by significant adversity; after sustaining severe facial injuries from a hockey accident that left him bedridden for two to three years while his mother battled terminal illness, he turned his attention to the question of why birds could fly but humans could not. During this period of recovery and study, the brothers shifted their perspective on history's treatment of innovators who were often mocked or dismissed as "nutters," noting that such individuals in Northern Ireland historically received cocaine prescriptions rather than support. Despite flying being a subject of ridicule with poems mocking its feasibility, the Wrights traveled 700 miles to Kitty Hawk for testing conditions they identified through manual weather bureau data gathering before internet technology existed. Upon arriving at their chosen location, the brothers faced immense skepticism and physical challenges that required them to overcome numerous logistical hurdles. They spent hours mimicking bird movements with their arms to understand flight mechanics and designed a wing system based on these observations. However, they discovered that existing aerodynamic measurements provided by German experts were entirely incorrect, forcing them to construct a wind tunnel in their garage capable of reaching speeds up to 27 miles per hour to test small models themselves. This process was fraught with repeated failures as they worked to build an engine light enough for flight and correct the flawed data surrounding lift and drag. The transcript emphasizes that before successfully creating the airplane, Wilbur famously declared that "no man will ever fly" within a thousand years, yet he persisted through failure after failure until achieving their first successful flight just one year later. The discussion highlights how modern audiences often take for granted aviation capabilities developed in the early 1900s, failing to recognize the sheer magnitude of the Wright brothers' achievement against all odds. The speaker illustrates this high agency by contrasting the stress of minor inconveniences today, such as a delayed Emirates flight or missing Diet Cokes on board, with the monumental breakthrough that made global air travel possible. This contrast serves to underscore how the Wrights solved problems that seemed completely insolvable and defied the laws of physics at the time. The speaker notes that while many people do not know their names today due to a lack of statues or holidays dedicated to them, their legacy is foundational; without their work, modern travel between locations like London would be impossible. A central argument in the conversation revolves around the psychological approach required for such high-agency achievements, specifically challenging the notion that one must have faith before taking action. The speaker posits that believing an outcome will happen can make a process more enjoyable and efficient but is largely an unnecessary precursor to success if one optimizes for outcomes rather than inputs. This philosophy suggests that whether someone believes they will succeed in three weeks or assumes it requires a thousand years, the actual execution of necessary steps determines the result. The speaker uses this logic to explain why diets work despite biological complexities being irrational and difficult to predict; by focusing on the outcome (feeling better) rather than understanding every mechanism, one can still achieve results even when the path seems unclear or counterintuitive. The transcript concludes with an observation that many high achievers, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Zack, are often described as having traits associated with autism or being on the spectrum because their primary bottlenecks lie in logistics and operations rather than creativity or emotional concerns about social perception. For individuals who struggle within traditional education systems, these non-logistical barriers like fear of judgment can be significant obstacles that high-agency thinkers must overcome by accepting an irrational world where psychology cannot accurately predict outcomes from inputs. The segment ends with a sponsorship message for Function Health, which offers comprehensive biomarker testing to monitor health metrics and provide actionable recommendations, before directing listeners to the full conversation on agency available in the description.
Read the full video transcript
the most Apex HIgh agency guy do you
recognize this guy guy called Wilbur no
great name so um let's just start off
with life happening to him so smart kid
Wilbur he wants to go to Yale University
he's about to get in he's playing hockey
one day and gets his face smashed in so
badly by a bloke it's interesting
studying
history this bloke was clearly a Nutter
and guess what they used to do for
Nutters they' prescribe them
cocaine I know a few Nutters like that
yeah mainly in Northern rail over the
years so anyway gets prescribed cocaine
smashes this guy's face him so much so
he's bedridden for two to three years
wow so Yale University's cancelled
whilst he's bedridden his mom is
terminally ill so he's kind of in bed I
might imagine caring for her while she's
in bed back and forth so truly life is
happening uh
Wilbur this [ __ ] guy man this guy sat
there in
bed asked the question why can birds fly
but humans can't yeah what like why is
that so just sits there in bed getting
book after book and there's not many
books back then about uh aerodynamics
and how things can fly but he's studying
Birds Wilbur teams up with his brother
becomes fast fascinated by the question
um and starts to move over on the
Spectrum a little bit over here to like
happening to guess his surname is Right
indeed indeed so Wilbur and um Orville
his brother they reverse from first
principles where is the best place with
wind and sand um in America because they
need to test flight they need to find
somewhere with a soft landing and with
enough wind to begin to test it yeah
yeah so they get all the weather bureau
consensus data which back then there's
no internet so they're just reaching out
to the local Council and finding the
ship and
he um sorry they have all this uh
weather data and they realize it's 700
miles away in Kittyhawk and I realized
well they can just fly there I oh no
they can't they can't fly there right so
this is the Fest they've ever been from
home they go all the way down to
Kittyhawk and the two of them talk about
happening to life the two of them and by
the way back then this is a key thing
that people I always forget about
history is that it it was a mocked thing
flying was seen as everybody who tried
it failed or died and there was poems at
the time of how ridiculous it would be
like to even think you could fly like it
was a it was a joke at the time so the
two of them um are seen in Kitty Hawk
like these imagine this so you're
looking outside your window and there's
these two brothers they're for hours at
the side just like moving their arms
like this pretending they're different
types of birds just just mimicking the
way Birds move their [ __ ] wings so
they're there for ages they then begin
to design like a wind a wing system
based off the way birds do the next
problem that they have is they realize
that all the measurements around
aerodynamics that they've been given at
a time from um a German fellow were
completely incorrect so they have to
they build when they go back home they
build a wind tunnel in their garage like
um that can go about 27 M hour and
they're Crea little objects and pulling
it through and they reverse and you know
oh everything that we know about
aerodynamics is completely wrong so they
fix that problem and it's problem after
the problem it's next building an engine
that's light enough and you end up with
a
scenario before they create the airplane
they failure after failure after failure
after failure after failure Wilbur looks
at his brother one day and says no man
will ever fly for a thousand years one
year later he's up there in the airplane
and flies for the first time ever and
that for me is I think Wilbur wght and
obviously his brother Orville is the
Apex example of high agency and the
impact it then has Because unless you
study history you just go well band's
always been able to fly and you going
know this has been since the early 1900s
that we've been able to do it the amount
of times I don't how how many times a
week do you think about the right
brothers ever since you sent me that
photo I I encountered a situation at the
toward the start of this year and I
explained it to you and you sent me this
photo and it must be is it Wilbur in the
plane and oval on the The Hill in front
of him and he's doing this yeah and he's
jumping and he's got his hands in the
air and this plane's off the ground and
uh yeah I know that you use this to uh
basically tyrannize your staff I I I I
think about I think about it like once a
week like it's so so I'll be like
staring when there's a plane going by
once you once you know the story I'll be
staring once a plane goes by my
girlfriend be like you thinking about
the right Brothers yeah yeah yeah yeah
because the fact that most people don't
know their names the not statues the
fact there's not a day and then
meanwhile there's like me getting on an
emirat flight like stressing out my [ __ ]
it's 20 minutes late and you're now
there going what do you mean they've not
got Diet Cokes on the plane and there's
TV entertainment there but it's just a
it's just agency like a problem that
seemed completely insolvable didn't defy
the laws of physics it was possible and
now we we our whole world me and you
being here today flying into London is
purely because of these two [ __ ] I
kind of like that I I'd love to dig a
bit deeper into his story uh and do a
little bit more research around the fact
that he said that man W Fly for a
thousand years but didn't stop and then
got there a year later I've been really
really spending a lot of time thinking
about not believing that you're worthy
of achieving a thing and yet still
managing to attain It Anyway this sort
of make it until you fake it basically
that you I a lot of the time we believe
that we need to have faith in a thing
before we can go and do the thing but
it's an unnecessary precursor it may
make the process more enjoyable it may
make you have more confidence may make
you more efficient in the things that
you do may make you more effective at
getting the outcomes that you need but
it's largely an unnecessary step if we
assume that what you're optimizing for
is outcomes not inputs if you can do the
outcomes regardless of how you got there
whether you believe that you were going
to do it or not whether you thought it'
be a thousand years or whether you
thought it' be six months if you do
someone could have been Wilbur alternate
universe slightly different personality
and being like we're going to get it
done in three weeks and it would have
taken a year m if he'd done the same
things what it's not going a human man
won't fly for a thousand years and it's
going to happen in a year so just you
know me and you talk about we obsessed
about this a lot of your birthday this
summer
but the more and more that I think about
it optimizing for outcomes not for
inputs is just it sides through
everything and oddly is quite a high
agency way to to do this because the
true or another element of high agency
would be accepting that you live in an
irrational world and that your
psychology is one that
is not built to be able to accurately
identify how outcomes are going to come
from inputs so stop believing that you
know how this is going to work and just
okay this thing seems to be happening in
whatever way both me and you are on
ridiculous diets come do you know why it
works kind of I can probably broscience
Cobble something together some doctor
probably could too but I bet that
there's maybe even more explan for why
it shouldn't work or doesn't or whatever
is ridiculous I'm like yeah but I feel
better when I'm on it I'm optimizing for
outcomes I'm not bothered about the
mechanism I'm not bothered about the
inputs yes because fundamentally it was
possible that's the big thing um and
this is I try and say this in the least
offensive way but I think there's some
truth to it that a lot of high Achievers
or high agency people are often
described as being on the asperges or
Autism Spectrum spectrum and think the
reason behind that is that all their
bottlenecks are just Logistics and
operations it's just like just you look
at someone like Elon or zck or somebody
like that Bezos and a lot of it is just
Logistics operations Bott neck whereas
for maybe people who like myself that go
through the education system and really
struggle to then break out of that wayt
it's creativity bottleneck it's a
emotional bottleneck is a big one of
like what will people think if I do this
yep um there's so many different
bottlenecks that aren't Logistics and
operations but for people who have a a
little touch of the tism or the asperges
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