Video summary
The podcast opens with a humorous segment where George attempts to recreate a viral tweet about drinking full-fat Coke with salted peanuts, discovering that the combination is surprisingly delicious due to chemical reactions between carbonation and salty nuts suppressing bitterness while amplifying sweetness. The conversation quickly shifts to sports economics, specifically debating whether Roman chariot racers or modern athletes like Michael Jordan hold the title of highest-paid athlete in history when adjusted for inflation. This leads into a broader discussion on American capitalism versus European socialism, with George criticizing salary caps in US sports and the perceived "communist" approach of rewarding last-place teams via drafts. The hosts also touch upon the decline of UK bond ratings despite its historical intellectual contributions to AI (DeepMind), Bitcoin whitepapers, and the internet itself, suggesting a long-term bullish outlook on British IP output even amidst current economic struggles. A significant portion of the dialogue focuses on skepticism toward modern trends, particularly Artificial Intelligence and mainstream media. George expresses fatigue with extreme "doomer" narratives regarding AI's potential to end humanity or revolutionize everything instantly, noting that most people lack a nuanced middle ground between fear and hype. He argues that while crypto-NFTs were overhyped in the past, current enthusiasm for AI is similarly manic but lacks critical scrutiny of its actual utility versus marketing fluff. The hosts discuss how mainstream media has hit rock bottom yet remains underpriced due to its prestige as a limited resource compared to infinite YouTube content. They also critique "science-backed" claims and psychological studies that fail replication tests, such as power posing or growth mindset theories, advocating instead for first-principles thinking over blind faith in viral research findings. The conversation takes a darker turn with discussions on investigative journalism challenges, specifically the California "Stop Nick Shirley Act," which George describes as an extreme fascist bill designed to prevent whistleblowers from exposing fraud by threatening violence against immigrants or co-residents of healthcare workers. This legislation is contrasted with similar transparency restrictions in Puerto Rico following financial scandals involving Wall Street consultants and Luma Energy's privatization of PREPA, where billions were funneled off-island while infrastructure remained broken. George shares personal anecdotes about faking a homosexual relationship to avoid police trouble—a tactic allegedly used by the CIA—and highlights how such tactics are becoming obsolete as laws tighten against exposing corruption. He also touches on his own struggles with subatomic dermatitis and how AI tools like Gemini provided better medical advice than doctors, illustrating both the benefits of technology and humanity's tendency toward negativity despite technological advancements improving lives. The latter part of the episode explores the absurdity of market trends through examples like Allbirds pivoting from wool sneakers to selling GPUs after their stock crashed, a move that temporarily boosted valuation but lacked sustainability. The hosts discuss Elon Musk’s plan to train Tesla robots using self-playing warehouses rather than human data collection, drawing parallels to AlphaZero's chess breakthroughs and the ethical implications of humans creating training datasets for AI by wearing headsets in Indian factories. They also touch on deepfakes complicating truth perception post-Charlie Kirk assassination rumors, leading George to reflect on humanity's inability to forecast solutions to new problems without causing further issues—a concept known as the precautionary principle. The episode concludes with a lighthearted note about Phil Collins being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2026, followed by reflections on how society confuses screens for reality while grappling with rapid technological shifts that will likely seem primitive to future generations fifty years from now.
Read the full video transcript
George, you're a connoisseur of
beverages, would you say so?
>> As you open another carbonated beverage.
Well, gentlemen,
>> cheers. Oh,
>> have you ever had full fat Coke with
salted peanuts in it?
>> No,
>> I have not.
>> Say less. Uh, take a glass.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> Take a Coke. Take a peanut.
>> Um, so there's a viral tweet that goes
out about 30 years ago. I read in a
Haruki Murakami essay that in America
it's popular to drink cola with peanuts
in it. I just went, "Huh?" And a long
time passed since then, but I finally
tried it. What the hell is this? It's
ridiculously delicious. No kidding. It's
at a level where I don't want to drink
cola any other way anymore. So, we are
going to drink.
>> Have you before? Or are we going to
>> I saved this. I saw that and I've been
edging myself with [ __ ]
cola and peanuts since then.
>> Is there an order you have peanuts
first?
>> I think [ __ ] That's crazy, right?
>> Peanuts first. Peanuts first seems more
insane.
>> It's like cereal. I've I've blown my
load early. Hold on.
>> Uh, peanuts in Coke is the most
accidentally perfect food pairings in
history. The chemistry explains why this
guy can't go back. Coca-Cola sits at pH
2.5, roughly the same acidity as stomach
acid. You What's awful?
>> We need to show the camera what this
looks like. It does not look as good as
>> But look at how much it's Look at how
much it's fizzing. Anyway, there's a
load of signs. Salt on the peanuts
suppresses the bitter taste receptors on
your tongue which amplifies your
perception of the sweetness. You can
without adding a single gram of sugar.
The carbonation does two things. CO2
dissolved in liquid forms carbonic acid
which wait.
>> So I think we need to leave it. So we're
going to we're going to have we're going
to set this down. We'll come back to it.
We'll come back to it in like I don't
know.
>> Honestly, the original Coke like this
alone
>> already would have blown my mind. I
haven't had Have you like you had this?
This is like This is This is actually
Jared, you need you need this. Don't
forget.
>> You need to have a high high potency on
yours unless you Anyway, so this is this
is You're a connoisseur of beverages,
especially sparkling ones.
>> This is my
>> Should we take a starter sip?
>> No, I think we wait. I think we wait.
We're going to wait for a little bit and
then come back to it.
>> And this doesn't get you high or
anything.
>> Well, no. [laughter]
It's the only thing that you're
interested in.
>> He's no longer interested.
>> No, no, I'm interested in other things
as well.
>> Okay. All right. [laughter]
So, what does it do?
>> Question.
>> Who do you think is the highest paid
athlete of all time?
>> I know the answer to this.
>> Okay. Well, don't.
>> One year all time.
>> All time. All time. Who's the highest
paid athlete?
>> Um, Michael Jordan,
>> Ronaldo, Messi, they come to mind.
>> Michael Jordan will be second.
>> Mhm.
>> Tiger Woods third. Joey Chestnut
Palmer, Bonnie Blue actually is probably
[laughter] depends what sport you're
talking per competitor. Real endurance.
>> Can I throw a guess out there?
>> Yeah.
>> There was a Roman chariot racer who
allegedly made over a billion dollars.
>> Correct.
>> You owe Pullman cuz you just you just
predicted what he was going to say.
>> A history teacher. Uh well, does crazy
things to your mind.
>> Gas Appalaus Dioles. Uh, so Michael
Jordan has earned 1.8 billion. Tiger
Woods 1.7 billion. Arnold Palmer 1.4
billion. Jack Nicholas 1.2 billion.
>> Oh, it was 15 billion. He
>> 15 billion in today's money. He
basically won 35,863
120 cister
by some estimation over 15 billion in
2011.
>> And that's pure income from the sport.
So I assume because back then there's
probably no sponsorship.
>> Yeah.
>> Shield deal.
>> Yeah. I wonder I wonder who could have I
wonder who could have offset his Bodaca
budget.
>> Wow.
>> 15 billion, dude.
>> And uh the tweet says, "Eat [ __ ]
Michael Jordan, you broke." [laughter]
>> Yeah, I think I saw that same thing.
That's why I knew that.
>> That's what I've That's what I've
contributed. That's why
>> I did kind of ruin it by KNOWING THE
ANSWER. BUT WE'LL LET THAT SLIDE. NO.
>> DID do we have a photo of this guy?
because like
>> uh just search that dude Jared the
[ __ ] gas appaus diocles. I'm sure you
can spell that.
>> It's uh it's fascinating coming from the
UK to the US and seeing how Europe is
kind of criticized as being like a
socialist place and the US is seen as
this
>> capitalist place. Meanwhile, our sports
are more way more capitalist. And you I
still don't understand how US sports
work where you have cuz I went to go
watch a Miami Heat game and I searched a
guy's salaries and one guy's on like 50
million and then the rest are on like
his entire salary combined which is
absurd.
>> And he can't make more than that. It's
capped.
>> Huh.
>> Which is unamerican, right?
>> But we get why. And then you have the
whole um like draft at the end of the
season where whoever finished last gets
rewarded the most. Like it's the most
unamerican thing.
>> Communist approach to this. All right.
Should we drink this Coke? Should we
been staring at me? All right. Cheers,
gentlemen. Cheers.
>> Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.
>> [ __ ]
>> [ __ ] that, mate.
>> [ __ ] that. [laughter]
>> Sweet and salty.
>> Tastes quite a lot like Coke. Tastes
like Coke, but then I ate the peanuts.
>> Yeah, it's the
>> Which is nice.
>> You know what it tastes like?
>> Coke with peanuts. [laughter]
>> It did not change the flavor at all for
me. Maybe let it sit longer.
>> It's less different. Maybe we need to
take
>> I think it's more the aesthetic.
Oh, you think that would this is an art
piece?
>> Yes. Like even even if you made a um
>> It looks like what happens if you eat
too much Mexican food?
>> Yeah. If you had the best Michelin
[laughter]
Yes.
>> just looks so much like there's too much
[ __ ]
>> Yeah. Look,
>> I do enjoy chewing while drinking Coke.
So, that's good. That's a positive.
>> I'm going to keep going with that.
>> Yeah. What if you I mean couldn't you
choke on the peanuts in
>> That's always a risk.
>> Yeah.
>> I have a question for the group that I
wanted to ask people on.
>> Um
>> bullish or bearish on certain trends. So
I kind of want to know um trends that
are big right now in society or aren't
big right now that you think should be
bigger. So just give me um things that
people uh maybe particularly um popular
about right now that you think don't
deserve to be and vice versa.
>> Overpriced and underpriced. Okay. Uh, I
think it's overhyped at the moment.
>> I want to say AI, but then it's probably
going to change the [ __ ] world. I
just feel sick of hearing about it.
>> I'm kind of sick of hearing permanently
about how it's going to be the end of
everything or the beginning of
everything. And there's no one that's in
the middle. There's no one that's like,
"Yeah, AI is pretty cool." It's people
who are complete doomers or just like
David Friedberg. Like, there's only two
ends of the barbell. But I I would quite
like AI to chill out a little bit in
terms of everyone talking [laughter]
about it.
>> Well, I guess we've never lived through
a mania like this. I guess the one would
have been the internet.
>> Crypto with NFTs was a little bit, but
it was
>> crypto with NFTs was [ __ ] hard, dude.
That would have been top of my list. M
but I think a lot of sensible people
were skeptical about NFTs for sure
aspects of crypto whereas I feel like
you know uh AI right now I mean even the
people who are doomers they're not
saying AI sucks they're saying it's too
powerful it's either this is so powerful
life is going to be amazing or this is
so powerful life is like over for us and
nobody's really nobody really like hey
this is ah it's just a flash in the pan
like in the early internet there's
famous articles where it's like the
internet won't amount to anything. This
is a fancy fax machine. There's, you
know, there's articles you can go pull
up now and mock people. I feel like with
AI, we kind of all know.
>> H what about you? What do you think?
>> I'm getting really into um metaverse
real estate. It's it's the place now.
Now's the time to get in. So, I'm buying
up a lot of land. I've got a place to
snoop.
>> This feels a little bit like kicking a
dead body whilst it's on the ground and
saying that you killed it. Do
>> you know what I mean? You can't say the
metaverse is overhyped when it's already
dead. You know that Simpsons meme where
it's like stop, stop, he's already dead.
Don't see you hanging a B ape up in
there, do you? So there you go.
[laughter]
>> Why don't you talk about your cryptos?
>> You know, here here's actually a weird
one that I was Did all right on that
toad. Did all right that toad, baby.
>> All right. Um,
>> you can look it up on chain as well,
actually. So there's no there's no fraud
there. There's no lies. You can you can
verify my NFT activity, good sir. Um,
you know, one that I'm weirdly because I
was thinking about there's lots of stuff
you could say where it's almost trite,
right? So, you go AI is going to change
the world and it's like most people will
probably agree with that. So, therefore,
it's kind of a neutral statement. And I
was thinking, well, what are people
what's cliche to be bearish on right now
and then what's the bullish take for
that,
>> right?
>> My two big ones are number one, the
mainstream media. I'm ridiculously
bullish in the next five years on the VA
the mainstream media has um which is
like the oh it's kind of like don't go
to college kind of statement whereas
it's kind of saying almost the opposite
now of go to college mainstream media in
particular there's it's almost like they
have the highest value audience in the
world because nobody I know listens to
mainstream media and that's kind of part
of the joke except Donald Trump except
Kissed Armor except Macron like we was
at dinner the other night wouldn't say
who but was somebody who um used to work
in the cabinet in the UK and one of my
favorite questions to ask people apart
from that question previously is when
you meet somebody who knows a lot about
an industry of you've worked in this
thing for ages what do like layman's
like me just not appreciate that's
really fascinating on the inside and he
paused for a while to answer the
question about what it's like being
inside number 10 and the thing he
reiterated was how much of the
conversation is shifted by what's on the
BBC or what's on the Guardian and you
kind of see this with Trump a little bit
now when he'll address um he'll know
like each news reporter by name and it's
like meanwhile nobody reads this nobody
consumes this but it still has such an
>> rivalries with oh that's such and such
from the lame times or whatever the I'm
like what the
>> yes and and likewise um in number 10 the
amount of reactionary time just goes to
what's on the headlines that nobody's
reading really apart from a few
geriatric 65year-olds therefore there's
still it's kind of weirdly underpriced
Well, there's there's always going to be
prestige in the mainstream media because
there's a limited amount of time and a
limited amount of space. Anybody can
make a YouTube channel, which is awesome
and subversive and rebellious and
whatever, but also that means anyone can
make it. So, there's no prestige
associated with doing it.
>> Mhm.
>> There's only 24 hours in the day on CBS.
So, if you get 15 minutes of that day,
that implicitly you're being given
something. There's a good kind of
prestige with it. That being said, does
anyone ever watch Discovery Life?
>> [snorts]
>> You ever seen Discovery Life?
>> Discovery Channel Life?
>> No.
>> So, I'm [ __ ] training in the gym and
there's so many different TV screens.
Brand new gym. So, apparently everybody
needs to watch. It's like a a
three-year-old playing Subway Surfer
whilst watching Tik Tok at the same
time. So, [ __ ] screens everywhere.
I'm looking over and there's a a lovely
lady on TV, black lady, like nicely
dressed, a floral floral outfit thing.
and she is having um one of her own
fingernails extracted from behind
her own ear like at 10:00 a.m. in the
morning. Uh Discovery Life is an
American cable uh television network. Uh
the channel primarily focuses on reality
programming dealing with life events.
It's programming targets female
audience, blah blah. It it it is [ __ ]
medical emergencies at 10:00 in the
morning. And I'm watching this like five
inch long pair of tweezers extract this
very nice lady's fingernail from behind
her own [ __ ] eard drum. I'm like I'm
trying to do bicep curls and it cut from
that to the next one and it was
someone's ribs being punctured
>> [ __ ] 10:30 in the morning. Only in
America would it be like healthcare has
become basically a competitive sport now
that you can [ __ ] broadcast on the
internet. So, I don't know. I I I feel
like this is the sort of thing you would
have watched at an afterparty.
>> I know. I've never seen that.
>> I had this realization. I'm trying to
find it now, but I wrote about it ages
ago, which was I was once, similar to
you, in the gym working out, and the
news was on and it was just like this
number of people have died in Ukraine
today. This number of people have died
in Gaza today. Um, and then take these
pills. as I [laughter]
and I imagined it of like if this was a
bloke that was in the gym that was
saying this or it was a friend, I'd be
like I'm never speaking to you ever
again. And it's like when you begin to
personalize it like that, it's just you
view it so differently.
>> Except it would be a guy that was
shouting it to the entire room. He
wouldn't even be saying it to you
specifically. He'd just be saying, "This
black lady had an had had her fingernail
caught behind her eard drum." Do you
want me to tell you about the lady that
took it out of her?
>> Well, I work out at Planet Fitness, so
we have people like that. [laughter]
>> You've actually seen this happen live.
>> Yeah. Yeah. There's like homeless people
in there wigging out while we're while
we're all trying to get fit. And um it's
good motivation
>> to be able. [laughter] Holy [ __ ] I need
to make more money and work out
somewhere else.
>> Is it Planet Fitness like with your
membership comes like free pizza or
something? Pizza slice station at the
gym.
>> Yeah. So, you don't get the pills, but
you do get a Tootsie Roll. It is It's
It's embarrassing, dude. I I need to get
a different gym. [laughter]
>> I Dude, it's interesting that you say
that though about being bullish on
mainstream media because they've
basically have hit the basement
>> in terms of really everything. So,
>> there's no way you could think they're
going to do worse in my opinion.
>> You couldn't be more bearish.
>> Yeah. So, you're correct. Well, I'll
give you another on hitting the basement
right now. Um, one that I would buy the
[ __ ] out of is the United Kingdom. Like
everybody right now, the UK literally I
think yesterday the news came out around
it's like the worst um economic change
in terms of the bond rating. Like the
doom and gloom around the UK is so
strong right now. But you just go it's
with a goat.
>> Hang on. Are you going to say never bet
against the UK?
>> No. No. No. Long-term yes. Long-term
yes. just from just from even if they do
nothing again just from a pure IP
perspective like just what you have like
I was think I was getting an argument
today with Claude um in the car um and
sometimes I I'll like bounce between
Claude chat GPT and Crock that's my
>> that's that's like when one of your side
pieces won't put out [laughter]
>> you pivot to another accurate
>> I went I went to dad and he said no mom
>> well I posed the question to Claude and
I'm interested your guys take on this of
who's had more who's more impactful to
the world, the Roman Empire or United
Kingdom? And I think it's the United
Kingdom. Pound for I think pound for
pound. We're onethird the size of Texas.
And like who can who who's managed to um
do this level of output that we've
managed to do? And which is a very
unbritish thing to say.
>> Really living on [ __ ] borrowed time
though, man.
>> No, not really. Not really.
>> When was the last thing we did that was
cool?
>> Um Deep Mind AI. Like the whole AI
industry comes out of essentially
London.
>> How many people do you think know that?
>> Um this is it. We're basically the
technical the way of viewing UK to the
US is like we're the technical guy that
makes no money and comes up with all the
ideas and then these guys are just great
at sales and marketing like you can do
um AI essentially the UK you could do
Tim Berners Lee the internet you could
do um I mean I don't know if this is
fully true but because maybe he's such a
genius that he thought this through but
Bitcoin white paper written in um
British English the correct English.
>> Oh come on we don't know who he is. We
don't know who he is, but there's a
little bit there's a little bit of
something that probably [laughter]
certainly Indian. Yeah.
>> But like if you look at um Yeah. If you
want to keep going back, I always had
this thing of if God had um like top
Trumps of greatest country um and like
each country tries to play their hand.
It's the UK is a very tough one to
compete with.
>> It's very dwindling though. Like when
you think about what the market's trend
is at the moment,
>> Newtonian physics still,
>> he's being my main [ __ ] 500 years
old. But if you I'm talking about the
history of civiliz Roman Empire, what
the Italians doing, but the Roman Empire
still gets a lot of credit these days.
But I just think um going back to the
question um I'm bullish on the UK um
just just in terms of pure IP um and
impact on the world,
>> but bullish would suggest that you'd
invest in it.
>> Yes.
>> What with money?
>> Put it all into the metaverse. I've got
the [laughter]
metaverse CNN.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Bridgetton. Yeah.
>> What do you think about Claude? What do
you mean?
>> Do you like it?
>> The AI. I personally think each each
different AI slightly different. So,
I'll use what I You might know if
somebody's created this yet. What I want
and I kind of if I did this, but then I
couldn't be bothered actually turning it
into a product, which I just want a
group chat where I can post something in
there, they all reply, and then they
roast one another back and forth in the
best, isn't it? General adversarial
network.
>> That's what that's called.
>> Big brain on creating big [ __ ] That's
it. Um,
>> [laughter]
>> uh, Jim Onessy's got it for his super
crazy [ __ ] AI thing.
>> And, uh, he said, "Yeah, they can get
all of the different models to argue
with each other behind the scenes and
then whoever has the best answer for
this one does it."
>> And when you use Grock, they show it so
that if you use like Heavy Grock or
Super Grock or whatever Elon calls it,
you ask a question and agent one pops
up, he starts talking. I think what he
wants to know is blah blah blah. Agent
two comes in. Well, that wouldn't really
be fully accurate. You should really be
thinking about this agent 3 and it'll
show up to process 15 or 16 agents
basically like
>> within the same AI. What you're talking
about is you want Claude arguing with
chat GPT arguing with [ __ ] Opus
arguing with D
>> like literally a group chat.
>> Jared, pull up that New York Post
article that I sent you. Stressed Gen Z
is carrying around anxiety bags with
tools to calm their nerves. Uh Hannah
Fowls was spiraling. It'd been a
grueling day at work, and by the time
the 22-year-old from Provo, Utah, got
home, panic was bubbling in her chest,
and thoughts raced as her cheeks flushed
red. I was starting to get super
overheated. I couldn't calm myself down,
Fowls told the post. Not thing that I
normally do like breathing exercises or
lying down in a dark room as working.
Then she saw the bag.
>> Jesus Christ.
>> Just weeks earlier, F and her therapist
had put together a small grabandgo kit
filled with items to calm her when
anxiety strikes. And uh she flicked on a
small portable fan, letting the cool air
wash over her face, pressed a culp pack
to the back of her neck. While in the
other hand, she gripped a spiky fidget
toy, feeling its prong sticking into her
palm as the panic began to web. Now,
what I I know what you want to do. What
you want to do is make fun of these
people for having Look how it's an EDC
bugout bag that like military guys have,
but for Gen Z Gen Z people. What I want
to know what I want to know is what
would be in your anxiety bag, [laughter]
Gary? Well, I actually have one of those
bags. It's called a bag of drugs. Chris,
thank you for asking me. Uh,
yeah, just uh
>> five grams of whole leafratom.
>> We got cratom. We've got some
empetamines in there. We've got new
tonics. We've got volume to anxiety or
just
>> Oh, no. I'm just addicted to [laughter]
drugs. And um now this is this is uh
what was the question? I don't think you
should make fun of people like this
though because it's not really their
fault that they're being sort of
conditioned to have this obsession with
mental health.
>> That's my theory.
>> That's exactly that's exactly
>> like you take DEI. DEI starts from a
good place. Hey, we should include more
people. We should be more equitable.
Everyone should get a fair opportunity a
shot. But then these movements can get
hijacked and the movements can get
hijacked and stretched into the point
where it doesn't really resemble where
it started. I don't you guys see this
thing with the Canadian politician who
was using the LGBTQ acronym,
>> but it was like 14 letters long.
>> It's what is it? Murdered and missing
women and ch indigenous women in ch MMJ.
>> Did you see this? Uhuh.
>> It's a full sentence long and listen.
She's giving a press conference
>> and she stands there and she just with a
straight face says she wants to express
her like, you know, condolences or
whatever to the MMIWG 2SL. There's a
number in there. 2SL GBTQ GBT QQQI A+
and she just says that with a straight
face and then people were like what what
the hell was all that and it's like
includes like murder victims murderers
>> missing women and children indigenous
people like two spirit the two is for
two spirit which is like yeah
>> double a is in there which is asexual so
here it is holy [ __ ] that's long
>> was released I was shocked to find out
that prime minister Carney is cutting $7
billion between Indigenous Services
Canada and Crown Indigenous Relations.
They provided 0
to deal with the ongoing genocide of
MMIWGSLGBTQQIA
plus.
>> That's impressive. That's really you.
She runs it back.
>> Indigenous women across this country,
indigenous women, girls to us, LGBTQIA
plus. Dude, [laughter] it's [ __ ]
wild.
>> She's not reading off anything.
>> That's off the dome. That's Eminem.
>> She's like She's like the [ __ ] Harry
Mack [laughter] of coming up with
acronyms. You know that dude that [ __ ]
He's like, "Shout out three words." And
it's like umbrellas, stakes, shoes, and
he like freestyle raps an entire thing
about it.
>> The Jay-Z.
>> And they're serious about this, too.
That's not even a joke.
>> You know, that's not SNL. But on on your
mental health point, I if this is why
this that it's but I think what ends up
happening is you end up with these
swings, you can then have a swing so far
the other way where it's like I mean
everybody's know somebody's taking their
own life, right? Like it's a that side
of things is like serious. Totally. The
problem with a lot of these things is
you get to like a lot of the root of
human experiences which is like
ironically a little bit of that but so
much of it is around the language that
we use and within mental health you
bundled up so much like you bundled up 7
billion individuals and it's become such
a black and white t whereas I always use
the example like diabetes is quite an
interesting one right because you have
type 1 diabetes which is a genuine
medical condition that somebody's had um
from birth and then you
type 2 diabetes, which is a little bit
more it's a lot more your choice in your
environment and it feels like you don't
have that kind of I'm going to try and
speedrun my diabetes with this. This is
getting better, by the way. [laughter]
>> Yeah, actually
>> it's getting better. Try it again.
>> Coke on the nuts.
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timeline.com/modernwisdom
and modern wisdom a checkout. You do
have um like some of these language
hacks that like exist. I always joke
that like cyber security nobody takes it
serious as an industry because the
naming is just awful. like and the
biggest thing the cyber security
industry could do is no new technology
if they just branded it as CTIS like
taking it from STI like computer
transmitt infections all of a sudden I'm
like I feel a little bit more about it
like with the homeless problem right now
how many people who are um homeless is
that the main cause it's often it'll be
some ironically some serious mental
health issue that's going on so like the
language
>> interview I've interviewed so many
homeless people dude half of them want
to be homeless and I'm and to be quite
frank I don't really blame them. If you
want to go live in the woods, as long as
you're not
>> Why would Why would somebody want to be
Why would somebody want to be homeless?
>> Because they're not being tethered to
this system that we're all living within
that is currently kind of going down the
drain.
>> I mean, I don't I don't really blame
them. That thing that we just pulled up,
though, is exactly why people aren't
taking mental health seriously anymore,
though, because there's a [ __ ] in
that what's it called? The DSVM3 or
whatever, there's a there's a disease
for everything,
>> right? You know,
>> so I mean like for example, when I was
growing up, I got diagnosed all sorts of
[ __ ] but really I was just a little
[ __ ] And when you when you're start
saying I got ADHD or I'm bipolar, I got
borderline or you got this or that or
whatever, you know, I got a I got a
crutch I can lean on for every single
[ __ ] shitty thing I do to somebody,
which is awesome.
>> There's a [laughter] there's a great a
great line that someone said to me,
which was mental health is both
underdiagnosed and overdiagnosed.
There's people who don't have it that
just live through it and don't know and
people who don't have it that make it
their entire personality.
>> All the people that actually have
serious mental health problems that I'm
at least friends with are mostly
undiagnosed and they're just kind of,
you know, wandering through life. Yeah,
dude. Seriously. I I I agree with you
and I I think it's easy to be like
callous or whatever like flippant about
these the people that have been
diagnosed or self diagnosed or found
their sort of mental health become more
fragile. They don't want to be [ __ ]
like they don't they don't want to be
that fragile. They're just trying to
hold on to some sense of certainty and
the certainty is now come from their uh
diagnosis rather than their agency. like
they just can't make that thing out. And
they're in a world that seems to
pedestalize, you know? I mean, there's
even a trend on Instagram of people
having their mental health maladies in
their bio.
>> You know, like chicks do like Jesus in
bio or you do pronouns. It's these are
my maladies because that's where they're
trying to find some sense of identity
and they I don't think they want that.
Sucks for those people. That's because,
like I was saying, the same reason
homeless people are like, "Yeah, I'm I'm
checked out of this thing, it's because
they don't fit into the system really
because the system's just not working,
you know?" And I'm using this this uh
the system just as like a generality
because
it is so massive. But when you have
people that are like not fitting into
it, they want to find uh community
within the other people that are all
>> in the head, you know? I mean, it's the
same reason why drug drug addicts all
hang out together. And I think drug
addiction is another thing that's mis
diagnosed.
>> Like,
so
>> misdiagnosed drug addiction
>> like uh I didn't I didn't I guess I
didn't say that. Well, people that are
drug addicts, which can I think pretty
much happen to anybody. Certain people
are probably more predisposed to it, but
people that are drug addicts get
misdiagnosed as having some sort of
mental health problem. But really,
they're just on drugs and then off of
drugs. They're withdrawing, then they're
high again.
>> Like when you kicked off at your video
guy.
>> Yeah. So, the first thing I want to
bring to the table for today is
uhratom is something I've been looking
into because there's uh I think sort of
an epidemic happening. And uh there's a
video we got here that I can I can have
pulled up. This is the guy I'm working
with who I wigged out on the other day
because he didn't buy me $10 atratom and
I I quit. the dock because of that.
Yeah, this stuff's strong. Yes. Like, so
what he's talking about for to
contextualize all this is 70 is 7
hydroxy metitrogene, which is one of the
um I I guess it we could just call it a
chemical that's in here. I don't know
the science behind it. We're going to go
actually interview a like a chemist
about this stuff. But basically, people
are taking, which is sold over the
counter at gas stations and head shops,
and there's even shops. But it is a leaf
that's from Southeast Asia, that sort of
mimics the effects of certain
stimulants, but also opioids. It acts on
your opioid receptors and SSRIs. And I
think I I know a handful of people that
have gotten very addicted to it and
they're saying that it is the withdrawal
is worse than heroin, which is
>> pretty unbelievable
given that heroin withdrawal is
horrendous.
>> And that's it.
>> Yeah, man. I should have brought some
for everybody.
>> So, but you're just drinking that.
>> Yeah, this is a lower dose than I was.
>> But you're telling me it's like worse
than heroin, but you're just
>> So, so here's the thing, though. So,
there's a difference between and I'm
still in the process of figuring all
this out.
>> Um, and it literally Yeah. I So, I was
drinking a bunch of this stuff every day
for the past month and then I sort of
wigged out on my my documentary partner
>> because we got Yeah, it'll be in the
dock. But, uh, there's um there's we
were at a head shop and I was like,
"Hey, dude. Let's get some of this cred.
I want to test this stuff out." out and
there's these thing there's 70 pills
which is but it's like almost like
percoet basically and it's sold over the
counter which is nuts. I mean I'm not
I'm not bashing it necessarily but it's
interesting. It's sort of the wild west
of this drug and it's not it's not like
it's a new thing. They tried banning
this in 2016. The reason I'm bringing it
up is because we're doing this
documentary and I think that we're on
the verge of potentially an epidemic
with it.
>> Yeah. This has been I I've seen this in
Austin since I basically got here. So
there's a few uh small glass vials, you
know, like a five-hour energy. Yeah. And
there was a company that was making them
and one of my friends had another guy
who'd been addicted had whatever the
addiction gene is, addicted to every
different drug throughout his entire
life. There's even YouTube channels of
these people and they'll say which drug
[ __ ] my life up the most. And they'll
just list every drug cuz they tried
everything. They're like, "Well, coming
off LSD was actually not that bad. But I
had this period where I was on MDMA
every single day for like two months,
and that was really, really rough cuz my
serotonin and D."
>> And uh he said of all of the things that
he tried, the hardest to get off of was
Kraton. And then he knew so much
>> at 6:00 in the morning, the Sunrise Mini
Mart on whatever [ __ ] South Lamar
Street or something. He was outside like
waiting like
>> waiting for this. And then this company
had taken their uh theratom content
without changing the bottling from 5 g
of whole leaf to 2 and 1/2. And he knew
and as soon as he had it, he was like,
"My [ __ ] cratom's been stepped on."
He like felt like
>> from the mini mart.
>> Yeah. The Sunrise Mini Mart stepped on
his whatever the company that was making
this because these people aren't
treating it like a supplement that it's
so psychoactive. And okay, the one thing
I guess I didn't explain very well is
that there's a difference between like
the pureratom leaf powder and the stuff
that has the 70 in it, which is the
synthesized version. But and the reason
I didn't explain that very well is
because it's kind of confusing. Butratum
leaf itself, I mean, you can still get
addicted to it, but the 70 stuff is
what's [ __ ] people up. Okay,
>> for reference, just cuz I know some
somebody that's addicted toratom is
going to watch this and be like, "That
son of a [ __ ] blasphemed uh myrratom."
So that is uh
>> but the 70 is the really gnarly stuff.
>> Yeah. So that's I'm going to get some of
those pills and start taking them. But
yeah, drinking extract with the 70 in it
is basically drinking liquid heroin.
>> What does it feel like?
>> It's very interesting. It's very sneaky.
So I was drinking it for a month before
I really realized how high I was on it.
>> Have you done heroin? Oh yeah, I'm from
Ohio, dude.
>> So, [laughter]
>> um,
>> how how do they how do they compare like
a 708? H E R I O N [laughter] if you was
if you was personifying them as people,
like what how do they how do they
compare the two?
>> If it was a party,
>> to heroin.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I haven't done
high levels of the 708 stuff yet, but
comparatively,
>> the theratom drinks that I've been
drinking are called Club 13 150 MIT MIT,
which is metragginine. That's the the
drug, I guess. And I was drinking two of
those a day, which is it turns out it's
a lot for that, but there's not a lot of
70 in it from what I understand how it
works. So, I don't have the full scope
yet for you, but I would say that heroin
is, you know, you're you're you get
really high, you feel great, you get
that warm feeling in your stomach.
You've taken painkillers before, right?
>> No, not really. No.
>> Okay. Well, good on you, dude. You're
better than me.
>> Yeah. No, no, no, no. Don't mean it that
way.
>> Top of the morning. You you are you
conscious of the experience as you're
doing it?
>> Yeah. You know you're high. So the I
guess the primary difference would be
that when you when you take them or when
I have been I've been I I just didn't
even realize how high I was on this
stuff
>> like I was kind of just in a days but
you get sort of that euphoric feeling
and I will say that in in low doses of
it it's sort of more of a stimulant
>> and then you take more and you're
getting more of an opioid you know the
the painkiller sedative. Isn't that
interesting that the curve, how much you
take, almost inverts the
>> It's a nuance drug. And I've never
really experienced that before, which
was one of the things I was going to say
that's is sort of sneaky. But the other
thing is, and maybe this is just me, uh,
but I didn't really grasp that I was
high as hell on this stuff.
>> And I was, uh, going in sort of thought
loops about things like, we had to get
like a video done, right? And I was just
sort of pacing around my house, which I
pace a lot already when I think or I'm
on the phone, but I was just sort of
going in these thought loops where I was
repeating myself like kind of even
talking to myself.
Yeah, dude. And I didn't realize that
this was this drug was that strong
because it's sold over the counter. And
that's
>> already I already knew from a number of
other people who have gotten addicted to
it cuz I did some, you know, I put some
feelers out there to talk to people.
They already told me like, "Hey, be
careful. you're gonna it's gonna sneak
up on you more so than you think.
>> Are you scared as somebody who's pretty
experienced with drugs? Are you scared
of the potential of putting yourself
into this particular you're going to try
this 70 thing and it's going to be
amazing for the dock and it's going to
teach you a lot and you're going to be
able to empathize with people that are
struggling with this but you are
>> putting your health and life on the
line. I'm aware you've done it in other
ways a lot but like this I don't know it
feels like a pretty big dice roll to do
that. Is that something that you
consider? No, I'm I'm not really worried
about it. I mean, what's going to
happen? I'm going to have to just Yeah.
I mean,
>> I'm going to go to Thailand and see
where this stuff comes from, though.
>> Okay.
>> Get the the real
>> Jesus Christ. You're going to the It's
like going to Mordor and deciding to
like [ __ ] stare into the eye of
Mount.
>> I have the theratom shot in my hand as
I'm looking into the eye of my
>> I've done it once.
>> I've done it once as well when we was in
Vegas.
>> You did you get energy from it? So,
well, my initial my initial onboarding
toratum when you was doing the David
Gogggins podcast, ironically
with David Gogins,
>> hey, why didn't we vlog that I did
[ __ ]
>> So, for context, I at the time like this
is how things change with time.
>> That's the week that we did mushrooms.
>> Yeah. And Kraton was seen as um um like
a supplement like it it was seen as a
neutropic at the time. That was how it
was advertised to me. I thought it was
going to be a study. I thought I could
take it and I could work more and I
remember like going this is [ __ ] But
then I realized I had no more problems.
I was like on it. I've got no problems
at all. I go, "Why do I always think I
have problems? I actually have no
problems."
>> Cuz you're high, George.
>> And then I wanted TO GO [laughter]
>> and then I wanted to get
>> Welcome to my world, buddy.
>> You think I've got so few problems?
>> Yeah. It's weird how you go from no
problems and then when it wears out,
you've got so many problems.
>> Yeah. And then you're snapping your
producer and you're like, "Hey, [ __ ]
you. I quit.
>> Was it $10 and cratom?" Which is crazy
embarrassing.
>> Well, I mean,
>> when did you do it? Uh, so I tried Feel
free, which is like this really really
popular company.
>> That's for the record. That's one of the
companies that's being sort of put under
the microscope is this is the not good,
>> but they're not using the 70, right?
That's just Whole leaf.
>> I got to look at that. You know,
>> I'm pretty sure Yeah, pull it up. I'm
pretty sure that the this is Whole Leaf
stuff. Anyway, um I this is forever ago.
This is when I was living in the Airbnb
on South Congress when I first moved
here. And uh everyone's doing it.
everyone's it's it's literally the in
school mom but everyone's doing and so
I'm like oh well [ __ ] everyone's
doing it and I was like okay I'm going
to try this in the house I'm going to
try half a bottle I don't know I can't
remember whether it was five gram 2 gram
whatever tried it and it just made me
really anxious
>> anxious and a little sick for like
>> an hour and a half I watched some peaky
blinders and I was like that's not for
me
>> and you just drank one bottle of it
>> half a bottle and I was like that's not
for me. So, a lot of people get feel
sick to their stomach after they drink
it and throw up and stuff like that.
>> It didn't It didn't make me feel good.
Me and Z did it again when we went to go
and see a band, but we didn't realize
you are not supposed to drink alcohol on
it.
>> Yeah, it'll make you black out. Also,
feel free has cava in it, too.
>> Correct. But it's a only in a a little
>> It might be concentrate. Anyway, so I I
I tried it. It didn't agree with me.
There's like some things where I think
um I get quite bad hangover. I've always
got bad hangovers, but they've gotten
worse as I've got older. What you've
got, if you were someone who doesn't get
hangovers, Sunny Webster, Olympic
weightlifter, I remember we once party
till 4 in the morning, 4:30 in the
morning, and he set off to drive from
Newcastle to Edinburgh, 8:00 a.m. to go
into a seminar that started at 10:30.
He'd had 4 hours of sleep, drank more
than me, and was just up and doing
things for the whole and then went and
gave an entire seminar and was just
fine. I needed to stay in bed the whole
day. There's some people for whom the
cost
versus the benefit, the [ __ ] ratio is
just super skewed. They're like, again,
they're like the goget. They're the
Bonnie blue of being able to drink and
keep going. [laughter] And
>> dude, don't ever use Bonnie Blue as a
reference point.
>> She's
>> You're very much the Virgin Mary of
that.
>> Yeah, that's I am. I am very much. Yeah,
I'm the Lily Phillips. I can't take as
many. And uh [laughter] if if that was
like if it was not so painful for me,
>> the costbenefit analysis of drinking
would be completely different. Like we
did both me and you have done a Intel
XDNA, which by the way,
>> this is the [ __ ] sickest [ __ ]
>> Intel XDNA company that's based here in
Austin, but you can do it anywhere in
the US. You spit into a tube, not
affiliated, I just think they're [ __ ]
sick. Spit into a tube, send it off,
they'll give you your full alil genetic
profile, and they'll compare you to the
population. Hey, you uh clear caffeine
more slowly. Um you have a protective
gene that's uh good for late onset
Parkinson's. You have uh one which can
be a risk for uh autism or for this or
for that or for the other and in loads
of behavioral stuff like this has been
associated with people who have
addictive personalities. So I have the
the comt uh gene which is a I clear
dopamine more slowly. That means that I
don't deal with chaos and stress
particularly well. But once I start
doing something, I get completely
[ __ ] obsessed and I lock in and I
can't stop. It's like literally one of
the descriptions was may struggle to
stop tasks once started. It's like just
the the gene of an obsessive person.
>> What's sick is once you do it's like
three grand or something and maybe three
grand
>> around about that. It's four grand. It's
not cheap, but it's like they're never
going to change. This is my jeans and my
jeans.
>> I always wonder with this did did you
learn things you didn't already know
about yourself?
>> Yes.
>> Because that first one you would know
like Yeah. I I don't handle this well.
So, but I do I am able to obsess over
tasks.
>> So, I I'll give you So, the way I view
these intellect stuff and it's like very
early days and they're only going to get
better and better is have you heard
about the uh Air Force study in the
1950s where they took like 600 Air Force
pilots who were already male, certain
height, certain build um and they tried
to build um like the average cockpit for
all of them.
the perfect cockpit aggregating all of
the proportions of the pilots.
>> And when they went to test this perfect
cockpit that they built, it fit zero
>> cuz essentially averages are completely
[ __ ]
>> No one is average.
>> Only only I think for so it was 12
things that they measured and only for
only three of them hit 3%. So you can
see it here and even that 3% it's with a
wide range. So the 3% that hit the range
for example it would be between 59 and 6
foot like that level of range. So then
they realized and obviously it's so
obvious now but it's way better to just
build a customizable cockpit. And I
think we'll look back at everything like
how we've grown up around the way people
talk about studies and magnesium and
vitamin D and vitamin C is just absolute
horshit because what Gary should take is
very different to what I should take and
likewise with Chris. So to give you some
to give you some concrete examples, one
I was in I found out I was in the bottom
10% of magne magnesium absorption for my
genetics. So I was like, "Oh, I've got
to take way more than if I was to ask
anything." Um I have a specific gene
that I found which was if I take um if I
have surgery and they give me morphine,
I'm very unlikely to wake up with a
regular dose. It will probably kill me.
So I've got to let doctors know that
beforehand. I'm like, "Oh, that's
already paid for the test." And then
everything that example [laughter]
sleeping sleeping great that was um um
so you yeah the the specifics that you
do learn is actually pretty fascinating
because then everything gets built on
top of it give let me give you this uh
the thing that it did for me I didn't
learn a tremendous amount that I didn't
already know through experience but it
made all of my preferences feel way more
legitimate.
>> Right. Give you permission.
>> Yeah. Because I'm like oh this is why I
like deep house music because it's quite
calming. So, one of the coolest things,
both of us did it, put it into your LLM,
put all of your labs in as well, and it
gives a different context. The coolest
thing that I did, kind of useless, but
again, made me feel more legitimate with
my life direction. It's like, um, I've
just done it again now to my CHPT
project. Imagine that you know nothing
about me. Erase all of the information
that you have exclusively based on my
DNA genetic test. What sort of a person
am I? And it comes back and it is
[ __ ] banger. Your baseline
personality, high drive, high stress
operator, your dopamine and stress
genetics, comta, DBH, SLC, D. High
baseline dopamine and adrenal tone,
faster mental processing, strong pattern
recognition, but low margin for stress
before overload. You become productive,
intense, goal oriented, slightly on edge
most of the time, but also prone to
overthinking, easily tipped into anxiety
and to sustained pressure, sensitive to
uncertainty and social evaluation. This
is not a calm, content temperament. It
is a perform or perish nervous system
and it just runs that for everything.
Motivation pattern I need to do off and
on. I can't do constant low-level
stress. And I was like I already knew
this right because you learn things
about yourself. Both of us have zeroed
in on doing meditation. Both of us have
zeroed in on relatively early nights
even though both of us have been in
previous industries that were way
different. And I'm like I kind of club
promotion should be fun. Like I should
be in a chaotic environment. I should be
in a highly unpredictable environment.
But I didn't end up there and I always
felt a little bit off. And as I've
zeroed in more and more, so what it did
was, I think, especially for people that
are
maybe looking for more justification
about why they're in the lonely chapter.
They're struggling to get through and
they're like, "Fuck, like, why don't I
fit in? Is there something wrong with
me?" Not at all. Like, this is just your
predisposition. Now, the problem that
you can have, and it's kind of cool that
this isn't as widespread as it might be,
exactly the same as once you have a name
for it, you're going to live by it. Uh,
this could very much become destiny.
>> Right. Both ways. Exactly.
>> I'm way less intrigued in that kind of
cold reading description. I'm way more
interested in
>> like it's like, you know, it could have
it could have been like Virgo says this,
right? Um, but what I'm fascinated by is
so what's the strange thing I people
have always said I'm very very similar
to my granddad. We have like similar
hair. I like sometimes find myself like
closing my eyes during meals and he did
that like weird things. Um,
>> you did that your birthday on Monday
>> and I did um and
>> I then I then put in the thing I go I
asked the thing I go if I'm like trying
to not die here like what are my most
likely causes of death and they go well
your two biggest health concerns are one
in gluccom so you'll just kind of
gradually go blind which won't kill you.
Um or you'll die of a stroke. My
granddad gluccom
[laughter]
and um and stroke and stroke. Wow.
>> Yeah. So, um it's if if you've got
money, it's sick and uh you can have it
interpreted by a clinician or whatever,
but you can also just do it here. So,
I've just done the same thing. If I was
likely to die, what are my most likely
causes of death? Cardiovascular disease.
Uh uh chronic stress mediated breakdown.
Oo, that's exciting. Neurovvascular
neurological issues because of high
signaling. Environmental toxin
sensitivity. I just [ __ ] got popped
by milk. They're going to clone you.
>> Yeah, that's true. That is freaked out.
They don't need
>> See, I don't need a test like this to
know how I'm going to die. [laughter]
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got agency over
that, my friend. You've got agency over
that.
>> I'm going to have a heart attack, a drug
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times. I need to bring up something that
you said at dinner the other evening.
>> I will. Did you say that you think that
people remember every porn video that
they've ever watched?
>> No, no. It's this [laughter]
was a private dinner that people had
paid to be there and you brought it up
on the show. No, no, no. My my thesis is
um like one big meta criticism I have of
the US that nobody warned me about as a
Brit um is that the toilets in America
like I could be at like Deans like a
very nice restaurant in Austin and be
having like a an amazing chat about like
Kagard thing about like Kard versus
Aristotle sorry let me just pop to the
Lu Facebook you go to the Lu and in
America the cubicles you can see
people's feet in them. And the worst
thing is there's like this slit in every
single and this is nationwide.
>> You're in the women's,
>> you can be in the you can be in the like
a billionaire's like hotel and there's a
slit there which means they have unisex
toilets is horrific. Like I don't even
go in the unisex toilets for this
reasons. You you look you can see people
kind of just this carousel of them sat
down squatting and yeah this whole idea
that when you watch like graphic content
it stores in your brain forever. So I've
just got thousands of men around Austin
just like there like these carousels and
then you went to the bathroom and this
is supposed to be the number one country
in the world and like this doesn't exist
in Europe. This doesn't exist in the
Middle East.
>> You know what you could do? Do you
remember those things like back in the
day the the first uh those cycling
cylinders and you look through the slit
and if you spin it, it makes a horse
start to move. If you ran really quickly
down a very long series of toilets
and
>> you're just looking at these different
men like stages of pooping.
>> It's horic.
>> Dude, you know how I know that I'm
watching too many graphic videos is
because when you said there's a horse
that starts to move, I heard there's a
[ __ ] that starts to move. [laughter]
>> Jesus, that's not good, man.
>> Jesus. Every time like I speak to a Brit
or European now about coming to America
and they think like there's going to be
this chat about the economy. I go, this
is the thing that I've got to warn you
about. It's so surreal and I think about
this a lot like one of you were talking
ear about like life hacks like how much
of life comes down to
compartmentalization which is why
somebody made a great point the other
day why meditation apps often don't take
off on phones because you have your
meditation out there but then you have
your strip club you have um yeah all
this kind all this stuff there um and
with these bathrooms you don't have any
compartmentalization I always say
imagine a house so my friend lives in an
80 um story apartment building and we
kind of sat there in his house. I go,
"If everything was glass right now, it
this would be this would be horrific."
But because you have
compartmentalization,
um it has such an impact.
>> Well, your your point is that you would
be able to see one dude's taking a dump
over there and another dude's banging
his girlfriend right there.
>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Literally just up
there.
>> But we made these arbitrary walls around
us and oh, this is the edge of my safe
place in the beginning of yours.
>> I like where we started. You were like,
I have this thesis and then if you
>> What did we even talk about?
>> You were talking about somebody said
something about porn or
>> Yeah. You brought a pornographic stuff
in your
>> genetics porn, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Question.
>> How do you feel about feet?
>> Not a fan.
>> No.
>> Gross me out. Not a fan. How do you feel
about feet?
>> Pretty much the same as Sean.
>> How do you feel about
>> like a totally neutral?
>> Feet neutral.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> In what capacity are we talking about
here?
>> Okay. So, there is a woman who does Uber
Eats and has started including photos of
her feet in the picture of the food drop
off and her tips have gone up by a ton.
[laughter]
>> So, this is I mean as feet go.
>> He said nice pedicure.
>> They're perfectly fine feet. Uh but did
not realize that this would blow up
fast. And this is the only fans
pipeline. Like as soon as you as soon as
you post something and start to get free
money for it, you're like, "Well, if I
put my cash app in here and if you
scroll down a little bit more, she says
get a rotisserie chicken or a pedicure
first rotisserie chicken allowance."
There we go. This is the [ __ ] only
Uber Eats to Only Fans pipeline that no
one is talking about. [laughter]
>> Yeah. I mean, what's there's like an old
joke about what's the how long does it
take for a b not a bottle source, a
strip club waitress to become a
stripper? two weeks. You never heard
this?
>> Yeah. Like like basically every not
every but a lot of strip club bartenders
or hosts, hostesses, they they just end
up becoming strippers. And maybe that's
just a niche thing that I know because
of my uh vices.
>> Ponchant for strip clubs.
>> Yeah, I guess. Dude, I uh I used to have
you know this. I think I've told you
this. I used to have this pickup line
when I would go to strip clubs where I'd
be like, "Hey, uh"
[snorts] be like, "You look just like my
future ex-wife." And they'd be like,
"Oh, haha." Cuz they've heard that a
thousand times. I'd be like, "No, I'm
just kidding. I'm like a horrible
person. I've got a felony. I'm not
allowed to see my son, so you don't want
nothing to do with me." And just
>> they lean in
>> every time. It's crazy.
>> Isn't that the [ __ ] craziest pickup
line?
>> Not really. I mean, American women have
been conditioned since the 50s to be
into like the bad boy.
>> I mean, first of all, it was a
two-parter, so that already was
sophistication. I was one old one.
>> Unbelievable. Gary rule.
>> That's Gary's life hack, by the way.
>> Floyd May. He asked me for a life hack.
That's what I came up with.
>> That's [laughter] life.
>> Jesus [clears throat] Christ.
>> What have you got? Somebody [ __ ]
notes app. I don't want to hear about
that. [laughter]
>> [gasps]
>> Then tell me about your claude your
Claude project instructions. I want to
know how to pick up a hooker.
>> I know you want to do one now.
[laughter]
>> Have you seen the subreddit male living
spaces?
>> Yes. It's funny.
>> It's [ __ ] brilliant. So, this is a
subreddit where guys post their bedrooms
and their living spaces that they've
sort of designed this sort of peak
bachelor
like solo DGEN life and uh the photos
are just [ __ ] absolutely spectacular.
This one, this first one, this guy's got
a lat pull down machine and a TV
[laughter]
the face Patrick Baiton.
>> Did that Honestly, this looks Have you
ever seen Mr. Beast's office? It looks
exactly like this. He has a bedroom in
the office with a bench press right next
to it. Just like that.
>> The one with the [ __ ]
>> Stormtrooper.
>> I love it.
>> Yep. [laughter]
>> There's a U-shaped couch around just a
huge TV. It's It's like literally you
couldn't get in there without hitting
the TV.
>> It's not even a hung over.
>> But look, the reason is because he's
wanting to get a a big couch, but he
needs to get in the door.
>> So, the door won't open. He can't fit
the couch and the TV in without not
being able to open the door. That's the
only way he could have. That's actually
some [ __ ] Marie Condo [ __ ]
[laughter]
>> Transparent [ __ ] blowup doll.
[laughter]
This one's [ __ ] It's an industrial
container with a single deck chair in
the middle.
>> The camping chair pointing [laughter] at
>> That's the living room.
>> Yeah. Yeah, that is that's the cuck
chair for when [laughter]
when I'm crushing [ __ ] Go to the next
one.
>> This is you, Gary. [laughter]
>> It's a bedside table made out of just
raw breeze blocks.
>> Yeah. You know, when I was growing up,
my dad actually had our old box TV on a
set of cinder blocks for a period of
time. The divorce hit him hard.
>> It works as drawers, too.
>> Oh, it does work as drawers. [laughter]
>> Wow. It's a bottle of cratom and
everything.
>> Is it [laughter]
>> Is it a flat in London or a prison in
Norway? Have you seen that?
>> Was it not halls of res? Was it not
British Halls of Residence? I think
there's a few prison prison in Norway or
halls of residence in the UK, I think,
was it. And uh yeah, it's because the
[ __ ] quality of the prisons in some
Scandi countries are unbelievable,
>> dude. Yeah, I've seen those. That that
pisses me the [ __ ] off.
>> Well, that Norwegians are living in
>> the people in prison in Norway are doing
much better than me. It's It really
irritates me. I'm dead serious because
like you know I've been known to commit
a crime or two and
>> if I get arrested and go to prison I'm
like
it just is
>> you get arrested here.
>> Yeah dude I mean I'm part of me is like
man maybe I should just go to Norway and
like
>> get in a shootout or something. I don't
know [laughter]
>> like that. You guys remember that movie
um Heat.
>> Uh I haven't seen it
>> the Leon um Robert Dairo film
>> Dairo Pacino um uh Val Kilmer. Yeah, I
think Danny Tjo is even in it. But like
the there's just that old like, you
know, every guy's like dream way they
they're going to go out is just
basically robbing a bank and getting in
a shootout. Or maybe that's just the
people I hang out with, but you you
familiar with this?
>> No. No. No. No.
>> Oh, okay. Are you know what I'm talking
about? You ever seen those memes or
those?
>> Yeah. Yeah. That's the dream.
>> Yeah. It's just like going out in a
blaze of glory basically. And then or
like dying out in like the you know like
that that picture of uh Gossling
bleeding out in the snow,
>> right? like the dream dream snow
bleedout spot. Anyways, I just uh I'm
like, man, I'd rather just
>> bored of these.
>> Well, look, it's like it's like I go to
Norway and I get into a a some sort of
criminal enterprise. What's the worst
thing that happens to me? I get to live
better than I'm living here. [laughter]
What? That's just where my mind goes.
Uh, you know, but
>> work smarter, not harder.
>> The inverse El Salvador.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Holy [ __ ]
Well, I think the crimes that are being
committed in El Salvador are probably
dramatically worse than in Norway.
>> Mhm.
>> You know, they were like chopping people
up into pieces and stuff,
>> but did you follow this uh Citrini
analyst number three story?
>> Um, no. You didn't see this?
>> No. No. Have you guys heard about this
analyst number three?
>> No. What's this?
>> Oh, dude, this is amazing. This is just
like a guy doing a legendary thing.
So the straight of hormuz is blocked and
there's the war part of it but then
there's the financial part of it. You've
seen like oil prices going up down the
markets are swinging and so there's this
research firm called Catrini. They do
like they basically do research reports
sell them to hedge funds and so the
hedge fund guys want information. If
they get better information than they're
getting from the news or from the you
know the the newspaper the next day
that's worth you know millions and
millions of dollars to them. So Satrini
they're trying to figure out what the
hell's going on with this blockade. And
so this guy has this idea, high agency
story here for you. One of the guys in
the office is like, "What if I just go?"
And they're like, "What do you mean?
What do you go?" He's like, "What if I
just go to the to the straight and I'll
just count the boats?" Like, "What do
you count?" He's like, "I'll just see
like how many are going through and
we'll know if it's like blocked because
basically there were people trying to
figure out is it blocked, is it not
blocked?" And the gas crude oil prices
were going parabolic and then they were
crashing day day over day. And so they
had to figure out what was going on. So
this guy basically one of their
analysts, they call him analyst number
three, and he wrote this field blog. It
just I see this. It goes and I I read
this and this sucks me into the story.
He goes, "The front desk informed me
there's two gentlemen from the C
downstairs to ask me questions. C in the
Gulf is like the CIA." I checked my
phone in a safe, grabbed the burner um
because they had seen tweets about
analyst number three. Thanks a lot,
James. And then it says, "I went
downstairs in my pajamas and slippers.
There there's a piece piece of obssec
you learn when when you're an Arab
speaker. If things get sticky, you only
speak English because Arabic opens the
door you don't want opened. The
possibility that you're a spy, a
sympathizer, blah blah blah." basically
play dumb. So I go downstairs and I say,
"Hello guys, how are you? I speak
English." The hotel receptionist, the
same man I've been chatting with in
Arabic all day, turned to the agents and
goes, "This guy speaks perfect Arabic."
And so the this guy blogged his entire
thing. So he basically left the US, went
to the Middle East. They show his
briefcase of like what he took. It's
[laughter]
it's pretty hilarious. So this is what
he took for his field trip. His anxiety.
>> He's got two two Zins. He he brought
cigars. Uh he brought, you know, pack of
clothes. And then he had a like um a
pair of meta recording glasses.
>> And so he goes and this guy makes it all
the way. So he he gets to like Oman, he
bribes a guy, they bring him in and
they're like he's crossing the thing.
They're like, "You're not trying to do
any journalism or anything, are you?"
He's like, "Journalism? No, I'm I'm an
adventurer explorer. What you crazy?"
And they're like, they check his bag.
They don't notice that the Ray-B bands
are the glasses one or the camera ones.
He gets through. He bribes this guy to
take him on a mini like a paddle boat to
get into the straight and he has footage
of himself on the straight smoking a
cigar watching like the oil one of the
oil tankers that got attacked and
counting the other boats and he realized
that the all the mainstream media was
reporting that the straight was closed.
He's like, "Dude, I'm here. I see the I
see them going through. It's not fully
closed." And he they were figuring out
what was going on. Turns out like
actually the Iranians were checking like
are if you're not US affiliated and you
brought you pay us a toll we'll let you
through and that's why like there hadn't
been this huge oil shock because
actually the tankers are getting through
but nobody knew everybody was using
these like the tracking data from the
boats but he's like
>> he's like
>> some of the boats aren't going to be
tracked.
>> Yeah. They were just like hey watch this
turn it off like we don't want to be
tracked they don't want us saying that
we're going through so no problem turn
that [ __ ] off and they would go through.
And so this is this epic story of this
guy who made it back. He got thrown he
got like thrown in jail for a couple
days and he like got out and uh you know
>> because of the CIA.
>> No, he's just part of a research
>> because he got caught because of that.
>> They held him and they were like
>> we're going to check you out and then
they couldn't find anything.
>> The C is the Middle Eastern equivalent
of the C. And they popped him. That
actually that bag is the male equivalent
of an anxiety bag.
>> Yeah, that's what that's a full pack of
Cubans, two Zins, and a pair of pants.
>> Uh don't don't trust verify. Well, that
is basically someone using dark tourism
to benefit from a capitalist way,
similar to Lord Miles. Do you see that
Lord Miles got called out by
Coffeezilla?
>> No. No. No. Wow. So, Lord Miles has done
some kind of rug pull that's to do with
him and Poly Market that he was going to
do a a 40-day fast and that he bet just
before he got picked up by
the police, the local police of wherever
he was, someone had put a huge position
that he was going to lose. And it turns
out if you trace that wallet back, it's
somebody that knows him and then he
thinks that he put the bet on and then
got the police to go. It was like a
[ __ ] mess. But anyway, that guy might
as well be Lord Miles. Wow.
>> Speaking of the Gulf CIA, I uh I got a
story about a time I accidentally did a
a CIA field strategy, so to speak, if
you guys want to hear it. When I was in
college in Santa Barbara, my buddy and I
were absolutely hammered, just wasted
out of our minds. And we had just run
from a cab and uh some other shenanigans
had occurred. And we got back to my my
apartment which was on the second floor
of the the spot that but it was on a
hill. So it out the window was like a
huge um it was it was like probably
60 yards to a pavement to to a parking
lot behind a Chase Bank. And we were
hammered and we at this place the
electricity had gone out so all the the
food in the fridge was bad and it
smelled like [ __ ] So we just started
throwing it all out the window because
we thought it was funny. And then we
started throwing bottles out the window
and then like some furniture and stuff.
And uh somebody somebody called the
police and we're sitting there. We're
all [ __ ] up and we just hear dude doo
Santa Barbara police open up. And we're
like, "Oh [ __ ] dude. We the cops." And
he looks at me and he's like, "Dude, get
naked." And I was like, "What?" He's
like, "Trust me." And I was like, "All
right." So we get butt naked and I'm
like, "Uh, we're definitely going to
[ __ ] jail." So I I immediately went
to the bathroom because taking a [ __ ] in
jail sucks. So, I was like, I'm going to
go force out a turd.
>> Wow.
>> So, I'm in the bathroom and all I hear
is this like thump noise and then I hear
the door open. I hear a creek like and
and it's just a cop and he goes, "What
the [ __ ] What are you doing?" And I
hear I hear like feet stumble around and
and then I hear my buddy go, "Sorry,
officer. I must have forgotten my
pants." And the cops are like, "What the
[ __ ] are you talking about?" And uh
they're like, "Put some [ __ ] clothes
on." And so the cops come grab me and uh
>> naked
>> and they real well they thought they
realized that we were two gay dudes in
an argument.
>> So we faked a homosexual domestic
violence situation and they were like
they were like oh [ __ ] the these are two
gay dudes and uh
>> going at it.
>> Yeah. So they just ended up making us go
clean it up cuz they felt they felt
[laughter] bad because they thought that
well and my buddy was a lot bigger than
me too. So now I'm realizing telling
this story that they probably thought I
was just getting beat up by this guy.
[laughter]
But anyways, um, so years later, uh,
I've told this story a couple times
before to people and you know, it's
funny. Haha. But years later, I find out
from this guy, Jack
Karaku, CIA dude. Yeah. That this is
like an old CIA strategy that they
employ all the time. I didn't even know.
Play the play the video here.
>> Headquarters says, "We want you to
pretend that you're gay." I said, "Oh,
come on. No, we really need the
information. You got to pretend that
you're gay. I said, "Okay, I'll do it.
I'll do it for Uncle S." So, I called
and I said, "Hey, I have two tickets to
this show and I was hoping maybe you'd
be free. Maybe we'll grab some sushi
afterwards." He said, "Yeah, I'd love
to." So, we go to the show. He
thoroughly enjoyed it. And we go for
sushi afterwards. Then we go out again
and he says, "Why don't you go over to
my place some night and I'll I'll make
dinner." I said, "Great." So, I go over
to his place. He made a lovely dinner.
And then I thought, "Well, I have to
invite him to my place." So, I told my
wife what you're going to have to like
get out. So, Sheila, I made dinner. I
removed all the pictures of us together
and we had just gotten married. So, we
had like our wedding picture up and
everything. At the dinner, he leaned in
to kiss me and I instinctively backed
off and he said, "Oh my god, I'm sorry.
I thought you're gay." And I said, "Oh,
no. I am gay." I'm not into hairy guys.
And he's like, "Oh, okay." I said, "I'm
sorry. I think you're great. I'm I'm not
feeling it because no." And uh I think
there's another there's I don't remember
if it was him, but there was another
person who used an example of faking
they were gay to like get out of
trouble. But yeah, just a that's another
life hack for you.
>> Just get naked.
>> Yeah. I mean, could you not just appear
gay rather than be naked? Cuz who fights
naked?
>> Two gay dudes banging. [laughter]
>> Okay. Okay. Okay. But the idea that you
were so small that they thought this
guy's a worldrenowned power bottom. I
can't believe I'm getting [laughter]
he's getting [ __ ] pounded from every
angle.
>> Oh god. [clears throat] Yeah, it's uh
Yeah, it's not a good look looking back
on it.
>> Why have you got trash in your truck?
>> Well, I got another life hack for you,
Chris. Um remember to take out your
trash cans. I Yeah, I got a couple bags
of garbage in the back of my truck that
he commented on when I pulled up. And um
he's like, "Why do you have like four
bags of garbage?" And I was like, well,
I forgot to take out the trash two weeks
in a row, so there's just a bunch of
>> using the bed to be carrying around
>> as additional.
>> Yeah, it's just in the bed of the
>> surplus.
>> There's a dumpster behind a movie
theater that I'm going to go throw it
out in after this, actually. Thanks for
reminding me.
>> Welcome. You could do a full season,
three months like
>> just 20 bags of trash in the truck.
>> All right, so you have three life facts.
That's pretty good.
>> Yeah, three life hacks.
>> You you do it for all of us.
>> One, um, Israeli conspiracy and I'm
addicted to That's what I'm bringing to
the table today.
>> Did you have a life hack? That was good.
>> Oh, go on.
>> Well, you know, the the first ever
series that I did on this show was life
hacks. So, uh there's like a thousand
that I've got to pick from, but the one
that I've been using the most,
especially because I just got back from
tour was in Australia, New Zealand, and
Bali, uh is an app called Flighty. So,
Flighty connects with your email and
when you book flights, it automatically
pulls it over and it tells you
everything that's going on with your
flight, what gate you're going out of,
where your plane is inbound, where it's
going to go when you're on the journey
as well. It also tracks everything. So,
it pre-downloads the map so that when
you're flying in the air, even without
Wi-Fi, it knows sort of how long the
journey is going to be. Can give you
information about what the wait time is
going to be like at your future
destination, connection times, gate to
gate, what uh carousel your baggage is
going to be at. It lives in just a
little island at the top, you know, the
floating island thing at the top of your
iPhone and it just [ __ ] rules, dude.
Like the number of times that there's
been some last minute [ __ ] change
and because I'm not watching the board
or I've got my AirPods in, you're just
in and out doing your thing. You It's
just on your phone. It's quicker than
the app. There was one flight that got
diverted from Austin cuz Gale Force
winds it got diverted to Houston and I I
was recording with Andrew Schultz that
day. It's like [ __ ] like I need to get
back. This better not be late. Blah blah
blah. And I thought it was great. And
then the plane just did like that, took
up again as it was coming in to land.
And I was like, oh, it must be coming
back around for another one. Before the
pilot even came over the Tanoi, it
updated and said like, you're now
basically you're landing in Houston. And
I was like, so [snorts] in some ways it
can be disappointing before everybody
else knows, but uh it's [ __ ] great
flighty and it's like 30 bucks a year
and you can have friends on it as well.
You can add friends flights to it. So if
you've got a your MS is flying in, you
don't need to do it's it's [ __ ] epic.
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and modernwisdom at checkout. My my uh
my life hack at the minute is um it's
more kind of a a philosophical stance to
some extent. I think of a lot of
gibberish that comes up where it's
probably in the last 20 years there's
this particular discourse that happens
online but also in books where you'll
see they'll make a point and then
they'll go so this study says or studies
say and I think what happens for me for
a while now previously I would default
to whatever this person's about to say
now is completely true but often my new
default is whatever this person is about
to say now is complete horshit. Um cuz
first off, my friend Billy made this
great point of do you know anybody who's
been in a study? Um then have you
actually ever inspected a lot of these
studies? So I think previously what
people used to do nine out of nine out
of 10 times they would believe the
study's true and one out of 10 is
gibberish. I actually think the policy
is much better the other way that nine
out of 10 studies that you hear about
particularly psychological studies.
Guess what? Physics doesn't need a
study. Physics goes here's how it works.
And you want to always opt like it's
kind of the Deutsch argument. You always
want to go for good explanations rather
than studies of site grads with people
that had a specific hypothesis they
wanted to confirm beforehand. And you
you'll often see these things that go
viral on Twitter that get four million
views. It's like 15 participants of like
college [snorts] males that are then
making like then the Daily Mail covers
it, the Telegraph covers it.
>> Sweeping generalizations.
>> It's one it's one giant scam. The other
one is um my favorite one is um science
says or sciencebacked or trust the
science. And my new default is if
somebody says this, they're about to say
something that's completely unscientific
because by definition Oh, sorry about
that. By definition, if something is
sciencebacked, um I didn't. There we go.
Um if something is science, if something
is
>> [ __ ] tonic has researchbacked
ingredients on this research back a
little bit. [laughter]
I can say firsthand this [ __ ] definitely
works. Um,
>> well I guess I guess the question is but
then actually investigate what the
research is essentially saying which
most of us we just default to this is
true. So, I read uh Adam Mastriani, our
experimental history. Everyone needs to
subscribe on Substack [ __ ] rules. And
um he posted today there was a wonderful
one two-parter living fossils that Rob
Kursban does. And uh experimental
history had these two things about the
replication crisis. And uh Adam's entire
point is that psychological theories
don't ever be killed. They just become
embarrassing. So, um, power posing been
completely disproven, but has now just
been sort of retconed into it's like
expansive posture science and stuff.
They've just renamed it. Uh, growth
mindset, total [ __ ] Totally does
not replicate. Uh, ego depletion, like
willpower stuff. Total total [ __ ]
Does not replicate. But
>> what about [ __ ] maxing?
>> [ __ ] maxing actually is at the
forefront of cutting psychological
science. [laughter]
>> If it doesn't replicate, do a 360.
>> Moonwalk out of that. [laughter]
The problem with the replication stuff
is that it goes back to the conversation
we had around genetics that actually um
some of this stuff may work for certain
people depending on their specific
genetic set. What you may have is 10% it
really really works for and 90% it
doesn't do anything which is a way more
fascinating conversation. Um, but as
soon as you just default to like it
feels like I have a point that disagrees
with Gary now and I'm just going to say
well studies say and I've won and
there's never any like critical
conversation around well can you explain
the specific variables here that causes
this outcome. It's just studies say,
"Oh, let me tell you about the
>> increased increased skepticism." Is that
what you're saying? As a yes, as a
whole,
>> including around
>> all the way up. I mean,
>> I think the other side of that, the life
hack is use this all the time because
there's for every one George who's
skeptical,
>> what out of a hundred people, how many
have your stance?
>> Oh, it's the other way. Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's going to be 99. So, actually
like the hack is there's actually start
saying study say when there's no study
at all and everybody will take you very
seriously. It's similar to how people
reference mainstream media even though
like you said with the the straight
right
>> how there were still ships going through
there and the media was saying that they
weren't.
>> Yeah.
>> It's the same thing, right? Where there
where somebody instead of referencing a
study, they're like, "Well, Fox News
said or CNN or whatever [ __ ] people
>> appeal to authority." Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Dude, speaking of which, I that actually
ties into the other thing I sent you. Uh
did you guys hear about the Stop Nick
Shirley act in California? Dude, this is
crazy. So there was um
>> cuz he's trying to do the same thing he
did in Minnesota in California, right?
>> He needs to do that in Puerto Rico.
Dude, seriously,
>> I mean, if you list the places that
>> So California has this act now. Who's
Who's
>> This is it. This is the bill right here.
They basically put put together this
legislation [snorts] that says it's
called the Stop Nick Shirley Act.
>> Wait, is that like a draft? Existing law
prohibits a person, business or
association from knowingly publicly
posting or publicly disclosing or
distributing on internet websites or on
social media the personal information or
image of any designated health care
services patient provider or assistant
or other individuals residing at the
same home address with the intent to
incite a third person to cause imminent
great bodily harm to the person
identified in the posting or display or
to a co-resident of that person as
specified or to threaten the person
identified in the posting or display or
a co-resident of that person as
specified. So it's basically an extreme
fascist bill that they're trying to pass
to prevent people from exposing fraud.
>> So you think that they getting out ahead
of
having exposed in California what was
exposed in Minnesota
>> and by making it essentially this kind
of investigation illegal.
>> Yeah. And that's um
of interest to me given all the the
financial stuff I've exposed down in
Puerto Rico. But the on a if you
extrapol like that and map it on to
freedom of speech as a whole, uh, this
is a big problem. I mean, I I don't know
what
>> this [ __ ] is [ __ ] gnarly, dude.
Having to read this thing like the Here
we go.
>> This guy. Yeah, he explains it a little
bit better here. It warns that it would
restrict the release of investigative
videos and impose penalties on watchd
dogss who expose fraud. Uh, it's a I
mean, I don't really believe in the
two-party system. I think they're all
just too everybody's full of [ __ ] But
it is a Democrat that put this out and
of course there's you know the backlash
from this guy is probably a Republican.
>> So sounds like what they're saying is
when he exposes the Somali learning
centers that then creates sort of
hostile potential violence against the
Somali people. So in order to protect
threats of violence against immigrants,
uh here's this act.
>> Right. Right. Right. which is totally
like a load of [ __ ] because the real
way you would protect from somebody
being harassed like that is to stop the
fraud in the first place from happening.
>> Yeah. Or just separately prevent like
violence in the way that we prevent
assault.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm just saying that
Yeah, there's a number of other ways to
handle it, but yeah, it's crazy, right?
>> Yeah.
>> I um I was looking at this the other
day. I'm I'm kind of interested in how
it plays out. you know,
>> you're you're you do a lot of
investigative journalism, right? You
were down in uh Palisades almost
immediately after the fire, exposing a
ton of stuff around FEMA. Uh you've done
the Puerto Rico thing. What other like
big ones have you done recently?
>> Um well, after going to Puerto Rico, I I
kind of uh was I shelved the the deep
dive investigations because it's so much
work to look through all the
just everything, dude. It was also
really it was [ __ ] up, man. Like
people in Puerto Rico don't have We We
met a guy who doesn't have a [ __ ]
roof still.
>> Wow.
>> He He hasn't had electricity for eight
years. It's crazy, dude. I You got to
watch it. I don't know if I ever since
you didn't send me this one.
>> Yeah, it's um it's insane. I I in theory
I mean I can give you the the layout
real fast. Basically, in 2016, Congress
with Obama's approval signed off on a
financial board that more or less acts
like the shadow government of Puerto
Rico now. And they've funneled around $2
billion of taxpayer money, Puerto Rican
taxpayer money off the island to Wall
Street consultants, executives, uh, and
attorneys to consult on the bankruptcy
down there because the whole island is
bankrupt. And part of that process is to
resolve the PREPA bankruptcy, which is
the uh, Puerto Rican Electric Power
Authority. It's the government power
company. And then it was privatized with
this company, Luma, and yada yada yada.
The power is horribly unreliable down
there. It's one of the most expensive in
the entire country. And uh they're
basically having money funneled
off the island like and they're all more
or less connected to Wall Street. But
it's crazy. And the reason I bring that
up in relation to this is because um you
know the Somalian daycare thing, sure
there's there's some some stuff going on
there, but Puerto Rico has been
basically getting [ __ ] on forever. And I
think this is possibly an even worse
situation that's going on down there.
And they just revoked some Transparency
Act down there too recently in the past
like four or five months.
>> They're going to try and get out ahead
of people that are doing investigative
journalism.
>> I mean, that's what it seems like to me.
They don't want they want it to be more
difficult for people to to foyer request
stuff. Essentially, like one of the
things they revoked on the Transparency
Act down there in Puerto Rico was when
you when you request information, it
doesn't show who you are specifically,
right? to to the to the people that
you're requesting it from. But they
they're changing that so that they can
see. So they'll be like, "Oh, Gary Fast,
the guy that's been talking a bunch of
[ __ ] about us is requesting this
information. We're going to, you know,
deny that."
>> Yep.
>> It's crazy. But this is similar to that.
And I think this is actually
>> branded as the Transparency Act cuz who
can who can say
>> it was it was existing legislation that
>> equals good. [laughter]
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There. Yeah. Um but
yeah, this is this is crazy. I don't
even know what else to say about it cuz
not much has transpired. But in my field
of work, it I mean
that would that would basically prevent
me from doing my job. Uh I have a quote
that I love. This is a little more
positive. I feel like we've had some
some conspiracy, some darkness, uh some
some getting in trouble.
>> I want to bring a little little uh
positivity here. All right. So, saw this
quote from Blake Makoski, who created
Tom's Shoes. Uh, I don't know if you
guys have seen this, but he he has this.
He's like, I've had this on the wall of
every office. So, he says, "A master in
the art of living draws no sharp
distinction between his work and his
play, his labor and his leisure, his
mind and his body, his education and
recreation. He hardly knows which is
which. He simply pursues his vision of
excellence through whatever he's doing,
and leaves others to determine if he is
working or playing. To him, he always
appears to be doing both." M
>> and I just like that to me has just been
a very useful
um I don't know guidepost or like oh
yeah like that is the highest calling if
you yourself basically don't
differentiate between your work and your
play or you know are you is this uh is
this something that you have to do or
you should do or you want to do the more
those blend together and the less you
sort of bucket things I think the more
you solve the problem of balance that I
think nobody feels like they have and so
I just thought this was awesome and I'm
going to put this up in my office wall.
>> Well, this seems similar to what Michael
was talking about of the childlike
thing. You remember on the first episode
that we did and he was said be he quoted
some scripture he's like be childlike my
children or some some something like
that. I think one of the problems that
you have is working for yourself sounds
great because it sounds like choose
whenever you want to work but for most
people what it results in being is just
work all the time because there's no one
to tell you to stop. And a great idea to
think about
if this doesn't feel like play to me,
scrutinize it and maybe try and get rid
of whatever I can from this particular
area of my life. But when you're
compelled by, oh well, I just want to be
more be more successful and more
wellknown, that is rewarding in and of
itself, but it's not the type of reward
that you want. So, you need to almost be
skeptical and discerning in the rewards
that you get, too. It feels like play,
but it might actually be just shallow
juvenile status seeking. Or it might be
me uh playing at the game of
accumulating money when I already have
enough. It's that line from James Clear
where he says, um, if you already live a
good lifestyle and you sacrifice it in
order to make more money, by definition,
it's a bad trade,
>> right?
>> And I think sometimes you people are bad
at distinguishing, determining what
isn't is not play. what isn't is not
just more like limbic rewards. Does that
make sense?
>> So there's there's this book that talks
that I'm reading talks exactly about
this called the score. You guys ever
heard of this book? It's basically u
this guy who's a phil he's a philosophy
professor but he he loved games growing
up. He always plays games and he he uses
games as this analogy and I think in
general uh a far more important thing in
life than being a good player is picking
a good game.
>> Uh because it's very easy to be you know
you were talking about Joey Chestnut
earlier, right? Um, and like you know
the philosopher Joey Ch, [laughter]
>> no knock on him, but like just generally
choosing to be a competitive eater.
>> It's not the best game to play in life,
right? Like you could choose many things
to try to be great at.
>> There are some that are better and
worse.
>> Every game comes with a scoreboard. The
scoreboard is very unique in that it
basically programs you. It rewires your
mind for what you now want.
>> The game dictates what you want.
>> Um, right? Because it says that's how
you win. This is the scoreboard. So
therefore, I've desired
>> appropriate
>> and then it tells you who you need and
then it changes your identity. Who do
you need to be to win this game? So you
play Call of Duty, you better be a
psychopathic murderer, right? You got to
be ruthless. You play charades, you
better be a team player, a great
communicator. You play poker, you better
be uh great at the art of deception. And
so the game you choose will not only
choose for you what you want, it'll
choose your motivation. It'll end up
dictating your identity. Who do you need
to be to win that game? So he talks
about like you know he was a phil he was
became a philosopher
>> or philosophy professor because he loved
answering the big questions about life.
That's what got him into it. Then he got
there and he realized there's a ranking
system for the the professors
nationwide. And how do you go up? So
he's a competitive person by nature like
many of us are. So he started trying to
win the game. Now he had a scoreboard.
The scoreboard said in order to get more
points you have to write more
peer-reviewed published articles about
these niche topics. So then he spends
two years winning that game and then
basically feeling miserable because he's
like this is not what he enjoys about
philosophy. So he made himself miserable
winning the game. He talks about how
there's something called value capture.
Value capture is basically when the game
gives you the metric that um is super
simplified, easy to digest, but it may
not have been what you wanted out of
this. Um so for example in live like
we're you're we're on YouTube, right?
YouTube gives you one big score views.
You can make a life-changing episode
that gets half the views of another
episode, but it doesn't know how to
measure life-changing. It just measures
views
>> and it's going to keep giving you that
metric. And I mean, let's be honest, how
many YouTubers don't just respond to
views, right? Like, it's like a very,
very powerful motivation. Um, because
it's in your face. Everybody sees it.
And that's the scoreboard that
determines success or failure in that
game.
>> I've got I mean, we've we've like spoke
about this hours and Yeah. This is one
of our favorite [ __ ] You hit one of
our trap trap cards. Like there's a
weirdly part of the um thoughts I was
thinking about this week was going down
like how you know that Marshall Mchu
line that we like shape our tools then
our shapers
great example of nature ner used to
write by a hand and then his eyesight
began to go so he started to write in a
typewriter and his writing completely
changed he went way shorter way punchier
like he almost completely changed as an
individual and I've been thinking about
that with a lot of these tools where so
I would like one of my life hacks at the
minute is what I call boom scrolling. So
rather than doom scrolling, I go on a
treadmill at like 15 incline three in
I've got share believe on loop playing.
I'm spinning around. I'm having a
[ __ ] great I'm just sending links to
people.
>> If you if if you if you are either in
his contacts high on the top of his list
of iMessage contacts recently cuz he's
got massive recency bias so he only
sends it to the people that he can see.
And if you're in Lifetime on South Lamar
and you walk downstairs and you see him,
it's you with something from the 80s,
some hair metal or like some like big
pop star from the 80s and he's just
furiously sending [ __ ] links to
>> That's how social media I think is
supposed to be consumed. If you're at
130 uh beat Yeah. If you're 130 like
heart rate per minute, you just like
forget about like all the like new stuff
goes and I'm just in like these holes
like finding stuff. But one of the
reflections you've managed to find a
social media flow state.
>> Yeah. Yeah. slow state for social media
boom scrolling. It's it's coming back.
Um so one of my one of my actual
realizations when I was in this high was
one thing you when you become when
you're in like a flow state or when
you're more mindful you begin like the a
lot of meditators describe it as the
frame rate of reality completely slows
down. So it's kind of like going from a
a standard definition TV to a HD where
everything's a bit clearer, everything's
a bit slower. And I started to notice
this thing in my head that I was really
embarrassed about that when I would
scroll, I'd see a tweet or I'd see a
post and there's this little thing in me
that just looks at the views it gets and
then like determines if I'm going to
consume it or my reaction beforehand.
And it's almost like imagine what we've
created with this mimemetic algorithm.
Imagine before you ever heard like a
piece of music or you ever tasted a bit
of food. It's like like people clapping
or people going bit [ __ ] that's your
whole you don't actually ever experience
social media content. Um so one of the
two big changes I'd like to see is one
could I just turn off all engagement
metrics and I'd be fascinated to run a
study um and compare the two and see
like the the impact that that would have
and then the second one cuz I've thought
a lot about this which is your point
Sean around the depth metrics that it's
very hard for us to measure depth. It's
very easy for us to measure width is
right now one of the problems with
social media is you can only kind of pay
with a like that's the currency which
and then I if you have a thought
experiment if you imagine the world
where the only currency was $1 like a $1
bill and you can't pay more than $1,
what would you have
>> the dollar store theory
>> you you'd have dollar store everywhere
means you wouldn't have Michelin star
restaurants you wouldn't have like
luxury brands you wouldn't have all
these stuff that you'd those are
actually [ __ ] examples cuz I hate them
but you know stuff that you would
actually want to pay more money for. And
I thought even just as simple as like
why X don't just implement like a golden
like where I only have one per week.
It's completely meaningless but I have
one per week and I press it and then I
can also go on the golden like feed. I
can go this is the thing that Sean says
out of everything he's consumed this
week is the best. I think
>> the change you would have in terms of
content huge. The worst thing is that
you you proposed this to me over dinner
what five years ago or something
probably and I was like [ __ ] stupid
idea and then YouTube brought in hype.
We've seen hype.
>> No. What is that?
>> If you're a channel with under 100,000
subscribers, you as a user are allowed,
I think you're allocated about a
thousand hype points per week and you
can only spend it on videos that are
high performing. I think it might be
videos over 100K on channels less than
100K, something like that. But it's uh
like nonfungeible, the the limited,
right? So, the Bitcoin of your likes,
right? And it's [ __ ] great. And I
find myself using it on videos that I
really want to and here's a small
creator that's nailed it with some great
documentary explaining why the the
straight of horm is hard to get through
whatever the [ __ ] And I'm like I want
to send the the hype thing. Michael
Smoke is had one video that broke
through and I wanted to do it for his
thing. So
>> yes, you're right. Other thing McNamara
fallacy. You familiar with that?
>> No.
>> Okay. So uh McNamara was the guy that
was in charge of working out what was
going on with the troops in the Vietnam
War. and his issue was that he was
measuring the wrong uh metrics. So the
Magnamara fallacy or quantitative
fallacy is the mistake of making
decisions based solely on metrics while
ignoring qualitative unmeasurable
factors. Named after US Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara, it assumes that
if something cannot be easily measured,
it is not important or does not exist.
So the issue that the Magnamara fallacy
had was that uh enemy body count metric
is to taken to be a precise and
objective measure of the success or
failure of the Vietnam war which it
wasn't at all. It was domestic
casualties, domestic injuries and the
far more important what's the vibe?
What's the tone around it? Yes.
>> The soul.
>> Yeah. Precisely. So uh the line is we
end up intending to uh measure what
matters but instead what we can measure
just ends up mattering.
>> Yes.
>> And everything else is disregarded. So
you could like I say how um obviously
golden like idea like is there any ways
you guys have like for yourselves
whether it's for the actual platforms
themselves or just for you as an
individual have found a way out of this?
There was one I heard. I didn't do this,
but Hormosi had a a thing with this
where he starts getting popular on
YouTube. And then he hires team and
they're like, "Hey, let's let's punch
this up. Let's do this video. Let's do
this video. Oh, people love this. Do
what you're eating. Do what you did. How
you guys met, do this, right?" He
started as a business channel and then
he's doing everything. And of course,
things that are, you know, there's not a
lot of people who want to understand how
to do better cold calls in sales, right?
Like that's a super niche topic, but
like don't be broke is a bigger topic.
And then bigger than that is going to be
harsh truths about being a man,
whatever, right? Like, so those are pop.
Those get two million views. So why make
those shitty 20,000 views about, you
know, um, how to how to improve your
salesunnel or whatever. But he realized
like, well, what was my mission? My
mission was like, I'm like, I love
business. I want to share what I know
about business. And so what he did was,
uh, he started selling his book for 99
cents and he put it in this bio, right?
So he's basically just use the
assumption of instead of measuring the
success of these videos based on views,
let's just measure it on book sales.
Like presumably
>> only a business person, the type of
people I'm making content for, would buy
a business book about sales or about
$100 million offers. Only somebody who
liked the video and trusted me more from
this video would go and convert. So,
it's like let me create my own like it's
like people who do their own um sampling
like or their own uh polling uh like I
don't know if you heard about this
before the election but there was a guy
who did the who made a huge bet on poly
market that Trump was going to going to
win. I don't know if you guys remember
this some French guy made like $50
million and the reason why was the
mainstream media polls were showing like
a neckand-neck race and he did um what's
called like something like the friends
and neighbors poll. You can pull this
up, Jared. But like I think the premise
was if you ask people who they're going
to vote for, they'll tell you, but like
some people hedge and there was like
closeted Trump voters. But if you ask
them who do you think your neighbor's
going to vote for, they'll give you a
different question, a different answer.
>> This is like the Keynesian beauty
contest.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah. And so he used the data from he
commissioned his own poll which cost him
like a few hundred thousand dollars or
whatever and he ended up making4 or $50
million on a bet because he understood
the actual probability of success was
far different than the the priced odds
on these market on these markets.
>> So what you're saying that Alex did was
he found a metric that was more
important and more accurate than all of
the other metric. He brought his own he
brought his own metric to to YouTube
which he had to hack around, right, to
figure out how to do
>> James James Smith does this. So, he's
got his business channel, which is the
the the other thing. He basically shut
down his main one, which has got half a
million subs. And he'll put a video up
that gets 20,000 plays and make $50,000
because the people that go onto that
video are precisely his target market at
a high conversion and they they've got
some special tracking link that's for
each different video. So, he knows, oh,
this one video because it's only this
link in that one video and it's pinned
in the comments or whatever it might be.
and he can he's now optimizing for the
outcome that he wants. Now, the problem
is that you then start to optimize for
book sales,
>> right?
>> And what optimizing for book sales
because you're always optimizing for
something unless you're optimizing for
vibe or optimizing for feeling. And
that's what the, you know, to break the
fourth wall, that's the reason that I
wanted to do this. I don't know if these
episodes will ever be bigger than me
sitting down with MCO. I think they've
kind of weirdly got the legs to be. But
the reason I wanted to do it is cuz I
just thought it would be fun. And I
think that optimizing for your your the
quote on the wall of your man or the
childlike joy or the you know good hang
vibe.
>> It's yeah knowing when to use metrics
when to avoid them. And then also then
you said then about studies like how
much of this is you and then how much of
this is the why.
>> I have to give you credit. You did this
when you released your high agency
thing. I was the one who went on similar
web and looked at the traffic to your
blog. I was like dude there's a million
people have read your blog. You're like,
"Really?"
>> I'm like, "Don't what do your analytics
say?" That's a similar web. He's like,
"I didn't have Google Analytics in."
>> Yeah.
>> And I was like,
>> "You're a marketing guy. How do you not
have it in? You intentionally didn't
have it in."
>> Yes. Yes. Well, even that bit of advice
there of like do a blog post. Like blog
like blog posts are essentially the UK
or the mainstream media. You know what I
mean? Like it's like the ultimate likeal
undervalue. Um like don't do it. You
can't link to it. And at that time
Twitter completely shadowban links. But
then yeah, I think doing something
fundamentally different. And this is the
challenge of when do you know and I
struggle with this a lot. When you're a
bit of a weird guy, which [ __ ] all
four of us are probably, right? Um when
do you know that you're kind of on to
something? You're on the edge or when
are you just a bit batshit mental?
>> And that and knowing that is a [ __ ]
that's you got to have good friends, I
think. Um as well as sometimes just
balls and you make mistakes.
>> No, you have to ignore. You just always
assume you're on to something.
>> Always 100% assume you're on delusional
cut.
>> This is the difference. You know what I
mean? That's our GDP.
>> This side of the table and this side of
the table.
>> That's the GDP gap right there.
>> America if you're on to something. Come
on.
>> Really? Really? It is.
>> I'm always on to something, dude.
>> Well, next thing you know, I'm too sure.
Maybe I'll wait two decades.
>> That's a metratic society where we've
got an old school aris aristocratic
society.
>> Exactly. And also the other thing is
that we can't raise out of our status.
You're going to be middle class for the
rest of your life in the eyes of British
people. I'm going to be workingass for
the rest of my life in the eyes of
British people. It doesn't matter what I
do. It doesn't matter how many plays I
get, how much money I make. When I go
back home, they know where I went to
school. They know what postcode my
parents lived in. They know what my
accent's like. It's like I think that
that puts a kind of cap on how much
people think that they how how big their
dreams should be and how much faith they
should have in themselves. This is
Alander Bon talked about this. He's
like, "People that come from in the UK
working-class backgrounds, they're
probably not going to try and rock the
boat because that's not their place.
It's not your place to do that.
America's like nent. It's [ __ ] 2
years old, right? In the grand scheme of
things, we got a thousand years of
uninterrupted, uninvaded history, right?
Apart from some planes in [ __ ] like
August of 1940, that's it, right? And
then [ __ ] Rudolph Hess when he
decided to try and land in Scot. Do you
know that story? Rudolph H one of Oh. Oh
gee. Do you want to tell it?
>> You You tell it better than me.
>> Okay. So, um Rudolph Hess was one of the
>> That was the most English [ __ ] ever
>> in a
>> You want to tell it? No, you tell it
better than me. [laughter] Back on.
>> Rudolph Hess was a German fighter ace in
World War I and he then becomes one of
the inner circle for Hitler in World War
II. He starts to slowly lose favor
toward the end of the war. or I think 43
44 he starts to lose favor with Hitler
and he sees himself being shunted to the
side a little bit. So he decides that
he's going to do something uh courageous
and heroic that's going to save the war
and also bring him back into the inner
circle with regards to Hitler because
he's got this sort of win this group of
sick fans around him. He's got Himler,
he's got Gerbal, he's got all of these
guys that are around him and uh Rudolph
Hess has been shunted out to the side.
The Hess gets a two seat plane, one of
the long range bomber planes that the
Germans were using. He gets it modified
so they can be flown by one person as
opposed to two. He gets additional fuel
tanks strapped to it and he flies it
without telling anybody in the middle of
the night from Germany over to Scotland
because he once met some aristocratic
Scottish
nobleman and thinks because he's got
this perspective of Brits that it's all
one Renaissance Bridgetton novel that he
is going to know Winston Churchill and
the king and he's going to be able to or
the and is going to be able to petition
Britain to uh have an armistice to put
down their arms. Uh so he leaves a note
for the furer and leaves a note for his
wife and just sets off. Now he doesn't
know where he is when he gets to
Scotland because it's dark. By the time
he gets to Scotland, it's dark and he
can't see where he wanted to land. He
can't see the [ __ ] palace or the
house of this this nobleman. So he just
pulls the ejector seat, lands in a
farmer's field, lands in a farmer's
field, very quickly gets picked up by
the British military. They find out this
is the fourth ranking Nazi in the entire
Reich. Immediately take him into
custody. Doesn't get to see the king.
Doesn't get to see the queen. Doesn't
get to see anybody. Doesn't get to see
anybody at all. Doesn't get anywhere
close to the nobleman he meant to go out
in there and see. However, the British
now have the fourth ranking Nazi in the
world. And Hitler is furious. Absolutely
[ __ ] furious. Like apoplelectic
apparently. And uh it just goes to show
I think like first off the
weird incentives and the way that people
respond to a tight sphere of uh social
circle with power struggles that keep on
going on. It causes people to do crazy.
It's being in a relationship with a hot
cold girlfriend, right? You're just
doing [ __ ] insane thing. You're like
throwing rocks at her window holding a
boom box with a mixtape and then the
next day you're naked [ __ ] getting,
you know, being beaten up by her or
whatever. And
>> [laughter]
>> uh
>> I told you that story in confidence.
>> And um uh the the other thing is that
people still have this kind of archaic
interpretation of what British life is
like, especially back in the day.
>> He should have done a 360 and then moved
out of there. [laughter]
>> Have you ever um heard of the story of
Churchill and Hitler getting dinner?
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That's join.woop.com/modern
wisdom. Early30s Churchill is very much
out of the um the picture and Hitler's
on the comeup. So I think he's just he's
either just became chancellor, he's just
about to become chancellor. And one of
the fascinating things that you when you
really study history is how blurry it is
at the time. So I always use the example
of the Roman Empire of you can kind I
think it's like 476 AD is when the Roman
Empire fell but if you ask well when did
the people recognize it fell and it's a
bit like the same with the British
Empire like when did the British Empire
fall it's like you could point to
certain parts of World War I you could
go further back you could go to World
War II you could go to 60s7s whenever
you want to go to it um when do people
actually recognize the thing it's always
later and even like Hitler like
Churchill who obviously ends up becoming
Hitler's like an nemesis was intrigued
by a dinner with him. So there was this
guy called Ernst Putsy Hanglesfagan. You
can probably search that one Jared and
good luck. Um and he um he he was like a
socialite in Germany who wanted to
arrange the meeting and Churchill
basically said listen he was really
concerned about communism at the time
but he was also concerned with Hitler's
anti-semitism. So Putsy says well come
through I'll introduce you to Adolf. You
guys will get on really well. Churchill
turns up. He's got his whole family
there and kind of chatting to Putsy.
He's still not here. Still not here. So
they kind of have dinner. Hitler's not
there. And Churchill's like, "Where is
he?" So Putsy goes, "Leave it with me."
So Hitler famously lives in an apartment
building in um Berlin. So he goes to his
apartment building. [ __ ] you not.
Hitler's there just shaving his
mustache. So he's just shaving his
mustache at the time cuz you got to
That's the thing about his mustache.
Like there's a lot of work that goes
into that thing. So he's shaving the
mustache and he goes Winston Churchill
um very important British politician
wants to meet you and uh he's like what
am I going to say to him [clears throat]
and what am I going to say? I have no
interest in talking to that guy and
Putsy like argues with him for ages and
he goes right I'll come. So he goes back
tells Churchill Churchill and his family
sit there Hitler never comes. So Putsy
says I'll set you up the next day. Sets
up another dinner. Hitler never comes.
And it's like those moments of history
that if those two met because famously I
I didn't realize this until I was
reading about it recently that
Chamberlain met Adolf Hitler. He flew
over to Germany and he was impressed
by the handshake cuz Hitler does these
like double handshakes and he was drawn
in by his charisma and believe oh this
guy will never invade. Um but it's just
this fascinating counterfactual that if
Adolf and Winston met what would have
happened. What year was that?
>> I want to say 31 32 around about then.
[ __ ] Yeah, that's so cool. Uh, have you
seen the Forbes under 30 under 30 fraud
list? Oh,
>> wow.
>> Yeah, [laughter]
it's crazy.
>> Jared,
>> how long is it now?
>> Um, so it's just this stinks of YouTube.
This is really some This is kind of just
a gift for YouTube. Um, but this is the
uh 30 under 30 fraud watch list. So, if
we scroll down a little bit and you
hover over Sam Beckman Freed, you'll see
uh incarcerated Terraform Labs
incarcerated. Elizabeth Holmes,
Theronos, incarcerated. We'll keep going
down.
>> There we go. Time served for uh Martin
Skrey. Um and if you go if you go to the
black bit where it's like redacted, just
scroll over the black uh text. The real
numbers were 300,000. That's it. Sold
the student loan app to JP Morgan for
175 million. Claimed 4.25 million users.
The real number was 300,000. and she
hired a data scientist to fabricate the
rest. JP Morgan bought it anyway, then
noticed. Oops. If we go all the way down
to the bottom, there's actually a risk
list. So, this is people who've been on
the 30 under. It's like a a how would
you say prototypical algorithm that
looks at some of the hype around the
market. So, these are companies that
they think is going to be likely to be
on the fraud list. So, I don't know any
sphere. Cursor, do you know what that
is?
>> Cursor is super legit. say I would say
cursor super legit but uh
>> they're not going to come for you. Uh
>> the crazy one is um Sam Bman and Frey
came out today
>> poly market there.
>> Oh shame
>> Sam Bman Fre came out today that um um
the shares FTX. So Sam Bman Fre
investment anthropic that owns Claude
>> it would have gotten them out of the
$60 billion
>> 60 billion which Coinbase is worth 50
billion or something like that. So it's
um but the
>> FDX at its peak was 30. So basically
he's one of the had he not gone to jail
for fraud and had not been using
>> would have been one of the richest
people on the planet
>> and he would have been seen as one of
the best investors in the world because
he was early in salami. He was early in
this he certainly
>> do they still have that position or did
they have to liquidate the position?
>> That's the sad part. When they did the
bankruptcy they bring in this guy for
he's a famous guy. He did the Enron
bankruptcy something like something Rice
or something. I forgot his name is He's
got a cool cool sounding name. They
bring him in. So what do they do? They
immediately like freeze all payments.
They like have like a protocol of
bankruptcy. And so one of the things is
they take all these illlquid shares and
they say we need to sell them. And they
sell them at this huge discount right
away into the market.
>> Oh my god.
>> Um and so they sold
>> You know what they do, you know what
they sold it for?
>> So they sold the whole lot for like I
think like a billion dollars of like a
billion dollars of all the investments
that he had made. And so it was like a
fraction of whatever it was like worth
essentially. And uh just the one
anthropic position alone is a $60
billion position. have paid off all of
the
>> oh multiple times. many times.
>> So all of the people who were missing
money, had they have just held when was
the FTX thing? Three years ago.
>> Uh yeah, something like that maybe.
>> Had they have held had they have held
the FTX position in anthropic simply for
what thousand days, thousand more? Even
let's say it was like they did it. It
was last year. It would have been three
years. Uh that would have cleared off
everybody's debts. Everybody would have
got their money back,
>> right? Well, you got screwed because if
let's say you held Bitcoin in FTX, you
did nothing wrong. You bought Bitcoin on
this exchange. You think you have
Bitcoin. In reality, FTX either didn't
buy the Bitcoin, just took your cash,
they showed you you own 10 Bitcoin, but
you didn't. They never bought the
Bitcoin. They just took the cash and did
something with it. Or you did have
Bitcoin and they went and used it again
for their own slush fund of investing,
uh, which they were not supposed to do.
Now, even when the bankruptcy happened
and it's like, oh, you're going to get
paid out, you got paid out based on the
Bitcoin price when it happened, not the
fact that Bitcoin was up 3, four, 5x
since then. Why is that? It was like
that it's it's the way that I guess the
bankruptcy process works. I don't know
the technicality of the way that they
that they did it. And so you had this
money that should have been appreciating
that was locked up and then you get paid
on the four years ago price or whatever
it was the day the day that it that it
happened is it's is pretty bad.
>> Sean, your knowledge of [ __ ] niche
business stuff, dude, is terrifying.
It's like George for random historical
facts. It's really
>> terrifying. Galloway did something cool
with this. Have you heard what he did?
So when the bankruptcy happened and
people um every every so like for me I
had some cash FTX was one of our
sponsors they g they gave us a bunch of
money they gave us like 10020 grand to
write an one article about them on the
milk road and we actually wrote it and I
wrote in the thing I was like yeah
there's this uh weird relationship
between FTX which everybody thinks is
the best company in the world right now
and Alamita Research his like hedge fund
and it's like it's unclear the
relationship it's it's a bit of a so you
pulled this out.
>> So, I called that part. I I I'm not an
investigative journalist. I wasn't going
to go It's not my job to go figure that
out, but I just noted like, "Hey, like
here's a bunch of really interesting
things about them. Here's something
that's unexplained. I don't I don't
fully know. It sounds a little bit
sketch." And so, we sent it to them.
We're like, "Hey, we're ready to post."
And they were like, "Uh, you need to
take that part out." [laughter]
>> No [ __ ] way.
>> And so, I was like, "Well, I think I'm
not going to take it out."
>> And they were like,
>> "Okay, uh, we'll get back to you." And
they just never talked to me again. They
never took the money back. They never
asked for the money back. They just
disappeared. posted it.
>> We never posted it. We were like, "Okay,
I guess we'll just I guess they'll get
back to us." They just never did. And
then it came out that that was like this
link that was like a really problematic
thing.
>> That was their defensive way of handling
that.
>> Did you ever talk about Did you ever
bring up the fact that you preciently
[ __ ] accidentally just [laughter]
nudged the trip wire. You didn't fully
break it, but you nudged the trip wire
that was going to cause like the biggest
banking scandal of the last 5 years.
>> The Epstein girls, the the two girls.
>> But I'm like a dog setting it off. I
wasn't really like clever in how I was
doing it.
>> You walked into you moonwalked in.
>> Yeah. I was just like, hm, that sounds
weird. Is there an explanation for this?
They're like, no. And I was like, okay,
still sounds weird to me. [laughter]
>> Does this fall? It's really interesting
to consider. And it kind of links to the
like study says, science says of we just
have this default bias of if people
think this thing is successful kind of
it's this giant game of Empress News
that exists. One of the things that I've
always had a bit of a problem with,
maybe because I was such an unpopular
kid, that the fact that talent isn't
enough, momentum is more important for
the most part. You know, we can let a
lot of people get away with some pretty
gnarly [ __ ] if it seems like they're
crushing it. I always use this example
of a fire festival.
>> Billy McFarland from Fire Festival. The
the festival was an entire catastrophe.
Multiple documentaries made about it.
People are in basically FEMA shelters
instead of the five-star huts that they
were promised. Blink182 doesn't turn up.
People have got these like small cheese
sandwiches. Maybe they're going to be
stranded on there's not enough water.
All the rest of it. But if Billy
McFarland had been able to put together
a half competent festival, just
passible,
>> right?
>> He would have been held as a marketing
genius. The orange square, all of that
stuff was hugely influential. And this
is because we will forgive almost every
sin of someone's if they're successful.
And in a meritocracy, this makes
complete sense, right? If you are
crushing it, that means I want to be
around you. The blast radius of your
success is so great. [ __ ] canonical
perfect example that happened two weeks
ago. Kanye West.
>> Kanye West just sold out Sofi Stadium
two nights, right? And the stage show is
[ __ ] spectacular. All that anyone can
talk about is how cool the production
was and he's got all of these guests
coming on. It's [ __ ] amazing. He
hasn't exactly showered himself in glory
over the last 5 years, right? It would
be difficult for a musician to try and
torpedo their own musical career more
aggressively than Kanye West did.
>> But Homeboy's got bangers.
>> Yeah.
>> If you've got bangers, dude,
>> it's all forgiven.
>> You can do whatever the [ __ ] you want.
>> And that's on one side what happens with
music,
>> your point, and beauty. two things that
hack the human brain so effectively that
you will stay going back to the [ __ ]
crazy stripper girl because she's so
even though she's bad for you, you will
listen to the person who put out literal
Hy Hitler song [ __ ] 6 months ago
because he's got three and a half hour
worth set of straight heaters. And the
same thing is also true with momentum.
If somebody seems to be crushing it,
we'll just we we're Sam Bankman Freed is
playing [ __ ] what what was he
playing? Like [ __ ] World of Warcraft
or something
>> during the meeting.
>> Yeah. During and he's like, "Oh my god,
this guy's a [ __ ] super genius."
Yeah, exactly. And he's like, "No, no,
no, no." Because any person would be
scrutinized. But
>> if you've got the right momentum, people
are happy to just [ __ ] shunt that to
the side. And I've never liked it. And
it goes to my theory about why
people say the only insults that hurt
are the ones that you believe. And I
don't think it's true. I think the
insults that hurt the most are the ones
that you know are untrue, but that you
fear other people might believe
>> because that's optics management because
you have not only the unfairness, but
you have the indignation of knowing that
it isn't true. And this is the opposite
side of the same dynamic that we're
talking about here. You could put out
something which is amazingly researched,
a fantastic piece of work. But if other
people say you're a bad guy or that was
done incorrectly or we don't think he's
cool, it's not going to get anywhere.
But that can't happen with beauty
because it hacks the human brain. You It
is so hard to say. You can say that girl
or that guy that's very good-looking,
they're an [ __ ] They're a this,
they're a that. You go, "Yeah, but
they're so [ __ ] hot." The same with
Kanye West. You can say he's an
anti-semite. We don't like him. He's
crazy. He's addicted to nitrous. D. It's
like he's got [ __ ] heaters, dude. And
for as long as he's got heaters, it
doesn't matter.
>> I do think music and beauty are unique
in that regard that the more successful
you are as a musician, the more you can
probably get away with, more so than any
other any other realm. People can kid
themselves into not liking something
that is objectively good because they
don't like the person putting it across.
In most art forms, if you don't like
somebody on a podcast and they tell a
really interesting story, you can
convince yourself that it wasn't that
interesting or they're an [ __ ] Even
comedy, someone can tell tell a joke and
you can be like,
>> "That wasn't that good. Wasn't that
good. Didn't think it was that good."
The same thing is not true for music. It
is so penetrating emotionally to people.
It [ __ ] just cuts through your
biases. It cuts through your defenses in
a way that other art forms can't. And
beauty, especially like female beauty
for guys, is just you can be the
craziest like total cluster B
personality nightmare curse. If you're
hot, guys are just going to keep coming
back.
>> Wait till you hear Epstein's Soundcloud.
Um, you know, I I always use the um
example with Billy McFaren of like Steve
Steve Jobs is a little bit of a very
very different figure to Billy
McFarland, but reality distortion field
kind of makes things happen. Um, and
like the counterfactual that like the
ultimate thing that Mfaren did or one of
the big things is like his business
partner, his co-founder was Jar Rule and
like I always like the counterfactual if
Steve Jobs's co-founder was Jar Rule
rather than Steve Wnjak like the Mcfaren
story is very obviously it's on him for
selecting Jar Rule. Um but if you would
have selected a a good operator would
have happened. Yeah. What would have
happened?
>> Question.
>> What businesses would be made better by
adding jaw ruler? [laughter]
>> That's a great question.
>> Have you seen the old thing? What does
Jaw have to say about this? [laughter]
>> The old time old internet memes.
>> There's a there's a a a phrase that I've
been very interested in recently called
supernormal stimuli. Have you guys heard
this?
>> Yeah.
>> This pretty fascinating familiar with
this. you might be able to explain it.
Uh
>> yeah, scanarian behaviorism stuff. Yeah,
there's basically there was a scientist
uh back he won the Nobel Prize for this
and what he studied was he he got famous
because instead of doing studies in a
lab he just went out into the wild was
like what do I observe is actually true
and then if I tweak a variable can I
just leave it in in the real environment
and see what happens and so what he did
was uh you know birds the core behavior
of a bird is to sit on uh the egg keep
the egg warm that's your baby that's
like the entire like Darwinian pressure
is to keep this egg alive so he goes
Awesome. Bird loves egg. Does bird love
bigger egg? Does bird love pink egg?
Bird love pink polka dot egg. So he
started putting a fake bigger egg with
bigger dots and bigger brighter colors.
Put it next to it. And guess what the
bird does? Gets off its real egg and
goes sits on the fake egg because it's
more stacked the brain. And so his point
wasn't like it's not like some rational
pros and cons listless decision. bird
just had a a a deep like uh part of his
brain that you could just hijack by
changing the to give it a what he calls
a supernormal stimulus. So he gave him a
bit bigger and he could just keep doing
this up till the point where it's almost
comical. The egg is so big that a bird
finally when he's like I can't even sit
on this egg. Okay, I guess that's too
big, right? And like you know you walk
around and you'll see people with
>> crazy lip fillers and BBLs and it's like
what is it? It's a supernormal stimulus.
It's the same thing is like there's a
way to hijack the mind, beauty, uh,
color. If you go to the grocery store,
what do the food companies do? They
basically take your normal stimulus. So
like, you know, the humans were evolved
to we like salt because we need
electrolytes. We like fat for a certain
reason. We need certain things in our in
our diet. So they just said, "Well, what
if I give you a lot of salt? What if I
give you [ __ ] Doritos, Koola Ranch?
What if I give you triple, you know,
triple pack Dorito loco, whatever." And
you eventually get a supernormal
stimulus that you really can't like
resist. Your body has this like extreme
like pull towards it.
>> You know, my favorite supernormal
stimuli is hunter gatherers eating
cheesecake for the first time.
>> Wow.
>> Because it is so unique. There's a a
process called orification. So
orification is the design of texture of
foods. And if you think about
ancestrally almost every food that you
can think of is a single texture, right?
meat cooked slimyish a little bit. Yeah.
There we go. Supern normal stimuli with
Let's see how this is getting on.
>> Yeah.
>> [ __ ] that.
>> Yeah, I'm out on this now. Two hours.
>> I'm still enjoying it. I think I'm
hungry. Um, Oreos,
>> crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the
inside, fries. But what's interesting
about the cheesecake thing is that you
have fat with carbs and sugar.
Unbelievably rare. And you have sort of
the crunchiness of the base, and you can
tell I'm hungry. and the uh like
fluffiness of the top of the cheesecake.
And they give these to hunter gatherers
and these they're [ __ ] mind. It's a
flavor explosion. Um but yeah, the the
there's a really great one that
>> I think it's beetles, a type of beetle,
dung beetle perhaps or some other
beetle. They're attracted they're
sexually attracted to the shininess of
the shell, the shininess of the top. But
as uh glass bottles became prevalent,
the beetle population was going down
because the glass bottles were shinier
and bigger than the beetles were. So
they were driving themselves into
extinction, not mating with each other
and just mating with glass bottles
because that was a supernormal stimuli.
>> And what happens with the uh cosmetic
surgery, the big lips, the big boobs
thing,
>> you get something called fisherian
runaway. So ficarian runaway is this
sort of recursive insane expansion of
typically like sexually dimorphic
traits, sexually uh provocative traits.
And you end up with uh uh peacocks
who've got tails so big that they can't
move with um uh deer whose antlers are
so large they can't lift their heads up
and they die. um with women who've got
boobs that are so big that they end up
with back pain and you know they they're
unable let's say that you took it to the
absolute extreme. You were no longer
able to procreate. The reason for that
trait in the first place, but you'd done
something that like destroyed your hips
and now it meant that you needed to have
that hyctomy and you couldn't have your
your your uterus anymore. And now you've
killed your chance at doing the thing by
having it run away with itself. the same
as some of those deers or uh rams where
the size of their like antler things dig
into their own head and kill them.
>> Oh yeah, I've seen that.
>> [ __ ] gnarly.
>> Wow. It's funny how it's it's kind of
like a meta discourse where you know you
was talking earlier about the platforms
and the feedback loops and then you end
up like going to arrive, but that's kind
of nature's like home.
>> It's the same dynamic. That's what it's
what you've seen on social media is
tapping into this exact dynamic. It's
the same thing.
>> It's just that you've had to replicate
it digitally.
>> There's a great tweet that this guy Jay
Alto said. He said, "You pity the moth
for confusing the lamp for the moon, yet
here you are confusing a screen for the
world."
>> [ __ ] slow. It's one of the best one
of the best tweets of this year.
>> Yeah, it's amazing.
>> But there is a solve, right? Cuz like
you hear this and you're like, "Oh,
great. We're fucked." It's like, "No,
what's there's got to be some sort of
antidote to this." And what the
interesting part was the equation goes
like this. It's basically how powerful
is the stimulus. So the flavor of the
food, the size of the feathers, whatever
versus your baseline norm, what you are
used to. And the cool thing is basically
like there's this arms race where they
keep escalating. So the more you do it,
the more you get used to it. Then you
need a bigger stimulus and a bigger you
need a a bigger tweet and a bigger Tik
Tok and more views on the next video and
you need a stronger flavor. But all you
got to do is basically detox for a very
short amount of time and reset. Like if
anybody's ever given up soda for like
you know a couple months or years never
done that
>> you if you go back to it tastes like
horrible it's like so syrupy it's too
sweet you can't handle it but you used
to drink eight diet cokes and the reason
why is because you you can reset the
denominator essentially instead of
trying to avoid the the the forces of of
you know commercialization that are
trying to stimulate you.
>> What's that uh cuck fuchious substack
that me and you like you see his staring
at a wall experiment.
>> No. So this guy's substack. It's pretty
niche, but it's [ __ ]
>> Cook Fuchious.
>> [ __ ] Fuchious.
>> He's great. He's great.
>> Really well written. You would love it.
[ __ ] great. I mean, George introduced
me to him and now I'm I'm pretty his
first post that I saw was uh I am Andrew
Puberman.
>> That was the first that was the
[laughter] first blog post that I read
from him.
>> Subscribe.
>> Um
>> and um he's doing an experiment. He did
an experiment I think for 30 days where
he stared at a wall for an hour. And
this is kind of a twist on an ancient
eastern practice which I think Dr. Kay's
got his clients to do as well. And after
>> 20 minutes, some people burst into
tears. Some people are screaming. They
kind of go a little bit.
>> Yeah. Because I at least what I think is
happening,
>> their baseline of stimulus is so low.
Even if you're in the shower, you're
doing stuff. Even if you're going for a
walk, things are moving past you, right?
You're locomoting and you see the
[ __ ] world,
>> but all they're doing is staring at a
wall.
>> Staring at a wall for an hour. I would I
I mean let's see
>> what would be you know what would be an
interesting test take people that have
been to jail and compare them to people
that haven't because
>> dude I was in [ __ ] in school
suspension when I was a teenager for
like weeks on end and all I did was
stare at a [ __ ] wall. It didn't make
me go crazy. That's just weird. That's
>> I mean present evidence may suggest
otherwise.
>> Well, [laughter]
says the man.
>> It was just a [ __ ] delayed onset,
dude.
>> Wasn't it? There's um there's a few like
the most the most extreme versions of
this. You've got um I've never fully
verified this one, but of
uh monks who've meditated for such a
significant period of time are in I
think it's like three standard
deviations
>> happiness
>> of happiness. So like it's like the
0.01%.
My favorite and I'm always a bit like
it's a bit of a study but I'm like [ __ ]
this one's not a study of um the guy who
set himself on fire to protest the
Vietnam War. I don't know if Jared if
you could pull that one up. Um
>> the monk
>> Yeah, the monk who set himself on fire
who just literally walks walks out sits
in lotus position sets himself on fire
doesn't
blink or flinch. And at that moment I
was like, "Huh, maybe there is something
to meditate. Studies don't need to
show."
>> Yeah. Studies don't need to show.
I think it's Ken Burns Vietnam
documentary that covers this really
well.
>> You hear about his heart?
>> Whose heart?
>> The guy. So this is like kind of a
Buddhist a Buddhist philosophy that um
or like a a Buddhist part of the story
which was his heart didn't set on fire.
So his heart was like kind of completely
normal. His whole body went to crisp but
his heart was still there. I think you
could check this Jar but I think in the
cremation period they tried to cremate
his heart and it refused to burn. It's
like it's a very it could be a complete
myth but but any when as soon as I see
this any of my questions around what the
human mind is capable of um goes out the
window.
>> Homeboy sat in full lotus just
barbecuing anything around him. Yeah,
that's crazy.
>> You can see the gasoline.
>> There's a guy who's trying the screen
experiment. Have you seen this? The guy
who's doing one year no screens.
>> He's trying to Brian Johnson, but just a
no screen and he's scanning his brain
before and after.
>> How far into it is he
>> like a day, right? He just started
staring at a wall. [ __ ] He finished all
the things. He's like, I'm going to
avoid Yeah. This guy David uh David
Danes today I'm scanning my brain before
I spend a year without screens. They
they expect brain function to change,
but whe the structure self changes,
nobody seems to know. And he's got his
website where you could just like you're
going to be able the updates of the
results.
>> Imagine how hard it would be to not It's
like not being exposed to [ __ ]
microplastics, dude. I mean, he's going
to be Yeah, he's going to be looking at
a screen in an airport. He's going to go
to the gym and there's going to be stuff
around. So, he's really assumed no
screen anywhere. I assume I said I
assumed he meant like phone, TV, like
personal screen. I mean, he's not going
to ever look at any
>> I think that's he's going Amish is what
it is.
>> Come on.
>> You got to go all the way [ __ ]
blinkers on.
>> See, see if you can find the the rules
of the of the challenge. But yeah,
that's
>> it's pretty unwritten.
>> Hey, what was that quote you said uh
maybe 10 minutes ago about the the
person that you looked at the screen and
it's reality.
>> What did you say?
>> Like we we laugh when the moth confuses,
you know, a lamp for the moon, but here
we are confusing the screen for the
world.
>> Yeah. Okay.
map that on to AI.
>> What do you mean?
>> Just just uh in general like what? Like
I don't know in 50 years people are
going to be like laughing at us because
of whatever we were doing right now.
>> Like we're confusing with real
intelligence or what do you mean?
>> I I don't really know. I just when you
said that it made me think of how AI is
going to be like um people are going to
laugh at us for in 50 years for what we
thought was good AI. That's what I
thought of when you said that for some
reason.
>> Oh yeah. I mean that that curve of
technology
>> like they're going to look at us right
now in 50 or 100 years like where the
[ __ ] moth that thinks the lamp is a
what you get.
>> Did you guys watch the the you mentioned
Dennis?
>> You mentioned Demis from uh Deep Mind.
Did you watch the documentary?
Unbelievable.
>> What is this? He's got this uh the guy
who created Deep Mind which kind of
kicked off this whole AI wave.
>> He has his documentary on Amazon I think
called The Thinking Game.
>> It's on YouTube now.
>> Oh, it's on YouTube. It's on YouTube.
Highly recommend to anyone.
>> Dennis, if you're if you're listening, I
want to bring you on the show. Reply to
my emails.
>> Dude, he's he's he's cool. Like he was
like a six-year-old child prodigy, chess
player, etc. But like that moment of
move 37 is just like chose. You know
what I mean? I feel like that's like a
turning point in human history was this
move 37 moment. Basically, Google
DeepMind has I mean they seem to be the
most
safetyconscious
kind of very human approach to this AI
race at the moment.
>> Yes.
>> But uh I don't know if I mean that the
whole point of this which is why Scott
Alexander thinks that anthropic is the
antichrist because the antichrist will
come and make you think that they're
not. Uh so in this whole AI that was the
whole point that I had with Tristan
Harris is everyone wants to cast
dispersions at company like open AI I
don't like you because you did this and
I don't like Google because they did
that or Grock I don't like you because
you did the whatever. It's like hey dude
it doesn't matter what somebody's stated
[ __ ] safety goals are. These guys are
speed running through model development
as quickly as possible and if they don't
>> they lose
>> they lose. So just look at the
incentives. Don't look at the [ __ ]
press release. Right. Like, yeah, the
the anthropic Super Bowl ads were
[ __ ] hilarious, but don't play. And
they decided not to do the thing for the
Department of War and they did whatever
stuff. It's like, dude, don't [ __ ]
like get lost in the source. These
people are playing the exact same
[ __ ] game just with slightly better
PR.
>> Yeah,
>> it does seem there's a huge doomer like
narrative right now around AI that's
becoming more and more popular.
>> Listen to more Freedberg to do. I mean
like from the wider question of what
happens I don't know but from firsthand
like experience like for myself I um
because the image models are getting so
good now I've had like a like it's
called subberomic dermatitis for about
10 years sometimes it gets so bad I
wouldn't want like go outside like level
of bad I just showed it to Gemini
>> what does that mean
>> um so it's basically you kind of like
there'll be a lot of people listening
that have it affects like 5 to 10% of
the population and your face will just
break out in like really bad eczema so I
went to one doctor who basically got me
on a steroid cream um and said the
reason why you have it is because of
stress. It's like quite well known
because of stress. Carried on. I started
like meditating, like fixing my diet. I
basically didn't eat sugar for like 2
years and it calmed it down. I was like,
"Oh, it's because of sugar." And then I
saw a second doctor um and she said,
"Yeah, you're too stressed out." I'm
like, "Fuck, I'm getting stressed out by
your guy's diagnosis and I'm stressed
out." So, she recommends another steroid
cream. I end up tracking it for ages and
I just upload the whole document to
Gemini. And it goes, "Oh, no. Just just
put niserol on your face." So anybody
who has subatomic dermatitis, it fixes
it for like 90% of people as a medicine
or it's shampoo. It's a [ __ ] shampoo.
Shampoo you can get for a few cells in
blue.
>> And like I've never had it ever again
since 10 years. Never had it ever again
since. And that's just that. But these
stories are like it's not as it's not as
sexy as like the the guy who speaks to
the LLM and decides to take his own
life. It's not that that's like
obviously horrific story if it's even
[ __ ] true. I don't know. Um but like
I know just so many people whose like
health is genuinely being like
revolutionized by these things. It's
just we just have such an anchor towards
negativity. Um
>> also you you're always going to push
back against something some new
technological development.
>> Yes. It's it's the most recurring lesson
throughout history. Like I was reading
because I was fascinated by with AI
coming on. I was like I want to go study
the industrial revolution. What was
fascinating at the time you had two
groups that came up. You had the lites
who would just basically go and smash
the factories in. You saw this recently
with Sam Alman having a Molotov cocktail
thrown at his house um a week ago. But
then you also had the romantics. So the
romantics would kind of pine about and
you kind of see this now with AI where
it's like they'll call things slot which
which are and there is there's a what
you you do want the lites and you do
want the romantics because they kind of
act as um a balancing arc to to the uh
to the progression. But I think like net
net most people alive today do not want
to go back to pre-industrial revolution.
They do not want like the option is to
go to Amish if you do want to. Like that
is available if you want to go Aish but
nobody does.
>> Mhm.
>> I think AI is going to make people go
[ __ ] insane.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Because they're we're getting into
a point where
>> pull I was going to say but pull Jared
if you can pull up the new thing. I
don't know um the FC produced this. I
don't know how true it is but
essentially they argue it's um it's
making people less polarized immediately
where social media was pushing people
further to the left and the right
whereas AI you can kind of already see
with Grock now they fact check people a
lot more. So, they're bringing a lot
more people into the center.
>> Well, why do you think it'll make
>> Because, dude, it's we live in a
post-truth age now. There's no way to
determine what what flavor is it.
>> This is sweet whiskey. You want sweet
whisp.
>> You going to have two toothpicks in?
That's [ __ ]
>> Yeah, I'm doubling down.
>> Jesus Christ.
>> Well, um there's uh Well, I'm not using
them to actually
pick my teeth. I'm just
>> No, but just you you need so many
stimulants that you've got oneonic
toothpick, one Zipix toothpick.
>> Yeah, I know. And I'm coming down off
that cratom right now.
>> You quiet. Everything's in slow motion.
Uh uh I think that deep fakes and
uh maybe it's more so in America than
other places, but after the Charlie Kirk
assassination, there's all these
conspiracy theories left and right about
whether it was Israel did it or it's a
hologram or if this guy was real. Like
there's all this crazy [ __ ] right? And
um nobody's going to be saying it's a
something like oh this is a hologram or
this was AI without the advent of AI
being able to create deep fakes that are
largely I mean look at it look at
boomers dude they believe all sorts of
crazy [ __ ] and we're like [laughter]
[ __ ] idiots. That's what I was kind
of getting at I guess with what I was
saying to you about that that comment.
But we're never going to know I mean
ever what actually has happened with
anything we know anymore. the truth is
no longer even [ __ ] matters because
it can't be determined unless you
experience it with your own five sense.
So there's um there's a great uh chapter
in a book called the beginning infinity
and essentially his idea is what's
called known as the precautionary
principle which is essentially the
history of humanity is essentially
problems like we start like even Great
Britain like where me and Chris are from
is just a is a human concept like it
shouldn't exist like we in Great Britain
me and my family should [ __ ] die of
hypothermia but because of like we
created central heating we created
clothing but so we essentially have this
whole arc of just problem solving
problem solving problem solving, problem
solving. And the problem that you then
have, ironically, is that when a new
problem comes along like this is that
you have what's known as the
precautionary principle, which is we can
see the problem, but we can't see the
solution. But by definition, people,
human beings can't forecast a solution
because if we had the solution for it,
we would implement it and be worth
trillionaires. Yeah.
>> But what you end up having is kind of 7
billion people working towards um this
potential problem. You saw it with co
like I'm I'm a I unsexy to say, but I'm
pretty optimistic when it comes to
humans abilities to solve problems. Oh,
I think I think I think like a lot of
this stuff we can fix.
>> Speaking of AI, did you see this Allirds
pivot?
>> Oh, dude, [snorts] that's insane.
>> Can you explain for the class, please?
What the [ __ ] just happened?
>> Allirds, which was like a uh popular
shoe amongst tech guys, at least. I
don't know how popular it got outside of
that, but it was like a niche shoe. It
was like a wool sneaker. They were like
started small, became a public company,
but then they started failing. And so,
like the stock has been going down for
years. They were I think they were last
like you know they at one point like a
billion dollar company they were like
$50 million company now so the stock had
been falling falling falling falling
falling and there was really no path and
so these guys bought it I think and I
think what they did was they they
purchased it and they just pivoted to AI
and it's like well how does a shoe pivot
what does that mean they're like well we
raised all this debt we're going to buy
GPUs and sell them and the stock like as
of this morning is soaring I don't think
this is a sustainable thing but the
>> valued at around $4 billion at its peak
sold the intellectual property and other
assets two weeks ago for 39 million.
>> 39 million. And then they renamed it
like what? Freeird or something. What do
they name it?
>> The shoe company had a market cap of 21
million on Tuesday, which climbed to 148
million on Wednesday.
>> Wow.
>> Just by saying we do AI,
>> the words AI and crypto. There was like
a ICT company that was like, "Yeah,
we're IT company, but we're a blockchain
iced tea company." And then there's
like, you know, there was tons of these
companies. They would just change their
name. They didn't even change the
underlying business. They just changed
the name to like, you know, blockchain
motor controls and then their stock
would pop just because of
>> Yeah, dude. The one day price move is
582%.
>> Yeah, it's stupid. There's stupid things
that happen. This is like, you know, the
efficient market hypothesis and then you
you hear this, right?
>> Yes. I saw somebody putting like the
intelligent investor in the bin. It's
like giving up on this. Yeah. [laughter]
>> Speaking of, did you guys see this kind
of blew my mind? Um, this is more in the
kind of fear and doom stuff, but did you
see the uh Indian
the Indian factory AI thing? Do you see
this? Uh,
>> oh where the uh training people with the
the cameras
>> headset
>> to fold clothes and [ __ ]
>> They're sewing shirts. They're just
they're basically folding towels.
They're doing shirts. So there's giant
factories now in India where the primary
function is you're paid to wear a head
like a head camera and it just films you
doing a a task and they're basically
creating all the training data for the
robots like the humans basically
creating the train Jared pull this video
up. It's it's just kind of striking when
you see it. It's like it feels like a
black mirror episode.
>> Do you know Do you know how uh Tesla
made it self-driving so good? Do you
know how that how it was trained
>> with a human?
>> Yeah. So,
>> so these guys are just working and these
guys have like neck pain and all this
stuff cuz they're wearing this eight
hours straight.
>> Hey, Sean, their head.
>> There's like a com there's a company
that's basically making a lot of money
creating this data and selling it back
to the AI AI labs, which is pretty wild.
And Elon actually, he gave this
interview. He said something that nobody
really has talked about, but I thought
it was pretty batshit crazy. They were
like, "Well, the next thing for Tesla is
not cars, it's his robot." They're like,
"How are you going to train the robot to
do all this stuff? You don't like for
cars, you got the data cuz humans were
driving the cars. So, you were able to
learn on millions and millions of miles.
How are you going to do it with the
robots? He's like, "Well, we're building
this, I don't know, 100,000 square foot
warehouse and we're going to put 10,000
robots in there
>> and uh they're going to selfplay." So,
he's like, "So, so if you if you watch
like how they've trained the the AI to
beat like Go and chess, there was one
way which was you have grand masters
tell hard code rules. Okay, what's
better than that? you train it on only
Grandm's game uh game logs. And then
they did this thing called Alpha Zero
where they're like, "We're just going to
tell you the rules of chess. You play
yourself 100,000 times, see what
happens." And that became better than
all of the other models with no no data
of uh how to play chess or how to play
Go. And so Alpha Zero was this huge
breakthrough when when DeepMind did it.
So now Elon's trying to do the same
thing with robots where he's like,
"Yeah, we could do this where we get all
the data from like human people like
recordings or we could just create a
warehouse where we tell them the the
objectives of the different stations and
then we let them just like fumble around
trying to figure out like how to use
their arms and like eventually they're
just going to figure out put 10,000
robots in this box." I'm like I would
pay so much money to watch the fun live
stream. [laughter]
>> Well, the [ __ ] what what was that?
Was it Neo? Is that the at home robot?
What was the one that's made of kind of
knitted? It looked like Neo is the name
of it. Yeah,
>> Neo. So, this was an at home assistance
robot. There was two versions. You could
buy it outright. You could rent it. I
think to rent it, it was actually quite
expensive. Was it $300 a month?
Something like that? $400 a month. And
uh someone videoed their Neo trying to
close the dishwasher and it looks like
someone at the end of a party on too
much ketamine trying to do the same
thing. It's all sort of janky and it's
going down like and it just cannot close
this [ __ ] dishwasher. Um
>> that reminds me of i Robot. Yeah.
>> You remember that man?
>> Yeah. Will Smith classic.
>> And he has the living robot and he's
like, I don't trust this [ __ ] thing.
[laughter]
>> Well, the way that the Tesla training
data was done was that they took the top
5% 1% of drivers and basically said
they're going to drive on our behalf cuz
the self-training thing has to be harder
when you're talking about the physical
world because the parameters of outcome,
success, and failure are way harder to
work. Like is this is this folded right?
Like there's a million ways that you
could fold it. it turns out like a [ __ ]
you know, it's a one of those [ __ ]
origami. It's a swan. It's a goose. And
uh you you don't want that. It's nice
and beautiful, but it doesn't fit the
parameters, right? So, more oversight or
at least like a base training data of
like, hey, here are some of the because
what are the rules of the game of
folding clothes,
>> right? They kind of it's kind of strange
to but once you've got this raw training
set, but this is the f this does feel a
little bit like uh finishing off the
champagne on the Titanic. [snorts] You
know, it's like we're going down and
we'll just on the way down I'll make a
little bit of extra money from doing
this thing. Uh
>> to round out, George,
>> good news about your dad.
>> Phil Collins is a Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame 2026 inductee.
>> There we go.
>> Any idea what your dad said in response?
Very British response this. Obviously,
I'm pleased [laughter]
and honored to be inducted. It wraps up
what has been a wonderful life in music.
Obviously, I'm pleased. Sounds a little
bit passive aggressive.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Took took a
while till 2026 to get this.
>> Obviously, I'm pleased and honored to be
inducted. Wraps up what has been a
wonderful life in music. Boys, this has
been [ __ ] sick. Appreciate you all.
>> All right.
>> Unreal. Phil Collins, George's dad.
Let's go. All right. Goodbye, everybody.
seen Phil Cohen.
>> I've never seen it. Wow. My first time
ever seeing Phil,
>> bro. So much fun.
>> One last swig.
>> Habit.
>> I mean, this just
>> Thank you very much for tuning in. If
you enjoyed that episode, another one
that I know you love is just here.