The Hidden Danger of Accepting Social Norms - George Mack

00:00:00Speaking of football, do you know whoCristiano Ronaldo was named after?Go on. You're a big fan of football. Howdo you not one of the most famous, maybethe most famous player on the planet?Who do you think Cristiano Ronaldo wasnamed after?>> Well, it wouldn't be the BrazilianRonaldo cuz he was the almost overlappedin terms of careers.>> Oh.Is it Ronald Reagan?>> Yes. Yes.>> Yes.>> Wow.>> My parents named me after Ronald Reaganbecause they both liked this name andthought it sounded strong. Ronaldo,whose full name is Cristiano Ronaldo dosdos Santos Aveirosaid in a GQ cover story, "I know thatmy father admired him." Ronaldo was bornFebruary 5th, 1985 while Reagan wasstill president of the United States,but according to Ronaldo, his dad was afan long before then. Told Riley thatReagan was his dad's favorite actor.That said, he wasn't too sure how theRepublican leader would have felt aboutRonaldo's outfit in the GQ cover thataccompanied the article. Let's just sayit's not very conservative. Now thatwe've got an image of the outfit that uhRonaldo had.>> Oh, wow.Ronald Reagan.I mean,identical, right? That's very muchnominative determinism right there. Iforgot cuz I wasI was sonot being in America, too young for itas well.

00:01:15I forgot the fact that Reaganwas an actor. Mhm. He was an actorbeforehand. Was he in big movies andstuff?>> I believe so, yeah.>> Okay. It's kind of the prequel to toTrump in a lot of way. There's also, ifyou like footballers' names, there's aSouth American player called Osama binLaden whose brother is I believe calledSaddam Hussein.>> Can you search chat GPT? And is it V IN?>> I think it's bin Laden and SaddamHussein, two brothers in South America.>> This does sound too good to be true. Andlike you've been gazumped by it.>> Well, it's interesting, particularlylike Brazilian names. They often decidetheir own names. So, you've kind you'vegotuh RonaldinhoFred,umHulk great name.>> Pepe?>> Pepe, well Pepe's Portuguese, but theyoften just it unlike us they just kindof they don't often go with their ownname. There we go.>> footballer named Osama bin Laden.Jimenez Lopez, oftenwritten simply as Osama bin Laden, verygood. Uhhe attracted international attentionbecause it sounds almost identical toOsama bin Laden.Uhactually in Spanish it's even closerbecause V and B are pronounced the same.Uh some unusual details have been widelyreported. He said he was named

00:02:30afterOsama bin Laden.His brother is named Saddam Hussein. ASpanish spelling of Saddam Hussein. Toavoid controversy his jersey typicallydisplays only Osama rather than his fullsurname.>> [laughter]>> Wow.>> I mean I want to I want to meet hisparents.>> Mhm.Mhm.>> I want to know what they've beenreading.>> You can't just do things clearly. Youcan't just do things.>> your kid after the most famous terroristof the 21st century.>> A year after 9/11 too.>> Oh [ __ ] hell, yes. [ __ ] that wasdone one year.>> So really hopping on the bandwagonpost.>> That's buying that's buying Bitcoinwhile it's on a rip, isn't it?>> Jesus Christ.>> What's that story of Rory MacDonald'swalkout music?>> Oh, Rory MacDonald, UFC fighter, used towalk out to some of the strangest songs.Umand people would kind of laugh as he waswalking out. Like, why why does he havesuch a weird niche uh in music? And itwas when it came out he was interviewed.Like, why are you playing out some ofthese super strange songs? It would mixfrom like classical music. It would alsohave Jared, look it up like thedifferent Rory MacDonald songs.

00:03:46And when they interviewed him he waslike, it's not me who's picking thesongs, it's the UFC. Then they go to theUFC and say Rory saying you're pickingthe songs and it's like No, we text himbefore every single UFC. And when itactually got into it, they were textinghis old phone number, which had beengiven to somebody. If you go on theYeah, go on Reddit. So, here's the song.So, he has a violin orchestra>> Scroll down.>> by George A. Quintero,One More Road to Cross by DMX,personal favorite, Can't Touch This byMC Hammer.>> UFC 133>> You [laughter] So, you got to think Hegoes fromLight Work Lupe Fiasco. Not bad song.>> did? We Found Love twice IN A ROW.>> [laughter]>> UH HE CAME OUT TO SAINT Anger byMetallica twice in a row as well. Hecame out by 46 and 2 by Tool. That's a[ __ ] slamming. And then Got the Lifeby Korn. Okay.Uh but sohe says the UFC chooses, the UFC says hechooses. What's the truth?>> Well, it was somebody had his old phonenumber.So, the UFC was texting it and thisperson was obviously a UFC fan that waskind of in on the joke and justabsolutely went on a rampage formultiple years.

00:05:02What would be the worst song to walk outto for you?>> For me?>> Yeah.Or best?>> Well, when I came down the Love Left forTake Me Out, my first dating show,I wanted Jamie Jones, Hungry for thePower, because at the time I thought Iwas really cool cuz I just saw in theseason in Ibiza and everybody didremixes of it saying Hungry for thePowder.>> Mhm.>> And I was like, oh, I'm [ __ ] sick,man. I used to go to a I was sniffingketamine in Ibiza and that. Andthey The producers looked at me andsaid, why have you got this very lowenergy deep house track for the walkout?We're going to give you Example, LoveKicks Starts Again. I was like,okay,>> [laughter]>> fair enough. So, that's like as you comedown and everyone's doing this,clapping above the heads.

00:05:50And the love kick starts again. ChrisWilliamson.>> Yeah.>> Do you ever think>> Single man reveal yourself. That's whatit is.>> Did you get Did How did you perform? Didyou get a date off Take Me Out?>> Did I get a date?>> I don't know. I don't know. You mighthave got blackout.>> The bloke before me did. Everyone wasbackstage [ __ ] themselves that theywere going to get blackout.>> How did you How did you fare?>> I got on well.>> What wasa deep conspiracy about Take Me Outwhich for the American people is aBritish staple dating show, the first ofmany dating shows for me. And umuhthebiggest fear that anybody had was thatall of the girls would turn their lightsoff. But earlier in the season, becausefor everyevery time that they don't go on a date,that's another week that they're on TV.So all of the girls were incentivizedthe start of the season to hit theirlights so that you didn't get as and wewere episode I was episode two. So I wasdoing it on hard mode, mate. I was doingit on hard mode, still had 11 girls tochoose from at the end.>> Show me the incentives>> I'll show you the outcome.>> Yeah, the ITV producers of Take Me Outdo not have not readthe Almanac of Charlie Munger is myconcern.>> What would you want to walk out to?>> What to take>> Take Me Out or a fight? Cuz I see themboth as the same thing.>> [laughter]>> Um

00:07:05you've got to go. You've got You knowYou already know.I think you've got to go Big Big Phil.>> Which song?>> Big Phil. Um>> Dudun dudun>> I think in the in the air tonight. Yeah,um both my fighting music and my lovemaking music.>> That 1.6 1.6 speed?>> Yeah, it's>> Well, yeah yeah, 1.6 speed depending ondepending on the opponent both in thering.>> Okay, so is it faster Is it faster fordating or faster for fighting?>> That's a great question. That's a greatquestion.I think No, I think I think you probablywant to slow it slow it down a littlebit for the for the dating. 1.4.>> Is that to make it feel like you'velasted longer?>> Yes.>> Right.>> I need that. We were talking about AIand writing yesterday. [clears throat]One of the Commonwealth Short StoryPrizes appears to have been awarded toan obviously AI-generated story. This isa relatively prestigious prize. Theprize-winning stories all appeared inGranta magazine, and the editor'sresponse was basically a shrug.When asked whether it was AI-generated,AI concluded that it was almostcertainly not produced unaided by ahuman, and a computer scientist claimedthat the empty metaphors that oftenplague the prize-winning story and thatplague all AI writing as well, they comefrom human-written fan fiction. So, thisis the source of a lot of

00:08:20thevery strange, very clunky analogies thatyou see. So, for instance, the rarephrase the patience of a reptile, whichappears in this allegedly AI-generatedstory, also occurs in a fan fictionbased on the Japanese anime and mangaNaruto. There's no way to be sure thatthe LLM sucked it up, spat it back out,but it's worth remembering that ameaningful amount of the text inside ofthese machines was written by people whowere playing pretend with animecharacters. So, the reason being,if you were to take the total amount oftime played people playing footballglobally, and you were to learn how toplay football as a robot or an AI systemby watching everybody on the planet playfootball, there are far more people thatare bad at football than good atfootball.Therefore, you will learn to be quitebad at football. And this is the samething with writing. If you think abouthow few books that are written getpublished, how little writing is madefor a book, and how many books that arewritten are actually good and go on tosell anything,I don't think that there's that much ofa waiting in terms of the LLM thatJames Clear's Atomic Habits on Moby Dickis worth10 million times

00:09:36that of an anime andmanga blog.>> Mhm.>> However,by sheer numbers, the amount of badwriting outnumbers the amount of goodwriting. So, there's a sentence fromthat story,"But a belly sound as if the earthswallows a shout and holds it there."Pretty jarring. It's not really what youfind in good writing. Don't worry, thismight have been potentially drawn from afan fiction webpage, The Fall of aPhoenix, where the original sentencewas, "He swallows a shout of pain,breathing heavily, his whole bodytrembling."Another sentence, "His eyes narrowedagainst the glare outside and the darkerglare inside him." Eyes narrowed againstthe glare outside sounds likeunnecessarily vain and ominousin a way that's unnecessary. Uh thereason could be that it was drawn from arandom horror blog, the originalsentence being, "His eyes narrowedagainst the glare of the halogen striplights."And speaking of the darker glare, whilstit is pretty common, it appears inanother fan fiction story. So,basically,theyou can't work out what's inside of anLLM's brain, which is probably for thebest. But, it'sentirely possible that when you promptit to write fiction, it's not scouringthrough the greatest works ever puttogether. It's looking at, like, randomfan

00:10:51fiction, manga, and anime websiteswritten by somebody at 2:00 a.m. whoreally shouldn't have been doing it.>> Well, what makes sense there? And again,snapshot in time, 6 months, 12 monthsfrom now, this may be completelydifferent. But, what's interesting is ona coding side of things, it's currentlyway more capable than the writing side.And I wonder if that's becauseumcode itself, there'sa lot it's a lot easier to come to anobjective conclusion. So, thing didcompile, thing didn't compile, or thingdid work, thing didn't work. Buttonappeared, button didn't appear.>> [snorts]>> Whereas with writing,it's so much morearound text, it's so much moresubjective. So, it's harder to almostgive the feedback loop of success orfailure. But, it's interesting that youwouldn't that that argument there thatyou would just have the widest data setpossible for writing versus having anLLM that's way moregreat. But, what would be interesting>> In theory, that's quite easy to do.>> So,has anybody done that? Probably. But,it's still even when I've given it greatwriting, it can't it can't for whateverreason repeat it. Maybe it's not goingto be large enough.>> physics that it's built on top of, it'snot just here is good writing.

00:12:06It has tounderstand what each word inside of thatwriting means. And the way that itunderstands what the word inside of thewriting is is based on the bigger corpusthat it has outside of it. So, it's alittle bit like saying, I've got UsainBolt, but he's running into a 35-mphheadwind. Like, regardless of how greatthe talent is that you're trying to pushforward, I think that you're alwaysgoing to be working against this. Now,it's got to be a relatively complex butsimple I'm sorry. Like, uh arduous butsimple solution to be like, just weightit toward great pieces of work.>> arduous, Chris. It's simple.

00:12:41>> [laughter]>> Said like a true Roman senator.Question.>> Question.>> What man could get the most number ofwomen on the planet to turn up at hishouse if he gave them the invite?>> That's um Philosophers have ponderedthis question for hundreds if notthousands of years, Christopher.So, the the real philosophical insightthat's plagued the industry is which manalive could post his addressright now and have the largest line. Whodo you Who do you go for?

00:13:17>> [sighs]>> You need international appeal.>> Yeah.>> You probably need to skew a little bitolder.>> Bigger time.>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to expect>> Especially with a declining population.>> Yeah, aging population. Yeah, agingpopulation means that I think anyoneunder age35 is probably going to struggle. Anyoneunder age 30 is really going tostruggle. And think that you're going towant as amid-50s, 60s year old woman. I don'tknow whether you probably don't want tobe ravaged by that, but I don't thinkyou're going to get the likelihood ofyou upping sticks and getting on thebus, getting on the 59 bus to go towherever this person's address is. So,my my call for this, I think it'sbetweenBrad Pitt,Leonardo DiCaprio.

00:14:07I'm trying to think about who the popstar or rock star would be that would beup there.I bet somebody like a Drake wouldprobably be able to do some damage.>> Mhm, I don't think so.>> He's done his damage.>> He has done a lot of damage.>> Yeah, I think>> But I think I I would I would I wouldput my money I would say I would put mymoney on Brad Pitt. I think it's veryhard to fight>> back against Brad.>> Pitt and DiCaprio are very much theIntel or Microsoft in this moment inthat I think 10 years agoI think you're correct, but I thinkyou're going to be looking ata little bit more blue chip. I thinkDavid Beckham's probably the Apple stockhere. Been around for a while, but Ithink Beckham still outperforms Pittand DiCaprio cuz I think Beckham'sactually more global.Cuz we've got to you've got to belooking at you've got to be looking atAfrica, you've got to be looking atSoutheast Asia.>> looking at Africa. Why what what was thelast thing that David Beckham did thatwas globally recognized?>> If you turned on the World Cup recently,he's on every single advert, my friend.>> I don't think that that is enough.I don't think>> But I also think D BecksD7 still has quite a clean, beautifulimage, whereas Brad Pitt doesn't. Pittlet no def- definitely not. I think lessso as he's got older. And DiCaprio seemsto have>> Capri's tanked his own stock prices.>> Intel, this

00:15:22is what I'm saying.>> Right, I understand.I understand, butI don't think I don't think that you'reright about David Beckham. I I don'tthink that you're going to get I don'tthink he's going to reach out into theMiddle East in the way that Brad Pittwould.I think that you get I think DavidBeckham's going to nail it in like EastAsia. I think he's going to absolutelycrush it cuz they're kind of sportscrazy over there. I don't think>> You're joking me. With the Saudi Leagueand the Qatar World Cup, I think I thinkD Bex is is well-known out there.And the English accent still goes a longway, my friend.>> That's I just don't think he's doneanything relevant for a long time.>> Okay.We can agree to disagree. I do think>> Who's an outside favorite?>> I think Styles is very much the Nvidiaof our moment, yes.>> He's the [laughter]>> Yeah, he's It may fall. The market maycollapse, but he's very much leading thecharge.>> Uh Timothy Chalamet's like ChatGPT orOpen AI. He's currently He's currentlyprivate because he's in a committedlong-term relationship.>> is as well. I It's not It's notnecessarily about private or public>> David Beckham is close It's SpaceXpre-IPO.>> Yes. Yes.Very established for quite a long time.A lot of investment from variety ofcountries.>> Mhm.>> People really cared about his success,and then finally he's been able to cashout if he manages to break up withVictoria.>> Mhm.Fascinating philosophical question.>> This is the most important question ofour time.

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00:17:52The only catch, youcan't actually place an order.There are also virtual smoke breakswhere users join anonymous chat roomsand socialize with strangers recreatingthe feeling of taking a break withoutsmoking a single cigarette. The idea issimple, get the familiar dopamine hitwithout spending money, smoking, orgiving in to other impulsive habits.>> I saw that and I think the argument theya big argument you'll see online is thisbehavior is happening in Asia, thereforeit's going to downstream happen in theWest. And I think it's a little bit of acoin toss. Sometimes Asia is ahead ofus, but sometimes it's just such adifferent culture. So, I think it wasI forgot which Facebook product managerwas talking about how they'd release anew feature and they'd test it often inthe Philippines.And they'd this crazy reaction andthey'd go, "We have to launch this newfeature immediately."And the amount of times they'll thentest it on the West or anywhere else inthe world and it wouldn't work. So, theyactually banned doing testsor stopped doing tests for a lot offeatures in the Philippines becausetheir phone usage is so different toours. They spend so much more time ontheir phones than any other part of theworld.>> So, it's just Why is that?>> Where Where is it like a human thingthat's these people are just ahead

00:19:08versus where is it just a culturalthing? Have you everHave you ever come across Montaigne'slists?>> No.>> Do you know who Montaigne is?>> He's a philosopher.>> Montaigne, yeah, so French Frenchphilosopher. Would be fascinating tohear his perspectives on thethe old queue debate. But Montaigne usedto have lists that he would keep of whatdifferent cultures thought wereacceptable throughout history. Just sohe could remind himself that this wholething is largely made up. It's largelysocial contingent. So some of my likefavorite from Montaigne's lists Soone, where it's normal to grow out yourhair on the right side of your body, butshave everything on the left. Wherewhite teeth is deemed as unattractive,so they purposely get their teethblacker and blacker and blacker.Where at a certain age, you're supposedto kill your own father. When you andyour father hit a certain age, you saygoodbye.Another one of Montaigne's lists arewhen at a funeral, you're supposed tochop up the dead,grind them to a pulp, pour it into wine,and then drink them on the day of thefuneral.And the final one, one for you actually,Christopher, cuz I'm sure you'veattended many events like this, which iscertain

00:20:23cultures, for their weddings,the success of a wedding was judged byhow manyof the groom's friends could sleep withthe bride. Which I know is actuallyquite common in in the northeast ofEngland. But that's only if they'refamily. So Montaigne kept these lists tohimself like more and more and more andmore examples like that just to hold amirror up to himself and the times thathe's in.>> So he's collecting weird cultures,cultures that we would find strange andthat their norms are different to oursin an attempt to try and highlight,"Hey, whatever it is that you think isnormal is just consensus because ofwhere you are, and if you were to besomewhere else, your consensus would betotally different.">> Yes. Do you want I tell you what, do youwant a list of I I was thinking, "Okay,let's say Montaigne came back today.Iwas writing this chapter recently.So, let's say Montaigne came back todayand was like, "Well, what's normaltoday?"So,normal consumes 17 teaspoons of sugarper day.Normal has a 104,755dollars in debt. Normal is 30 poundsoverweight. Ozempic pending.Normal averages less than 4,000 stepsper day. Normal spends 90,000 hours oftheir life at work disengaged.

00:21:38Normalstays indoors for 22.3 hours per day.Normal spends more time on the toiletthan exercising. Normal hasn't finisheda book in the last 12 months. Normalexperiences under 10 minutes per day insilence. Normal will spend 20 years oftheir life watching TV or scrollingsocial media.>> Under 10 minutes a day in in silence.>> Mhm.>> And more time on the toilet than itexercising.

00:22:07>> Averages. But then, there's always acriticism around averages that you endup netting it out. But when you begin tolook at Oh,is this is just what's accepted todayand maybe tomorrow weddings will be backthat you like to attend.>> In the 1830s in Massachusetts, beardswere so uncommon and strange that a mannamed Joseph Parker was mocked andshunned for wearing one. Assailantstried to forcibly shave him, but hefought them off with a knife and wasimprisoned for assault. He refused topay his fine or court fees, so heremained in prison for over a year. Andthis at least gave him the excuse tocreate an all-time classic tombstone.>> Oh, wow.>> The right to a full beard is honored bythe grave of a man who was attacked injail due to due to his facial hair.>> Wow.>> Talk about norms, mate.>> That's a great beard.On thethe one of the things that everybodykind of has discussed in the marketingspace for ages is that live streamingwill become normal in the West becauseit's normal in the East.But I'm yet to see like live shoppingwhere people sit there for hours andhours per day. I'm yet to see that fullytake off.>> Well, it depends what you mean cuz livestreaming kick, Twitch, obviously that's>> Live streaming, yes.

00:23:23But actual liveshopping, sorry.>> Live shopping, different. UmIRL streaming feels I don't know whetherthey've got that in I bet they don'thave that in Asia.You know the IRL stuff where people arewalking about, sometimes causingnuisance, and doing predator stings, andI imagine that they don't becausea good bit of Asia feels like it's gothonor culture where you don't want todisrupt. I mean, you've seen Japanesesubways, the Japanese tube, and I'vebeen on the phone to a friend who livesin Japan, and he'll warn me while he'son the side of theuh subway uh waiting at the terminal,and then the he'll tell me, "Look,I'm just about to get on." And he won'tsay anything. He won't respond to me onthe phone. He won't even whisper. So,I'll be talking to him for 3 minuteswithout him being able to respond.And then he'll get off and he'll talkback to me. That's how And he's notnative Irish.Andthat's how much reverence people havejust complete silence. So, they'replaying your drill rap on the back ofthe bus.Not that. Not even whispering. Not eventalking to each other.>> Wow.>> That crazy? Do you know that?>> Wow. I didn't know that. It'sinteresting how much of who you thinkyou are

00:24:39is justpostcode.>> Oh, it's so much of it's ecology, right?I mean, and that's the reason whychanging your environment has such a bigimpact on your life. If youboth me and you changed gyms over thelast 6 months,and that made a massive impact. It justa adifferent routine didn't change me as aperson but it changed the way that myday was shaped but oh actually myroutine is largely built around some ofthe other things that I already do andif I change where I go and do them thatalters maybe having the office havingthe office in the studio that's made amassive difference as well. So what doyou think from stuff that's happened inAsia that has prophetically come acrossto America?Ooh.

00:25:23A little boo-boosAsian?They look like they are. What's a littleboo-boo? It's these little stuffedanimals. They were it was the Dubaichocolate of the stuffed animal worldand people were queuing up for ages toget a keyring and Yeah.Andcollect those. It's funny how we'rebeing in the West we talk about Asiathe same way I always find it absurdwhen somebody talks about Europe.Obviously Brexit means Brexit so we'reno longer in Europe. Butthe [snorts]the idea that Asia is this place orAfrica This planet is absolutelymassive.>> Yes. And the>> I'm going to Europe. What the [ __ ] doesthat mean? But because we're so far awaywe don't think of Asia as being anythingdifferent than just one big>> uh hegemon. And there seems to be arecurring memetic trend throughoutgeography which is you think two placesbecause they're next door neighbor arevery similar to one another or get homewith one another but historically it'sthe opposite.I laugh whenever I interact with theFrench that we are>> 23 miles away.>> So different. So fundamentallydifferent. I could it's actually hard tofind a cultureuh as different to Britain in Europe Iwould say than the French.>> Mhm.>> And we're next door neighbors.

00:26:40>> Yeah we are but I mean speaking assomebody that's dressed as an ex-Italianessentially you wouldyou would know.>> [laughter]>> You would know. You would understand.Yeah I uhI don't know about the Asian to Idefinitely know that there's a lot ofstuff that goes on over there thatdoesn't happen over here. You can buyused period pants in vending machines. Isaw Craig Jones do this on a vlog.Some ladies had menstruated through herpants and then you can buy them in alittle It comes in a little Pokéballlike that and it's in a specially sealedbag inside of a Pokéball. So.>> I don't think that's taking off in theWest.>> anytime soon.Yeah, there are certain areas that areresisting globalization.It's kind of impressive.California's gay certification.California is pressuring publicutilities to award $633 million inspecial contracts to LGBT owned firms.To qualify, residents must go throughthe state's official gay certificationprogramand face up to a year in jail if they'renot gay enough. By 2022, the CaliforniaPublic Utilities Commission establisheda goal for utility companies with annualrevenues exceeding $25 million to buythings from state-certified LGBTbusinesses. 0.5% of procurement in 2021,

00:27:561% in 2023, 1.5% in 2024 and beyond. Iflarge CPUC regulated utilities meetthese goals in 2024,they would have sent $633 millionto LGBT owned firms. The scheme raisesan obvious question.How does a business qualify asofficially gay?Paperwork. Supplier Clearinghouse, agroup that certifies firms for the CPUCprogram, features a list ofqualifications linked on its website.Applicants can secure certification byproviding a letter from an LGBTorganization attesting to their sexualpreferences,proof that a newspaper identified themas LGBT,or three letters from personal contactswritten on company letterhead attestingto their homosexual orientation.Corporate officials who falselyrepresent their business as gay face upto a year in county jail. SupplyClearinghouse also accepts gaycertification letters from the NationalLGBTQ plus and allied set Chamber ofCommerce. The Chamber has its own listof accepted documents including humanresources complaints or police recordsclaiming LGBT discrimination. As itstates on its website, "Certification isa journey, not a destination." Wow.Think you'd be able to pull off gettingCalifornia's gay certification toreceive $633

00:29:12million? What>> What So, what percentage do you needto be gay?>> Yes.>> You need to be gay. You don't It's not apercent.>> So, it's not a recruitment percentage.>> No.>> So, oh, okay.>> No.>> So, you have to hit if you have acertain level that you get the funding.>> Yep. Yep. Exactly. But, you know, alsoneed to be gay to unlock it.>> Hmm.>> So, what If you're not gay, you don'tget it. And if you're not big enough,you don't get it. But, if you're bigenough, they need to be findingsufficiently diverse So, these companiesactually one of the best ways to do thiswould be to hire This is an incentive tohire C-suite executives that are gay.>> Damn.>> It would unlock an awful lot of CPUCfunding in California.>> Damn.>> And you face a year incounty jail.>> That's That's real That's real foundermode right there. Like, if you'rewilling to>> take it up the ass.>> Yeah. ToYeah.>> Yeah. If you're going to power bottomyour way to the top.>> Yeah.>> [laughter]>> You either get [ __ ] by investors orget [ __ ] bysomeone [snorts] else.>> Craig.>> Well, look, it's going to It's It's It'sI don't know, man. The The whole>> Is that real? Is that all real? That'sreal.>> Well, that's literally that's a brandI'm not going to lie to you.>> I know. I know.>> Why would I lie to you? Where did I getthis from? cityjournal.com. There it is.Inside California's gay certificationprogram. The state is pressuringutilities to award $633 million incontracts to LGBT businesses.

00:30:27Interesting.The tip of the spear for LGBT diversityisenergy and utilities.>> Hmm.>> Contracts [snorts] for state certifiedgay-owned businesses.You could arbitrage the hell out ofthis.You know, when people say, "How muchwould it How much would you have to payto be gay?"If the number is less than $633 million,you're quids in.>> Damn.>> What else? What else you got? You gotsome stuff? Did you bring anything fromhome?>> Yeah, go on. Do I have some stuff? Asalways, umOh.>> My bag of cash is getting in the way. Inother news, Shopify powers 10% of alle-commerce companies in the US. They arethe driving force behind Gymshark andSkims and Alo and Newtonic, which is whyI partnered with them because when itcomes to converting browsers intobuyers, they are best in class. Theircheckout is 36% better, on average,compared to other leading commerceplatforms. And with Shop Pay, you canboost conversions up to 50%. Basically,you didn't get into business to learnhow to code or build a website or dealwith the inventory stuff [ __ ] on theback end. You just want to get down tocreating and promoting an awesomeproduct. And Shopify takes all of themess off your hands and allows

00:31:42you tofocus on the job you actually came hereto do, designing and selling the thingthat you love. So, upgrade your businessand get the same checkout that we usewith Newtonic with Shopify. Right now,you can sign up for a $1 per month trialperiod by going to the link in thedescription below or heading toshopify.com/modernwisdom,all lowercase. That'sshopify.com/modernwisdom.>> Story of a Spanish chicken farmer calledJuan Pujol. So, it's 1941.Start of World War Iand he's essentially a failure hisentire life. So, he's been a chickenfarmer, a a manager of a one-star hotel,um before uh bankruptcy.And he's after a new job with atremendous CV. So, he's walking alongthe streets of Madrid, takes a right,goes into the British Embassy, and says,"I want a job at MI5 to help out and spyon the Nazis."And MI5 or the embassy sort of say,"Okay, how about you put that in writingand we'll come back to you." Which isthe British way of saying, "Get the [ __ ]out." So, he leaves the building,comes back, walks across, goes into theembassy, says, "I want a job with MI5."

00:32:58They ask him to leave.Tries again. He just like walks acrossthe street and turns around. No, theseare multiple like future events. So, hekeeps coming back.Fourth time, he's walking alongand he decideshe walks up the steps, but this time hegoes into the German embassy. And hegoes, "I hate the Brits. I want a jobfor the Nazis to spy on Britain." Andthe Nazis are eyeing him up and he talksabout his love for the Führer, the loveum for the Third Reich and how much hehates his new inspired hatred for GreatBritain.And the Nazis end up training him up,giving him little tasks and he keepsproving himself,>> [snorts]>> learns how invisible ink works, umends up recruiting multiple agentsinside of Great Britain. So, he buildshis way upand then he walks back street of Madrid,goes to the British embassy and says, "Inow want a job at MI5 because I'm one ofthe most valuable spies for the Nazis."So, he got rejected, rejected, rejectedand was like, "Okay, I'll take mattersinto my own hands."So, he then becomes the most valuablespy for Britain during World War II. Hebuilds up a network of 27

00:34:14sub agentsinside of Britain that the Nazis believeare true, but it's all his ownimagination. All these different agentsthat he would create stories from thatthey were doing.So much so, when he arrived, the MI5called him Garbo because Garbo at thetime was the most famous actress in theworld.>> Greta Garbo?>> Yes, so named after for his actingskills.So, Juan Pujol, the Spanish chickenfarmer,the most important moment in World WarII was D-Day. So, as D-Day washappening,Juan gave so much fake information. Heconvinced them that D-Day was going tohappen in Calais. So, Hitler and Himmlerwere getting these reports fromJuan.They thought the war was going to happenin Calais, so they sent some of theirmost important armies to Calais. Then,theuh D-Day happens.And Juan was so convincing, even withhis fake reports, that Hitler gave himum the Iron Cross. So, he's the onlyagentto get both an Iron Cross from Hitlerand an MBE from>> No way.>> Yeah. And do you know what's tragicthough? So, they say that in when itcomes to

00:35:29D-Day, the most important dayof World War II, the three mostimportant peoplewere Eisenhower, who looked after theUS,um I think Montgomery, who looked afterthe Great Britain, and Juan Pujol, theSpanish chicken farmer. Those are thethree most important people in D-Day interms of the impact.But this guy who gets these doubleawards ends up dying in 1949 Mozambiqueto malaria.And up in the 1980s, three of the agentsthat worked with him in MI5 uh sat at abar. So, they're all in their like late80s now, and they're talking about thewar. They're in this former littleintelligence pub,and they're chatting about the war,and having a few drinks,and they have this kind of confused lookon their faces. This old guy is walkingtowards them.And they get more and more confused withtheir face.And then this 80-year-old man who's aMI5 spy breaks down in tears crying.And they go, "It can't be. You'resupposed to be dead."So,his final last act was to fake his owndeath in 1949,and he lived in a bookstore inVenezuela.So, the

00:36:44not So, the Nazis would neverknow where he was.>> That's insane.>> Spanish chicken farmer.>> Was he really worried about Naziretribution in 1949?>> Yes.>> Were the Nazis still going around andchasing people in the>> Ironically, even though he's inVenezuela, there was a lot of Nazis inSouth America.>> but if he'd not gone to [ __ ]Venezuela, he supposedly caught malariain Africa.>> There's still a lot of>> Uh Mozambique is I think West Africa.>> Right. Okay.>> But in 1949 or even onwards, there wasFirst off, we're viewing history throughhindsight. At the time, there was stillmillions of Germans that served for theNazis that were still alive. So, yeah,there was lots of Nazis afterwards.>> Mhm. And they would wanted retributionfor people that had I did I I I guess Idon't know why.>> The most impactful man during D-Day whowas a double agent that gave them allthis false information, if there's oneperson they're going to try and kill,>> Yeah, that's true. I I guess I don'tknow what happened in Germany afterthey lost. I don't know how quicklyeverybody capitulated. Well, there wasthis>> I was listening to Finn versus History,and they was talking about how>> Friend of the show.>> in uhwhen after the Nazis commit theHolocaust, I think they were banned forthe World Cup or for like internationalgames for 4 years. But when Liverpoolhad the incident in Juventus where uhloads of fans

00:37:59died, they were banned for6 years. It's like it's not Doesn'tscale Doesn't scale accordingly.>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's uhI mean, unbelievable amount of agency. II supposeto be a guy that wants a job so badlythat you take the opposite job to getthe first job. It's just as well that hereally did want to work for MI5, cuz ifhe didn't, he would have just been agreat asset to the Nazis.>> But it's having that that level oftheory of mind ofokay, I've been rejected from something.What does this person want that wouldmake me completely invaluable? Cuz Ithink there's this kind of myth thatoh, if you've been rejected, just keepgoing and they're idiots versus can youget inside of their head and think howthey think.>> Yeah.Yeah, I think umis it time to push or is it time topivot is kind of the age-old question,but he didn't>> both.>> Mhm.>> Right, he pivoted into a new one. Allright, so that's your story time. It's anew segment a new segment on our episodestory time. My story time.Shavarsh Karapetyan. Are you familiarwith Shavarsh Karapetyan?>> No.>> Okay, so uh 1976in uh Yerevanand there's a trolley bus carryingaround about 90 passengers. We don'tknow what happened. Uh some people saythat the

00:39:14driver of the bus had a heart attack.Some people say that he was having analtercation with a a passenger on board.Whatever happened,crashed into a reservoir.>> Huh.>> Yerevan. The bus sank roughly 10 m or 30ftto the bottom. Freezing, murky water.There was a 23-year-old man who'straining with his brother nearby,Shavarsh Karapetyan. And uh withoutgiving it much thought, jumps into thewater and ordered his brother to helphim from the shore. He said it was scaryat first. It was so loud as if a bombwent off. I almost drowned severaltimes. I could imagine the agony ofthose 92 peopleand I knew how they would die.The thing was, Karapetyan wasn't anordinary bystander.He was a 17-time world champion and11-time world record holderin fin swimming.>> Huh.>> He was one of the best underwaterswimmers on Earth.Immediately dives into the water tohelp. Visibility is basically zero cuzthe reservoir is full of mud and sewageand debris as well. Obviously, the bushas gone in, so it's kicked up all ofthis silt. Basically, impossible to see.So, he swims down into the dark, locatesthe bus. He called ita traveling coffin for all of these 92people. He kicks the rear window inunderwater to get inside.Dives down, dive after dive, holds hisbreath, finds trapped

00:40:30passenger, dragshim back to the surface, hands them tothe rescuers and his brother in arowboat, goes straight back down again.Reportedly made dozens of dives overaround about 20 minutes and physicallypulled out about 37 people.20 of them survived. During one dive, heaccidentally grabbed a leather seatcushion instead of a passenger cuz hisvisibility was so poor. You know, it'dbe one of these old-school buses thatwould have had movable cushions. Hegrabbed this this leather cushion andbrought it up thinking it was maybe asmall human. He later said that this onedecision haunted him for years becausehe believed someone may have died whilehe carried up the cushion instead.Karapetyan was hospitalized along withthe victims of the accident becausehe'd lacerated all of his legs, all ofhis body from going through the brokenglass, from breaking the glass himself.Uh septic fever, double-sided pneumonia,and nervous prostration had doctorsfighting for his life for over a month.When he was finally discharged, Shavarshwent back to practice, but swimmingunderwater echoed painfully in his in inhis lungs. But, he wouldn't give upwithout having one final medal. So,during the next championship, he swam ina haze. Still wasn't in any way back tofull capacity. His brother, Kamol, ranalong the side of the pool ready to jumpin

00:41:45in case he suddenly lostconsciousness. But, he came in first andset another world record without evenrealizing that he'd done it at the time.He was so delirious. But, the rescuethat he'd done of the bus had destroyedhis athletic career. Broken glassshredded his legs. Polluted water hadcaused severe pneumonia and sepsis hecouldn't recover from. He spent all ofthose weeks plus then months criticallyill and then recovering. Sovietauthorities initially downplayed thestory, so it remained relatively unknownfor years. And today, the rescue isconsidered one of the greatest acts ofcivilian heroism ever recorded.>> Jesus Christ.>> That's a>> thick Russian.>> Carpathian. Yeah, yeah, like a seriousRussian guy. That's him there in just apair of pants. And everybody else istrying to pull it up.>> Wow.

00:42:30>> In hindsight.>> Wow.>> There's a an award. Jared, ask ask abold friend. Uh what's the name of theaward that's given to people who risktheir lives for strangers?>> The award you're likely thinking of isthe Carnegie Medal. It's given tocivilians who risk their lives to saveor attempt to save strangers.>> Is there anything interesting about thedemographics of the people who've beengiven that award?>> There are some patterns worth noting.The Carnegie Hero Fund, which awards themedal, has found that recipients comefrom all walks of life. Age, gender, andbackground vary widely.>> interesting.>> Historically, men have been the majorityof recipients, but women have also beenrecognized.>> men How many men won?>> The Carnegie Hero Fund has awardedthousands of people since its inceptionin 1904.>> [ __ ] what?>> Historically, the majority have beenmen.>> What's the percentage of men that havewon the Carnegie Award?>> [laughter]>> The Carnegie Hero Fund reports thathistorically about 90% of recipientshave been>> [laughter]>> All right, shut up. I I just IWhatever happened in 2020 continues tocarry over now. Do you know what I mean?Like California thinks that the mostimportant thing to do with its utilities

00:43:45is not give people cheap and reliableenergy, but to make sure that thediversity of the sexuality of the peoplewho own the companies is important. Andyou, [ __ ] 5.5.Need to have a chat with someone aboutyou. Anyway, uh that Carpathian I I Ilove that story. I think it's [ __ ]awesome. And umWhat What is the kind of kicker is thefact that you know that he washe made such a personal sacrifice, butthen also was ravaged by the fact thathe picked up a [ __ ] cushion havinggone down 37 times.>> Mhm.>> And one time he made a mistake in pitchblackness when he couldn't see. Thenwhat's the likelihood that the guythat's running on the side of the roadwith his brotherlike he's got his pants on.He's got the He's got the out He's thethe number one fin swimmer, deep seaswimmer in the world, 17 times, 11 worldrecords.>> Tragic.>> Yeah.>> Tragic.>> Yeah.>> If you're trying to go from JoeyChestnut to Joey Swoll, the RP Strengthapp is the best place to start. I'vebeen in the gym for two decades and itwasn't until this last year that I hadsome of the best training sessions of mylife and RP was a massive part of that.Actual scientist built this thing aroundthe obsession to beat up their highschool bullies and provide the mostscience-backed effective path tomaximizing muscle gain. It tells youyour

00:45:00exercises, how many sets, reps, theweights, everything. So, all you have todo is show up and lift. The RP Strengthapp could wipe your ass for you.Probably would. It adjusts automaticallyevery week based on how you're actuallyprogressing. For me, following a properevidence-based plan has made a massivedifference and if you're serious aboutyour training, it'll do the same foryou. Right now, you can follow the exactsame training plan that I use and get upto $50 off the RP Hypertrophy app bygoing to the link in the descriptionbelow heading torpstrength.com/modernwisdomand using the code modernwisdomat checkout. That'srpstrength.com/modernwisdomand modernwisdom at checkout.>> Yeah, it's it's interestinghow often that is the case where you'llhave these acts of great heroism thatdon't have 100% success rate and thenthe individual spendsso much timelooping onthat.>> Yeah, that's the that's survivor guilt,I suppose, right?>> I've known some people who've done someincredible things like in the police orfirework, for example, and it's the samething. They don't ruminate on thethe heroism, it's theIt's the one>> mistakes that they made. Yeah, thepeople they could have saved. I wonderwhat that's for. I guess thatadaptively it'strying to get you to focus onthis is

00:46:15something prosocial that youcould have done if you'd been moreprepared, more skillful,umtherefore in future you need toyou need to adapt youryour approach so thatthis doesn't happen again. Maybe that'sthe reason for survivor guilt. Actually,Jared, just type it in chat GPT. What isthe reasonWhat is the adaptive reason for survivorguilt? Adaptive explanation for survivorguilt. Cuz I the only thing that I canthink of is that it's supposed to tryand guide your future behavior.So thatWell, I mean, [ __ ] Bluetooth came upas a thousand year old Norse god orsomething like that. So [ __ ] knows ifwe're going to find out.What is the adaptive explanation? Froman evolutionary or adaptive perspective,survivor guilt can be understood as abyproduct of mechanism to help humansmaintain social bonds, cooperation, andgroup cohesion. Okay, so my hypothesisis looking good so far. Basic idea isthat in ancestral environments, humanssurvive and reproduce largely throughbelonging to a group. When one personbenefited while others suffered, thereare often social consequences. So theinverse of that, okay. Maintaining groupcohesion. If you survived a dangerousevent while close allies did not,feeling distress rather thanindifference signalsOh, that's cool.So becauseif something bad happens and

00:47:30you wereone of the few that survived, if youshow that you feel distress as opposedto indifference, it reinforces toeverybody else that you weren't selfishand an [ __ ] that you actually regretthe fact that they died and that youdidn't. I am still a part of the group.I didn't take it all for myself. Ididn't just swim out the back of the busmyself. I really did try. Umreciprocal altruism and fairnessmechanisms. They've got strongintuitions. So when we're receiving anunexpected benefit relative to otherseven when we did nothing wrong. Ourminds may interpret the situation as aviolation of fairness expectations.Survivor guilt may arise from the samepsychological machinery machinery thatmakes people pretty uncomfortablereceiving disproportionate rewards.Okay. Motivation to help survivors.Yeah. Okay. So it encourages caring forbrief families, supporting injured groupmembers. Counterfactual learning.Humans are unusually prone to imaginingalternative outcomes. The counterfactualhelps us learn from near misses indangerous situations. Dude, don't[ __ ] test me on evolutionary theory.Okay. Don't test the Hamburglar onevolutionary theory. My intuitions arestrong.>> [laughter]>> Costly signal of commitment as well.Grief and function. You can't fake it.That's an interesting one. So that's thethe reason umwhy would it be the case that whenyou're sad or distressed or overwhelmedwith umnegative emotion that

00:48:46the same thing your eyes do to make surethat your eyes stay lubricated would gointo overdrive. Uh why do we cry? Likewhat's the reason for crying?And one of the uh adaptive explanationsfor this, which is pretty fascinating,isit's such a costly signal to dobecause the most important sense youhave is your eyes.And if you're prepared to fill them withwater to say how much I've been hurt orhow much I'm suffering, you're in anunbelievably vulnerable position.You can't fight. You can't see. Youcan't defend yourself. Tears are comingout and you can't fully operate. This ishow much I'm in pain. I mean so muchpain that I'm essentially exposing myneck to you.>> So how do you then factor in tears ofjoy?Why do we cry out of joy?>> I did ask this question. So it could bea spandrel, which is just a crossoverbetween the two, but it could just bethe same thing. It could be a verycostly signal. Hey, look at how much Ilove this thing that's happening.I am here. Collective effervescence. Meand the group, we are one. I experiencethis thing with you, too. And I do thinkwhen it comes to sort of emotions,um sadness,like peakjoy, joyful experiences, beautifulexperiences,

00:50:03and sad or sort of dreadfulexperiences, they kind of have this samelike part of the pitch of of the thechord that they play is kind of similar,right? It's like an outside of the body,at least when I when I experience stuffthat's like really intense, whether it'sgood or bad. I always feel it's sort ofacross the top of my shoulders and mytraps and like sort of everything feelslike it lifts up a little bit if I'mbeing delivered bad news by somebody orif there's something that's reallybeautiful happening, it always feelslike I'm sort of being lifted a bit. Sothere there seems to be similarities, aresonance between those two. Um thosetwo those two visuals Jared, if youcould pull them up, there's one of howemotion feels in the body.I don't know if you've seen this onewhere it's like all the heat maps.And there's alsoYeah, there's also the topography oftears. How different types of tears lookunder a microscope. And they're slightlydifferent.Is this artist Yeah, this artistproduced it where so top left.So here isyeah, how emotions at least feel in thebody.Which kind of makes sense.mapping emotions so is that self report?this is more self report of how it howit feels.

00:51:18Okay, so I haven't gone anydeeper into it. Angus seems prettyright. So Angus sort of above the likeupper chest, arms and hands a lot, lowerface a lot and head. And if you startwith neutral on the right, so you kindof see okay, this is neutral. And thenyou compare that to all the differentones. Surprise is definitely a lot inthe head, that's cool. Sadness is kindof in the middle of the chest. Happinesssort of everywhere.Disgust definitely in the stomach. Sodisgust disgust and anxiety both in thestomach the most, that would make sense,cuzdisgust is a pathogen rejection.>> Mhm.>> Uhfear, middle of the chest. I think thatseems quite right. Interesting thathappiness is basically just tuned downlove.Depression's cool. The depression, itsays here it's just sort of alow energy state or on your extremitiesas opposed to anxiety. And I would agreewith that. I think anxiety is a muchmore active version of depression.Contempt ex-like existing exclusively in the head.>> Mhm.>> Is pretty cool. Pride, so the swellingin the chest makes sense.Shame, the cheeks. That's people getembarrassed. And envy, sort of littlebit of head and some heart. That'sactuallyWould you disagree with any of those?>> I think I think it feels it feelsaccurate

00:52:33as trying to be neutral rightnow.Uh could you search topography of tears,please, Jared? This was done by I thinkan artist that made this.>> Uh go to that video that Instagramvideo. Let's just see what this whatthis lady's got to say. Third one.Click and open.>> that your tears look differentunderneath a microscope depending on theemotion that you're experiencing. Thisproject was called the topography oftears by Rosalind Fisher. She's aphotographer and what they did is theylooked at tears underneath a microscopeand you will see that depending on whatthese participants were experiencing,their tears look different. This istears of laughter versus tears ofchange, tears of grief versus tears fromcutting onions. This is tears whensomeone is experiencing a moment ofcatharsis, whereas someone isexperiencing a moment of change.>> a therapist and I often show this to myclients because I think it gives areally good demonstration that crying isactually really important at times torelease certain things from our body.And being able to see that our tearsactually look different depending onwhat we're experiencing, I think reallydemonstrates that really well. Did youknow>> Insane. That's cool. I want to know whatthe

00:53:48[ __ ] it. Just ask Jared. Ask ChatGPTfrom the topography of tearsstudywhat are the differences in thestructureof tears or why are they there? Cuz Iwant to know what What is inside of thetear that's different? Is it more saltcontent? Is it Like what How much shit'sin tears?Like I guess maybe you could have youcould I don't know. Is cortisol in theblood that leaks into the tears? Butsurelytears are kind of like sperm produced inadvance and then released.Uh there are three main categories.Basal tears, constantly produced tolubricate the eyes. Reflex tears,produced in response to irritants likeonions. And emotional tears.Key biochemical difference, here we go.Is that emotional tears contain higherconcentrations of certain proteins andhormones including prolactin, adreno-corticotropichormone, stress-related hormone,leucine cephalin, a naturalpain-relieving peptide. Differences inminerals such as potassium andmanganese. When tear dries on a slide,these dissolved substances crystallizeinto different patterns.Wow, there isn't a simple one-to-onemapping of grief. So grief always lookslike X and joy always looks like Y. Thepatterns vary considerably

00:55:04even withinthe same emotional category. The amountof ratios of protein, salts, hormones,and other biochemical I didn't realizethat you had that much. Obviously, youcan cry for different reasons. If Istart cutting an onion in front of youor if you're in pain or if you'refeeling something or if you're justlubricating your eyes. Testosteronetears as well.>> The high The higher T that you have, thethe completely different>> [laughter]>> Greg Plavaki's tears from Bloomeractually a protein shake.>> [laughter]>> For the people that don't know, GregPlavaki has got 2,000 ng per deciliterof testosterone.>> [laughter]>> Yeah, Greg Plavaki's tears. That's inthis bag. It's not money. It's justGreg's next testosterone.>> You pull up Greg's tears, they just[ __ ]drain.>> They've got they've vascular tears.Uh yeah.Yeah, it's uhThe emotions thing's been interesting.Uhtrying to navigate this over the last 18months or so. I still thinkkind of interested in what the theconversation around men showing emotionsis. Obviously, I've talked about it alot. Like everyone's talked about it alot.But uhone of the interesting wrinkles that Ilearned about was I don't think that menare particularly good at receiving othermen's emotions. Like we often talk

00:56:19aboutguys need to open up more. Look at allof the people that are taking their ownlives. Whatever it is. However many menper minute or men per day are doingthis.Uh you need to open up. But a lot of thetime if a guy does that on the internet,it's not just womenthat are unaccommodating to a guy that'smaybe crying or feeling bad or seeming alittle weak. Like guys, I would guess onaverage, are actually morediscarding. Men are less accommodatingof other men's sad emotions than womenare.>> Mhm.>> And a lot of the time these would be thesame men that would say something to theeffect of, "Wow,men's mental health's in a in a state.Like nobody really cares that much." Yougo, "Okay, so which one is it?" Becauseif you're not prepared to hold your boylike while he's going through a hardtime, you don't also really get to say,"We need to talk about men's mentalhealth more." You need to put where yourlike your emotions where your mouth is,so to speak.>> Mhm.My natural thought, at least from myexperience, isI don't expect friends to be these puremixed martial artists that haveeverything across the board. So, I knowif let's say for example, I want tobreak down in tears, there's certainpeople who I will who I'd speak to. Andthen there's other friends where if I

00:57:34you know what I mean want to [ __ ]pull it together, I'll speak to them. Sothis like having a little bit of more ofa decentralized on chainfriend base. I just I just thinkYeah, I think expecting the the personwho helps you topull it together to then also be theperson that's perfect with youremotions. It's hard to have that.>> I agree, but if it's the person whouh is sayingwe need to have better resources formen's mental health, but they're alsonot being accommodatingthat just seems like a kind of hypocrisyto me. And this is fromMan of Good, Tom Golden's thing. And umit makes sense because what youbasically have as a man like I thinkthat it takes a lot of work for guys toget over that sort of visceral ick ofother men's sad emotions.Uh this is a price that's maybe not seenbywomen or it's also hidden by men, but ifthere's a guy who's able to sit in likeCharlie Hooper for instance or ConnorBeaton or Joe Hudson or Dr. K. Uh theseare people that are trainedprofessionally to be able to do thisobviously. The fact that they can sitthey have had to get over a lot of thatprogramming because your programming asa man is if I'm around another guy whodoesn't seem to be able to hold ittogether emotionally, he's an unreliableally.How do I know that when we go on ournext hunt or when the tribe from thenext valley comes and tries to attack

00:58:50usthat he's actually going to be able tohold it together. How do I not know thathe's going to break down in tears. Thisis the same reasonThis is spicy one. I need to put aex-second [ __ ] pair of glasses on forthis.William Costello told me that mosthomophobia in men isn't homophobia, it'sfemophobia.So we're actuallythe disgust mechanism that gets turnedon or the aversion that some men have toseeing gay men isn't necessarily aboutthe gayness, it's about the femininitythat is being presented by a man. Andthat's the same mechanism thatunreliable ally if this guy doesn't seemto be showing the typical masculineuh uh sort ofcontrol, conquer, aggression, tense toesforwards energy that I expect from otherguys, what happens when there is somesort of altercation or issue in futurethat we need to to step in on? So, yeah,femophobia homophobia is like kind ofinteresting.>> I immediately think of who's the mostmasculinegay man in the world who then breaksthat who creates a a paradox.>> Tell me, who's the most masculine gayman that you know?>> I don't know. I'm usuallymultiple drinks deep at the time.

01:00:07>> That is a [ __ ] great question.A lot of the tech bro people>> I I I Would you look at Peter Thiel andguess gay?>> I don't think I'd look at him and guessgay.>> He was in the closet for a long timeuntil Gawker.>> Yeah. Yeah, with the Hulk Hogan thing.By the way, uh if you need a new listenon Audible, of a very old relatively oldbook, Ryan Holiday's book Conspiracy.Guy that's written a lot about stoicism.Books on stoicism are good. This one'shis best one by distance. So [ __ ]good. Can you ever You tell me you'veread it.>> A while ago.>> It's [ __ ] amazing. It's so fantastic.>> What's the plot? It's around Hulk Hogan?>> So, um Peter Thiel getsousted byuhGawker. I think it's Gawker's subsidiarycompany. I can't remember what it'scalled. Umthat was reporting on Silicon Valley anduhI swear the headline was something likePeter Thiel's gay as [ __ ] people.And uh at this point, he still wasn'tout about the fact that he is.And he held onto thisfor maybe five or years, and he'sbuilding this case behind

01:01:23the scenes,and he recruits this guy called Mr. A.Mr. A was this operator that came to himwho was just going to be ablelegal expertMachiavellian conniving sort of guy, andthey start to look for ways to take downthis company, and then the Hulk Hogansex tape happens. And during the trialfor the Hulk Hogan sex tape, it turnsout thatTerry Bollea,Hulk Hogan's just got like infinitymoney.He's got the best lawyers. He's got hejust can drive this thing into theground to keep on taking Gawker down. Itturns out that Peter Thiel uses theHulk Hogan sex tape as a way to get backat the organization and reporters thatouted him as gaylike nearly 10 years ago by the timethat this thing happens. Andrevenge is a dish best served cold is nobetter epitomized by any of the storythan the decade of just sitting on itand seething and having, you know, thishuge secret that you've kept as a verypublic person who's early into Facebookand supporting like conservativecandidates andYeah.It's widely discussedthe evil nature of social media or theills of social media that exist today.

01:02:39Um a lot of people hearken back to thisprevious long-gone era. Where you'refrom?But the where I am from. No, not notquite there just yet.But the golden the the thing peopleforget about the golden era that they'rehearkening back to is the [ __ ]We always forget the [ __ ] And eventhe journalist standards that used toexist, the amount of journalists,particularly British press, that wouldpaypeople to sleep with people, then reportthe stories. This was a regular thing injournalism in the UK.Evennumerous football players, athletes,they'd have to be constantly wary ofdoes this person actually like me or hasuha well-known British publication who Ishall not name because they're stillgoing is paying or they may pay somebodyto approach me. Um is using it as astory. That was a thing. That was whyThat was common>> Honey pot type scenario.>> Should be a crime.>> And that was Was that Is that legal? Wasthat legal?>> I I don't know. But guess what's thedifference between a kiss and telland payand a pay and kiss and tell?Like the order of the money

01:03:54is the onlything that's different here.>> Yeah.>> Depends on the invoice technicallythat's [laughter] cleared.>> Always comes down to finance.>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it depends ifyou've got a negative cash cash flow[laughter] conversion cycle.>> Do you want to explain why you were soobsessed with Jim Shark's negative cashflow conversion cycle?>> No, no, no, no, no. UmFirst off, we we we we>> Don't defend yourself.>> No, no, no, no, no.>> Stop defending yourself.>> So, for peoplewho want to know what a cash flowconversion cycle is, which isapproximately about 1% of peoplelistening, I'll get through it fast.Essentially, a cash flow conversioncycle is whenyou get the money. So, let's say forexample, Chris is running Neat Tonic.He'll pay a manufacturer to make thisbeautiful drink. Then, um he willobviously sell it to potentiallysupermarkets, big stores around the UK.There's a crunch period of well, howmuch credit can I get with manufacturersand then how much credit can I get withthe supermarkets? Cuz if you if you haveto pay your manufacturers today forstock that'll arrive in 3 months, andthen the supermarket doesn't pay you for3 months, that's what's that's a I thinka positive cash flow conversion cycle.So, a negative cash flow conversioncycle is when you get the umyou almost have a delayed for themanufacturers and then you can sellright away, which is a lot of what

01:05:09e-commerce companies do. So, I was onceat a bar in Manchestertalking to my friend about negative cashflow conversion cycles, and we saw theselike repelling any woman within a 5-mradius. No, no, no, no. We saw We sawthis group of girls like look over andlike say hello. And I had a girlfriendat the time, so I wasn't wasn't going todo anything, but I just started laughingat the thought of if only they couldhear,they would be repulsed.>> Well, we've done that. We Was ituh at Summer of Loud Festival last yearin uh the amphitheater Georgiaamphitheater here in Austin, and we werebackstage and we got all the cool passesand there were all of these like coolmetal chicks walking around. And then acouple came over and sat down next tous. What the [ __ ] were we talking about?I swear it was something like this.There was some debate that we werehaving, and these girls sat down from adistance. And we had a couple of ourkind of like super chatty mates with us.Keegan was with us, right? Who'sessentially likeproper Roman Adonis. It's not you, love.The Chad's Chad. Yeah, he's the Chad'sChad. And these women come over andobviously look thinking, "Oh, what kindof they What are they going to betalking about? It's going to be so cooland sexy." And they came over and theywere talking about how we all come froma conversion rate optimizationbackground. [laughter]And the blended NNCPA of our Facebook Ads Manager couldbe doing with a little bit ofimprovement. Well, tell me how manyyou're split testing on the back end.It's interesting.

01:06:24I'm not sure if Opus5.5 is actually going to be as good aspeople expect. And they just slowly overtime got this look ofIt's probably It wasn't boredom. It wascloser to disgust. It was like watchingsomebody desecrate a beautiful temple.Cuz what they saw was this amazingpotential in Keegan, this beautiful man,but the way that he was handling himselfand what he was talking about>> The biggest takeaway I always getwhenever I'm in aa friend's birthday or a bachelor party,uh there'll be a moment where I'll juststart chuckling to myself at theOften it will besomebody might have a girlfriend. Likeone of the guys in the They'll have likea new relationship where she's been likereally wary about him going to thisbirthday party or bachelor party.Meanwhile, it's me in a a 1-hour debateat dinner talking about whether Ruud vanNistelrooy was a better footballer thanThierry Henry. Like that's what theydon't see. Or like Jim Jim Shaw'snegative cash flow conversion cycle. Ithink if a lot of guys' girlfriends orwives could see that they have thisimagination that there's going to be allthis chaos and these girls that arecoming over andthe strip club. Meanwhile, it's usuallya Google Sheet or Excel formulas.>> It's It's It's a trying to track downthat guy that bought the cigars and

01:07:39opened up the Strait of Hormuz bysneaking himself in into the middle ofIran.>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I but I wonder ifit might be inverse. It might be thefact thatthe guys that you don't think aregetting up to naughty [ __ ] while they'reaway probably are.>> Yes. And the guys that you don't think>> are getting up the guys that you thinkare getting up to it aren't. They're theones that talking about how they comefrom a conversion rate optimizationbackground. Yeah. Very, very important.>> [snorts]>> Uh by the way, if you're coming to theUK and Ireland tour later this year, I'mgoing to be bringing some of you up onstage to answer your questions. So, ifyou've got a question or a story thatyou think would be worth me talkingabout, you can go tochriswilliamson.live/questions

01:08:20and give me your questions and I'll bepicking the best ones and you can joinme on tour. So, most people have no ideawhere their testosterone levels sit. Butwhat if I told you there was a solution?Something that identifies low T fasterthan a high school bully and it won'tcost you all your lunch money. That'swhere Function comes in. Gives youaccess to over 160 lab tests including adeep dive into your full hormone panel.Every result is reviewed by clinicians.Anything out of range is flagged and youget clear explanations with apersonalized protocol with actionablenext steps. So, if something's off, youknow exactly what to do about it.Whether you just need to go to the gymmore or you need to play Creed louder inyour car, Function will tell you exactlywhere your testosterone and everythingelse stands. Normally, this level oftesting would usually cost thousands,but with Function, it's $365 a year.That's $1 a day to stop guessing withyour health and start knowing. And rightnow, you can get $25 off, bringing itdown to 340 bucks. So, get the exactsame blood panels that I do and save $25by going to the link in the descriptionbelow or heading tofunctionhealth.com/modernwisdomusing the code modernwisdom at checkout.>> Little question for you.>> Yes.>> UmI can't pronounce this word, but I'mgoing to give it a go. Have you heardof, I think it's hypo

01:09:37hypo mnemonist?>> No.>> So, I got it from my friend HenrikKarlsson, who has this wonderfulSubstack. And during my era, the eitherancient Greek or Roman era,it's very different to what it wastoday. So, we have this kind ofbombardment of new information. We'reconstantly scrolling social media. I'msure you have this where you'll see thisamazing pithy tweet or you'll readsomething incredible, and your life'sgoing to change forever after from thispoint onwards. And then, 3 months later,you see the thing again, you go, "Oh, Icompletely forgot about that." And ithad no impact at all.>> Mhm.>> So, what the ancient Greeks or theRomans used to do would be they wouldhaveum a book of all these insights thatthey'd collected. And each morning, theywould think of a problem that they'refacing, and they would go and meditateon the specific passage or the specificquote. So, what I was actually This iswhere my question>> Question Question time.>> kicks inis as if you was to have that littlenotepad notebook oflessons that you often forget or simplyjust wish that you took more seriouslythat you would look at each day,whatis on your list?>> So,

01:10:52what is What are themost known but not followed.>> Not necessarily not followedby other people. It could just be or itcould even be followed by yourself, justnot as much. You always underprice thislesson. You wish you took it moreseriously.

01:11:15>> Something likeno amount of worrying is going to makeany difference to what happens.Some lesson along those lines cuzworrying's very addictive.It's very addictive because it feelslike making progress. Homozie once whenI started doing investing, he gave methis really wonderful piece of advice ona call and he said, "The most dangerouscalls in all of business arejust calling to connect.We'd just love to We'd just love toexplain the business to you." So, cuzthey haveall of the trappings of doing work andmaking progress,but never result in work being done.You need to join that sequence furtherdown the line once once more scrutiny'sbeing done. Like the first stage, secondstage. This is why I think in order toend up in front of him to doacquisition.com, you're10 stages deep into the circle of hell.Andworrying kind of feels like the samething, although it's not as conscious.You're not doing because you think thatit's going to be We you forget this isnot moving my situation forward. Noamount of anxiety is going to change theoutcome. No amount of worrying is goingto actually make a difference toanything that happens. And ultimately,all of your worries were a waste of timein any case.>> There's a a greatum

01:12:30book that I uha like book of stories of interviewingold people about their lives. And one ofthem said, "What was one of your bestlessons you ever had?"And she goes, "I had this like nightmarething that I was ruminating on, worryingabout. So, I called one of my friendsand I tell her I could She kept spillingand telling everything that I'm worriedabout. And she goes,"Do you remember 6 months ago when youcame to me about this nightmare worrythat you had?>> Mhm.>> And she names it back. She goesNo, I I don't. And she goes exactly.Just hung up. She said it was one of thebest lessons of my life. I was like, oh,this thing is going to be here today andthen gone tomorrow. I also saw thishumorous statistic which wasThey had people apparently withgeneralized anxiety disorderput down their worries and then theytracked how many of them came true.>> Mhm.>> And it was found that 91.6%didn't come true.>> Right.>> But if you have true anxiety, you startwondering well, what about that?What about that remaining8.4%?>> yeah.That's that's real anxiety right there.I'm in the 8.4% all in. I knew that Iwould be in the 8.4%.>> There was anotherguy who helped Lewis Capaldi with

01:13:45anxiety. I think he wrote a book calledAddicted to Anxiety.And he apparently once cured somebody oftheir anxiety.Like removed a lot of the issues. Andthey rang them the next day sayingI'm anxious. Where's my anxiety gone?It's like almost this addiction thatexists.>> Yeah, I was talking to Joe Hudsonyesterday andthere's a a bunch of stuff that's maybeexciting or that is exciting that'shappening. I shouldn't hedge the factthat this thing is maybe exciting.Bunch of stuff going on that's excitingandI was like, I'm a little I'm I'm I'm I'munsure how to navigate thisuh preamble this the build-up toward thebuild-up and he said if I was yourcoach, which obviously he is. He's like,if I was your coach, I would tell youthat you need to work on your pleasureanxiety which is that being excitedabout something in advance often feelsan awful lot like anxiety. They're very,very close. What would it be for you?What would the lesson be that you mostrepeatedly come back to>> Ooh.>> You know one would beDavid Ogilvy's line of you think you'readvertising to a standing army, butyou're actually advertising to a movingparade.>> Yep.>> So, in the niche world of advertising,Ogilvy applies it in the sense that hewould work with these huge brands, andthese huge brands will be like,

01:15:00"Why arewe still running this ad? I've seen iteverywhere." And it's like, "Nobody elsehas seen things the way you've seenthem." But, what I love about that ideais it's not just necessarily adcampaigns. It applies to we weconstantly observe ourselvessignificantly more than anybody else isobserving us. So, it's this standingarmy versus moving parade.>> Mhm.>> And how does that relate to you?>> Well, okay. UmSo, here like a little one, right? So,uh I put together this list recently ofall the best books umthat I've read. And I'll post it outthere, highagency.com/books for peoplelistening.I'll post it out there,and I will then think about, "Oh, Idon't necessarily want to post it again.People have already seen it." But, thenon the 17th post, somebody go, "Oh, I'vejust found this."And often it's the case that nobody has[ __ ] seen it. It's always a movingparade. So, that's one lesson.>> Uh there's a legendary story inadvertising circles about auto magnateHenry Ford. He had a layout of thecompany's latest print ad tacked to hiswall, which he saw every time he cameinto his office. One day, he loudlyannounced that he was tired of the ad.It was high time to create a new one."But, Mr. Ford," his assistantstammered,"that hasn't even started running yet."It's only natural for a client to gettired of an ad long before it's intendedaudience does. So, how do you determinedetermine when

01:16:15it's time to change yourcampaign?>> Mhm.And I'll see this when when it's This isparticularly British syndrome. I don'tthink Americans struggle with this asmuch, but when a Brit will do some newcreative endeavor, do a business, doanything, they almost feel past thefirst initial ask to follow up.>> Yeah.>> It's very un-British, Christopher.>> Do you Were you friends with me when Imade gas your friends up my tagline fora couple of years?>> Yeah.>> That would have been at this start ofour friendship.>> I was gassed.>> Yeah, yeah, well you were try you wereyou've actually been probably the mostgassed of all of my friends abouteverything I've done. But yeah, I I Ijust had this line that um if yousupport Rihanna's new single more thanyour friends' new business, you're a badfriend.It's so [ __ ] true. Like gas yourfriends up, dude. Buy their shirts,support them, share their work, tellthem you they're doing good. Likeobviously don'tencourage them to do something which ishorrendous and give them feedback, butlike at the very least you can supportit. They've done something that but buythe [ __ ] ticket. Go to the show.Support your friends.>> It's very uhmemetic though, right? You kind of have>> Someone needs to begin. It's like havingIt's like having an openemotionally intimate relationship untilsomebody opens up it's difficult>> No, I mean more that I think one of thereasons why you have less of that isthat people see

01:17:30sometimes their friendsweirdly asas rivals because they have moresimilarities in common with them.>> Uh narcissism is small differences.>> Maybe, but I think my I think>> point stillstands, which isifyou want your friends to support youmore, a great way to do that is to startsupporting your friends.Now,it's another Joe Hudsonism when it comesto communicating that ifyou show up in your relationshipdifferently after about six or sevenvery differently,uhthere is a typical flow that you andyour partner go through.They get to be the bully and you get tobe the victim. Or they get to be thevictim and you get to be the savior.There is a dance, a sort of tone, arhythm to the way that you communicate.And if when that happens, you show up ina very different way, presumably a muchmore positive way, more regulated, morecalm, more peaceful, more listenempathetic,it only takesseven times of you doing that. They'llnotice after the first time. After thenext few, they'll really notice.After about seven times on average, hesaid,"That pattern just can't continue. It'slike playing tennis with the otherperson not hitting the ball back.">> Mhm.>> So, if you want to change

01:18:45the situationthat you're in, the best thing to do ischange your own behavior.>> That's beautiful.>> It's cool.>> That would be on my list.What else would you have on your list?>> Your default choices are almost alwayswrong.Like, if you don't step into yourprogramming and just think a little Andthis is where the rumination trap comesin because you think, "Ooh, thinking'sgood for me. Let's do an infiniteamount. Let's do an infinite amount ofit."No. It's like you need to do just alittle bit. Umyou need to practice something beforeyou end up relying on instinct.At least that's uhThat's a lesson that keeps coming backto me that most of your defaults arelikeconfused chemical signals coming fromyour body or social norms or paths ofleast resistance or the way that you'vedealt with past trauma.Almost all of those are not things thatyou consciously chosen.>> Yes.>> Like, the things that you want aren'tthe things that you want to want if youdon't take some time designing yourdesires, you end upfollowing the path that everyone elsedoes and like outsourcing your wisdom tothe group is usually a bad idea.

01:20:01>> Even what you said then around thequestioning the first thought, assumingthe first thought isn't necessarily you.I always go back to that wonderful ummeditation exercise ofwhat's the next thought going to be?Yeah, you sit there. Try it now ifanybody where you sit thereand you just ask yourself I'm not goingto think, but let's just see what thenext thought appears is. You just becomethe watcher.And I find when I did that for the firsttime it was simply uh the Bayern Munichplayer Arjen Robben cutting in on hisleft foot. And then it's like, "Huh, whywhy is that there?" I haven't thought ofhim in a long, long time. And you beginto realizea lot of it is just an automaticresponse. What else do you like from uhmeditation questions? I know that's oneof your favorites. What are some of theother ones that have been reallyresonant with you?

01:20:57The problem with>> [snorts]>> uhtalking about meditation is first youlook like a wanker.>> Well,>> Yeah, but>> [laughter]>> It's very late for that. Say that.You've got to You've got to address thatup front. The second problemisHave you ever heardThere's this great line where whenwhat happens islearning meditation, it's kind of likelearning Japanese.And then you go and tell everybody howwonderful it is, but you do so inJapanese. So, that's why when you readanything about it, it almost doesn'tmake sense. Um A cool one is to try andturn uh like awareness in on itself.Have you ever tried that? Where youthink of your awareness, and then youtry and become aware of it. And it'salmost like this mirror, and you go,"Oh, shit.">> That's quite scary.>> That's one of uh Sam'slike quick hit things, where you try andcatch your own awareness quickly. It'skind of strange cuz most of the timewhen you're doing any meditation ormindfulness, it's thisevolving, it's slow, but this is morelike trying to get an animal in a trap.Except the animal is you, and the trapis also you. Uh anyway, George Mack,ladies and gentlemen. Love you all.Thank you very much for tuning in. Whereshould people

01:22:12go?>> high-agency.com/booksRead them.>> Heck yeah.>> All right. Goodbye, my beauties.>> Dude, yes.Let's go.>> Thank you very much for tuning in. Ifyou enjoyed that episode, [music]YouTube knows who you are.Deeply.It thinks you're going to like this one[music] even more.Go on.Press it.