Modern WisdomBlack Holes, Denny’s Fist Fights, Japanese Handjob Culture & Microplastics - Rabbit Hole #4
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,067 words- 0:00 – 6:05
Is Hair Loss Causing Birth Rates Decline?
- CWChris Williamson
Speaking of shiny heads.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Tim, have you ever been to South Korea?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yes, I have.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Uh, would you like to go back?
- TFTim Ferriss
I would, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, well, South Korean president calls for hair loss treatment to be covered by insurance, suggesting that government-funded looksmaxxing may increase the birth rate.
- TFTim Ferriss
They've tried-
- CWChris Williamson
His interesting proposal characterizes hair loss as, quote, "A matter of survival."
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you feel about that, Tim?
- TFTim Ferriss
I think that is not the right solution to the problem.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
They have, they have tried a lot in South Korea. So I, I have spent time there. I would love to go back.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
It is like-
- TUTim Urban
A topic that is often very distressful to people living with it.
- TFTim Ferriss
There you go.
- TUTim Urban
How do you feel?
- TFTim Ferriss
I, I am not distressed 'cause I shaved my head starting with wrestling at, like age 12, so I got used to it thankfully.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, you upped it then?
- TFTim Ferriss
As soon as I saw the option to white knuckle or shave my head, I decided to shave my head. But the... I think the stickier part here is actually some systemic issues related to things like rent in South Korea, because they tried a stimulus of something like $2 billion to encourage procreation. Didn't work. And when you look at some of the issues in South Korea that are not obvious originally, because people point to idiocracy like comps where they're like, "Well, everybody's waiting later, they're getting more educated," da, da, da. But in South Korea, for instance, if you want to build a family, meaning you're gonna need a larger apartment, there are very straightforward things that are a problem. Like, your safety deposit for, or security deposit for the apartment is like 12 months' rent, and people can't afford it. So they're like, "I can't afford-"
- CWChris Williamson
That's an even dep-
- TFTim Ferriss
"... I can't af- I can't afford it"
- TUTim Urban
That's, that's so much, so, so many months' rent for a security deposit.
- TFTim Ferriss
It is. It is. And they're like, "I can't afford it, therefore I can't have kids."
- TUTim Urban
Who can, who can afford a year of rent if, if they're renting an apartment?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. And I may be getting the months slightly wrong, but I talked to some Koreans and they're like, "No, it's like I wanna have a kid, and here are the reasons I can't."
- TUTim Urban
Hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
So I don't think fixing hair loss is gonna actually solve that type of problem.
- 6:05 – 16:18
How Tim Went From Blog Posts to the Story of Everything
- TUTim Urban
So that's also...
- TFTim Ferriss
Tim Urban, I wanna know what's on your mind, man. What have you been, what have you been- ... obsessed with. I mean, we'll get to pianos I'm sure, but maybe, maybe that's for later after a few toothpicks.
- TUTim Urban
I, I, uh, I'm, I'm very... When I'm writing a book, I'm just, like, in it and immersed in it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- TUTim Urban
So I've been working on a book for three years. It's the story of everything, and it goes from the Big Bang to the end of the universe.
- TFTim Ferriss
You know, I've always wanted to say, I think you should be just a little more ambitious, you know?
- TUTim Urban
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Reach for the brass ring.
- TUTim Urban
You know, it's, like, secretly kind of not as hard as it seems because you don't have to go that in-depth on anything.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- TUTim Urban
So it's little dips. It's like a kind of, like, 100 blog posts in, in one.
- TFTim Ferriss
You're like, "World War II, that was a bummer, but it worked out."
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
No, no, no. So, so for example-
- TUTim Urban
One sentence [laughs] .
- TFTim Ferriss
One sentence.
- TUTim Urban
No, no, literally.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- TUTim Urban
Like, so World, World War-
- TFTim Ferriss
Sorry, sorry Japan. We'll make it up to you.
- TUTim Urban
[laughs] I was like, what do I do? I have the world wars. I can't not mention them.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
But, like, I, there's certain thi- I wanna focus on things that people are like, "I never knew that," or, like-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm
- TUTim Urban
... "That's so mind-blowing." Like, I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna, we're not gonna go deep enough. Everyone knows the basics of World War II.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- TUTim Urban
Right? So I decided instead I'm gonna make it, like, a two-page story that's gonna be an, an allegory, which is, um, a d- a brawl at Denny's.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- TUTim Urban
Uh, 'cause I used to, I, 'cause I got hooked on YouTube spiral of brawls at Denny's. It's very entertaining. And so then that came to my mind. I was, like, hooked on one that week when I was writing this, and I was like, okay, so you've got, like, um, you know, you've got, uh, a bunch of tension in the room, and then finally, like, you know, Austria, Hungary goes over and just, like, you know, slaps Serbia guy in the face and then, and then, you know, a bunch of, you know, and then you have Russia and France kind of are like, you know, these big guys who are friends with the Serbia guy. You know, I just, so I just did this.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah [laughs] .
- 16:18 – 23:37
The Most Mind-Blowing Facts About the Universe
- CWChris Williamson
Out of, with the new book, let's say history's kind of like a stock market and everything's priced. I feel like World War II is very much, um, it's like Apple right now, right? Like, people talk about World War II. What parts of history from your research do you think is, like, way more fascinating than people give it credit?
- TUTim Urban
Oh, my God. Some, I mean, almost everything. I mean, everything once you dig in, you, you just-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TUTim Urban
S- I mean, I was just writing about the Black Hole Era. Do you know what that is? Like, uh, it's, I, I'm, I'm gonna get, like, I might, like, have an existential crisis if I talk about this, but... So basically, there's the, the Star Era goes on for like 100 trillion years or something like that. So that the last stars will be born around 100 trillion years from now, and then, like, 20 trillion years later, the last stars are, are gone, and then we're in the Degenerate Era, and there's just nothing except for little white dwarfs, and then that ends, and all that's left is black holes. And so how long is the Black Hole Era? 'Cause the black holes decay really, really slowly. Really slowly, but then some of them are gonna be huge. But there'll be a point at some point when the last black hole-
- CWChris Williamson
It's Hawking radiation, right?
- TUTim Urban
Hawking radiation, exactly. It's like the tiniest little, right around the edge, the antimatter, you know, whatever. Um, so I was like, h- how do I explain how long this is? It's 10 to the 106 years. Okay, so what does, how do you, what does that mean? How do you put that into context? And the way I thought about it is, okay, imagine if we make a timeline where every centimeter is a billion years. So, so far it's, uh, this is, this is how long we've got. Big Bang today, right? And it's, it's 13 centimeters. And now I was like, "So how long would this timeline have to be to, to, to get all the way to the end of the Black Hole Era?" And I said, "Okay, well, let's just actually get... I wanna, always wanna, like, actually do the calculation." So I was like, let's imagine this is a ribbon with a half a millimeter thickness, and it's one centimeter thi- uh, wide, and then e- every centimeter of it is, of length, is a billion years. So how long would it have to be? Turns out you'd have to, if you could pack, like, okay, if you imagine if you packed this room tightly with ribbon so it's just, like, this block, hard rock-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- TUTim Urban
... of r- of ribbon just packed as much as you possibly could in, you know, and every s- centimeter is a billion years. Okay, would that be enough time? No, you'd have to pack The entire observable universe to the brim with ribbon, and that would get you nowhere close. You'd have to have packs. And the final number I came to is 1.4 billion observable universes with this, this ribbon to have by the end of the last universe, you get to the end of the ribbon, that's the end of the Black Hole Era. So there's shit like that that I just-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm gonna put a wrinkle into it because after that, you still have quantum fluctuations.
- TUTim Urban
Oh, yeah. Oh, no, the Dark Era.
- CWChris Williamson
And that goes on, that goes on for even longer. So the five, the five stages of the uni- five ages of the universe, sorry, book from 1996 goes through this.
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
They had to come up with their own numbering convention to be able to name it. They didn't use ribbon. Yours is much more inventive.
- TUTim Urban
Um, and-
- CWChris Williamson
Yours is way more nerdy
- TUTim Urban
... the Dark Era, which just comes after the observable universe, uh, sorry, obs- after the Black Hole Er- Era is way more upsetting because now-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- TUTim Urban
... imagine you have an entire... You wrote a book that con- that, that contains the history of the universe, right? And every page is an equal amount of time.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- TUTim Urban
You could pack, and it's like something like 16 of these, so a trillion times a trillion times a trillion times a trillion observable universes, but 16 trillions, um, to the brim with pages. And the, from the Big Bang to the end of the Black Hole Era, that whole thing with the ribbon I just talked about, is not even the first proton in the first atom of the first letter of the first word of the first page of the first book. So I get upset about this. [laughs] This is the kind of thing that when I think about it, then I'm, like, in bed, and I literally can't sleep, and I'm tossing and turning, and the next day my wife is like, "Why are you so tired?" And I'm like, "It's too, like, embarrassing to explain," but, like, I, I, I, I-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm having an existential crisis-
- TUTim Urban
Crisis
- CWChris Williamson
... about how long the universe is gonna last
- TUTim Urban
... because we won't be here, but that amount of time will pass, and that is weird. Like, no one should want eternal life.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a, an interesting theory about super advanced alien civilizations shutting down because toward the end of that era, you end up with an unbelievably cold universe, one that's significantly colder than ours now. Now, it's not much, but on the margins, this makes a big difference because almost all energy usage blows off heat, and if you were doing simulations, ancestor simulations, future simulations, if you had, if you'd gone into the metaverse and decided to make this your new place, it's way more efficient to do this the later that we go. So I'm gonna guess that you l- came across this too.
- TUTim Urban
It's one of the explanations for the Fermi paradox, which is the paradox that asks why have we not seen aliens when there's, should be s- lots of them out there. We should see something. There should be some that are far more advanced than us, so they, they should really be noticeable out there, building Dyson spheres and stuff. And there's many explanations. One of them is they're all hibernating because they've all figured this out, and they're going on this thing that will feel like a second to them, but they're just gonna go past a few, I don't know, whatever it is, 100, a few hundred billion years, and we're just in this era where it doesn't make sense for an advanced sp- species to be conscious, so they just are all hibernating.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like waiting for the ventilation guy to come and fit the AC before installing your new computer tower.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah. Mm. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
That's what, it's like it's gonna wait. It's getting too hot. It's gonna make the apartment too, too hot.
- TUTim Urban
Right.
- 23:37 – 29:45
Is the Vastness of the Universe Panic-Inducing?
- TUTim Urban
Have you ever watched Power of Ten?
- CWChris Williamson
Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you watched Power of Ten? Maybe, Jared, you can get it on the screen on YouTube.
- TUTim Urban
What is it?
- CWChris Williamson
But it's, it... I, because as you give me that kind of conversation there, I start zooming out of myself, and I realize, oh, like I am essentially nothing. And the Power of Ten, it starts with people in a park, and it just zooms out by the power of 10, I think every three seconds. So it goes from them in the park, like zoomed in on their face, to above, to above, to above, and you realize how quickly it goes all the way out t- to the Earth just essentially being nothing. But then what's the most fascinating part of this video is they then zoom in. So then zooms in all the way... Yeah, it's that top one there. This is the nearest I've found to doing any psychedelic drugs without having to ingest anything.
- TUTim Urban
This is a staple of American schools. We watch this.
- CWChris Williamson
This was in school?
- TUTim Urban
Are you serious?
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, we all watched this.
- TUTim Urban
I never, I never saw this. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
This is how you ended up like how you ended up Tim, because this is-
- TUTim Urban
This is, no, this, this made a huge impression on me
- TFTim Ferriss
Our picture will center on the picnickers even after they've been lost to sight. 100 meters west is the city of Rhine in the Tennessee.
- TUTim Urban
It's nice that basically this is making those picnickers the center of the universe.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
That's pretty fun
- TFTim Ferriss
Cars crowd a highway. Powerboats lie at their docks. The calm lake mirrors a old ship
- TUTim Urban
This, this must have been difficult to do without, uh, much computer technology
- TFTim Ferriss
This square is a kilometer wide, 1,000 meters.
- GMGeorge Mack
I know. I'm impressed.
- TFTim Ferriss
The distance a racing car can travel in 10 seconds
- TUTim Urban
Dude, fire up the autism engine. This is fucking great
- TFTim Ferriss
You see the great city on the lake shore.
- GMGeorge Mack
It's actually a beautiful, uh, like meditation technique to sit there and do this, and then start realizing how many other people out there have their own thoughts.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
We see first the rounded end of Lake Michigan, then the whole Great Lake. 10 of those feet-
- TFTim Ferriss
Now, this is something that, um, I don't know if you guys recognize this name. So Ed Cook, who was a memory, competitive memory champion, he's, he's from your motherland. He's a Brit. And-
- GMGeorge Mack
Good man. That's where it's at
- TFTim Ferriss
... then he trained, I think it was Jonah Lehrer in a, a book called Moonwalking with Einstein.
- TUTim Urban
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
So he took a layperson, in this case journalist, and trained him up to be memory champion in the US, where they have to memorize a shuffled deck of cards for time and things like this. There are various events, like kind of like a mental decathlon. But as a meditative tool, he does this zooming out.
- 29:45 – 37:45
Are Schools Teaching the Wrong Story?
- TUTim Urban
Uh, speaking of stuff that you learned in school, have you seen The Retro Codex? Have you seen this? Really, really cool website. So it's a website that teaches you things that you learned in school that are now disproven.
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- TUTim Urban
So you can go in and look at what year you graduated high school-
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm
- TUTim Urban
... and it'll tell you what you learned in school and have now been disproven. Jared, can you pull this up for me? So, um, I put this in as 2000s, which would be for me and George. Uh, lightning never strikes the same place twice. Uh, lightning has struck several pl- places multiple times. Empire State Building is struck approximately 25 times a year. Uh, wearing red near a bull will cause it to charge. Bulls may not be able to distinguish the color red from other colors. What triggers the bull is movement and physical provocation, not color. The red cape is to conceal blood stains. Uh, goldfish have a three-second memory. Goldfish retain memories for weeks, months, and possibly years. George Washington had wooden teeth. He did wear dentures, but they were made of other materials such as tin, gold, and lead. Human teeth from enslaved individuals. That's a bit gnarly.
- GMGeorge Mack
Uh, you need to wait 20 to 30 minutes after you eat to swim or you'll get stomach cramps and drown. There's no clinical evidence for that. There's another one. Go a bit further down.
- TUTim Urban
Oh, I see.
- GMGeorge Mack
Oh, if you roll your eyes, they'll get stuck that way.
- TUTim Urban
You, your, your taught in school and folk wisdom checked on the top left. I was like, I don't recall getting... If you roll your eyes, they'll be stuck that way.
- GMGeorge Mack
Uh, go down a bit more. If you pee in the pool, everyone will know 'cause it'll turn water green.
- TUTim Urban
Huh, hot water washing hands is not-
- GMGeorge Mack
Go back up
- TUTim Urban
... better than cold water. Yeah, right there. Interesting. I'm learning a few things.
- GMGeorge Mack
Water temperature has not been found to impact the antibacterial ef- efficacy of handwashing. Oh, I didn't even know that. After a person dies, their hair or fingernails can keep growing.
- TUTim Urban
Who, who, who thinks Earth is the only planet with water? I don't, I don't know about that.
- GMGeorge Mack
But i- in the 2000s-
- TUTim Urban
Uh-huh, maybe, yeah
- GMGeorge Mack
... might you have thought that, 'cause Pluto being a planet would've been true when we went to high school.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah, yeah, yeah, true.
- GMGeorge Mack
Uh, brown sugar is healthier than white sugar. Yeah, I just thought it's, it's nice to fi-... And then obviously all of this stuff with the food pyramid, that's got turned literally upside down, so.
- TUTim Urban
Some of these will end up being overturned too, but yeah. Um-
- GMGeorge Mack
Oh, for sure.
- TUTim Urban
I, I think when I was thinking about, you know, the way kids are educated, I think that schools do something that I think in some cases it, like, state, at least they traditionally, that is, that is maybe the right thing to do, which is you teach the wrong story, the simple wrong story first, just to, like, let the concepts, and then later you start to build the nuance and you realize that the... But that's the kind of like, like Thanksgiving. I think it's, I, I think it's, I learned early on that Thanksgiving was this, like, wonderful thing, and the Pilgrims came and the, the Indians at the time, the Indians were like, and everyone was happy, and they had this nice feast and, uh, or, you know, just like Columbus discovered the New World. But I'm like, "Well, he didn't." But, like, and just, like, keep it, um, let, let the basic story simp- seep in, and then later you can be like, "Actually, like, th- this is, like, an allegory kind of for, uh, that, that represents, like, a much larger, more complicated, much nastier story often." And I think sometimes right now what they're doing is they're, you know, out of kind of, I don't know, you know, kind of political reasons or whatever, they're, they're, they're teaching kind of very, very, like, you know, um, uh, kind of a hardcore first story to really young kids right away that, um-
- GMGeorge Mack
Well, they're front-loading the gnarly version.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah, exactly, and maybe going too far even in that direction, um, when, uh... Like, I think, I th- I mean, I, this is a whole other can of worms, but I think that maybe I wanna-
- GMGeorge Mack
But, but the disguise on-
- TUTim Urban
But, like, I, I know, I think that, um, I do think Amer- American children should be taught first all these great, great things about America. They should learn that they're in this great country that's h- has complicated. They've, it's not been perfect, but they've done a lot of great things. Um, and it's this wonderful thing and patriotism and be really proud. And then later, later then you can learn a lot more nuance. Or it's the same reason that I think you shouldn't be teaching your kid, you know, that, like, you think your dad's a good person, but actually, you know he cheated when, in his 20s?
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- TUTim Urban
Like, you kn- you know that he, like, did, you know he got fired? Like, you don't do that. You start with the, "Dad's great."
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah.
- 37:45 – 44:04
Should Kids Be Banned From Social Media?
- CWChris Williamson
Well, think about now the, uh, UK, it looks like... I don't know whether this is actually gonna happen. The UK is proposing a social media ban for under 16s, the same as Australia's had, and I haven't seen much of the fallout of this. I steered clear of X for the last couple of days, but I, I really struggle to see how this is a bad thing.
- TUTim Urban
To steal mine the other side, before you even get onto the 16-year-olds, it's also a you have to use identification now to use social media for anybody over the age as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that a bad idea?
- TUTim Urban
It's an interesting discussion.
- CWChris Williamson
I get... Everybody's got a con-
- TUTim Urban
I don't care whether-
- CWChris Williamson
Everyone's got a concern about digital safety. I, I, I understand that, but-
- TFTim Ferriss
Why have you abstained for the last few days from X?
- CWChris Williamson
Busy.
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay. Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
It wasn't a choice.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] It was a... I was like, what was the catalyzing event?
- CWChris Williamson
It wasn't a choice. It was literally just busy.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-
- TUTim Urban
Touching grass.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, trying to.
- TUTim Urban
Pathetic, mate. Get a life.
- CWChris Williamson
Just really trying to. I was looking at photos of grass on X actually.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
It was, it was better. [laughs]
- TUTim Urban
He was too, he was too busy doom scrolling on TikTok was the actual thing that was happening.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
A few bugs.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Uh, but the Australia thing, um, you're right. What?
- TUTim Urban
I-
- CWChris Williamson
You're such a fucking techno optimist.
- TUTim Urban
Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on.
- CWChris Williamson
What? Come on.
- TUTim Urban
No, no, come, come, come.
- 44:04 – 57:00
The Best Fidget Fixes
- TUTim Urban
yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Sam, what have you brought from home? You've got a bag that's look-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, I brought, I've just to dumb this conversation down a little bit, I brought a bunch of show-and-tell items. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, it's got adult show-and-tell. I like it. Fire up the autism engine.
- TUTim Urban
So [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] So let's see. I'll, I'll s-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
I'll start, I'll start with-
- TUTim Urban
You have a little engine that's your-
- TFTim Ferriss
I'll, I'll start with this. So this is called Byte.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- TFTim Ferriss
And the subtitle's pretty simple. Oh, it's 124 bits, but it's bits as in little pieces of what look like candy. Mouthwash bits. And this was recommended to me by Dr. Tommy Wood, he's a neuroscientist, also a beast of an athlete, but a very credible scientist, very well-published. And he and I were having a conversation about different approaches for neuroprotection, hopefully mitigating the risk of neurodegenerative disease, and oral health is a really big one. And yes, you can brush your teeth, yes, you can use like a Waterpik or something like that, but xylitol is really, really compelling as an intervention. So you could chew xylitol gum, you could do this, that, and the other thing, but I found ultimately everything I read so compelling that I started using these, which he recommended [laughs] and these are really simple. You j- well, you're gonna need water-
- TUTim Urban
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... if you chew on it.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh.
- TFTim Ferriss
So you basically for travel, but also f- at home, rather than having mouthwash, you take one of these. I'll show what they look like. I mean, it literally just looks like a little piece of candy or like an aspirin.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And-
- TUTim Urban
Do we have water here?
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, I'm gonna have to spit it out. You can't swallow it.
- TUTim Urban
Ah.
- TFTim Ferriss
So-
- TUTim Urban
Uh-oh.
- TFTim Ferriss
Or you probably shouldn't swallow it. So you just, you chew on it, take like a couple tablespoons of water in your mouth, swish it around for 30, 60 seconds, then spit it out, and that's it. And you just do that o-
- CWChris Williamson
Why is that better than normal mou- mouthwash?
- TFTim Ferriss
Because of the xylitol content, along with a couple of other things. So for, as sort of antibacterial effects, and, uh, I know people, I'm not gonna mention th- this person by name, but MD, PhD, who had cavities, started using xylitol twice a day, and went back to the doctor, or the dentist rather, no cavities. [sniffs] And it's like, it's pretty interesting. That's N of one, of course. I don't know what's out there in the literature with respect to that. But found it interesting enough, and it's so lightweight as an intervention, that I was like, "Okay, I will, I will start doing that."
- CWChris Williamson
Are you-
- TFTim Ferriss
And-
- TUTim Urban
Anything that you can kind of just like have on your desk and just like pop one in and-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- 57:00 – 59:47
Does Tim Urban Have ADHD?
- CWChris Williamson
Question for you, Tim.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah. Question.
- CWChris Williamson
As you was talking earlier about the treadmills and all the fidget spinner-
- TUTim Urban
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... devices and the Instagram ads and you're buying stuff, I had, like, a... I was thinking in my head of if you was born 10 years ago-
- TFTim Ferriss
Did you say if you was born?
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs] If... Sorry, if you were born.
- TUTim Urban
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Again, British English coming out.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's not really Australian.
- TUTim Urban
I liked it.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm Australian.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, yeah. [laughs]
- TUTim Urban
British people talk so much more cool than we do.
- CWChris Williamson
If you was born around about 10 years ago-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... listen here, listen here, mate
- TUTim Urban
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Would you have been, like, diagnosed with ADHD?
- TUTim Urban
Yeah, this is, like, the age-old question in my mind is, do I have AD... Am I a classic example of it or not? And, like, I guess, I don't know. Um, I wonder if I were born, yes, in that age, whether I would've been, like, medicated because I was a class clown and... But I did well in school, and it was never hard for me to, like... I always assume, think of, like, real ADHD as, like, you're sitting during a test and you're just like, you can't focus on the test and you need extra time. That was... Once I had the adrenaline, like, oh shit, I was like, I could focus really well. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I'm gonna-
- TFTim Ferriss
Do you get calmer with stimulants? Are there certain stimulants where you end up, like, actually calming down and focusing, or do you get agitated with stimulants or something-
- TUTim Urban
For me, what it is is, like, there's, like, a perfectionism that is, is... I- if, if once I s- it's I can't transition. I'm awful at transitioning. I will procrastinate from starting work for hours, and once I get, have to-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- TUTim Urban
... start, once I'm in it, now I'll get going and then someone will interrupt. I'll be like... And, and I'll miss dinner because I just wanna keep working.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TUTim Urban
So it's like, it's, it's, it's this weird, like, I, I'm very, a, a- and a lot of inertia for whatever I'm doing, and that to me is a huge thing, is just, like, uh, there's no adult around making me start work, and I grew up with that as a crutch always. I had to go to class. I had to finish this. I had to... And now there's no one, so I will just self-defeat for hours and waste a good part of the day.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TUTim Urban
And then finally... So that's why when, again, another thing I do with my, with Alicia is, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Alicia's your sister
- 59:47 – 1:11:16
Should We Invent Our Own Language?
- CWChris Williamson
War II. I tell you what, uh, I've got two things. Uh, number one, I mean, we've discussed this earlier. I'm always trying to, um, create new vocabulary for myself. I feel it activates a, a certain part of the brain. Do you remember my favorite word that I, uh, invented five, six years ago that you love?
- TUTim Urban
Fly dripping?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, fly dripping. So I was, I was once stood at a, a toilet, and you know men do this where they piss around the seat? And I was like, "W- what's the word for that?" Is it-
- TFTim Ferriss
Wait, piss around the seat? What do you mean?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. You know when somebody urinates on the toilet seat?
- TFTim Ferriss
I, I-
- TUTim Urban
Have you ever seen this?
- TFTim Ferriss
... I usually try to avoid this.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, exact- well, yeah, ex- we-
- TUTim Urban
Public toilets, there's a bit of, like, backsplash-
- CWChris Williamson
Public toilets you may see it, right?
- TUTim Urban
... going on sometimes.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so I kinda came up with the term fly dripping for that. And what's useful about beginning to create your own language is, I mean, I have to talk about the benefits of language as I'm using language, is that-
- TUTim Urban
Interesting this is the first word that you developed
- CWChris Williamson
... that's the first word that I developed, or terms as a whole. So one of the things that worked with the high agency piece that I did, or even just having that language, meant that I had a name for essentially an idea that people already knew or that I already knew, but it compressed, like, 5,000 words into two words.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And then I was like, hold on. I don't have a term for that.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, that's quite meta. I don't have a term for that. And then Scott Alexander had this term called an idea handle. So an idea handle you can kind of pick up ideas by, like, coining terms. So the two ones I've been trying to coin last week, um, are the following. So number one, Casha's law.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- TUTim Urban
Like the artist Casha?
- CWChris Williamson
Casha's law is whenever you're creating art
- GMGeorge Mack
Try not to use any modern references because it may come back to bite you in the ass. So the, uh, the artist Kesha. I love, I love, by the way-
- TUTim Urban
Formerly known as
- GMGeorge Mack
... this, this may not be the best podcast in the world, but we have the highest range. We've gone from black holes to-
- TUTim Urban
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
... Kesha. [laughs] Say what you want about the quality, but you can't knock the range. Um, Kesha, her number one song was, started with, "Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy."
- TUTim Urban
Mm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Ah.
- 1:11:16 – 1:17:03
Why Time With Loved Ones Matters More Than You Think
- CWChris Williamson
exists is absurd
- TFTim Ferriss
... I'm so tired. What about the tail end?
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Is that, does it, hey, am I uniquely affected by that?
- TUTim Urban
No.
- TFTim Ferriss
Is that-
- TUTim Urban
No, that one, and, and that's, this is why-
- TFTim Ferriss
Do you guys know this blog post?
- TUTim Urban
Yes, I think so. Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
So-
- TUTim Urban
I've read it a long time ago
- TFTim Ferriss
... you should describe it, 'cause this was sent to me by a friend, Matt Mullenweg, and like it's, I still think about it constantly.
- TUTim Urban
You remember the guy that sent it to you?
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. You want, do I have, if, yeah. Do you, do you-
- TUTim Urban
So this, this was, this is why I like blogging, 'cause I wanna take lots of swings at the bat.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
Swings, swings of the bat, because then you might hit a home run once in a while, and you don't know which ones. But if you're just doing, that's why books is like one giant swing over three years.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
I don't like that. Um, and this is an example of one where I was procrastinating during the SpaceX post. I was writing the SpaceX post, and I was like-
- TFTim Ferriss
You know what I should really do is write another blog post.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- TUTim Urban
Classic, classic thing. I was like, "I have an idea. Oh, I'm just gonna do, instead of doing this like big giant mountain, I'm just gonna like, oh, I'm just gonna do this little idea that I've had for a long time." But then I like thought about it in bed in the morning, and I was like, "Oh, okay, I know how I wanna do it." And then I just got up and did it in a couple hours, and it made a, it, it was one of those that really made a big impact. Um, and the idea is that, um, so one of the things I like to do is just like use visuals or whatever to look at how much time we have. I like to zoom out, and I don't, I don't wanna just unconsciously go through life and then be like, "Oh, wow," like, "Look how much time passed." I never, I wanna be like, h- how mu- let's just look at it. How many weeks are there left if I live to 90? Like, let's just, let's just see this for what it is and so I'm not like caught, you know, I'm not blindsided by it later. Um, and so I would think about, okay, I've, you know, even just like watching the World Cup, I'm like, "I don't know, maybe I have 12 World Cups left," depending on like longevity research. Um, and that's if I'm lucky, you know? And-
- TFTim Ferriss
How many Christmases, how many-
- TUTim Urban
Yeah, exactly
- TFTim Ferriss
... whatever.
- TUTim Urban
So I, I do this kind of thing. But then I kinda had a disturbing thought, which was not all of the important things in life are evenly distributed. World Cups are. Christmases are.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- TUTim Urban
I grew up spending 350 days a year with my parents or whatever, you know. When I got older and went to camp, maybe 330. Over 300 days a year with my parents, um, and my sisters. And, um, and then you graduate and, you know, you, you, you, you move, either go to college or whatever you're doing. You know, you- if, if you, if you move out of the city especially, you might see your parents, I don't know, 10 days a year, 20 days a year? I don't know. Uh, if they live in your city, maybe you see them 80 days a year, whatever. But either way, the number is much smaller. And so then I, you know, I was like, "Well, well, what if you actually add up the total number?" If just say I'm seeing them 15 days a year right now, so that's, I need 20 years now to capture one year of parent time when I was an, a kid. I was like, "Wow, if you look at the whole number, I'm 95% way, of the way through with my in-person relationship with my parents." And I, this was, I had this thought when I was like 30.
- CWChris Williamson
When you graduate from high school.
- 1:17:03 – 1:20:18
Why Happiness Peaks Before Things Get Better
- CWChris Williamson
Um, your idea that the holiday that you go on, you should book them as far out in advance as possible because so much of the enjoyment is done in anticipation. So, uh, there was this great study done a while ago. I did, uh, my master's dissertation on the effectiveness of anti-alcohol advertising on students at Newcastle University. I wanted to see what sort of interventions we could do to try and reduce... This is when, uh, drinking was a problem, not, not drinking, which is now the new problem. Uh, but the, uh, uh, thing that I realized is doing a little bit of reading and a bit of research around this was a study was done looking at when people enjoy nights out the most, and this included people that were drinking. So you'd think, how many drinks deep is it? Is it when you arrive at the nightclub? Is it when the music, the, the mainline DJ comes on, the headline DJ, and the, the, every, everyone's there and they're having a great time? No. It was in the flat, in the apartment as you were getting ready for the night out.
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, the middle of the bullseye of dopamine and human satisfaction is things are about to get a little bit better than anticipated.
- TUTim Urban
Friday at 3:00 PM at work is the happier moment than like mid- midday Saturday.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct. Correct.
- TUTim Urban
And by the way, the alter- the, the, the inverse of that is if you, if something shitty is, if, that I'm gonna dread is on my plate, I wanna know about it as late as possible. I, I had six months to think about that I have a TED Talk hanging over, that's gonna, uh, this horrifying thing over the horizon. I wish someone had just told me a month before, you have to... If you want me to speak at your wedding, tell me fricking 10 days before. Do not give me six months where I'm like, "Ah-"
- CWChris Williamson
The routine of it
- TUTim Urban
... "after that wedding I have to come up with a really good speech." Ah.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's so good.
- TUTim Urban
Right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, because you're front-loading the pain-
- TUTim Urban
Exactly
- CWChris Williamson
... as well as front-loading the anticipation.
- TUTim Urban
So you wanna know about good things way ahead, and you wanna know about bad-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, tell me about the gang bang a year in advance-
- TUTim Urban
Yeah, exactly
- CWChris Williamson
... but tell me about the tax return one week before. Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Depends on the details on that one.
- TUTim Urban
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Well, if, if, which side of the gang bang you wanna be?
- TFTim Ferriss
That's true. That is true.
- TUTim Urban
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
You know, um, the, the most depressing version of, um, your kind of tail end thing-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... it's this old proverb in, um, China, and it essentially goes along the lines of like, "The saddest feeling in the world is to grow the desire to take care of your parents, only to realize they're no longer there."
- CWChris Williamson
It's this proverb in Chinese culture. I'm like, "Jesus Christ."
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Jared, you ever considered that you might have a drinking problem?
- TFTim Ferriss
I don't consider a lot, Chris.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you drank an entire case of Athletic Brewing Co. last night.
- 1:20:18 – 1:28:11
Which Regret Could You Not Live With?
- CWChris Williamson
There's a, a great line that I came across and I wanted to read to you guys. It's from, uh, Salih Guney, and it says, "You'll regret it if you get married. You'll regret it if you don't get married. You'll regret it if you have kids, and you'll regret it if you don't." Kierkegaard said this 200 years ago as follows: "Whatever you choose, you'll regret it because the problem isn't in your choices, it's in romanticizing a life you haven't lived."
- TFTim Ferriss
Grass is always greener.
- CWChris Williamson
"A person always finds an untraveled path alluring and mysterious. That's why the issue isn't making the right choice, it's choosing and deciding which regret you'll live with." And that was that Douglas Murray line. "In life, we must choose our regrets."
- TFTim Ferriss
Hmm.
- TUTim Urban
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And you go, okay, in advance of a big decision, you might want to think which decision do I want to live with? But the better question is, which regret could I not bear living with?
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the one.
- TUTim Urban
It's a little like if you're, you know, someone who you can't be too perfectionist about finding your life partner. It's like, which flawed person and flawed relationship are you going to choose? And, and each one is gonna have a different set of flaws. And l- I think in both of these cases, internalizing that is very helpful because it can make you realize that if I have regrets, it doesn't mean something horribly wrong happened.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TUTim Urban
If this r- if marriage is imperfect, it doesn't mean I did something wrong. Like, it's... And, and, and so it, it can help you accept, which is half the battle. I mean, it's like re- regret is only really painful when you feel like, "I wish I could g- I, I, I made a huge mistake"-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- TUTim Urban
... as opposed to like, "This is part of life."
- CWChris Williamson
This is a, a call that I made.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, so thinking about a pendulum swinging in one direction or the other, going from, we were worried about binge drinking in 2010 when I wrote my dissertation, and now in 2026, we're worried about sobriety culture coming and taking away the way that people are able to communicate-
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... and spend time and socialize. An equivalent for this, I think, and I've messaged Scott Galloway about this too, uh, as a, a, a famously unmarried man in his 30s. The conversation of you don't need to think that deeply about your life partner to now a lot of the biggest reels that Scott's done, and, and, uh, Warren Buffett, um, the single most important decision that you're going to make in your life is your life partner. This is a piece of advice that distributes unevenly to people. It makes people who are already prone to overthinking feel even more pressure.
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Meanwhile, the people that were just blase making decisions on vibes are just coasting through it.
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And it's applying even more pressure. I think this is... It's a, a noble insight, which is, hey, this is an important decision, and if you choose, if you choose wrong, it can make your life hell. But the "don't choose wrong" turns into "I must perfect."
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"I m- I must become a perfectionist in choosing right," and it creates paralysis of analysis. This is David Epstein's new book, Inside the Box.
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Fucking money, by the way.
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Really, really good.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah, it's really good.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but yeah, that, that, that, that, um-
- 1:28:11 – 1:38:57
Why Titles Have So Much Power
- TUTim Urban
stuff. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Before we move on from terms, we are still struggling to fucking name this podcast series. It's currently Rabbit Hole, which is the, the working title. But we're still struggling. Was it, uh, fuck me, uh, Good Dudes, Good Vibe, Rabbit Hole.
- TFTim Ferriss
Fuck Me is pretty good.
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck Me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Autis-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, Fire Up the Autism Engine was another one obviously.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
But, uh, yeah. It's-
- TUTim Urban
What's wrong with Ra- This, this, Rabbit Hole described what we've done today. We've just gone down 20, 20 rabbit holes and we-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- TUTim Urban
... you know, underground burrowed to a different rabbit hole and then come back up.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's, it's funny the, uh, the power of a name though, right? You know, here's a little, here's a little test for you.
- CWChris Williamson
Here we go.
- TFTim Ferriss
Have you ever heard of a book called Women, Love, and Relationships?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- TFTim Ferriss
No. 'Cause nobody fucking did, right? So this book released, I think it was in the '80s or the '90s. Sold nothing. So he came along, changed the title, and just jazzed it up a little bit to Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And it was the best-selling book of the '90s.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And just ... It was the, basically the same book.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Different title.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's like, uh, when was the last time you had Patagonian toothfish? Not recently, right? Chilean sea bass?
- TUTim Urban
Oh.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Now we're talking.
- TFTim Ferriss
I don't want a toothfish.
- CWChris Williamson
Question. Question. Given that we've got-
- 1:38:57 – 1:46:26
Can We Train Our Perception?
- CWChris Williamson
You also ... The problem with self-awareness is, yeah, when you think too much about yourself. One of the exercises I was trying to write about the other day for the book, this interesting little thought experiment for you two gentlemen, which is imagine we have-
- TUTim Urban
Gentlemen? Hold on, now.
- CWChris Williamson
Gentlemen, how dare you.
- TUTim Urban
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Imagine we have a room here, okay? And there's 10 people inside the room, but one of them is secretly miserable but they're keeping it together. Everybody else is moderately happy. Now, think of everybody in your life that you know. Who do you think you could send in that room and have the best probability of figuring it out?
- TUTim Urban
Figuring out which one?
- CWChris Williamson
And who, and who would be the worst? Obviously don't answer the worst one publicly. Um, but who ... But if you think of those two people in your head, who would be the best person?
- TUTim Urban
Esther Perel. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Why? What is it about them?
- TUTim Urban
I don't know. I just feel like she is so unbelievably perceptive of ... And I, I mean, I know this, I mean of her talks and stuff, but I, I know her personally and I just feel like she just, like, sees what I'm actually trying to say or what I'm actually-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- TUTim Urban
... feeling, like, really, really well, which is part of why I think she's so magnetic in her-
- CWChris Williamson
Also an amazing podcast.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
With couples work.
- TUTim Urban
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TUTim Urban
Which is ... I mean, and that's ... Who's, who's better at doing a podcast with couples? Couples therapy is usually y- the, this person who barely knows you two-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- TUTim Urban
... can, within a few minutes start to see stuff that-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- TUTim Urban
... you don't see with each other.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
It's like th- th- that's incredible power.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
There, there are also ... I mean, I would think of, for instance, my friend Kevin Rose. Super close friend, serial entrepreneur, amazing investor, great guy. EQ off the charts. Off the charts. So he would walk in and observe the room, and I think with millions of years of evolution tilting in his favor, uh, I don't think it's necessarily something he could verbalize-
- TUTim Urban
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... but he would pick it out. It's an interesting idea of is it a trainable skill? What's also interesting is that you could kind of replace secretly miserable person with psychopath, con man, having an affair, and you'd probably pick loosely the same people to be able to go in to do that.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- 1:46:26 – 2:00:14
What Can We Learn From Animal Behaviour?
- TFTim Ferriss
raises ... Yeah, I mean, if we wanna get into like crazy town territory.
- TUTim Urban
Let's go.
- CWChris Williamson
Let's go, Tim.
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, I'll do, let me-
- CWChris Williamson
Two hours deep
- TFTim Ferriss
... let, let me do non-crazy town, and then we'll segue to crazy town. So the, the non-crazy town is the reason I bring up the dogs is that you will s- I, I've noticed that the same people who have the highest EQ around humans often have the highest EQ around animals, right? So they like intuitively know how to interact with animals or be guarded around the right type of animals. Say, a dog that's really quiet may actually be really afraid and could be aggressive. Or they can read that type of body language even though it's a different species. Whereas some people have no awareness, right? They'll walk up to a dog that is clearly uncomfortable, and they'll come top down to like put their hand on the dog's head, and it's just like, oh my God, you're just a- asking for trouble. Or they're not paying any attention to their kids. Like why do so many little girls have dog bites on the faces? Because little boys are kinda assholes, and they like to like poke dogs and stuff, but little girls like to hug dogs around the face and neck.
- TUTim Urban
Oh.
- TFTim Ferriss
Dogs don't like that.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right? And parents aren't paying attention. So it's not actually necessarily the dog's fault. It's the parent's fault. So I think that EQ is not limited to human to human. Um, and that just relates to the theory of mind stuff.
- TUTim Urban
I wonder if-
- TFTim Ferriss
Maybe, maybe the theory of mind can be ex- expanded to dogs.
- TUTim Urban
D- dogs are like pattern recognition machines on four legs. I once heard someone-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. I think that's part of why I s- I, I think, like, I noticed with my dog, like she can ... If I'm about to leave, but I haven't even started getting ready yet, she can tell something's different the way he's-
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- TUTim Urban
... you know? Um, but, but you know, I, I'm interested in dog training. I'm not a good dog trainer. My dog is not very well-trained. But I ... Training a mammal will make you realize, um, an important skill, which is, uh, you are a mammal.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- TUTim Urban
And your brain, if you treat, treat your brain like a dog, um, and great things can happen.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You just become a behaviorist.
- TUTim Urban
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like Skinnerian reinforcement.
- TUTim Urban
Well, because you're br- you know, the, it's this idea that, well, I'm a person. It's like, no, no, you have a m- you might be a person with like, you know, this higher consciousness. In your head is a mammal brain.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
And it's not that different than your dog.
- TFTim Ferriss
It do- it teaches you about how to train yourself, for sure.
- TUTim Urban
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Reward and punishment.
- TFTim Ferriss
Schei- Seinfeld talks about this-
- 2:00:14 – 2:05:44
How Quickly Do People Lose It?
- TUTim Urban
and it would be, yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
People lose their shit really quickly. Uh, I was in, uh, San Francisco, and I was volunteering for something called NERT, which is the Northern California Emergency Response Team, and it's a volunteer coalition of people who are distributed throughout, in this case, San Francisco. And it's done in collaboration with the police and fire department to train volunteers to respond in the case of a highly destructive earthquake or natural disaster of some type. And I remember in the very beginning, they, they effectively said, "Okay, San F- the broader San Francisco area has population of X," whatever it was, 1.2 million people. "Guess how many fire engines we have?" And they defined, like, what a fire engine was and so on. They're like, "10." Okay, so what happens if we have a conflagration, which I think is a square block on fire, of X magnitude? And they're like, "You should expect to be without water and electricity in these following areas for this period of time," like seven to 10 days. And I remember I was living in Glen Park in San Francisco, and PG&E had a rolling blackout. And it was like, okay, power's out. And for, like, the first few hours, people were, like, wandering around outside. It was a Saturday, and they're like, "Hey, your power out?" "Yeah." "Oh, wow, wow. Well, nice to see you, Bob." You know, everyone was very civil. And then it's, like, five or six hours, and then people start to realize, oh, all of my food in my freezer is going to thaw-
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... at some point. And I think the water may have also been off. And around, like, 10 hours post, there's one guy in the neighborhood who had a little Honda generator because he was a burner. He went to Burning Man, and he was, like, keeping his stuff frozen. And one or two people wandered over, and they're like, "Hey, Joe, could I borrow that after you're done with it?" Clearly he's not gonna be done with it 'cause he's using it. And I think it was at, like, hour 15 or 18, there was an entire throng of people who were these, like, hyper-liberal ... peace, you know, live long and prosper, live and let live types who are getting openly hostile about who would get to use his generator next. This is less than 24 hours. So the, the basic courtesies of-
- CWChris Williamson
Wow
- TFTim Ferriss
... modern life fall away very quickly.
- TUTim Urban
There's a whole wild person in every human-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- TUTim Urban
... that is completely contained in a normal situation. Sometimes I'm in a coffee shop and I see all these people want standing in line, so, and I just, like, suddenly have a s- split screen to, like, those people, like, stabbing each other for food. And then I was like, then I come back here and I'm like, "Ah." You know, it's a little-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- TUTim Urban
Like, it's the, the, you know, we're, it, it's all fine when it's fine.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
And, you know, I don't know.
- TFTim Ferriss
So let me say a couple things real quick.
- TUTim Urban
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
So, uh, this is gonna sound strange. Not, not to, like, defend, um, you know, Genghis Khan and, and the steppe hordes, but-
- CWChris Williamson
Still done pillaging for a second tip, so-
- TFTim Ferriss
Not, not pillaging
- CWChris Williamson
... we've already had it with-
- TFTim Ferriss
Not pillaging
- CWChris Williamson
... adult
- TFTim Ferriss
There's a book, uh, I won't recommend it to be by one of the, I mean, a name everybody would know. Uh, there's a book called Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. It is remar- from, like, modern postal systems to infrastructure to reli- re- uh, religious freedom. They did kill and rape a lot of people. Um, but, uh, that book is, is worth reading, especially the first half of it, uh, just to get a full grasp of the historic implications. The second, just to give an OG podcast shout-out, uh, Wrath of the Khans by Dan Carlin.
- TUTim Urban
Oh my God.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hardcore History.
- TUTim Urban
Listen to every Dan Carlin episode. It's just-
- TFTim Ferriss
I mean, honestly, still maybe the best, no offense, no offense, no offense-
- TUTim Urban
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... best podcast of all time. Dan Carlin, Hardcore History, Wrath of the Khans. It's like a five-part series. Each one is four to five hours long.
- TUTim Urban
Oh, so, so many-
- TFTim Ferriss
And you will not be bored. You will rip through it.
- 2:05:44 – 2:11:35
The Japanese Handjob Glitch
- TUTim Urban
the world will see it.
- CWChris Williamson
Speaking of novel content, the Japan and USA algo crossover because of the translate mode that happened has resulted in some pretty spectacular outcomes. None more so than Kenki Kid's account. Have you seen this guy? Okay, so he, uh, describes in his bio on X as a company employee living in Yokohama's Kanai area, originally from Yokohama, born in 1985, currently 41 years old, single, 41 years with no girlfriend history, non-appealing to the opposite sex, unattractive, amateur virgin, likes sex services, hobbies are watching soccer, overseas travel, planning to retire early from the company at age 50, has given up on marriage, and is currently seeking a comfortable single life. So what's interesting about this guy, he's been tweeting about visiting different-
- TFTim Ferriss
That is one hell of a bio. How did he end up getting so many characters?
- CWChris Williamson
I think you're able to compress things down on, in Japanese.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
Impressive for a dog as well.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, uh, he's been tweeting about visiting different handjob parlors in Japan and is using the revenue paid out from X to fund his future trips. He's essentially unlocked an infinite handjob glitch in reality.
- TUTim Urban
Chelsea supporter. It's also just no one in, in, in the, in the Western world talks like this. It's just this very specific, like, Japanese-
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, so there's a quote tweet. Go to the quote tweet, Jared. Uh, it's where he says, "Today both my regular handjob spot and the married woman place are running discount events and I'm torn about which one to go to." That's quote tweeted by an American saying, "Americans be like, 'I can't even get some chopped foid from a dating app to go on a $250 date with me,' while the Japan bros are like, 'Damn, the handjob parlor and the MILF joint are both on sale tonight. I don't know which one to pick.'"
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
And he is using the X revenue-
- TUTim Urban
Damn
- CWChris Williamson
... in order to fund his handjob-
- TUTim Urban
He's like the most honest man in the world.
- CWChris Williamson
It's unbelievable.
- TUTim Urban
Can you set a calendar reminder for Black Friday? Just checking.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Kenki Kids.
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, unbelievable. Yeah, the crossover from, uh, American people finally being able to see Japanese content on X-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... has resulted in some-
- TFTim Ferriss
I mean, I, I did love the, I don't know if you've seen these split videos of, like, Japanese cleaning the stadium after a game and Knicks fans.
- CWChris Williamson
You brought this up.
- TUTim Urban
Yes. They do-
- CWChris Williamson
You know
- TUTim Urban
... even what's interesting, when the Japanese team played at Wembley against England, they cleaned the changing rooms afterwards. The players even did it.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- TUTim Urban
It's a completely different cultural difference. What's interesting though is you have these languages merge online. I'm assuming you're gonna have podcasts language merge. Do you actually lose less, um, the cultural differences as much? One of the reasons why Japan is so unique is because they did that Sakoku, right? Where they, whilst the rest of the world was all mixing ideas, if you left Japan, killed. If you tried to enter Japan, killed. So it's so unique and so alien.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's like the Galapagos-
- 2:11:35 – 2:17:38
Is Avmacol the Next Breakthrough Supplement?
- CWChris Williamson
very well. Tim, what else have you brought from home? You've got this bag it's lurking next to me.
- TFTim Ferriss
I brought lots of stuff.
- CWChris Williamson
I want to see the goodies.
- TFTim Ferriss
I'm gonna throw, I'm gonna throw out some fun stuff. Uh, you're talking about like humans, modern humans in the wild, dead, right? Domesticated dogs in the wild, dead. One exception, if you take domestic p- domesticated pigs and release them into the wild, they rapidly undergo physical and behavioral transformations. Within just a few months, they develop thicker, bristly hair, longer snouts, and tusks. Like, they literally-
Episode duration: 2:34:21
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode RJR-_zFNf5I
