EVERY SPOKEN WORD
145 min read · 29,455 words- 0:00 – 1:21
Protein bar salesman, leaflet drama & the “no junk mail” sign
- CWChris Williamson
Catch-up 102. It went so well last time that we're gonna do another one. I went to Rome. To anyone who's considering going and hasn't been, it's fucking mint. You don't have any bum hair, do you?
- JOJonny
No.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
So ...
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- JOJonny
The most-
- CWChris Williamson
Jonny's gone.
- JOJonny
... that, that, that's-
- CWChris Williamson
Jonny's gone.
- YUYusef
It's just-
- JOJonny
It's like you're on a train. The delivery of that question, Chris, was, was honestly artistic. Like, I, I can't believe- You're on a train and someone just ti- pulls their hand across your face.
- YUYusef
And, and the way you reacted to it as well. There was no shock. It was, "You don't have any bum hair, do you?" "No, I don't."
- CWChris Williamson
And then he said, "Your mate, your business partner, the guy with a beard. I was trying, I was putting a, a leaflet, promotional leaflet through his door, and he-"
- YUYusef
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"You sat in the window, and he got up and he banged on the window and went, 'What are you doing, mate?'" (laughs)
- YUYusef
Did this actually happen?
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- YUYusef
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) So, so the reason that this has occurred is because on your letterbox, you have a statement.
- JOJonny
No junk mail.
- YUYusef
The guy's reply was, "He sh- just shouldn't live in a student area. It wouldn't happen."
- JOJonny
That's, that's equivalent to, "She shouldn't have been wearing that."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Jonny and Yusuf from propanefitness.com are here again.
- JOJonny
Welcome back.
- CWChris Williamson
Catch-up 102. It went so well last time that we're gonna do another one. Just talking about whatever-
- YUYusef
Just catching up.
- CWChris Williamson
Whatever the, whatever the fudge is going on.
- YUYusef
Catching up, catching down, catching cross.
- 1:21 – 4:12
Soreen shirt, malt-loaf as a pre-meal & VAT: cake vs biscuit logic
- JOJonny
The first thing, the first thing which is going on is for the listeners at home who aren't watching on YouTube, you are missing out. My belated birthday present is adorned across my chest, and it is- Glorious. ... this lovely Soreen t-shirt. You're like the sun being massive-
- YUYusef
Plane.
- JOJonny
Plane?
- YUYusef
Plane.
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- YUYusef
It's a Soreen t-shirt.
- JOJonny
As (laughs) as in-
- YUYusef
It's got the logo from the Soreen on it.
- JOJonny
(laughs) As in (laughs) airplane?
- YUYusef
Yeah. Like (blows raspberry) .
- JOJonny
What's that got to do with it?
- YUYusef
No, man, because it's a plain Soreen.
- JOJonny
Plane.
- YUYusef
It's not the chocolate one or the-
- JOJonny
Oh, I see.
- YUYusef
... banana one, or-
- CWChris Williamson
This could potentially be banana though. It's the same color logo.
- JOJonny
It's not. Don't-
- YUYusef
It's the same color logo.
- JOJonny
Stop kidding yourself, Chris. That is the s- plain Soreen. For anyone that doesn't understand this, Chris's idea of a pre-meal snack-
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- JOJonny
... is an entire Soreen malt loaf, w- extremely dense. It's like a, the, the closest thing in food terms to a brick.
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- JOJonny
And a kilo of yogurt.
- YUYusef
Yeah. Could you build a house out of Soreen?
- JOJonny
Just dipped in en- ... Oh, yeah, easily.
- CWChris Williamson
You'd need to wait-
- YUYusef
Quite a lot of compression.
- JOJonny
It'd be so-
- CWChris Williamson
You'd need to wait for them to, uh, air, wouldn't you? Air out, and then, you know, they'd get bit harder.
- 4:12 – 8:45
Greggs, halal constraints & why they won’t heat the pizza
- CWChris Williamson
Um, 'cause didn't your ... There's another, another VAT, VAT banter. Um.
- YUYusef
Great banter.
- CWChris Williamson
Your brother ...
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Did, did he try and ask for a bit of pizza heated up in Gregg's?
- JOJonny
Oh, yeah. Oh, God.
- YUYusef
They can't heat it up because-
- JOJonny
Right.
- YUYusef
... then it's battable.
- JOJonny
So-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, wow.
- JOJonny
So I remember, um ... We're not, we're not sure of the reason. Uh, I'm guessing that's-
- YUYusef
I'm guessing as well, yeah.
- JOJonny
... I was driving my brother to the gym, and I, sometimes I have to take care of him. You know, he's, he's, he's, uh, 44. So, um-
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- JOJonny
So, so I was like, "Right, before we go to the gym, are you hungry?" And he's like, "Oh, I'm starving." I'm like, "Okay, let's, let's just pull into the Gregg's." Went in, and he was like ... And this is, this is him having a, a real problem 'cause he's, he's mo- wrestling with the moralistic attempt to try and be halal, and the fact that he's very hungry.
- CWChris Williamson
Surrounded by sausage.
- JOJonny
Surrounded by sausage. So, so I was like, "Look, you should get the steak and cheese roll. It's fantastic." He was like, "Mm-mm." I'm like, "Are you ... You're trying to eat halal, aren't you?" And he was like, "Yeah, if I can." And so-
- YUYusef
Isn't the way you say ha- halal-
- CWChris Williamson
Hallo.
- YUYusef
It's like a French person saying croissant.
- JOJonny
Croissant, uh, halal-cul-de-sac. Um.
- YUYusef
(laughs) Halal.
- JOJonny
Go to that, go to that cul-de-sac and just-
- YUYusef
Go croissant.
- JOJonny
(laughs) The croissant.
- YUYusef
Ha- ha- halal, say it.
- JOJonny
Halal.
- YUYusef
Halal.
- CWChris Williamson
Halal.
- 8:45 – 16:07
Greggs theft economics & the OTEIN ‘threat’ that wasn’t
- YUYusef
Can we talk about the time when... Can I tell my story?
- JOJonny
Oh, yes.
- YUYusef
Yeah, of course you can, man. This is a great story.
- JOJonny
Yes.
- YUYusef
Okay, so today, or a while ago in podcast land. Yeah. Um, I was walking from my car to Costa Coffee. I won't say where in case anyone tries to follow me, but somewhere in Newcastle. And as I'm walking, this is gonna kinda give it away a little bit. So I'm walking past an EE shop, EE phone shop, right? Standing at the door of the EE phone shop is a fairly well-muscled man. Um, looking frustrated because EE isn't open yet, right? So I noticed this. AirPods in, actually listening to, uh, Catch Up 101, so this is very meta. Mm-hmm. (laughs) Yeah. Um, and I, I saw him see me, and then just, like, missile lock onto me and follow me along. And I noticed, and he like, like side eyeing. Like, okay. Side eyeing again. He's still doing it. Like, "Oh, what the hell." Um, 'cause I did get started when I'm at the petrol station that time.
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
Remember?
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
So I'm just always, you know, whene- whenever I'm around cars. Then see him turn round and run back towards a white van. I'm like, "Okay."
- JOJonny
Hmm?
- YUYusef
Walk into Costa.
- JOJonny
Hmm.
- YUYusef
Order my decaf, of course, coffee.
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
See him then run back towards Costa, come into Costa. And as he comes round the, the door, I notice that he's got a handful of protein bars. So I'm like, "Okay." He's got a T-shirt that says Oteen on it. I was like, (sighs) (laughs) like, "If this guy's coming to attack me, this is a very convoluted way of attacking someone." So then he's like, "Hi, mate. Listen to the podcast," et cetera. All the, all these nice things.
- JOJonny
Say I love how there's just this fake ... Familiar with modern wisdom, et cetera. Um, got talking about, um, the protein bars that he was giving me to try and things like this.Um, and then he said, um, "Actually, your, your mate, your business partner, the guy with a beard, um, I was trying, I was putting a, uh, a, a leaflet, promotional leaflet through his door." Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
"He, he was sat in the window. And he got up and he banged on the window and went, 'What are you doing, mate?'"
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- YUYusef
(laughs) Did this actually happen?
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- YUYusef
Yeah. (laughs)
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- JOJonny
Do you know what? I, I feel like, I feel like when I'm sat at my desk, I'm having to like, defend-
- YUYusef
Ward off.
- JOJonny
... d- d- yeah.
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- JOJonny
So quite often people will bring their dog into, into the little bit for my front door and try and make it poo.
- YUYusef
And just have them bark at you?
- JOJonny
No, exactly.
- 16:07 – 22:56
Chris’s Rome trip: phone-free navigation, €1 espresso & pizza by the meter
- CWChris Williamson
Fantastic. I, I went to Rome.
- JOJonny
Yeah. Tell us about Rome.
- YUYusef
He didn't use the phrase, "When in Rome."
- CWChris Williamson
I didn't do it once.
- YUYusef
I even said to him-
- CWChris Williamson
Didn't even-
- YUYusef
... while he was there, "Make sure you use the phrase-"
- JOJonny
At every opportunity.
- YUYusef
"... well, when in Rome."
- CWChris Williamson
Didn't use it once.
- JOJonny
Would, would, would your company have understood the reference?
- YUYusef
No.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a really complex reference.
- JOJonny
Well, I-
- CWChris Williamson
Icelandic, Icelandic people probably don't-
- YUYusef
Oh, right.
- CWChris Williamson
... probably don't understand the reference as well.
- YUYusef
They just want Crop.
- JOJonny
Yeah, they, they only have when in Reykjavík, when eating Crop.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, exactly.
- JOJonny
And, um-
- CWChris Williamson
When having skyr.
- JOJonny
(laughs) Is skyr how you say it?
- YUYusef
Ah, skyr.
- CWChris Williamson
Skyr, I don't know.
- YUYusef
Ah.
- CWChris Williamson
Can you believe-
- YUYusef
That's (inaudible 00:04:56) .
- CWChris Williamson
Can we, can we please just divert for a second to, uh, work out how the fuck a company managed to own the word skyr in the UK?
- JOJonny
It's amazing.
- 22:56 – 28:46
Bum-hair talk, the ‘shame squat’ & Veet Sensitive as a life upgrade
- CWChris Williamson
You don't have any bum hair, do you?
- JOJonny
No.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
(laughs)
So, who ... So someone suggested, was it, a lye pack?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
The most-
- CWChris Williamson
Johnny's gone.
- JOJonny
That, that, that's-
- CWChris Williamson
Johnny's gone. (laughs)
- JOJonny
It's just-
- CWChris Williamson
It's like you're on a train.
- JOJonny
The delivery of that question, Chris, was, was honestly artistic. Like, I, I can't believe-
You're on a train and if someone was to pull the hand brake-
And the way you reacted to it as well. It was no shock. It was, "You don't have any bum hair, do you?" "No, I don't."
(laughs)
Brilliant.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, yeah, so me and Daniel Sloss were talking about our individual strategies for how we-
- JOJonny
Anus hair.
- CWChris Williamson
... sh- shave down there.
- JOJonny
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and we, I came up with the shame squat, which is pretty correct also a, uh, biomechanically very good position to poo in as well.
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't it?
- JOJonny
Deadly.
- CWChris Williamson
Unkinking the sphincter.
- JOJonny
Unkink rec- rec- uh, rectum. Yeah. 100%. This i- this is... So there's a product called the Squatty Potty. Just (clicks tongue) . Which, um, yeah, if you, if you struggle with poos, you can buy it. It fits in a U-shape around your toilet and it basically allows you to sit in a squat position.
- CWChris Williamson
What's different ... What is the difference between that and what five-year-olds use to help them reach the toilet?
- JOJonny
Oh, it's the same, but-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 28:46 – 32:31
What are we watching? Flat Earth documentary and the anatomy of confirmation bias
- CWChris Williamson
Um, what have we been watching on Netflix recently? We were sat talking about something.
- YUYusef
Ah. Aha.
- CWChris Williamson
Here we go.
- JOJonny
Oh, Flat Earth.
- YUYusef
Flat Earther.
- CWChris Williamson
I watch Flat Earth.
- YUYusef
Oh, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Did you watch it?
- YUYusef
I knew you'd seen something.
- JOJonny
I watched a bit of it.
- YUYusef
You fucking said that you hadn't watched anything.
- JOJonny
Well, that was... Yeah, it was... it was back when we'd done the... When we were-
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Okay.
- JOJonny
In the... When we were in the magical time warp of-
- CWChris Williamson
Podcast land, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Um, yeah.
- JOJonny
What's it called?
- YUYusef
Are you a Flat Earther?
- CWChris Williamson
Believe the dome or something. Leave the dome.
- JOJonny
I was keen to become a Flat Earther. I... I was like, "Look, I'm really willing."
- YUYusef
This is exactly the sort of thing you would believe in.
- JOJonny
Like, Socratically, I'm ready to, like... to peel apart all of my beliefs and be like, "Right, is there a convincing argument?" But the problem is they haven't.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like a... (laughs)
- YUYusef
(laughs) It's like a what? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You know on it where they're like, "When or where in your life are you a Flat Earther?" The first thing I thought of was your, uh, every... every week for 12 weeks, when you went to that room and-
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- YUYusef
... lay on the floor with all the men going, "You're a Flat Earther." (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, the flat earther while I'm naked. Of course. (laughs)
- YUYusef
I was like, that... that's, if anything, more extreme.
- JOJonny
And going under the water for an hour.
- YUYusef
Yeah.
- 32:31 – 35:17
Alex Jones on Rogan: charismatic nonsense, Antarctica flights & conspiracy logic
- CWChris Williamson
Have you seen Alex Jones on Joe Rogan?
- YUYusef
No.
- CWChris Williamson
The second one. So anyone who is listening that hasn't seen this-
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... the man is a force of nature. So he, him and Joe Rogan had a pretty, um, public fallout recently, and he basically called for the destruction of Joe Rogan, but he's this ... you know, do you know who I mean? Do you know who Alex Jones is?
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you know who Alex Jones is?
- JOJonny
He's, he's a ... he's like the David Icke, um, successor in a way.
- CWChris Williamson
Y- kind of. He's like a right w- uh, right-leaning, uh, American political commentator who's been de-platformed from a few different places.
- JOJonny
He's got round face. American-
- CWChris Williamson
They're making the frogs gay.
- JOJonny
Yeah, v- very shouty. He says psychotic things like that.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JOJonny
I mean, really, like, talks about e- everyone, like, the big politicians being lizards and, um-
- CWChris Williamson
So, no, but the, the, the thing about Alex Jones that makes him so compelling is that he is such an unbelievable speaker. Like, i- it was, I couldn't ... he should go on ... I admire him in a really bizarre fashion because his capacity to just elucidate everything. So you hear him speak, and he's, he'll be talking about the CIA and the moon landings, and, "Of course this is why it happened. And you know that dogs are psychic buffers? Yeah, dogs can be psychic buffers. They kind of take in auras, a little bit like, uh, the aliens do, but not the real aliens because the real aliens are the ones that are connecting, like, intravenously with everybody. Like, the grays? The grays, the grays are simply just, like, artificial intelligent." And you're like, "Oh."
- YUYusef
Like, so many-
- CWChris Williamson
It's like-
- YUYusef
... so many vast concepts just connected seemingly, and by the way-
- CWChris Williamson
And he just doesn't ... and Joe-
- YUYusef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Just, Joe is, like, try- desperately ... if there's anyone in the world that can wrangle a conversation like that, it's Joe Rogan.
- YUYusef
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And he is, it's like being pressure sprayed-
- YUYusef
(clears throat)
- CWChris Williamson
... with just bullshit-
- YUYusef
Bullshit, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... at all times. But he talks about, um, he was like, "I will give a million pounds." He was like, "I'm not a rich man, but I've got a million pounds." He's like, "I will give a million pounds to someone to charter a flight to fly over the Antarctic." And he wants Eddie Bravo to do it. And he was like, "Eddie-"
- JOJonny
Oh, to, to find the edge of the earth.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, to see if he can find ... 'cause that's where they say it is, right, the earth?
- YUYusef
The earth.
- 35:17 – 41:18
Big Pharma, antidepressants, and America’s culture of overmedication
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Um, have you seen the, uh, most recent Amazon Prime documentary which is about Big Pharma and the effect of antipsychotic drugs on kids?
- YUYusef
No.
- CWChris Williamson
So there is some really fucking harrowing research about the, I think it's the top 10 antidepressants, and the fact that pretty much every mass shooting in America the people, the perpetrators have had one or more of these drugs in them. And they wouldn't release the toxicology report of the other person from ... what was the really famous one where there was two of the guys?
- JOJonny
Uh ...
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, that Ben Shapiro called out, uh, Piers Morgan for saying it was fake.
- JOJonny
Oh, yeah. San-
- CWChris Williamson
Sandy, Sandy Hook. Um, they wouldn't release the toxicology report of the second because the first one came up that, that he had, like, X in his system, and they were pretty certain that the second one ... and if you had this big school shooting and both of the, the common denominated-
- JOJonny
Uh-
- CWChris Williamson
... denominator between the two wasn't that they both had, (clears throat) like, a previous history of mental illness, it was the fact that they were both on these antipsychotic drugs. Um-
- YUYusef
Surely there are lots of other commonalities, like, 'cause in that case it's hard to say whether it's causation or correlation.
- CWChris Williamson
They are, but the, uh, it was just s- something that Big Pharma wanted, and it, that, that's why they're literally not allowing them to
- JOJonny
The Americans are so bad. They, they love overmedicating people.... kids with just, so there was a, I remember ... So my, my dad was a psychiatrist, and I remember showing him a bit of the Louis Theroux documentary, um, w- of, uh, over-medicated kids, and there was a 10-year-old boy, who's 11 now, um, that had five diagnoses. He had a diagnosis of-
- CWChris Williamson
I remember seeing this.
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JOJonny
OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, and ADHD, and he was on five separate medications for each of these conditions. The family were all on something, including the dog for PTSD apparently. So-
- CWChris Williamson
What had the dog gone through?
- JOJonny
Well, yeah, exactly. So that, so that's another, it's another flag of like, the family just being like-
- CWChris Williamson
Dealing with the family. (laughs) Dealing with the family. (laughs)
- JOJonny
(laughs) "Yeah, maybe, let's just throw medications at it." And I remember my dad watching it and being like, "First of all-"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
... "statistically, the likelihood of all of these conditions to be, you know, one in 100,000 or one in 200,000."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
"But to get all of these simultaneously, plus this one is a chemical imbalance in this way, and this one is in the opposite way, it is impossible to have both simultaneously."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
"And these drugs have not been tested on people under 18 years old. So no, no, this is, uh, abusive." (laughs) And, but, so what you've got is just, like this idea that we should just throw drugs at people. Expe- untested on those age ranges or whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
But it's only, it's, it's only, um-
- JOJonny
Of course you don't care.
- CWChris Williamson
... America and Australia that, uh-
- JOJonny
That are advertised.
- 41:18 – 50:39
Deep Work, book club plans & the urge to medicate productivity problems
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. And I was thinking about this earlier on, so in Lifehacks 107 we talked about the Pomodoro Technique, and I'm currently reading Deep Work, um, which-
- JOJonny
Nice.
- CWChris Williamson
... I'll be done on soon. And we're going to start doing, uh, essentially a Modern Wisdom book club, which is where we'll review books that we've read and then deliver some, like key readings and stuff like that. So if there are any books that you want us to cover or that you've read that we think that we should, drop it in the comments below. Um, but I, partway through, I'm like 50 pages into Deep Work and it's just delivering some real home truths to me.
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, which I really, I don't want to swallow.
- JOJonny
Wait 'til you read Digital Minimalism. Uh-oh.
- CWChris Williamson
Struggling to swallow. I've listened to the, the preview.
- JOJonny
Stings, don't it? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it'll be ... And do you know what-
- JOJonny
If Deep Work's being punched in the gut-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JOJonny
... Digital Minimalism's someone just going with, like sharp things at your eyes. Really?
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, no.
- JOJonny
Much worse.
- CWChris Williamson
I thought it would be-
- JOJonny
It's just like ... Both different.
- CWChris Williamson
But both of them are just like, "You twat."
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
So ...
- JOJonny
Like, you've been fully sucked into this thing-
- CWChris Williamson
And do you know, do you know what I started thinking about with that? Is the equivalent situation that appears to be occurring in so many different areas of life. Same in d- uh, training and wanting to get lean, and the same in working, and the same in dealing with emotions or feeling feelings. Feeling feelings, these feelings are uncomfortable, I'm gonna medicate my way out of it. It's, I'm not being productive enough. As, as opposed to let's spend some time doing some introspective work, actually work out what the fuck is wrong with me or why I feel this way, um, et cetera, et cetera. Do, do the work. Um-... I'm not being productive enough, therefore I'm going to take some nootropics, which are these unproven, like-
- JOJonny
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... untested drugs and just throw them in me and see what happens.
- JOJonny
(clears throat)
- CWChris Williamson
Or I'm going to fill myself full of loads of caffeine, or I'm going to work for inordinate amounts of time to get an amount of work done that could have been achieved in five hours.
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Instead of actually tackling the issue, which is, I do low concentration diffuse work across a lot of different tasks and don't actually do a lot. And what you can tell I'm taking -
- JOJonny
It's such a high-
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 50:39 – 1:01:04
Learning vs doing: notes that impress, habits that don’t exist, and reading that sticks
- JOJonny
It's the second arrow. Speaking of optimizing, you've, you've both heard the Serge Fraget interview?
- YUYusef
No.
- CWChris Williamson
I've read his Medium article which is like 45 minutes long.
- JOJonny
Oh. Okay, yeah, similar thing. He's a guy who's, he's like a Silicon Valley tech guy that's just decided to turn himself into an experiment and he's just nailing all of the nootropics and, um, testosterone and clom-
- CWChris Williamson
Kind of like low-dose mercury and lithium and ... God.
- JOJonny
Yeah. Yeah, low-dose lithium, low-dose citalopram, um, so antidepressant, uh, Clomid, clomiphene -
- CWChris Williamson
Micro- microdosing MDMA?
- JOJonny
Yeah, M- MDMA, um, just basically like-
- YUYusef
Surely some of these things almost cancel each other out or ...
- JOJonny
Probably, yeah. He, he basically just says like, "If I just try all of them and then something ..." Like, he's like, "I think the net benefit that I get eventually will."
- CWChris Williamson
He was tracking, he's been tracking it a fair bit. So he's like, uh, the ultimate biohacker.
- YUYusef
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Tracking it a fair bit and having his bloods done and stuff.
- YUYusef
It's just not very, it's not a very scientific way to approach the problem, is it?
- CWChris Williamson
It's not.
- JOJonny
It's not.
- YUYusef
If it's de- if he feels better, great. But like, do I have to live this way for the rest of my life? Or what he's-
- JOJonny
I think, I think that's his intention, is like, he wants to become like a superhuman-
- YUYusef
Oh right, it's shotgun.
- JOJonny
... and try and like really elongate his life.
- YUYusef
Right.
- JOJonny
And he, you know, he's like, "I'm happy to be at the forefront of this." Um, but I suppose in his case, like he, he's got a lot of quite interesting, like he, he, he goes and ... there's like an agency where he pays Russian models to sleep with.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JOJonny
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
He's very open about his transactional sex life.
- JOJonny
Because he says like, it's just, um, he wants to have no, he wants to have no shame about anything. So he's like-
- CWChris Williamson
Including his sexual proclivities, like what he finds like attractive in the bedroom and stuff like that?
- JOJonny
Yeah. So he's like, "Yeah, I want my parents to listen to this and I want to be," you know.
- YUYusef
Right.
- JOJonny
Just so that he can be fully ... and he said like he's, he's trying to adopt like a never, never lie approach and never, um ...
- 1:01:04 – 1:08:45
Pomodoro realism, life-ruining optimization & rapid-fire media recommendations
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, man.You know what you were saying last time about when someone goes into the back of you and it's just all the paperwork just flashes- Flash. ... in front of your eyes? Yeah. It's that, times- A lot. ... a thousand. I mean, that is a lot of paperwork, isn't it? Yeah. (sighs) Anyway, gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. Um- Something else to watch, just s- sneaking in. Lay it on me. Um, AlphaGo on Netflix. AlphaGo's unbelievable. You seen it? Yeah. Fantastic. You should watch AlphaGo. You'd like AlphaGo. Uh, is it Lee Sedol? Yeah. Have you heard of Go, the game? Card game. Chinese board game. Chinese board game. Uh, it's like apparently the hardest game in the world. Okay. (laughs) Um, they've built a DeepMind, it's owned by Google, based in London. It's just a bunch of really clever people trying to make an algorithm, trying to make AI essentially. Mm-hmm. And the mark of, of AI is can we get this algorithm to beat the best Go player in the world? I think they managed to do it in chess, but they said essentially that because the number of permutations that Go can have, the number of different plays that you can have in Go- Mm-hmm. ... is 10 to the 150, which is more than there are atoms in the observable universe. Yeah. Um, so basically it was so complex- 443 billion, billion, billion- (laughs) ... billion, billion (laughs) - (laughs) ... stars in the known universe. Yeah. Um, if every tear was a drop in the ocean, it would- (laughs) Um, so yeah. And they, uh, they said that it wouldn't, wouldn't be able to be done and I won't, I won't spoil it. But then th- that surely means that the human mind is just taking punts rather than ... Like, the hea- the mind that someone ... The best Go player is mostly taking punts and is just quite good. Well, no, it's how do you program it? How do you- 'Cause if you can't program, like if ... 'cause if you can't program a human to do it, then you can't program a computer to. Uh, so, but so they're, they're trying to create intelligence, aren't they? Or are humans just making heuristic- No, their argument is, their argument is that there is some, uh, undefinable characteristic to human intuition or whatever it might be- Mm-hmm. ... which you wouldn't be able to replicate. Then they do this. Then do you know about AlphaGo Zero? Yeah, that's beat AlphaGo. 100 games to zero- Yeah. ... with no... It was given nothing, so it just did self play locked in its own box. (laughs) Wasn't given the rules. Oh, that's scary. Yeah, I know. AlphaGo Zero started from nothing and within- Ooh. ... four days had beaten the game. Someone needs to go down to London and just unplug that bloke's computer a bit. I don't like that at all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, and so, um, I mentioned this on the last catch-up episode, Josh Clark's The End of the World. If you haven't listened to it, you need to go listen to it. It's fucking unbelievable. And in that there's a, a fairly cleverly balanced view of the threat of AI. And it's that some of the cleverest people on the planet say that we are definitely getting closer to very, very good specific artificial intelligence. Mm-hmm. But essentially in the last 30 years, we've made no progress towards general AI. Yeah. And there's just, there's so many very difficult things to do. Like, to get a robot to be able to pick a ball up off the ground, it needs to define so many different things. Mm-hmm. What is a ball? What is pick up? What are the motions that are required? How do you do it? Like, i- i- it's impossible to tell. The worry is that you, you build something specific that becomes so intelligent that it's like I, I now need to learn this as well. And then, uh, and it learns itself to be general. Do you see what I mean? This is why the, the book Superintelligence is- Seven, seven ... I've, I, you promised- Truly, um- I swear I haven't read it. You promised me that you'd listen to it. There's a lot of nice stuff. I'm reading a book about tidying up and- Yeah, I know you are. (laughs) The, basically the, the sentence that you just said, there's like, there's a chapter on, on that, like, what if question. Mm-hmm. And he just goes deep down the maths and like, "If we define K as the integral of S over T, and this is, uh-" I'm on two, two times speed, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. "... equivalent to the number of neuronal connections that you hold-" You had to, you, wh- you had to dial back the pace. Back to, back to two, yeah. Yeah. From three. (laughs) The, the Tim Urbans, you know Tim Urban's on the Flat Earth guy? Yes. They interview him a few times. Yeah. His interview with Tim Ferriss, he has the m- the, the best, like, Fisher Price AI discussion I've ever heard. (laughs) And like th- the theory of what, you know, are we gonna live on planets or space stations. Like, that, that interview is genuinely brilliant. There were so many things. So let's recap what people need to watch and read. Oh, so much stuff. Digital Minimalism. What a ti- ... If people have read none of this stuff, they're honestly in for the best, like, couple of months of their life. Oh, there's a lot. Critics' Work, Atomic Habits, um, then they need to watch- Digital Minimalism. It got you. Go ahead. No. Um, need to watch Prescription Thugs. (laughs) Need to watch this beast, uh, the great beast that is the global economy. Bigger Stronger Faster as well. Bigger Stronger Faster. Um, uh, what's that? The Dome, Under the Dome. Yeah. What's the flat earth thing called? I thought it was- Something to do with flat earth on Netflix. You'll be able to see it. It's being promoted like hell. Um- AlphaGo. The new Louis Theroux. New, new Louis Theroux, BBC iPlayer. AlphaGo. Yeah. Anything else? Big Short if you've not seen that. Big Short if you've not seen that as well. Yeah. Unbelievable. Margin Call if you've not seen that. Uh-huh. Wizard of Lies if you've not seen that. Have you seen Wizard of Lies? No. Brilliant. It's about, um, (snaps fingers) Bernie Madoff. And then- Oh, yeah. I've seen it advertised. Uh, the new, um, Joe Rogan with Alex Jones, four and a half hours- Oh, God. ... of unrelenting- It's what stops me from getting fully into Joe Rogan 'cause it's just such a commitment. It is. Like that, that will take me like two weeks to listen to. (laughs) . So he, there's this bit- The way to listen to it is like what, what Chris does where it's just on in the background. Yeah. It's a good way to, especially with that when you don't care. Thinking you're going to try and walk- 'Cause the problem th- Yeah. The problem that you have with an audiobook is you don't want to be doing anything else while you're listening to it that's too taxing in case you miss some of the gold. Whereas- Well, even if you miss five, five mi- you miss five minutes, you know, oh, don't know- Don't know what's going on. Yeah. Whereas with Alex Jones, if you'd listened to five seconds, you don't know what's going on. So it's like- Right. So you might ... If you just never know what's going on- ... you're fine. I really enjoyed the Elon Musk on, um- Rogan. ... Rogan. He was good. And Derren Brown. Derren Brown was very good. Yeah. Very lucid. But, uh, Elon Musk didn't do himself any favors in not looking like a weirdo. I think it's all part of his plan. To do what? To get Tesla and SpaceX into massive exposure. How much traffic did that interview have? Well, his car was- Well, zero to their Facebook 'cause he deleted it. I ... but i- t- th- th- th- there's no way you fly rockets to Mars, make m- electric cars, try and revolutionize all these things, but you're a b- you're a bit of a twat when it comes to your PR. Like, it's all, it's all gotta be on purpose, hasn't it? No, 'cause he's got that kind of megalomaniac crazy genius thing going on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all- Did you see the video of his new rocket mounted on the floor? The test burn? No. Oh, God. That's the rocket that can take people that they've just sent up, isn't it? It's a new one. It's, uh, just a, a like, um, prototype one. They just, they launched one the other day that- Not, not that one. Right. It's not ready yet. Okay. Um, they did this thing and the sound that this machine makes is like- Mm-hmm. It just sounds like the end of the earth. Like the sort of thing that would take us to Mars, I imagine. Probably. Yes. Yeah. And on that note, I think we better leave. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming along. Uh, all of the links to what we've linked are in the show notes below. Everything that we've brought up during this podcast. Please do not pre- forget to press subscribe. Johnny's touching Yusuf's hand. Oh, he's waving goodbye. Bye. Goodbye, everybody. Bye everyone. Thank you. Dancing. Yeah. Oh yeah. Dancing.
Episode duration: 1:08:45
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