Rome, Greggs & Flat Earth | Catch Up 102

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Catch-up 102. It went…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      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?

   2. JOJonny0:10

      No.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:11

      (laughs)

   4. JOJonny0:11

      So ...

   5. YUYusef0:14

      (laughs)

   6. JOJonny0:14

      The most-

   7. CWChris Williamson0:15

      Jonny's gone.

   8. JOJonny0:16

      ... that, that, that's-

   9. CWChris Williamson0:16

      Jonny's gone.

   10. YUYusef0:17

       It's just-

   11. JOJonny0:18

       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.

   12. YUYusef0:26

       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."

   13. CWChris Williamson0:31

       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-"

   14. YUYusef0:38

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson0:38

       "You sat in the window, and he got up and he banged on the window and went, 'What are you doing, mate?'" (laughs)

   16. YUYusef0:43

       Did this actually happen?

   17. JOJonny0:44

       Yeah.

   18. YUYusef0:45

       Yeah. (laughs)

   19. CWChris Williamson0:46

       (laughs) So, so the reason that this has occurred is because on your letterbox, you have a statement.

   20. JOJonny0:51

       No junk mail.

   21. YUYusef0:52

       The guy's reply was, "He sh- just shouldn't live in a student area. It wouldn't happen."

   22. JOJonny0:56

       That's, that's equivalent to, "She shouldn't have been wearing that."

   23. CWChris Williamson0:58

       (laughs)

   24. YUYusef0:58

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson1:04

       Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Jonny and Yusuf from propanefitness.com are here again.

   26. JOJonny1:10

       Welcome back.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:10

       Catch-up 102. It went so well last time that we're gonna do another one. Just talking about whatever-

   28. YUYusef1:17

       Just catching up.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:18

       Whatever the, whatever the fudge is going on.

   30. YUYusef1:21

       Catching up, catching down, catching cross.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   (laughs) …

   1. JOJonny15:00

      halal, but-

   2. CWChris Williamson15:01

      (laughs)

   3. JOJonny15:02

      Cheese, cheese-

   4. CWChris Williamson15:03

      Halal.

   5. JOJonny15:03

      ... and onion apparently are not.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:05

      Why?

   7. YUYusef15:06

      What the fuck?

   8. JOJonny15:06

      Well, they didn't, didn't used to be. They used animal rennet in them.

   9. CWChris Williamson15:08

      Rennet?

   10. YUYusef15:09

       Oh.

   11. JOJonny15:09

       Like, the, the scooping from the stomach of, of an animal, of a cow.

   12. CWChris Williamson15:14

       Hang on. So-

   13. YUYusef15:15

       (laughs) What the fuck? Scooping?

   14. CWChris Williamson15:17

       But the cows, the cows only eat grass.

   15. JOJonny15:20

       Yeah.

   16. YUYusef15:20

       Now, that's halal.

   17. CWChris Williamson15:21

       And the grass is fine.

   18. YUYusef15:22

       That's halal.

   19. JOJonny15:23

       So I'm gonna think of an analogy for-

   20. YUYusef15:25

       (laughs)

   21. JOJonny15:26

       So that means-

   22. CWChris Williamson15:26

       Is it, like, hydrolyzed whey?

   23. JOJonny15:27

       I mean, driving your car is totally natural because the, the oil, the petrol is from the oil which is from-

   24. YUYusef15:33

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson15:33

       Yeah, okay, yeah.

   26. JOJonny15:34

       ... the ground, it's from the rocks and trees and-

   27. YUYusef15:35

       Well, no, 'cause it-

   28. JOJonny15:36

       See, cars run on trees. It's, it's all-

   29. YUYusef15:39

       So it, if-

   30. JOJonny15:39

       What were the hippies worried about?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JOJonny30:00

      evidence to... pro or contrary to... to a belief, I will adjust my... I... I'm... I'll happily shift on a dime. These Flat Earthers shift on a dime to twist reality to match their belief.

   2. YUYusef30:11

      Yeah.

   3. JOJonny30:11

      And there's a really, really interesting clip from it that I think you will have both... both seen, where they... they do this special test, where they shine a... a pinhole of light through a sheet with a hole in, and then 300 meters away, they have another guy receiving the light. And based on the angle, that determines whether... if they can... if the Earth was flat, they would be able to see it at... at the horizontal angle. And if it's not, it would go up slightly.And so they tested it, and it showed that the earth was curved, or it showed a, a-

   4. CWChris Williamson30:40

      Curvature.

   5. JOJonny30:40

      It showed a curvature of the-

   6. YUYusef30:42

      Well, he had to raise it, didn't he?

   7. CWChris Williamson30:43

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JOJonny30:43

      He had to raise it.

   9. YUYusef30:44

      Raise it to, to account for the fact that the, that the earth is, the earth is curved.

   10. JOJonny30:47

       For ... yeah, for the sort of pro- calculated curvature.

   11. YUYusef30:50

       Yeah.

   12. JOJonny30:50

       And so then they were like, "Oh no, but, um, that's just because there's, there's heavenly energies that are shifting the light and causing this ... and what we need to do is, we need, we need to repeat this in a Gaussian chamber."

   13. YUYusef31:01

       (laughs)

   14. JOJonny31:01

       And so they then repeated it, and this guy, like, dropped 26 grand to get a Gaussian chamber, and they repeated the experiment, same thing happened.

   15. YUYusef31:09

       (laughs)

   16. JOJonny31:09

       And they were like, "Oh but that's because of, it's a refractionary effect from the magnetic field and it's causing-" You're like-

   17. CWChris Williamson31:14

       There's a, there's a bit where they, they buy, isn't it like a h- uh, is it the 26 grand gyroscope?

   18. YUYusef31:20

       Ah, the accelerometer, yeah, yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson31:20

       Right. And he says, one of the guys is literally saying, "This could really throw a, a spanner in the works here."

   20. YUYusef31:27

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JOJonny31:27

       This could kick the old flower.

   22. CWChris Williamson31:27

       I mean, like, you are not trying to find out the truth. You are trying to find things which support your argument.

   23. JOJonny31:34

       It's like confirmation bias itself.

   24. CWChris Williamson31:35

       That's just, it's, the whole thing is confirmation bias.

   25. YUYusef31:37

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JOJonny31:37

       He's like, "Well, th- this better not get out to the, uh, the flat earth crowd if, if it does show to-"

   27. CWChris Williamson31:42

       I mean, that, that whole documentary is a bit ... it's, it's funny, but it would make me more annoyed if they were less ridiculous.

   28. YUYusef31:51

       Yeah. The, the two, the, the two questions that I would have for them is firstly, what do they think ... why do they think the lie is being protected so aggressively by Big Pharma?

   29. CWChris Williamson32:04

       Such a pointless lie, like-

   30. YUYusef32:06

       You know, like, like who's, who's gaining from-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Well, no, I, I,…

   1. YUYusef45:00

      skepticism there in his response. Did you notice that? (laughs)

   2. JOJonny45:02

      Well, no, I, I, I'll have to, yeah, I'll have to test that.

   3. CWChris Williamson45:05

      Tweet "I am tweeting to prove Yusuf wrong." Command, return.

   4. JOJonny45:13

      Fine. And then does it come, does it come up and say-

   5. CWChris Williamson45:15

      No, I've got, I've got do not disturb on. (laughs)

   6. JOJonny45:17

      ... Do not disturb enabled? Good. So, uh, yeah, anyway, tweeted today just saying a quote from one of our articles, "The bad news is, there's no way to accelerate the process. The good news is there's no way to accelerate the process." And it's actually so liberating when you-

   7. CWChris Williamson45:32

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JOJonny45:32

      ... fully get that, 'cause it's like ...

   9. CWChris Williamson45:34

      Just long for the anxiety.

   10. YUYusef45:35

       I still have an anxiety though, because the-

   11. JOJonny45:36

       But how do I get faster, you know?

   12. CWChris Williamson45:38

       Well, but th- th- they worry that-

   13. JOJonny45:40

       What if I take dehydrocystic acid?

   14. CWChris Williamson45:40

       ... because they're not, (laughs) they're not-

   15. JOJonny45:42

       (laughs)

   16. CWChris Williamson45:42

       Because they're not there yet, they think, well, I'm, I'm-

   17. JOJonny45:44

       Sorry. (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson45:44

       ... moving in the wrong direction, don't they?

   19. JOJonny45:46

       Yeah. I, I guess that's the-

   20. YUYusef45:47

       It's like, I should be there, I'm not there. Maybe the process is wrong.

   21. CWChris Williamson45:50

       That's the open loop, isn't it?

   22. JOJonny45:51

       Yeah. That is the open loop.

   23. YUYusef45:52

       I think the, what all these books are making me realize is that I actually haven't got a clue how to just manage myself.

   24. CWChris Williamson46:02

       Myself.

   25. YUYusef46:02

       Like, not, not-

   26. JOJonny46:02

       It's so frustrating after all the years of what we're doing.

   27. YUYusef46:05

       Yeah.

   28. JOJonny46:05

       You know, be- well 'cause, but each book just points out a big thing and goes, "You idiot, there and there." And you're like, "Oh, yep, yep. Fine."

   29. YUYusef46:11

       So Deep, Deep Work, Atomic Habits, Digital Minimalism probably less so, I think Digital Mi- Minimalism is like, these are the two things you need to do and this ... and digital minimalivism, minimalism, minimalism is just dealing with the shit that makes it-

   30. CWChris Williamson46:22

       Get some stuff out the way maybe.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:08:45

   Like, so a lot…

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

      on-

   2. YUYusef1:00:00

      Like, so a lot of the Iraq War, a lot of the decisions made around, like, when to invade and what to do, were him.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:06

      What was he, how was he benefiting?

   4. YUYusef1:00:08

      Financially.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:00:09

      Right, okay. So he's-

   6. YUYusef1:00:10

      'Cause he was, he was CEO of a big oil company.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:00:12

      Oh.

   8. YUYusef1:00:12

      So not, not far off, you know. (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson1:00:14

      Oh, wow. Not big pharma?

   10. YUYusef1:00:15

       So, like, not big pharma.

   11. JOJonny1:00:16

       Well, it's just easier to just short the CFD than do it.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:00:18

       But it's just ... It, it's the, it's the scene where everyone's like, "Oh, my God." And he's just like ...

   13. YUYusef1:00:22

       It's-

   14. CWChris Williamson1:00:23

       Hmm.

   15. JOJonny1:00:23

       I, I find that so weird, because it's like-

   16. CWChris Williamson1:00:25

       Is that actually recorded, that?

   17. YUYusef1:00:27

       No. Well, i- it's not in the film.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:00:28

       Right.

   19. YUYusef1:00:29

       But I, I wouldn't have thought so, 'cause it's in like the, it's an, it's acted in the film.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:00:32

       That's my point. It's dramatized.

   21. YUYusef1:00:34

       Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:00:34

       Okay. Um, I did a-another podcast with the FBI's, uh, ex-head of the FBI's behavioral science division. Guy called Robin Dreeke.

   23. YUYusef1:00:44

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:00:44

       Um, so he is one of the world's experts on, uh, body language.

   25. JOJonny1:00:48

       I think I've seen something from him. He's great.

   26. CWChris Williamson1:00:50

       Robin, he's, he's been around a, a few different, uh, a few different podcasts. But he was unbelievable. And he said he started at the FBI about six months before 9/11.

   27. YUYusef1:01:00

       Oh, my God.

   28. CWChris Williamson1:01:01

       And I asked, I was like-

   29. YUYusef1:01:02

       Think of the paperwork that guy's got to do.

   30. CWChris Williamson1:01:04

       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