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The Hidden Cost Of Overthinking Everything - George Mack

George Mack is a writer, marketer and an entrepreneur. Why does overthinking create more problems than it solves? If thinking helps us solve so much, why isn’t more thinking always the answer? So how can we build a calmer mind without falling into smart-person traps? Expect to learn the price of overthinking and inaction, how music changes your personality, the largest gaps in British versus American cultures, why AI is getting really weird, why humans need stories, the traps that all smart people fall into, how to know if you're living in the decline of an empire, and much more... Get George’s list of favourite unknown books here: http://highagency.com/books - Gymshark's Summer Sale starts June 18th. Get up to 60% off sitewide at https://gym.sh/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM10) Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get 160+ lab tests for just $365 and save an extra $25 at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get up to $50 off the RP Hypertrophy App at https://rpstrength.com/modernwisdom Get ChatGPT to explore ideas, solve problems, and learn faster at ⁠https://chatgpt.com - 0:00 Is Nickelback at 2x Speed the Optimal Workout? 4:18 Do American Introverts Actually Exist? 5:48 The Biggest Time-Waster For Single Men After 7pm 9:14 What Does the World Really Think of Britain? 17:48 Can You Sh*t Your Way to Savant Syndrome? 23:50 Why Everyone Should Learn How To Frivolously Spend 25:01 Why the Moon is the GOAT 32:41 What Would Life Be Like 5,000 Years Ago? 39:51 Why Can’t Cows Go Downstairs? 43:30 Should We Be Retardmaxxing More? 53:09 Is Chris An American Sports Fan? 59:21 Was the British Empire the Most Powerful Ever? 01:04:19 Why Do People Love Arguing Online? 01:06:42 The Longest Traffic Jam Ever - Get George’s list of favourite unknown books here: ⁠https://www.highagency.com/books⁠ Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostGeorge Mackguest
Jun 15, 20261h 16mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 4:18

    Is Nickelback at 2x Speed the Optimal Workout?

    1. CW

      What were you doing before we left the house?

    2. GM

      I [laughs] I was listening to Nickelback on 2X speed.

    3. CW

      You were listening to Nickelback-

    4. GM

      Yeah

    5. CW

      ... on two times speed?

    6. GM

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      We just let that sit for a second.

    8. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    9. CW

      And you've been listening to Phil Collins on 1.5 times speed.

    10. GM

      Yeah, sometimes 1.6.

    11. CW

      Do you wanna explain yourself?

    12. GM

      Well, I, I went through a phase that I'm still in, um, that I think YouTube is better to listen to music on than Spotify or Apple Music because you can get live tracks way more. Like, it's underrated, live tracks on YouTube. Just hearing the crowd, um, and I've also stopped listening to hip hop as much.

    13. CW

      Okay.

    14. GM

      'Cause I, I don't know about you, I start becoming a bad person when I listen to hip hop too much.

    15. CW

      [laughs] Did you not get... Did you never get the one?

    16. GM

      Well, if you just listen to people committing crimes in your head all day long-

    17. CW

      [laughs]

    18. GM

      ... [laughs] you do become, you do become a bit of a terrible person. So, um-

    19. CW

      Well, this is what we found. Where were you work... Was it when you were at Social Chain, and we were talking about, uh, serotonin George, serotonin Chris listening to Anjunadeep, and then it was cortisol George and cortisol Chris listening to Kanye West. That was pre-cancellation as well.

    20. GM

      Yeah. I mean, e- even Ka- even Kanye wouldn't be full cortisol. It would be, like... It'd be, like, DMX.

    21. CW

      Okay.

    22. GM

      Or, like, very angry Tupac.

    23. CW

      Okay. So-

    24. GM

      Vinnie Paz is great, Jedi Mind Tricks

    25. CW

      ... you've explained, you've explained to me why you think that YouTube is a good platform.

    26. GM

      Yeah.

    27. CW

      But you haven't necessarily explained to me why you've been listening to-

    28. GM

      Just taking a, just taking a little interlude

    29. CW

      ... Phil Collins at 1.6 times speed.

    30. GM

      So n- so when I go to, um, the gym, I put tunes on, on YouTube, usually live tracks. Um, but then I was listening to Nickelback Rockstar, which is a completely underrated song, and I was-

  2. 4:18 – 5:48

    Do American Introverts Actually Exist?

    1. GM

      Yeah, when you took me to that, uh, gym opening the other evening-

    2. CW

      Mm-hmm

    3. GM

      ... I was talking to, um, a lady there, and she was implying she was an introvert, and yet she was, like, one of the most extroverted people. Like, American... I don't think American introverts truly exist compared to-

    4. CW

      Not on a global scale

    5. GM

      ... comparatively to a Britain scale, yeah. If you... Like, here's a question, right? If you had introversion, extroversion, and you're massively grouping countries together-

    6. CW

      Hmm

    7. GM

      ... what do you think is the most extroverted country and most introverted country if you're grouping the populaces?

    8. CW

      You're probably not far off with America and the UK.

    9. GM

      Ah.

    10. CW

      You're probably not far off.

    11. GM

      Yeah. Who's more, who's more introverted than us?

    12. CW

      Japanese.

    13. GM

      Mm.

    14. CW

      Japanese probably with the-

    15. GM

      Famously cut themselves off for about-

    16. CW

      ... Hikikomori

    17. GM

      ... 160 years during the Tokugawas, right?

    18. CW

      That's, that's the GOAT. [laughs]

    19. GM

      That's hardcore, hardcore introversion. Yeah.

    20. CW

      They did a national-

    21. GM

      Yeah

    22. CW

      ... a n- a n- a national introversion push. Them. I mean, who's more extra... I guess s- probably some South American places, you know, like some Latino, Latina-

    23. GM

      Extroverted, right?

    24. CW

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    25. GM

      Yeah, Brazi- like Brazil.

    26. CW

      Yeah.

    27. GM

      Yeah.

    28. CW

      Uh, but, you know, we really have gone from one end of the Overton window to the other when it comes to extrovert. But you're right, like, an American extrovert... An American introvert is a British extrovert.

    29. GM

      Mm. An American extrovert is a British extrovert at an afterparty at 4:00 AM-

    30. CW

      Full on cocaine

  3. 5:48 – 9:14

    The Biggest Time-Waster For Single Men After 7pm

    1. CW

      Uh, we need to talk about your sneezing. I'm sorry.

    2. GM

      Okay. Let's go for it.

    3. CW

      Do you think that there might be an issue, like a medical issue?

    4. GM

      No, I, mm-mm.

    5. CW

      You sneezed 15 times.

    6. GM

      I did. Yeah, I did

    7. CW

      And they were l- over a minute apart

    8. GM

      I didn't realize you heard me. I was upstairs thinking I was alone.

    9. CW

      But you shook the house.

    10. GM

      Yeah.

    11. CW

      You shook the house-

    12. GM

      Yeah

    13. CW

      ... with them. It was thunderous.

    14. GM

      Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was a bit of a doom loop, um, because I would sneeze, blow my nose, and then whatever... something was going up my nose when I was blowing the nose, and it would then create this economic doom loop-

    15. CW

      [laughs]

    16. GM

      ... like Gary Stevenson's, uh, in charge of the economy. It was, um, it was rough. Yeah, it was rough.

    17. CW

      I don't think I've ever sneezed that much in my entire life. I think that's... I think... And also, I think this is you struggling with not having a girlfriend in the house.

    18. GM

      Yeah, that's a nightmare. Yeah. I do... We, we've discussed this before that, uh, guys over a certain age between the hours of 5:00 to 9:00 PM, like if the hours of five to, 5:00 to 9:00 PM was 24 hours, I think the economy would go down by about 30%. Like, we're just useless.

    19. CW

      Mm.

    20. GM

      Like nothing's happening.

    21. CW

      Mm.

    22. GM

      Um, it's scrolling, it's checking stuff, it's relaxing, but stressing that you should be working or working whilst thinking that you should be relaxing.

    23. CW

      This is a real domesticating influence of having a partner.

    24. GM

      Yeah.

    25. CW

      This is why you need one.

    26. GM

      Yeah. Just purely for the nervous system.

    27. CW

      It's for... It's so that you don't, like, regress back to the mean-

    28. GM

      Yeah

    29. CW

      ... of just doing bullshit that you really wish that you weren't doing.

    30. GM

      How do you think you've wasted... What's the biggest, um, like, evening waste that you've had when you've been single or not been with your girlfriend?

  4. 9:14 – 17:48

    What Does the World Really Think of Britain?

    1. CW

      knew what was going on.

    2. GM

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      You see the, uh, the guy who accidentally hacked 7,000 DJI Roombas. This dude was trying to control his Roomba with his PlayStation controller-

    4. GM

      Uh. Eeh

    5. CW

      ... and ended up using Claude. Here it is.

    6. CW

      So in theory, you could have used someone else's vacuum and navigated it around their home to see whatever you wanted to see.

    7. CW

      Or launching a deep cleaning at 4:20 for everyone. [laughs]

    8. CW

      Yes. Software developer Sammy Azoufal was building an app to hack his DJI Romo smart vacuum. He wanted to use his PlayStation controller to make it move, but in the process, he accidentally uncovered a major security flaw. With the help of an AI chatbot, Sammy discovered he could also access-

    9. CW

      [laughs]

    10. CW

      ... what he says were roughly 7,000 other vacuums, allowing him to get their approximate-

    11. GM

      Ah

    12. CW

      ... locations and even remotely control other-

    13. CW

      Wow

    14. CW

      ... people's vacuums. He could also see through other users' live camera feeds and hear through their vacuums' microphones-

    15. CW

      Wow

    16. CW

      ... features typically in place to help the vacuums navigate around a home and respond to voice commands.

    17. CW

      When it's-

    18. GM

      Yeah, it feels like we're gonna be living through an era where this is gonna happen more and more.

    19. CW

      Well, we-

    20. GM

      You can't hack paper and pen. You can't hack, you can't hack the Moleskine notepad.

    21. CW

      That's true.

    22. GM

      You know?

    23. CW

      Although they have got a digital version of that now. Uh, we were talking to a friend at dinner the other night and he said, "W- everybody here has tried to get ChatGPT to do something illegal." It's, "I, I want... I... Can... See if you can get me this for free, if you can hack the back end or do... extract whatever." And one of our friends who works building data centers said he'd used some off-label Chinese model that's run locally on his computer and didn't mean to get it to do something illegal, but it did. So he put in he wanted to try and see if y- they could screenshot all of this different data, and it's thinking, "I can't do that," thinking, "I can't do that," thinking, "Oh, there's an API that's open on the back end. I can just pull the entire website out." And now he's got 9,000 pieces of data that are completely illegal to have. So our models, we can't get to do something illegal when they want them to.

    24. GM

      Or even just slight... Like, I was ask- I asked Claude the other day for what do people think are... Where's the ug- 'cause you said the UK has the ugliest men in the world. [laughs] So I got Claude... I asked Claude, "Where do you think has the ugliest men?" Or, "Could you pull the data of what people think has the ugliest men?" And it refused to do it. So it won't do that, but then the-

    25. CW

      It would give you the most good-looking, though.

    26. GM

      I know. I don't, I don't... Like, I mean-

    27. CW

      It wouldn't give you any

    28. GM

      ... ask actually, Jared, if you can. I, I don't even think... I don't... Maybe... Well, then I guess if you, if you asked it for the all the good-looking in order-

    29. CW

      [laughs] Rank it all the way down

    30. GM

      ... then you could just say, "Now flip that list around."

  5. 17:48 – 23:50

    Can You Sh*t Your Way to Savant Syndrome?

    1. CW

      I learned about Savant Syndrome.

    2. GM

      Okay.

    3. CW

      Have you heard of this?

    4. GM

      No.

    5. CW

      Okay. So there was a guy who shat himself so badly-

    6. GM

      Okay. Great start

    7. CW

      ... that he gave himself ... it, the, the ar- arteries in his brain exploded, and then when he woke up, he was an artistic genius who wanted to paint for 19 hours a day.

    8. GM

      This can't be real.

    9. CW

      It's true. Tommy McHugh was a British artist and poet. In his early life, McHugh was a builder and also involved in youth crimes. When he was 51, he suffered a stroke on both sides of his brain that resulted in two burst blood vessels. He was sent into a coma for a week and then acquired Savant Syndrome. McHugh attempted to evacuate his bowels quickly due to a knock on a toilet door, so he didn't want someone to find him shitting. Then the sudden pressure led to an artery being severed in his frontal and temporal lobes, causing him to hemorrhage. So what happened was he, like, squeezed, and then he heard this big explosion inside of his head and sort of half collapsed to the ground. But apparently the reason that he said that he kept himself conscious was that he wanted to pull his pants up so no one would find him naked on the floor of the toilet. And as he was pulling his pants up, that's when the other one went. So it was like the two to-

    10. GM

      Jesus

    11. CW

      ... it was like the f- the first tower and the second tower.

    12. GM

      Jesus.

    13. CW

      Uh-

    14. GM

      By the way, British.

    15. CW

      A British indeed. Uh, while, uh, relearning after his stroke... In fact, when he woke up, he started rhyming. People couldn't stop him from rhyming.

    16. GM

      Wow.

    17. CW

      So he was speaking in rhymes. Uh, he began to write poetry to express everything he was experiencing. He also experienced an identity crisis, which was the most likely motivation for his artistic outputs. He was painting three to six to nine different paintings at any one time, all at the same time, speaking in poetry. He basically became like a Buddhist monk, was terrified of hurting anything. He saw the entire cosmos as beautiful. He's, like, sweeping away bugs that he might step on on a... Uh, this is a guy that was in youth crimes.

    18. GM

      Damn.

    19. CW

      Shat himself so badly that he acquired Savant Syndrome.

    20. GM

      Wow. Wow. I mean, I don't know what to say.

    21. CW

      Unbelievable.

    22. GM

      You know, so-

    23. CW

      Unbelievable

    24. GM

      ... my, um, my grandfather, um, who I greatly loved, didn't, didn't shat himself, but he-

    25. CW

      Famously, Tommy McHugh

    26. GM

      ... he, he had a, he had a stroke, and beforehand he was quite, uh, some people would maybe call it tight, but he was quite conservative with money, and then after the stroke, he would just be watching the shopping channel and just be going, like, shopping-

    27. CW

      I was buying

    28. GM

      ... left, right, and center, all, all sorts of stuff. He actually st- [laughs] unfortunately, the stroke was so bad that he couldn't pay, so we managed to stop, like, him being able to put the payments through. But otherwise, he would've just spent everything. Um, [laughs] but, but, uh, keeping things on the British topic, the, the Gallagher brothers, Liam and Noel-

    29. CW

      Yes. Have they fallen out again?

    30. GM

      Um, no. Noel was always the musician, uh, 'cause they grew up in, I think, is it Bur- is it Burde- Burbridge? I can't, I can't pronounce it. It's in, um, in Manchester. They grew up together, very, like, council estate part of, uh, England, and Noel was super into music, which was very strange, like, being where he's from, and Liam was like, just found the whole thing, like, quite sad and lame.

  6. 23:50 – 25:01

    Why Everyone Should Learn How To Frivolously Spend

    1. GM

      this.

    2. CW

      Yeah. I, I get the sense that frivolous spending is, is something that you kind of, you need to acquire. I think it's a skill that you need to acquire. Some people are cursed with it, and some people actually have to learn it as a skill.

    3. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    4. CW

      It's a little bit like singing in tune.

    5. GM

      Mm.

    6. CW

      And being British, I'm just always on the back foot. I'm always on the back foot with frivolous spending. Remember where you are

    7. GM

      Where have you, um... Where have you spent frivolously [chuckles]

    8. CW

      Cycling through-

    9. GM

      [laughs] Fuck

    10. CW

      ... carbonated drinks. What have I spent frivolously on? It's always the same stuff. It's the same stuff as you.

    11. GM

      Well, it's not frivolous then, is it?

    12. CW

      Yeah, but it's-- That's what I mean. I'm just, I'm... Hey, I d- I was in the trenches with you-

    13. GM

      Mm

    14. CW

      ... with regards to your frivolous spending.

    15. GM

      Mm. I just... Y- Maybe we just don't need to spend frivolously then. Just, just-

    16. CW

      I think we do. I feel like I'm... There's something that's compelling me to spend.

    17. GM

      Okay, how about I'll... Give me... Does it count if-

    18. CW

      [laughs]

    19. GM

      Does it count if I spend it for you? 'Cause how, how about we exchange, like-

    20. CW

      I'll give you 500 bucks.

    21. GM

      Yeah, likewise, and then you've got to buy something frivolous that I'll enjoy.

    22. CW

      Well, you've already, you've already curtailed me with the, the top two. That was a trampoline and a fucking beanbag.

    23. GM

      I don't even think those are frivolous. Those are, um-

    24. CW

      They're quite utilitarian-

    25. GM

      Yes

    26. CW

      ... aren't they?

    27. GM

      Yeah.

  7. 25:01 – 32:41

    Why the Moon is the GOAT

    1. CW

      Have you seen the, the Soviet nail factory story?

    2. GM

      No.

    3. CW

      It's a, it's a parable. So apparently there was this Soviet nail factory that was rewarded based on the number of nails that they produced. Then after hearing about the bonus, the factories reduced the size of the nails to produce as many nails as possible. In the end, they met the targets to get their bonuses, but the government ended up with millions of useless tiny nails.

    4. GM

      Oh, wow.

    5. CW

      And to correct the mistake, the government updated the bonus target as the tonnage of nails produced every month. So Soviet factories quickly changed, and they stop- stopped producing the mini nails and started producing huge ones that were unbelievably heavy. End of the month, the factories hit the target again, but the regime ended up with useless giant nails that didn't help with the nail shortage.

    6. GM

      Wow.

    7. CW

      [laughs]

    8. GM

      Look at that li- look at that.

    9. CW

      [laughs] Who needs such a nail? It doesn't matter. What's important is that we fulfilled the plan for nails. Godard's law.

    10. GM

      Wow. Yeah, the Soviets, uh... Soviets is just an underrated part of history. It feels like the Nazis get so much attention, but the USSR or even Communist China, like Mao's China, is just... it's just an afterthought.

    11. CW

      Have you spent much time learning about those?

    12. GM

      Um, no, because I'm mainly focused on World War II like everybody else.

    13. CW

      Yeah.

    14. GM

      Um, not, not, not as sufficiently as I'd like to.

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      But, um, it feels that, uh, it's clear. If, if I, if I say, "Hey, mate, I'm going to bring a Nazi to the drinks"-

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm

    18. GM

      ... it's, it's a big no-no. Okay? Because obviously-

    19. CW

      But a Maoist.

    20. GM

      Yeah, a Maoist. But like net-

    21. CW

      They're a bit more, they're a bit more exotic

    22. GM

      ... but net net, net net, like in terms of people killed.

    23. CW

      They were more efficient, so maybe you should bring them.

    24. GM

      Have you h- have you heard about the guy who, um, wanted to go to Cambodia to meet Pol Pot? So he was this academic that was a big defender, I think, of the Viet Cong-

    25. CW

      Mm

    26. GM

      ... and then Pol Pot in Cambodia, and so much so he flew out to meet Pol Pot. Like, tried to give him a little bit of advice as like he's a big admirer of like how he could potentially improve things.

    27. CW

      Mm.

    28. GM

      Killed him. Killed him. Like, he's the original midway. I don't know if you could look that up, um, Jared, of the guy that got killed, the American academic that got killed by Pol Pot.

    29. CW

      It's like all of those people that go to North Sentinel Island, all of these people that try to go and convert-

    30. GM

      Oh

  8. 32:41 – 39:51

    What Would Life Be Like 5,000 Years Ago?

    1. GM

      It, it feels, uh... It's very trite to discuss how strange it is or why are we here. It almost feels like if you bring that up, people are like, "Oh," roll their eyes.

    2. CW

      Yeah.

    3. GM

      It's like it's the most absurd, uh, most absurd fucking thing.

    4. CW

      Well, I think the only way that you can answer why are we here is by trying to look for an answer outside of this. That's what most people are doing. 'Cause you can either say there's no reason or there's a reason that's bigger than us.

    5. GM

      Mm.

    6. CW

      Neither of those are particularly satisfactory, 'cause if you're looking for a reason that's outside of us, inherently that means it's difficult to prove. And if you're saying, well, you know, it's nothing, it's just arbitrary fluctuations in, you know, fucking matter coming together, that's also pretty unsatisfactory. So I don't know what... I mean, humans are always personifying shit, right? We're always trying to put some sort of a narrative together. That's why the ancients would look up at the sky, and they'd see thunder, and it would be the gods fighting. Well, obviously, 'cause that makes way more sense than this microscopic interaction of clouds and electrons and fucking, you know, the, the lightning coming down to the earth. Why would you... You wouldn't go to that. You would go to something that suits you, which is story and narrative and mythology and, and shit. So we're always trying to explain things away with story.

    7. GM

      Why are we here?

    8. CW

      Stop it. Stop it, okay? I'm sweating. I'm sweating in this outfit.

    9. GM

      [laughs]

    10. CW

      It's too hot. It's too hot. It's not breathable. They haven't made these things breathable. You look very comfortable, actually.

    11. GM

      Where, how, where do you think... Let's say you would have been born, uh, 5,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. How do you think you... What do you... Who do you think you would have been? Do you think you'd be the same guy? Do you think you'd be so different you'd be unrecognizable to your current self?

    12. CW

      I think it would be difficult to be anything like the sort of guys that we are 5,000 years ago. There wasn't much room.

    13. GM

      Too much autoimmune conditions going on as well. You'd be wiped out.

    14. CW

      That... Well, look, I also wouldn't live in a moldy house, you know?

    15. GM

      Mm.

    16. CW

      So, and COVID and the vaccines wouldn't have been around, so that would've... I would've fucking escaped that. Um, I think I'm at least a little bit fortunate that I would've been able to, uh... Did a good bit of sport. That might have held me together. I mean, I probably, probably dead in childbirth, mate.

    17. GM

      Mm.

    18. CW

      That's... Just like everyone else. Just like every other person except for the small number that made it to five years old.

    19. GM

      Well, I once ran the numbers that if you had every single human being to ever exist, so everybody alive right now-

    20. CW

      Yep

    21. GM

      ... and everybody that ever existed.

    22. CW

      Yep.

    23. GM

      So assume that they're brought back on their final day as they go.

    24. CW

      Okay.

    25. GM

      I think the average age of the room's about 14.

    26. CW

      [sighs]

    27. GM

      So it means that assuming you're over the age of 14, 15-

    28. CW

      Okay

    29. GM

      ... you're already one of the oldest people to ever exist. I find that so strange when you go through history, and you're like how old certain people, people were. I think we've discussed it before that the, um, the Lu- as the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, were bombing our grandparents and great-grandparents, they were 27, right?

    30. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

  9. 39:51 – 43:30

    Why Can’t Cows Go Downstairs?

    1. CW

      Uh, speaking of stuff that you haven't seen before, a cow has been filmed using tools for the first time ever, stunning scientists.

    2. GM

      Tools?

    3. CW

      Tools. The first ever known example of a multipurpose tool used by a cow was reported with a Brown Swiss named Veronica using both ends of a broom to scratch her own back and underside. Nice cow.

    4. GM

      It's a really-

    5. CW

      Tools

    6. GM

      ... it's a slow new d- It was a slow news day here, wasn't it?

    7. CW

      Brown Swiss, mate. Now she uses the smooth bit when she's got to do her delicate underparts.

    8. GM

      Wow.

    9. CW

      'Cause it is... I was thinking about this when I watched it the first time, and now look at this. Look, so she's used the smooth bit, and now she's gonna-

    10. GM

      Ah

    11. CW

      ... she's gonna use the scratchy bit to get-

    12. GM

      Wow

    13. CW

      ... to get up there. Multi-use. And then drops it. Uh, I was thinking about this. The physiology of a cow, highly inefficient if you've got an itch. Physiology of a dog, actually, but I think dogs are pretty bendy.

    14. GM

      Mm.

    15. CW

      You know, they can scratch themselves quite easily.

    16. GM

      Mm.

    17. CW

      Cow, you're screwed, and then you've got a hoof. How satisfying is a hoof for, for scratching? Not very.

    18. GM

      Well, it's the, it's the famous anecdote that you can take a cow upstairs, but you can't take a cow downstairs, and there's this old British joke of which farmer found that out the ro- the hard way. [laughs]

    19. CW

      [laughs] Is that true?

    20. GM

      That you can take a cow upstairs, but because of its joints, you can't take it downstairs.

    21. CW

      You can't take a cow downstairs because of its joints.

    22. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    23. CW

      I always think that when I see, um... Is it emus, I think, and their knees go backwards. Like, our knees bend forwards. If we were to squat down, our knees bend forwards.

    24. GM

      Yeah.

    25. CW

      Their knees go the other way.

    26. GM

      Oh, wow. Okay.

    27. CW

      Cows can walk upstairs fairly well, but walking downstairs is a different story. The main issue comes down to anatomy and perception. A cow has knee and leg joints that don't bend easily in a way that supports controlled downward stepping. The weight distribution, cows carry a lot of weight toward the front of their bodies, making descending steep steps risky and unstable. [chuckles] Depth perception, they have poor perception for vertical drops, so stairs can look like a confusing or even dangerous surface. And instinct, as prey animals, they're cautious about terrain that could trap or trip them. So while a cow can technically go downstairs, in some situations, especially shallow ones, they usually avoid it and often need guidance or special ramps instead. Wow.

    28. GM

      You know, a, a cow's... Keeping on the cow theme, um, a cow's stomach is called the rumen.

    29. CW

      Yep.

    30. GM

      Uh, a few different mammals have it, um, where they have, like, six to seven different stomachs inside of it. And the way a cow eats, you'll see it in a field, it'll be grazing, and y- it's just constantly grazing all day long. And essentially what it's doing is grazing-

  10. 43:30 – 53:09

    Should We Be Retardmaxxing More?

    1. GM

      a cow.

    2. CW

      What do you think about the rumination, retard maxing, uh, great men of history didn't-

    3. GM

      Introspection

    4. CW

      ... think too much? Yeah, introspection. What do you think of that?

    5. GM

      It, it seems like one giant test of the difference between the words. But if, if you say rumination, I think everybody agrees that rumination, for the most part, is, uh, mainly negative. But if you say introspection, that's when it gets into this, uh... You, you know what it is? That introspection debate is the current version of the, you know, the blue and gold-

    6. CW

      Yep

    7. GM

      ... dress.

    8. CW

      Yep.

    9. GM

      It's like that, where some people imply introspection that they're meaning the word rumination, where other people imply the word introspection that they're using some kind of form of clear thinking-

    10. CW

      Mm. Mm

    11. GM

      ... or reflecting to take action. And they're just... It's just one giant game of semantics.

    12. CW

      Mm. But how do you get around that? Because it's always hard. Unless someone's gonna define something, unless somebody on one side is gonna-

    13. GM

      Yeah

    14. CW

      ... define it, and no one's defining the terms-

    15. GM

      Mm-hmm

    16. CW

      ... then you always, if you're gonna try and win an argument on the internet, you're always gonna straw man what the other person's saying.

    17. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      Always. Which means that you're gonna say, "Great men of history didn't spend their time worrying about their problems and overthinking things." You go, "No, no, no, I don't mean that. I don't mean ruminating. I mean, I mean reflecting, thinking, improving, acting in a loop," like an OODA loop-

    19. GM

      Mm-hmm

    20. CW

      ... type thing. And that... But the response will never get... That, that conversation is never allowed to have enough nuance to be able to get there.

    21. GM

      Mm-hmm. What would you... what do you think?

    22. CW

      Bias for action's a big deal.

    23. GM

      Yes, 100%.

    24. CW

      Right? Having a bias for action and... It's the advice hyperresponders thing, where most people m- uh, on average, most people probably need to think more. They probably need to be less rash, uh, more rational, more considered and considerate when they go and do stuff. But there's a small cohort of people, mostly the sort of people that listen to podcasts like Sanura's or this one, who don't need to hear that. They actually need to hear the opposite message. They actually need to be doing retard maxing, which is why retard maxing, I think, has taken off.

    25. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    26. CW

      Because it's a countervailing force to people who already thought too much, were told that thinking and doing your journaling and having a Ali Abdaal 90-day sprint broken down into daily actions and f- 25-minute Pomodoro blocks, that doing that, that's the way to get to success. But that already played into the thing that they had a predisposition for. What they didn't have a predisposition for was a bias for action.

    27. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    28. CW

      So if there was some way of being able to gift those people... But the problem is, you're getting people who th- overthink and have a tendency to overthink to work against their nature, which is always gonna be hard.

    29. GM

      Mm.

    30. CW

      Like, lots of the pe- like, I look at Dana White, I do not see a person who has a problem with overthinking. I look at Marc Andreessen, I don't see a person who has a problem for overthinking.

  11. 53:09 – 59:21

    Is Chris An American Sports Fan?

    1. CW

      at checkout.

    2. GM

      Are you, are you not got into American sports since, since moving here?

    3. CW

      Fan of Rangers. I'm a fan of the Texas Rangers, dude.

    4. GM

      Oh, I thought you meant Rangers FC.

    5. CW

      No. Fan of Texas Rangers. So baseball, became a fan of the Rangers. They won the World Series first year that I was a fan. I was like, "This is easy. This is brilliant." Following, uh, not as successful. I have got into baseball. Baseball is the closest proxy for cricket.

    6. GM

      Huh.

    7. CW

      But that's it. I, I, I watched the Super... We watched the Super Bowl. That was good.

    8. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    9. CW

      What else? Can't get into... Basketball's all right, but highlights good, which is strange because baseball and American football are much slower moving sports.

    10. GM

      Hmm.

    11. CW

      And even though basketball's a much faster moving sport generally, I think per minute of broadcast, I, I... How long is a NFL game? Like, 80 minutes top?

    12. GM

      No, it's an hour.

    13. CW

      An hour.

    14. GM

      15-minute quarters.

    15. CW

      An hour. I think the total amount of playtime typical in a one-hour NFL game, I swear it's less than 10 minutes-

    16. GM

      Damn

    17. CW

      ... of action. It's a sport entirely reverse engineered to allow adverts to be played.

    18. GM

      Hmm. The American dream.

    19. CW

      It is. Well, I mean, that's the, the most sort of American thing that you can do, right? To flog, like, drain cleaner in between, in between.

    20. GM

      [laughs]

    21. CW

      It's, it's a fucking Ponzi scheme. This country's sport System is a Ponzi scheme. Yeah.

    22. GM

      Yeah, it's rough. I, I've, um, I've struggled to get into American sports so far, and you realize that, like Yousef, I tried to sell him on getting into sports because wherever you are in the world, you can have a conversation with a taxi driver. Apart from America, I can go anywhere in the world, and if football comes up, if I say I'm from Manchester-

    23. CW

      Mm-hmm

    24. GM

      ... we can immediately, like, have-

    25. CW

      Mm-hmm

    26. GM

      ... a great conversation for about 20 minutes. But we- in Am- American sports it's just slightly... It, just none of it makes sense the same way British sports makes sense.

    27. CW

      Hmm. What is... Is it the, the Premier Football League? Is that technically what it's called?

    28. GM

      Premier League.

    29. CW

      Right. But I swear that people... I swear that when I meet people in America, they say, "Oh, who do you support in the PFL?"

    30. GM

      Yeah.

  12. 59:21 – 1:04:19

    Was the British Empire the Most Powerful Ever?

    1. GM

      ... degenerate.

    2. CW

      Yeah. I- That's another thing that I think Americans really struggle with, which is there are some very good niche British snacks that you can't get over here.

    3. GM

      Mm.

    4. CW

      Uh, 'cause there's American aisles, American candy aisles now at Tesco's in the UK. So if you go and look and, and you'll be able to get Lucky Charms and, and Cheetos with Amer- all of the seed oils and the Red 40 and stuff included. Uh, but you can't come over here and get Jaffa Cakes and Jammie Dodgers and Cadbury's Fingers and stuff like that, and I think we're missing out.

    5. GM

      Mm.

    6. CW

      Man. That would be... I think that would be a gift that we could give back to America.

    7. GM

      I, I, um, wrote this thing recently about the, uh, Roman Empire. I relate it back to Britain. Um, but I think we've spoken about this previously, but I did a research for this piece called Don't Wait For The News, and essentially the Roman Empire... Do you know when the Roman Empire fell?

    8. CW

      400?

    9. GM

      Ish. So the thing with the Roman Empire falling, it's, it's up for debate. Even historians debate it. But the mainstream historical point of view, which is not the weird niche stuff that you get into, but the mainstream historical point of view is 476 AD, that Romulus- Who, um, was the founder of Rome, so it's poetic. I think this is why we like that as the ending. Romulus, who was the founder of Rome, then young Romulus, who was in the throne when it ended, got replaced by the barbarian Odoacer. So Romulus saw Rome f- uh, rise, and Romulus saw Rome fall.

    10. CW

      For clarity, it's not the same bloke.

    11. GM

      It's not the same bloke. This is over, like, hundreds of years. Um, but that's just the poetry of why they say that date. But if you woke up that day after the Roman Empire that we now say has fallen, there was no, there was no big announcement.

    12. CW

      Mm.

    13. GM

      There was no news. If it-- The book The Sovereign Individual has this beautiful line, which if the CNN existed during the fall of the Roman Empire, the headline would not have been, "The Roman Empire Has Just Fallen." So you have the split of the Roman Empire. You have the Eastern Roman Empire, and you have the Western Roman Empire. The, um, Eastern Roman Empire goes on to about 1300 AD. Charlemagne becomes the emperor. He calls himself the Emperor of Rome in about 700 to 800 AD. So the Eastern, uh, Empire falls. Voltaire famously says in 1700 that the entity that calls itself the Holy Roman Empire is neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. So that was in 1700s. It was only in the 1800s when Napoleon was invading did, um, I think it's Francis II dissolve the Roman Empire. So if you would have waited to be told that the Roman Empire was over, it would have been your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchild. Forty-eight generations it would have taken. So I kind of wrote this, this piece, and then I said that this story terrified me because when today's biggest empire falls, nobody's gonna tell me.

    14. CW

      Hmm.

    15. GM

      Like, nobody's gonna tell me that the British Empire is no longer the most powerful empire in the world. Obviously-

    16. CW

      We already know that

    17. GM

      ... obviously it is right now. Obviously, the British Empire is the, the most powerful empire that exists right now.

    18. CW

      I can't tell. I can't, I can't tell if you're-

    19. GM

      But what I don't wanna have happen is for me to be the one that lives in denial long after the event.

    20. CW

      I think you already are.

    21. GM

      So-

    22. CW

      The rise of Gary Stevenson

    23. GM

      ... so but I've, uh, yeah. Well, Gary Stevenson will be like the 1800 one. Like, that's when, when Gary's in-

    24. CW

      [laughing]

    25. GM

      ... when Gary's in office with the fucking, like, tutan. Tutan this. That'll be when it's like the British Empire, we all admit the British Empire's over.

    26. CW

      Yep.

    27. GM

      But it's funny. So I posted that as a, like a trolling, like kind of sarcasm statement of like, oh, lecturing about the history of the Roman Empire whilst pretending that I still think the British Empire is the biggest thing. And there was quite a few people in the comment section who was going along with the, the humor of it. But the amount of emails I got of people saying, "You do realize the British Empire is no longer the most, uh, powerful thing." And I was like, "Let's just go full, full in with the joke." I'm like, "Why are you still talking English?" [laughs]

    28. CW

      [laughs]

    29. GM

      I just like kept going back and forth with them that the, uh, the British Empire... But you know what? That's actually the saddest thing. Um, I know we don't really do geopolitics on the show, but the saddest thing of the Ayatollah dying is that when he used to address, um, the world stage, he would often talk about Great Britain as if we're still the most powerful country in the world or one of the leading countries.

    30. CW

      That's nice.

  13. 1:04:19 – 1:06:42

    Why Do People Love Arguing Online?

    1. GM

      of Iran.

    2. CW

      That is something that completely blows my mind that I don't understand. People who regularly get into small back and forth spats in the comment section. James does this all the time.

    3. GM

      Who, Smith?

    4. CW

      Smith. Yeah.

    5. GM

      Really?

    6. CW

      All the time, mate. He loves it. He loves it. He just loves winding people up. But I, I just... I, I sometimes will post something on Twitter, and there'll be all of these replies and all of these people, and weeks later, there'll be two people still going at it.

    7. GM

      [laughing]

    8. CW

      It's, it's fucking infuriating 'cause it's in my notifications.

    9. GM

      Oh, man.

    10. CW

      It's in my, it's in my notifications. It's like... Do you know what it's like? It's like having two neighbors that are having an argument with each other, but you live in the house that's in between.

    11. GM

      [laughing]

    12. CW

      Like, can you not go over to his house directly? Because at the moment, I'm caught in this crossfire. Unbelievable.

    13. GM

      Oh, man. Have you ever seen the meme, it's one of my favorite ones, uh, where it's a guy on his deathbed, and he's kind of like lay there, like just about to die, and he's got like the speech bubble for like the Bronnie Ware deathbed regrets, and it's just, "I wish I spent more time arguing online." [laughs]

    14. CW

      Arguing with people on the internet. Yeah.

    15. GM

      But yeah, I, I mean, I rarely ever do the spats, but when it's pure, "Oh, this person doesn't understand the joke"-

    16. CW

      Yeah, comedy

    17. GM

      ... that's, that's fun. If you're trying to go from Joey Chestnut to Joey Swoll, the RP Strength app is the best place to start. I've been in the gym for two decades, and it wasn't until this last year that I had some of the best training sessions of my life, and RP was a massive part of that. Actual scientists built this thing around the obsession to beat up their high school bullies and provide the most science-backed effective path to maximizing muscle gain. It tells you your exercises, how many sets, reps, the weights, everything. So all you have to do is show up and lift. If the RP Strength app could wipe your ass for you, it probably would, and it adjusts automatically every week based on how you're actually progressing. For me, following a proper evidence-based plan has made a massive difference, and if you're serious about your training, it'll do the same for you. Right now, you can follow the exact same training plan that I use and get up to $50 off the RP Hypertrophy app by going to the link in the description below or heading to rpstrength.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's rpstrength.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout.

  14. 1:06:42 – 1:16:38

    The Longest Traffic Jam Ever

    1. GM

      What can we

    2. CW

      I was thinking about this the other day. What's the longest ever traffic jam? [chuckles] In terms of duration. So I'm just thinking about what's the longest ever internet argument is, is still ongoing. It's something from 2008 that's still going- Mm ... in a weird forum somewhere, Mumsnet or whatever. Uh, there are two different records people e- people usually mean when talking about the longest traffic jam ever. Whoa. Longest by duration, the most infamous was the China National Highway 110 traffic jam in 2010. Stretched about 100 kilometers near Beijing and lasted 12 days- Ooh ... from August 14th to August 26th. Some drivers reportedly moved only one [chuckles] kilometer per day. It was caused by a mix of roadworks, overloaded coal trucks, and traffic volumes far beyond the highway's design capacity. The longest by distance, Guinness World Records lists a traffic jam in France in 1980 as the longest by length. It was a 109-mile backup between Lyon and Paris caused by holiday traffic and bad weather. There's also a bizarre contender by sheer scale. After German reunification in 1990, reports described around 18 million cars clogging routes at the East-West German border. Could you imagine living through that reunification? No. You'd been part of the same country, but essentially different universes. Jesus. If you like traffic data, I've got some- Go on ... cracking traffic data. Go on. So in the 1960s... Here's a l- little, little question. Okay. Can you guess- Question ... where the most deadly roads in Europe were? Isle of Man? No. In the UK? No. Right. We're not in Europe. Right. Brexit means Brexit, Christopher. It does [chuckles] . It's true. Ireland? [chuckles] No. Um- Okay. I was trying to own something close to home there. So it's, uh, it's Belgium. Surprising location of Belgium. Okay. So they had a policy which was known as the 18th birthday party gift by Belgians. So here's how it'd work. You'd turn 18, walk downstairs, parents would do, "Happy birthday." Can you do it in Belgian? No, can you? Cool. No. Um, "Happy birthday to you." Um, they'd then take you down to the car dealership. You'd get a little birthday plaque from them. They'd say happy birthday as well. You'd pay for a car, show your date of birth, you'd get the car, and you'd attempt to drive away. So Belgium had no driving test policies at all. Mm. So you could just, full-on libertarian style, just attempt to drive away. And the 18th birthday party gift in Belgium was the number one killer of Belgians between the age of 18 to 24. So Belgium had the most deadliest roads in Europe, certainly per capita. So you know what the government did to try and fix it? They said, "Right, we're putting an end to this." In 1969, they said, "Before you can drive, you have to do a mandatory theory test, because if you go and study and then drive, at least we'll prevent these mistakes." So what happens is, 1969, there's this cutoff. Everybody from then onwards has to do theory tests. And this Belgian transport official, like, releases the results, and he goes, "It's-- appears to be the case that the accident rate amongst the theory drivers is higher than the ones who never got theory tested at all." So the death rate went up by 32% with the theory test drivers. Why? Um, one theory is... Failure. One theory is that they have this kind of false sense of confidence going into the roads- Mm ... that at least the ones that knew they couldn't drive didn't have. But the Belgium, mate, the Belgian traffic stuff goes on for years. There's, like, iconic cartoons of, like, how dangerous the roads are in Belgium, and there's a great thing in the '80s where I think it's Jean-Luc Dehaene. Could be, could have butchered that, but we'll go with that. Jean-Luc Dehaene, he becomes transport minister. This man e-ends up becoming PM, but just listen to the job that he does, Transport Minister. So [chuckles] he one day gets into office to fix the Belgium roads. So he's done all this campaigning about the issues around it. He gets clocked going, I think it's, like, 70 in a 40. And he does the, the beautiful politician's answer where he says, "It wasn't me. It was my daughter." And then they quickly find out it wasn't his daughter, it was him in the car. So he goes, "Okay, I'll hire a chauffeur from now on. So I'll only get driven by a chauffeur." So he starts with a chauffeur, and a journalist one day tailgates the chauffeur. The chauffeur commits 12 driving offenses in 30 minutes, and this is one of the best political statements of all time. When the Transport Ministry was pressed, "Well, are you gonna fire the chauffeur now?" The lady who's the spokeswoman, just a rare moment of honesty, and she said, "If we fired everybody in the Belgian Transport Ministry that was committing traffic offenses, there'd be nobody left here to work." So that's some cracking traffic data. Well, I know that Egypt's got the... I think it's the easiest driving test in the world, which is crazy, because I've done the one in America, and that explains a lot about American drivers. It's not... The British one's kind of hard. Yes. You must know, what, uh... what, what do you reckon the failure rate among your friends was for the first-time test? Did you do, did you pass first time? I passed first time, but- You catch me as a first-timer. Yeah. Well, yeah, I know, fucking Hermione Granger over here. Um, but then you look at somewhere like Bali, and these guys are essentially surgeons with, with scooters, and they're able to thread this needle. I remember the first time I went to... So I'd spent time in Thailand, but I'd gone up north, and up north in Pai, really, really close to the northern border, there's no traffic. So yeah, people are Riding around a family of five on a single scooter, and there's a goat on the back and stuff, but there wasn't any of that crazy weaving shit. And I flew back through Chiang Mai, and it was insane. And you've, you've been to Thailand?

    3. GM

      Yes.

    4. CW

      And you've seen the roads, right?

    5. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CW

      In Bangkok and, and Chiang Mai. It is out of this world. It is fucking insane just how chaotic it is, and it really... The, the... Kind of, uh, scared me a bit. Like, holy fu-... Like, it's just so danger- ... I didn't... I was in a car, so I'm gonna be okay, I guess, unless someone smashes through the window. But it made me, it made me kind of fearful for all of the other people. This is your day-to-day j- ... You, you're arriving at work. That's your commute. Right, now let's sit down and go over the quarterly earnings report, thinking, "I'm sorry, my adrenaline is just as if I've been in a fight with a bear."

    7. GM

      But I, I, I wonder, with time, do you adapt to it? I think where it doesn't get enough criticism for their roads is everybody talks about how safe Dubai is, and it's this hub of safety. The roads in Dubai, I think you're four times more likely to die on than the British roads. And one of the explanations-

    8. CW

      Because of the drivers or because of the roads?

    9. GM

      Well, d- definitely the, the design of the roads are, are peculiar, um, and not optimal. But I have a theory that there, where you have 90% expats from all over the world, that there's actually no cultural, like, grounding on the roads, 'cause you've got one guy-

    10. CW

      Oh

    11. GM

      ... you've got one guy from Pakistan here-

    12. CW

      One person thinks that you should let you out

    13. GM

      ... one guy from the UK here-

    14. CW

      Yeah

    15. GM

      ... one guy from France here-

    16. CW

      Yeah

    17. GM

      ... one guy from Germany here-

    18. CW

      Yeah, yeah, yeah

    19. GM

      ... one lady from Uzbekistan here.

    20. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    21. GM

      Like, it just-

    22. CW

      The lady from Uzbekistan's not allowed to drive, but go on.

    23. GM

      [laughs] I think you can drive in Uzbekistan. I don't know. Um, but as a result, there's no cultural crossover where, for example, if I'm driving in the UK, I know that if a guy gets really angry beeping his horn at me, it's like, it's what it is. Like, it's chill. Whereas I also wouldn't do that. I would ne- I, I'm not a big horn beeper anyway, but I would be way more likely to beep in the UK than I would here.

    24. CW

      Yeah, everyone's got guns.

    25. GM

      Yes. So it's just understanding the lay of the land. But when you're in somewhere like Dubai, where it's just, it, there's, there's no cultural, uh, attitudes on the roads. It's just all over the place.

    26. CW

      Right. Well, it's, it's too much of a melting pot, and you need consensus-

    27. GM

      Yeah

    28. CW

      ... 'cause that's the only way that it works.

    29. GM

      I told you about the, uh, the guy who, uh, I was in a Uber. It was like a... This was in Dubai, and it was like a Sprinter van. And I'm in the back of the Sprinter van, and we're on the roads, and there's like loads of other people in the Uber on the way to a steak restaurant, and I'm just kind of lonely, looking out the window. And I kind of look at the driver, and he's on his phone, and he's ch- check- goes off the a- the maps for a second. Like, what's he going on? And I look at it, and he's on Trading 212.

    30. CW

      He's trading crypto, wasn't he?

Episode duration: 1:16:40

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