Skip to content
Modern WisdomModern Wisdom

The Tragic Decline Of Rationality In Society - George Mack (4K)

George Mack is a writer, marketer and an entrepreneur. Thinking for yourself is one of the most important skills you can develop. However it's hard. It's a difficult task to overcome the boring, negative, irrational trends around you. Which is why you need some new tools in your mental models box. Expect to learn what the Keynsian Beauty Contest is, why memes are so influential in society today, which behaviours appear positive but actually harm you in disguise, what the forgetting paradox is, what the most useful emotional state is, why “ignorance is bliss” is a putdown in 2023 and much more... Sponsors: Get a 35% discount on all Cozy Earth products at http://www.cozyearth.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at https://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 15% discount on Craftd London’s jewellery at https://craftd.com/modernwisdom (use code MW15) Extra Stuff: Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ Buy my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - 00:00 The Ranked Levels of Social Interaction 07:50 Introvert or Need Better Friends? 12:27 The Importance of Memes 18:58 Understanding the Power of Leverage 27:18 Memes Compress Mass Emotion 33:33 The Coming Cybercrime Crisis 37:50 Hiring Chief Meme Officers 43:19 Is Mainstream Media Still Prestigious? 49:10 Why Everything is Wrong 51:33 Avoid Trojan Horses of Content 1:00:09 How to Craft Your Content Algorithm 1:04:35 How Many Thoughts Can You Remember? 1:15:37 Crazy Ideas That Will Become Normal 1:22:01 Slow Success Strategy for Happiness 1:27:20 The Most Useful Emotional State 1:35:46 Guy Ritchie’s New Foot-Warmer 1:37:38 What’s Next for George - 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
Dec 18, 20231h 38mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 7:50

    The Ranked Levels of Social Interaction

    1. CW

      The Keynesian Beauty Contest, what's that?

    2. GM

      So, the Keynesian Beauty Contest is this idea of different levels of human interaction with things. So, let's say you lined up 100 people and Chris has to go rank them in order of who's the most attractive, that's like level one. But level two, that's quite a simple idea, but level two is when you're also predicting what everybody else in the room will think. And what's really interesting is, what Chris will rank is very different to what he will think everybody else will think. And then level three is another layer when you have to factor in everybody else knowing that everybody else is playing the game.

    3. CW

      Mm.

    4. GM

      And what's interesting is, when they run these experiments, so let's say they ask people to rate the cutest dog video, what they think is the cutest versus what the group... Th- then when they vote for the group will be the cutest, it completely becomes different.

    5. CW

      Mm.

    6. GM

      So, when people are aware of other peoples' perceptions-

    7. CW

      Mm.

    8. GM

      ...it completely shapes things. So, in terms of like a practical application for this, there was a period where, um, the Lib Dems were voting higher and higher in the polls, almost up there with Conservative and Labour. So people were saying, "Oh, these guys are great. These guys are great." But then when it comes to that level two thing, "Well what is everybody else going to vote for?" People don't actually vote for them-

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. GM

      ...because they're factoring in everybody else. So when you're dealing with thinking systems or other people and predicting what they're gonna do, their behavior becomes a lot more complex as a result.

    11. CW

      Yeah. There's, uh, an interesting study that was done on women giving their level of education when they know that other people are going to see the answers, and when they think that it's going to be kept private. And female intrasexual competition says that women should downplay their successes so that they don't get sabotaged by potential other females that are trying to-

    12. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    13. CW

      ...uh, derogate them and m- manipulate them in some way or another. Get that new tonic in you. Go on.

    14. GM

      Let's go.

    15. CW

      Get it down you. Um, and, uh, what it means is that, uh, when women know that other people are going to see, uh, that- that other people are going to see their answers, they downplay-

    16. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    17. CW

      ...uh, what it is that they've achieved. When they're keeping it private, they tend to be a little bit more truthful. Uh, but you know the Abilene paradox?

    18. GM

      No.

    19. CW

      Familiar with this? Oh, mate, you're gonna absolutely adore this. So, Gwinda first introduced me to it, right, and it's just... Again, when you see it, you can't unsee it. The Abilene paradox is a situation in which a group makes a decision that is contrary to the desires of the group's members because each member assumes the others approve of it. It explains how a number of accurate individuals can become idiots when they get together. So, think Emperor's New Clothes-

    20. GM

      Mm.

    21. CW

      ...in a way. An acquaintance invites you to his wedding despite not wanting you there because he thinks you want to attend. You attend despite not wanting to because you think he wants you there. At a business meeting, someone suggests an idea he thinks the others will like, perhaps recruiting a trans influencer as the face of the brand. Each member has misgivings about this, but assumes the others will think that they are transphobic if they speak out, so everyone approves the idea despite no one liking it. Or every member of a family in North Korea who hates communism, but they never mention this to each other because each- each assumes that the others approve of it.

    22. GM

      You have this, or I've had this on social occasions as well, where you'll be at dinner and it'll be getting later and later, and nobody's left yet. And sometimes I'll be sat there looking at the clock, "Am I gonna leave? Am I gonna leave?" And then one person leaves and the whole-

    23. CW

      The high-agency exit.

    24. GM

      Yeah.

    25. CW

      There's a Mexican wave of people exiting.

    26. GM

      The whole thing exits. And what's beautiful about the Keynesian Beauty Contest is it- it deals with reflexive systems, where people's perceptions shape reality and reality shapes perceptions. There's this great... So, George Soros, um, there's this amazing Financial Times article that he wrote about reflexivity, and Taleb said this on Ferris, I didn't know if you knew this, that Soros wanted to be a philosopher, but basically just had this shadow career-

    27. CW

      (laughs)

    28. GM

      ...of crashing the pound and becoming, like, one of the biggest-

    29. CW

      (laughs)

    30. GM

      ...hedge fund managers in there. But one of his- one of his ideas is this concept of reflexivity, which is like... So, a statement of the weather is going to be rainy today. That's not reflexive, 'cause I'm dealing with a natural phenomenon in the sense that my thinking or my words doesn't shape reality.

  2. 7:50 – 12:27

    Introvert or Need Better Friends?

    1. CW

      I realized that b- I was socially anxious, especially toward the end of my 20s, uh, the end of my teens and then getting into the start of my 20s. And that's a reflexive recursive system as well, because if you're nervous around people, people might interpret that as nervousness or as seriousness or whatever, which means that people treat you in a manner which is less warm because you appear less warm, which means that you see the world as an adversary, not as a compatriot, which means that you then are less capable of opening up and ƒ and there it goes.

    2. GM

      Well, that's, it's the same with the thinking, feeling, and acting thing, right? So if for example, you have the thought, "I'm, I'm a introvert and I hate going out."

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. GM

      Therefore, you feel a bit more wanting to stay in, a bit down, and then you act like that. And then that cycle completely repeats itself. And it's so simple, and it's why cognitive behavioral therapy has such an impact, right? When you can see that triangle-

    5. CW

      Yeah.

    6. GM

      ... and then go, "Well, which lever am I gonna, gonna pull here?"

    7. CW

      I've told you, uh, my theory about introversion. Most people aren't introverts, their friends just suck.

    8. GM

      Hm.

    9. CW

      That even around, like, if, if you get an introvert around the right people, they're no longer introverted, and i- it's a recursive loop as far as I can see. Many of the people that believe that they're introverts are just in the wrong social group.

    10. GM

      One of the questions I was gonna ask you about is things you've changed your mind on.

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    12. GM

      And on this specific point, I had that realization where when COVID happened, a lot of people experienced this, where they start going online and they're meeting so many interesting people, because the online world, you immediately go to like global maximum, like the best of online. And then you can immediately think that, "Oh, I'm just gonna be online from now on. I'm just gonna be doing Zoom calls all the time. I'm gonna be in Telegram chats, and my online friends are so much more interesting." But the realization that it's just because the, ge- getting to global maximum or like the peak of the internet, you just log on and you're there and you find your little tribe. But trying to find that in person-

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    14. GM

      ... is really difficult. But then when you find it, it's like 100X better-

    15. CW

      Correct. Yeah, it's deeper. The, the, the... One of the interesting things that's happened with the internet is it's allowed people with very niche interests to find other people that have got a niche i-... This is all of Reddit, right? R- Reddit is refined not by individuals, but by topics. And it makes it unique in some regards, right? For social media. Um, that's been great because people that are into obscure late '80s anime from one particular region of Japan or whatever, are able to get together and enjoy whatever it is that they're into. So, good for a selection effect, but bad for depth, right? And in person, very difficult to find the three other people in your 500,000-person city that's also into this obscure anime. But if you were to find them-

    16. GM

      Mm.

    17. CW

      ... the level of depth of, of connection, which is why I think, uh, using the internet to explore and then using in person to exploit-

    18. GM

      Mm.

    19. CW

      ... is the best paradigm. That's how we met.

    20. GM

      Yes.

    21. CW

      You know, we selected to become friends through the internet, and then once you do that, you go, "Okay, let's twist this into in person."

    22. GM

      What's super strange about this though is, all you need is one in-person event.

    23. CW

      Yes.

    24. GM

      Like, if, if for example, you never meet and you use the digital layer as the foundation, so you just text chats, video calls, you could stack like thousands of them, versus if you have one physical experience-

    25. CW

      Right.

    26. GM

      ... that acts as like the-

    27. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    28. GM

      ... the, the floor that you then stack everything else on top of, it's so much richer. You only need a few in-person meetings to then be able to stack everything on top of.

    29. CW

      It's, it's the reason why I, I put it in my, um, newsletter this week, I think it was, uh, always say yes to dinner.

    30. GM

      Mm.

  3. 12:27 – 18:58

    The Importance of Memes

    1. CW

      of us are massive fans of memes. You're gonna meet Mary Harrington a little bit later on today-

    2. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CW

      ... who came up with "Meme first, explain later."

    4. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CW

      B- before we even get into talking about the most important memes that w- I wanna run through with you, why... what is it about memes and stickiness of ideas that's so important? Why do you think that's so crucial to get right?

    6. GM

      So the first point is that meme itself, the word, is an ironic word. It's kind of like dyslexia. Like, no dyslexics can spell dyslexia. And the word meme is itself quite a bad meme, because when you say meme to most people, what do they think? They think of, uh-

    7. CW

      Dog photo with-

    8. GM

      ... dog photo on the internet.

    9. CW

      Yeah.

    10. GM

      So you need to zoom out a little bit first and go, "A meme is essentially just a spreadable idea," and how it, the story spreads from people to people. So dog photos is part of that, but you have OK Boomer, you have Karen, you-

    11. CW

      Learn to code.

    12. GM

      Learn to code, Make America Great Again. Like, all these things, whether you hate them, love them, whatever, are memes, and they spread. When you see this where there's ideas that have existed that haven't had the right meme, kind of like a product that hasn't had the right marketing-

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    14. GM

      ... and then you create a meme for it and, whoop. Like, charisma's been around for so long.

    15. CW

      (laughs)

    16. GM

      People have spoke about it, but it's always so nerdy when-

    17. CW

      I love this idea of yours.

    18. GM

      ... charisma was, like, the most uncharismatic topic to talk about, ironically.

    19. CW

      Sorry, sorry, Charlie Hooper.

    20. GM

      Sorry. Um, but all of a sudden, you create the word rizz, and vvv-

    21. CW

      Everyone wants rizz.

    22. GM

      ... and then the language shapes perception, and then people are actually talking more about it. Same with the word ick. Like, the fact that you then have this placeholder to then discuss these things. But I think the fundamental thing with a good meme is the... almost looking at it like a simple algorithm. And thanks to COVID, like, I- I've known about K factors for ages, right, or R numbers.

    23. CW

      What's a K factor?

    24. GM

      It's essentially for, let's say with COVID, different strains. How, if I had it or one person had it, how many people they spread it to. So if you go over one, then it's exponential growth. This is a big thing in the startup and tech space for a while. So when you're analyzing a Facebook coming along, how many... when Chris joins, if he brings one more person with him on average, then just infinite growth until, until it disappears. But with a meme, what you need for that K factor is essentially the level of emotion and the friction for it to spread, and how simple it is to understand.

    25. CW

      Mm.

    26. GM

      The more complex it is, um, the, the less the meme. Whereas when you shorten it down to rizz and it's catchy and it's three, it's three fucking letters, all of a sudden it can have such an impact.

    27. CW

      Is rizz not two Zs? Is it four there?

    28. GM

      Could be, it could be, yeah. Um-

    29. CW

      All right.

    30. GM

      ... too old these days, might not-

  4. 18:58 – 27:18

    Understanding the Power of Leverage

    1. GM

      that I think is so important for people to understand is... And we use, me and you use this word a lot, so if you had to graph it in terms of words we speak after like the, and-

    2. CW

      Yeah.

    3. GM

      ... uh, and a few others, water, this one's up there, which is leverage.

    4. CW

      Yeah.

    5. GM

      Like, we use leverage all the time. And I originally got it from Naval's book, Almanack, and I, when I heard it, I almost didn't want to admi- I didn't fully understand it, because I didn't want to sound stupid. So I'd go and research it, and I'd go, "Okay, so there's, there's this guy called Archimedes, and if you have enough leverage in engineering, you can create things where the thought, the input can produce a much greater output."

    6. CW

      Yep.

    7. GM

      So people will use it like that. So when I create a company, I try to create the cultural value around leverage, right? So I created this Google Sheet, and everybody would input in there, like, the highest leverage task that week. So that was one of the values that we tried to create as a company.

    8. CW

      Yeah.

    9. GM

      And every other value made sense. But we'd go in, we'd go in there, and we'd do these weekly check-in calls, and everyone would be like, "I'll be honest with you, I don't know what highest leverage task means." And I was like, "Aha." And then you zoom out right now, you've got, like, the Instagram gurus who chat about, "I'm the hardest working man in the room."

    10. CW

      Yeah.

    11. GM

      And then you have the kind of meme of smart work versus hard work.

    12. CW

      Yeah.

    13. GM

      And none of it, none of it really sticks-

    14. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    15. GM

      ... especially coming from an educational system.

    16. CW

      Yeah.

    17. GM

      And then when you begin to fully understand, like, code leverage-

    18. CW

      Yeah.

    19. GM

      ... media leverage, capital leverage, labor leverage, it begins to stick a little bit more, and I was thinking, "How do you actually get this into an idea that begins to translate?" One of the terrible ideas that I do have for this, which I'll bring up, because I, it's-

    20. CW

      (laughs)

    21. GM

      It's on here, which is a lot of napkin maths-

    22. CW

      (laughs)

    23. GM

      ... but it's essentially... I wanted to do this as a kids story, but I need to change the name to begin with. I animate it, it's called Hungover Jeff Bezos on His Yacht.

    24. CW

      (laughs)

    25. GM

      Right? Versus, versus the World's Hardest Working Man. So we have this story of these two individuals competing against each other, because I identify with the world's har- hardest working man. I grew up watching, like, Eric Thomas videos of, like, "You've got to want it as bad as you want to bre-" Like, that kind of stuff.

    26. CW

      Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    27. GM

      And ultimately, so let's say for example, we give this Instagram guy who chats about hard work... This guy is better than everybody else because he doesn't sleep. He works 24 hours a day, right? Jeff, woken up at, like, 11:50, like, nagging headache. He's probably got one of the best vitamin IV drips in the world, goes on his jet ski that day, probably ha- does a Zoom call with his chess coach. Like, whatever, who's worked harder that day? If you judge it in the old-fashioned interpretation that I think a lot of us have that don't understand leverage because we don't get engineering and things like that, you go, "Well, he's worked 24 hours that day, Jeff's done a few Slack messages." But I was, like, trying to go, "Well, what if you actually ran the napkin math?" So right now, if you looked at it as purely as, like, outputs, so this guy's got 24 outputs of hours of manual work that he's been doing.

    28. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    29. GM

      Whereas Jeff's been sat on his arse. If you look at it like that, that's zer- 24 to 0. But all of a sudden when you begin to quantify leverage, you go, "Ah, this begins to click a little bit." So this is napkin maths from about a year ago, so the point of napkin math is not to be in the comments section saying that this is right. I know some of these numbers are wrong, but just, it's for the metaphor. So Jeff has 1.6 million people that work for Amazon, so let's say they all work eight hours per day. Jeff's achieved 20.8 million hours of work that day. Then if you looked at robot leverage, so Amazon's warehouse, when I looked at the statistics, has 500,000 roaming factory robots. AWS has 1.8 million servers. They all work 24/7 for him. That's 55 million hours of robot work per day whilst he's been sat on that yacht.

    30. CW

      Hungover.

  5. 27:18 – 33:33

    Memes Compress Mass Emotion

    1. CW

      memes compress massive emotion into a simple, contagious concept, like OK Boomer or Karen. What's that mean?

    2. GM

      Well, first off, look at OK Boomer. Who doesn't understand that? Two words. Karen. Who doesn't understand that? Make America Great Again. Who doesn't understand that? You can hate those memes, but it's compressed so much emotion. So let's take the OK Boomer one. It's compressed so much emotion of the Millennial and Gen Z being spoken down to by the Boomer generation who have messed up a lot, and it's completely compressed all that down, and boom, that spreads. Same with Karen, same with even the word Make America Great Again. Like there's so much emotion.

    3. CW

      Way more than its four words.

    4. GM

      Yes.

    5. CW

      It's way more than the constituent parts. Yes, yes, yes.

    6. GM

      And i- with memes, it's al- it's... I forgot who said it, it's the idea of, "I'm sorry I didn't write you a shorter letter, but I didn't have time."

    7. CW

      Yes, yes, yes, yes.

    8. GM

      So the... People look at it and go, "Oh, that's so unfair. I wrote this 10,000 word essay that nobody ever read," ve- versus this meme has spread. But you need to be able to optimize for that K factor, but you need to be able to compress as much emotion into that word for it to spread.

    9. CW

      Did the meme industrial complex used to be the purview of mainstream media? Were they ever creating memes effectively, or is this a, a internet thing?

    10. GM

      A- again, it's, it's a little bit reflexive in the sense that they both interact, right? So what Rupert Murdoch would put on the news would... because he kind of knew what people would like, and then what people liked was kind of because what they saw on the news and there's this constant thing here. So Rupert Murdoch or that generation of the meme industrial complex that owned everything and could control the narrative, I actually think it's ironic that they've made Succession now because they wouldn't have been able to make it 10 years ago 'cause he had so much power, right?

    11. CW

      Yeah, yeah.

    12. GM

      Versus now it's like, "We can do what we want."

    13. CW

      It would have, it would have seemed more like a documentary than a drama.

    14. GM

      And you can see why the mainstream media dislikes social media so much, because the mainstream media had the meme industrial complex in that they could put ideas out there and control the narrative. Whereas now, the meme industrial complex is essentially this bottomed down approach of complete decentralized meritocracy to some extent-

    15. CW

      Yeah, it's all the users rather than the gatekeepers that are creating it.

    16. GM

      ... and a few algorithm developers who nobody... these faceless algorithm developers-

    17. CW

      Fucking meme, meme architects.

    18. GM

      ... who can just shift a little bit there and com- and go, "You know what? On YouTube now, we actually prefer long form podcasts." In the algorithm, boom, and that just completely shifts things. So it's weird how you've got these kind of faceless algorithm creators now and these faced creators-

    19. CW

      Yeah.

    20. GM

      ... that own the meme industrial complex.

    21. CW

      The last memes or most of the memes that you see that come out of mainstream media are accidental memes. So it's, uh, a guy trying to propose to his wife at, uh, uh, a baseball game or something that gets wiped out by a security guard or something. It's not... it's never something that is designed to be funny. It's always the byproduct of something that was supposed to be something else which has come through in that way. I've also got this idea about how if you want to be able to predict the future, look at a current cultural movement or meme that hasn't had the inverse already made. So-

    22. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    23. CW

      2020, COVID gets released. That summer, everyone has to stay in the house. 2021, Megan Thee Stallion starts talking about hot girl summer. Last year, you weren't able to be free and liberated, therefore, this year, uh, you can be your best self, glam up, go out with the girls, sleep with the guy, et cetera. 2022 is feral girl summer, which is, you know, treat yourself like an animal, don't wash, don't shave, just put baggy clothes on and, and, and don't take any care of yourself. Um, another version, pickup artistry, uh, comes out sort of late 20s, early 2010s, then you get that sanitized by Me Too, which is a counterculture movement in some regards, not just to that, but to other stuff. Then you have red pill, then very quickly you have MGTOW and black pill that comes out of it. So if you want to p- predict the future of memes, look at a meme that's been created that hasn't had its inverse-

    24. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    25. CW

      ... uh, come out too, because every movement needs its counter-movement in order to be able to balance it. Because there is a market, there is a meme market for anything which is not the thing which is currently popular. For every movement, there will always be... it's like the equal and opposite force thing. For every meme, there is an equal and opposite meme that comes out.

    26. GM

      Mm-hmm. Well, question for you is, what do you think is... you know, we had the chat last time of what is ignored by the media but will be studied by historians.

    27. CW

      Yeah.

    28. GM

      And what we're kind of saying there is, what's a really important topic that hasn't had its full meme moment yet?

    29. CW

      Right, yeah.

    30. GM

      And what do you think-

  6. 33:33 – 37:50

    The Coming Cybercrime Crisis

    1. CW

    2. GM

      This is, I think one of the most important topics, but it's so ugly and boring, and I, I even w- like, I'm fearsome of saying this 'cause I can just feel people, like, skipping to the next YouTube chapter as soon as I say this, but give me like a minute to just say it.

    3. CW

      All right.

    4. GM

      And it's sa- even the word now, right, you're gonna go, "Ugh." Right? Cybercrime, right?

    5. CW

      (laughs)

    6. GM

      It's just... like nobody takes it seriously, but it's so fucking important. And just to maybe give a bit of a story that's gonna help with this. Have you heard of the Bangladeshi bank heist?

    7. CW

      No.

    8. GM

      Now we're talking, right? This is gonna blow your mind.

    9. CW

      (laughs)

    10. GM

      And again, li- it doesn't sound good right now, but it's gonna be good.

    11. CW

      Sounds good.

    12. GM

      So the biggest bank robbery in history was, I think it's about $60 million in Brazil in about 2015, 2016. With cybercrime recently, they almost hacked $1 billion from the Bangladeshi Bank using the SWIFT system, right? For context, that year, the Bangladeshi GDP was like 230 billion. So think with GDP as well, it's movement of money, it's not total money. If Chris sends George 10 and I send it back, boom, boom, boom, that acts towards the GDP, but it's just us exchanging money. So imagine taking $1 billion like that from a developing country immediately. Um, and the only reason that failed, the only reason this isn't... uh, th- there will be, I, I think five to s- within five to ten years, there will be a COVID-like moment. Do you remember pandemics before COVID? It was like bird flu, swine flu-

    13. CW

      Swine mouth.

    14. GM

      ... you'd just be like, "Oh, the government's just trying to get clicks," and things like that. I remember I used to tell people about COVID in January, February, I won't say who, but they used to call me Conspiracy George for bringing up COVID. And now obviously, pandemics are taken very seriously, but there will be a 9/11 or a COVID-like moment for cyber where things get very, very dark very fast, and I think the Bangladeshi bank heist is only a tiny example of that, where you go from $60 million robbery in person to 1 billion overnight, and the on- you know the only reason why it failed is because the hackers that were working on this system, so they emailed, they sent an email with a CV application. The person at the bank clicks on the CV, infects everything.

    15. CW

      Yeah.

    16. GM

      They're working on it for a year, they time it perfectly during the New Year's holidays. Everything about this heist has gone perfect. Bear in mind, this bank would only move about 300K around. The SWIFT system, so it goes to the Federal Reserve in America, so it sees 1 billion and they're like, "Yeah, sure." So it's like the, the security systems weren't in place. The only reason it failed is 'cause two, two things. One, they had a typo for the addresses. So literally, it didn't fail because of the amount, it failed because of its-

    17. CW

      Human error.

    18. GM

      ... human error, like, and it was a really basic English spelling that they made a mistake. And then two, the bank in the Philippines they were sending it to was called Jupiter Street, and Jupiter was a company associated with Iranian money laundering, so it just happened to flag in the system. Otherwise, it would've gone through and-

    19. CW

      Both of which were human error.

    20. GM

      ... a billion would've been taken from Bangladesh, like one of the poorest countries in the world, like that. And the impact that has, and you then begin to realize what happens at one point when certain airlines get attacked-

    21. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    22. GM

      ... certain banking systems get attacked, and we're so reli- but because I say the words "cybersecurity" and only 3% of the audience have carried on right now, so boring.

    23. CW

      (laughs)

    24. GM

      But we need, we need stronger memes around it 'cause it's such an important topic.

    25. CW

      Yeah. Wasn't it, uh, you told me some story about...The salary that was-

    26. GM

      Yes.

    27. CW

      ... offered for the British head of cyber security-

    28. GM

      So the head of cyber security in the UK, we spoke about this last time, got offered a salary, or like on LinkedIn jobs, it was 55 to 65K pounds for the UK, uh, treasury.

    29. CW

      About $70,000, $80,000.

    30. GM

      Yeah. Which, uh, listen, is obviously a great income for most of the world, but for the head of cyber security-

  7. 37:50 – 43:19

    Hiring Chief Meme Officers

    1. GM

    2. CW

      If the emotion caused by the meme is greater than the friction of spreading it, you've cracked the meme algorithm.

    3. GM

      It's exactly that. That, that is an example of a simple but not easy truth. That is all memes. Does the emotion outweigh the friction of spreading it? If so, you've created that positive one number that it begins to spread, spread, spread, spread, spread. It's so simple.

    4. CW

      You've got one in here that's the same as mine. The easiest way to predict the next meme is to look at the current memes and bet on counter-memes appearing. You take that from me. You better have done.

    5. GM

      Potentially.

    6. CW

      It was my idea. Uh, the fastest growing companies in the next 10 years will have a chief meme officer working for them directly or indirectly.

    7. GM

      S- I, I, like if you look at all these fast-growing consumer businesses, they are e- they either have a chief meme officer in-house, so you can think of these influencer celebrities-

    8. CW

      Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    9. GM

      ... that are creating... McGregor with Proper12-

    10. CW

      Yeah.

    11. GM

      ... the McGregor meme, and all the kind of sub-memes that he creates around him. Who the fuck is that guy?

    12. CW

      Yeah, yeah.

    13. GM

      Et cetera, et cetera. Then product there, or they'll have memes working via, through them indirectly that they'll ride on. So like, we was chatting about Marek Health. This isn't a plug.

    14. CW

      Yeah.

    15. GM

      But, um, you, obviously your testosterone number's going through the roof-

    16. CW

      Yeah.

    17. GM

      ... and people, Huberman, the Huberman meme, people chatting about optimization, and I guess they do have Derek running it, but still, riding that meme movement.

    18. CW

      Yeah.

    19. GM

      If he would've done it five to 10 years from, 10 years ago, it probably wouldn't-

    20. CW

      Billion-dollar company.

    21. GM

      ... have the impact that it's happening, but now, chief meme officer indirectly or directly, boom.

    22. CW

      Yeah. Uh, it's, I think the, the, I learned about this word, you're glowing. You taught me about that a while ago. Zach taught me about it, and then Mark won't shut up about it as well. You know what that is? Like when someone looks like a federal plant, and they're putting across information that is to, um, persuade the populous, but people can see through the fact that they're actually doing it on behalf of the CIA. Ex-CIA agent says that CIA isn't actually listening to your phone calls. Mate, you're glowing.

    23. GM

      (laughs) Yeah.

    24. CW

      Right? Like, that's, that's, that's the sort of shit that they'll say. Um, but I think people are skeptical now even of memes. Perfect, perfect, perfect example. Did you see what Gymshark did with Francis Ngannou where he broke that door? Switch it out and get the, get the orange boy in there. Come on.

    25. GM

      There we go. What's his name?

    26. CW

      Um, uh, you see where Francis Ngannou, uh, broke a door?

    27. GM

      No.

    28. CW

      Right. So Gymshark, uh, like, fed a video onto Reddit that they created of CCTV of a person that was supposed to be Francis Ngannou, didn't turn out to be him, uh, breaking the door of a corner shop, the glass door-

    29. GM

      Oh, yeah.

    30. CW

      ... that was closed.

  8. 43:19 – 49:10

    Is Mainstream Media Still Prestigious?

    1. GM

    2. CW

      I had this idea about how, um, there is a lot of derogation of mainstream media at the moment. You know, like, mainstream media is dying and, uh, no one really cares about it anymore, and it's all about independent media, and it's all about YouTube and podcasts and stuff like that. But what you do forget is that there is still quite a lot of status associated with going on mainstream media because it's a scarce resource.

    3. GM

      Yeah.

    4. CW

      Right? There is an unlimited number of YouTube videos that everybody can upload. There's no status or prestige associated with uploading a YouTube video. Getting lots of subscribers, or getting lots of plays, or having lots of followers on TikTok or whatever. But anyone that's got an iPhone-

    5. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CW

      ... can work Twitter or work TikTok or work YouTube. (clears throat) But there's only 200 Dr. Phil guests per year, right? So because it's inherently a scarce resource, there is still, uh, value and prestige associated with it because of the selection effect. Oh, you've had to be pre-selected. It's like the fucking Hunger Games, right?

    7. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    8. CW

      So, I think that (clears throat) something that's probably not been priced in is first the, that general, uh, scarce resource prestige associated with, that's still associated with mainstream media because it's a limited resource. And secondly, uh, the huge swath of boomer parents and people who aren't chronically online who see Dr. Phil, you know, all of Middle America, you know, that whole daytime TV thing, the Loose Women thing, like, they still move culture, they just don't move culture in a way that we care about at the moment. Um, there's this really interesting, just a side point, this really interesting, uh, is it Liberty Mutual or someone? It's this bank in America and they're playing it really well. It's like, um, uh, "We can't stop you from becoming your parents, but we might be able to help you invest and save." And all of the adverts are about, like, um, uh, younger people than should be complaining about these particular problems, complaining about problems that are beyond their age, like someone who's, um, parking over, like, two parking spaces, and they're, like, shaking their fist kind of like their parents would do, or someone that's cutting the hedge too early in the morning or something, like, complaining about things their parents might have once complained about, but they're too young for it, and the point is, like, you're going to grow into complaining about the complaints that your parents have got. So, uh, let's say it's Liberty Mutual or something, they're using the meme of OK, Boomer as almost self-deprecating for us all to future project ourselves out into that. Uh, but yeah, mainstream media, scarce resource, what do you think?

    9. GM

      Again, I think there's a little bit of a Lollapalooza that exists as well, in the sense, yeah, it's a scarce resource, it still has a shadow of its former self.

    10. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    11. GM

      Like, even if I see a 70-year-old boxer, I know who that guy used to be and he could still, uh, even if, even if he's like, I could beat him up now, he still has that shadow of his former self. So I think it's that. It's inter- When I did the Fox News thing-

    12. CW

      Yeah.

    13. GM

      ... for the Kaelon cocaine phone, which followed, like, the most serious news stories, that it was me in Amsterdam with sliders on my feet and, like, a blazer here, chatting about that. Yeah, and that, even though it probably got way less views than this or anything else that I've done, was treated so differently because of the fact it was mainstream media.

    14. CW

      Prestige.

    15. GM

      Yeah.

    16. CW

      Yeah. There's this, um, (clears throat) an idea called conceptual inertia, which is that it takes a long time for ideas to change, even if the science does. Uh, I spoke to this, um, he's like a, a, a science historian, and he was talking about the development of, um, science and then belief over time. So for instance, when you get the, uh, is it, like, the geocentric as opposed to the heliocentric view of the solar system, that it's not the Earth that's at the center, it's the sun that's at the center. And, um, when that happened, even though it was after a while... First off, it was heretical, then it was exploratory, then it was proven, but tons and tons of the populous just hadn't come along for the ride.

    17. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      Ideas die one generation at a time, and it takes a good chunk of time for people to catch up. And it's kind of the same with mainstream media.

    19. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    20. CW

      Right? Not only are there still people around that hold mainstream media, like, even I do to some degree, you know, you see some person on fucking Dancing with the Stars and you're like, "Oh, well done for that person," even if I wouldn't wanna do it. Um, so not only is there still people around that are living that, but also, even once they're gone, the echo of what they valued is still valued, and it takes a little bit of time for this stuff to go away.

    21. GM

      Mm-hmm. How, how... On that point though, of ideas die one generation at a time, how do you... Is there any way to speed that up?

    22. CW

      (laughs)

    23. GM

      As we're... 'Cause, 'cause technology's changing so much faster and faster right now.

    24. CW

      Do you want an ideas holocaust?

    25. GM

      Y- y- (laughs) But, like, how do you deal with, like, GPT-3, GPT-4, and p- people being able-

    26. CW

      Yeah.

    27. GM

      ... to catch up with how quickly things are changing?

    28. CW

      I, I, I, I don't think there's, I don't think that there's a solution for it, mate. I think that humans run at the speed that they run at.

    29. GM

      Yeah.

    30. CW

      I don't think you can overclock humans in the same way that you can overclock technology.

  9. 49:10 – 51:33

    Why Everything is Wrong

    1. GM

      like David Deutsch's Beginning of Infinity, which I think is an amazing idea but the meme is tough. The problem that exists is, and we spoke about this before, where five years ago, you cringe at your former self. But the, what would have probably have sped that up, maybe doing five months rather than five years to realize those mistakes, was thinking, "Five years from now, I'm going to cringe at former me." What are those things?

    2. CW

      Yes.

    3. GM

      So, there's almost this simple expression I developed which is, like, "Everything is wrong," is the first bit of it. And you just assume every belief that I hold is wrong. Everything George and Chris has said, to some extent, is wrong. Anything that defies the laws of physics is wrong, and will be... We will look back at it five to 10 years from now-

    4. CW

      Loose opinions loosely held. (laughs)

    5. GM

      Yeah, but the problem with that is it just opens up this vortex of, like, where do I... Like, the, the-

    6. CW

      What do I do?

    7. GM

      Yeah, the floor's gone.

    8. CW

      Yeah.

    9. GM

      Like, you're just in this spinning-

    10. CW

      Yeah.

    11. GM

      ... infinite Rick and Morty loop, and you don't, you don't know what is what. And people would prefer to have strong beliefs than just complete nihilism and-

    12. CW

      Correct.

    13. GM

      ... complete everything's wrong. So, the conclusion I have with that is that everything's wrong, but there are better or worse ideas. So, constantly looking at, oh, okay, so I've got this new idea in my head, it can have a placeholder there, and I, I like it, and it was better than the previous idea that I had. And then you're constantly playing this infinite game of stacking up knowledge and stacking up knowledge. But always realizing, 'cause what will happen is you'll get the new idea, and then you think that idea's right.

    14. CW

      How many times have me and you developed some new morning routine, become completely addicted to it, and been like, "This is it, this is the answer. I've found the answer"? And then a couple of months later we go, "It wasn't the answer."

    15. GM

      The, the Lindy effect works so far- well with that. If, if a person sends you about this new app, new meditation habit, new XYZ, morning routine-

    16. CW

      How long have you been doing it?

    17. GM

      Ah, once you've been doing it for six months, let's check in. 'Cause then it's serious.

    18. CW

      Tiago Forte, uh, the reason that he doesn't use anything other than Evernote is he refuses to use software that's not 10 years older or... Uh, old or older.

    19. GM

      Mm.

    20. CW

      It's like it has to have been around for 10 years.

    21. GM

      Mm.

    22. CW

      And it's basically the exact same as what you're talking about there. Uh, Louise Perry taught me yesterday this great quote. Uh, "Tradition are the experiments that worked."

    23. GM

      Hmm. Ye- yeah, that's the thing that, yeah, p- the thing that people are often defending was once the replacing thing.

    24. CW

      Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Because, well, unless it's been around for fucking forever, like, and how many things are axiomatically just, like, unmoveable or unmoving from when it first ever happened? What's this Trojan

  10. 51:33 – 1:00:09

    Avoid Trojan Horses of Content

    1. CW

      horses to avoid thing?

    2. GM

      So, I was having a, uh, phone call with a good friend of mine, and his business is, it, he's doing very, very well. And he says to me, he goes, "I've stopped listening to all business podcasts." I was like, "Hold on." I was like, "Your business is doing really, really well, and you, but you've also stopped, like, consuming new information about business?" He goes, "Yeah, I just watch NFL stuff." I'm like, "Huh." I go, "Am I getting mid-witted memed right here?"

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. GM

      And I was like, "Why is that?" And he goes, "Well, the problem was particularly, like, the stuff that isn't just, like, Lindy business content, like new ideas, this, this industry's popping off, th-" He would just get shiny object syndrome.

    5. CW

      Yeah.

    6. GM

      And the critique of that, like, self-improvement space of, "How can you watch football," or, "How can you do that?" is... The problem with him with the business podcast is that it was like Trojan content, or pyrrhic porn, like a pyrrhic victory. It was Trojan content in the sense that he felt it was good for him. But it was actually harming him. And I'd say that is often a lot worse than the things that you know are gonna harm you. So, i.e., if you eat a takeaway, and you know it's bad for you, I think that's not-

    7. CW

      You account for it the next day.

    8. GM

      Yeah, that's not as bad as thinking something's healthy, a Trojan horse getting in-

    9. CW

      Mm.

    10. GM

      ... and it's actually really bad for you.

    11. CW

      How was the business podcasts? Just dig into how they were Trojan horses a bit more.

    12. GM

      Well, in the sense that he has a business that's working really well, and he just has to exploit and focus and work hard. Whereas when they're then going, "Oh, there's this new AI thing that's popping off, and people are getting funding here," or, "This guy's exited his business for ABC, and he's d- been in it half the time," so he'd just get envious. He'd get shiny object syndrome. Versus just putting on the football is like, switch the brain off, know what I need to do. And you can see these Trojan horses that exist everywhere, so, like, you could have... I, I call it, like, a Trojan pay rise, where you kind of get this incredible job that... No, not incredible job, or a job... I had this happen to me, where a job comes along and offers you double the salary. But you stop learning as a result. And on the one hand, yeah, you've got this thing that feels like you've made progress-

    13. CW

      Mm.

    14. GM

      ... but actually on a long enough time horizon, it's gonna massively reduce your potential 'cause you're no longer learning.

    15. CW

      Yeah. (laughs)

    16. GM

      So, looking at these Trojan horses everywhere.

    17. CW

      A long commute would probably be one of those.

    18. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    19. CW

      Um, you know, we've been talking a lot about, uh, hidden observable metrics, and a really great observable metric is salary, and a really great hidden one is commute length.

    20. GM

      Mm.

    21. CW

      Uh, you know-

    22. GM

      Mm.

    23. CW

      ... the derogation of your energy to do things when you get home, the quality of your relationships and your friendships, the amount of time that you have to be able to learn new things. And yeah, you can trade in your ability to upgrade yourself for a better salary. But you're right. Over a long enough time horizon, what was it that was going to give you more happiness or satisfaction? Not even salary in the end. It was presumably going to be your skills and the rapidity of you, to be able to upgrade them. So, yeah, I, that- that- that's very interesting. Have you noticed, in your life, any, uh, Trojan horses that you've let sneak in?

    24. GM

      I, I'd say certain bits of content. I find I'm a lot more specific with, like, my information diet now. So, even stuff of... I'll try and, I used to try and keep on top of the world's cutting events, and then I'm like... 'Cause I felt like I needed to be a responsible citizen and I needed to be on top of things. And I realized that, A, the current thing would just disappear, the, there's this constant new current thing that will-

    25. CW

      Right.

    26. GM

      ... then disappear two months from now.

    27. CW

      Uh, Perel calls it the, what is it? The perpetual now.

    28. GM

      Yeah. And by the time, by the time it's on Twitter, it's, like, the peak stock price. It's... You know what I mean? By the time it's, everybody's talking about-

    29. CW

      That's as big as it's gonna get.

    30. GM

      It's the b- it's the, it's as big as it's gonna get. So, avoiding-... um, constantly keeping on top of all the world's co- in- constant event, which I used to think, like, I was being an informed citizen. 'Cause people would use the term... I wrote about this, people would use the term, "Ignorance is bliss." And I go, "You know you're in this, like, Nietzsche and upside down society where people are using bliss as a shaming mechanism?"

  11. 1:00:09 – 1:04:35

    How to Craft Your Content Algorithm

    1. CW

      And YouTube actually is a, uh, platform for this. It's kind of useful because there's a few options you can put in. Um, don't recommend channel. Uh, if you just see something on your home screen, you can just press the three bo- three dots and say, "Don't recommend channel," and you'll never see that channel again-

    2. GM

      Oh wow.

    3. CW

      ... unless you search for it, right? It'll never just randomly appear on your feed, which is phenomenal. Uh, so I think that's... You know, if you were talking about crafting and shaping the information landscape that we're a part of, and y- it's all esoteric and fucking like philos- philosophical and stuff. But from a tactical perspective, like that's one thing. Um, if people use Twitter on desktop, which I do, I- I don't have the app on my phone. I very rarely use it on my phone. Um, Twimex, uh, which may now be called Tweepy, um, is a way that you can see the most popular tweets from people. But it's a Google Chrome extension that when you're on your home screen, it actually sits over the top of the trending news. So it'll hide trending news, so you can't put yourself in Angola. Well, you can, but it doesn't work. But you can use Twimex or Tweepy, and the Google Chrome extension will hide that and replace it with like top tweets from one of the people that you follow.

    4. GM

      I think we've probably got about five years left of this algorithmic warfare of trying to get you to stay on platform as long as poss- 'Cause as soon as more and more AI tools come on, and then you begin to have these dynamic conversations of how you want to feel based off these algorithms, I think we'll look back at this as a very, very weird time in history.

    5. CW

      When most content was created by humans, as opposed to robots.

    6. GM

      No, in the sense that, that to some extent, but more importantly, like for example, you see the difference when you go from YouTube to YouTube Premium, and you can skip certain things, and you can download things. Why can't I just customize my algorithm more?

    7. CW

      Mm.

    8. GM

      Like, why can't I have a kale algorithm during the week and then a cocaine algorithm on Saturday night, versus this kind of static algorithm? Because the problem with the algorithms, I actually realized when I was doing that YouTube audit, the best... YouTube is amazing when you use it for search, and it's such a high agency thing there, where you're sitting there thinking and going, "Oh, okay, I want to learn about X," or, "I want to do A, B, C," and you search it, versus the explore page, when it's just fundamentally so low agency. Because by definition, it's trained on your past data.

    9. CW

      Yeah.

    10. GM

      So it's keeping you stuck in the past. Whereas when you're actually searching on YouTube for topics, you loo- you're actually breaking out of the past and creating a new data set it's training on.

    11. CW

      There's also, there's multiple yous. So I've realized this. Uber does this very well, actually, um, where at different times of the day, I take different journeys. So if it's first thing in the morning, it'll know that I tend to want to go to the gym.

    12. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    13. CW

      Uh, if it's middle of the day, there's a couple of restaurants that I typically go to. Uh, if it's on a, a Wednesday at this time, it knows that I usually go and get an appointment at this place, or it's a haircut, or it's whatever, and it knows that I go from certain places to other places.

    14. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    15. CW

      Very well done, right? But that's because there's multiple yous at multiple periods of the day. YouTube hasn't yet realized that I only watch long form documentaries about, like, the in-depth trench warfare strategies of World War I on an evening time, like at night to fall asleep. So I'll, like, listen to, like, some Ken Burns documentary or, like, some long documentary or whatever, like some 11 part, uh, Psychoanalysis of Hitler that I'm in balls deep in at the moment, right? Um, that only happens on an evening time, but it means that it resurfaces it to me during the day.

    16. GM

      Mm.

    17. CW

      So yeah, there's multiple yous at multiple times, and you know, like, you can go from dark mode to light mode. It's like, do I want to go from learning mode to entertainment mode?

    18. GM

      Yes.

    19. CW

      But I- I don't think that that... That doesn't seem to be likely, just because what the platforms always want you to be in is click-on mode, right?

    20. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CW

      They don't want you to have agency over what it is. They just want maximized time on site, let's outsource it to... Don't forget, especially YouTube, that algo is a black box. If you were to go to YouTube, the engineers, and say, "Tell us what you're doing. Show us the algorithm," they're like-

    22. GM

      Yeah.

    23. CW

      ... "What? Do you think we know? You think we know what our algorithm does? We set it, like, two, uh, fucking reward functions, like time on site, click through, that's it, and then just let it run." It's just this recursive nightmare where everyone descends towards UFC knockout compilations.

    24. GM

      (laughs) All the way down the stack, yeah.

    25. CW

      Yeah. Hmm. What's the forgetting paradox?

  12. 1:04:35 – 1:15:37

    How Many Thoughts Can You Remember?

    1. CW

    2. GM

      So, thanks to your Sam Harris podcast, I started going more and more down a mindfulness rabbit hole.

    3. CW

      Bunch of people did that. I was with someone-

    4. GM

      Yeah. He's-

    5. CW

      ... recently who said that.

    6. GM

      It's so good. And within that, he has this, a few things that I had at the back of it that then created the forgetting paradox, which is you start to observe your thoughts, and Sam presents this idea of, like, "Think of a candle." And he goes, "Well, are you that candle?" It's like, "Well, no, of course I'm not that candle." So he's like, "Why do you therefore identify of every other thought?" And then he has this scenario where it's like, think of... Or basically wait for the next thought to appear in your head and try and predict it as it's hap- Or, like, just try and observe it as it's happening, sorry. My one was (laughs) so weird, it's so niche, this. My one was, uh, so I sat there, and from nowhere, this is when I realized I was in control of my own thoughts, it was just Arjen Robben cutting in on the left wing.

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. GM

      He was, like, this former football player who retired, like, eight years ago. And I'm like, "That..." It's almost like a dream state. And I was like, "That's why you called it waking up, right?" I was like, "That's fantastic."

    9. CW

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    10. GM

      And the thing that I hadn't heard Sam talk about that I realized off the back of that was... I'll ask you, I'll ask you this question now. Uh, how many thoughts, like clear sentence thoughts, do you remember from yesterday?

    11. CW

      Very few, almost none.

    12. GM

      Can you think of any, like a sentence?

    13. CW

      One over dinner that I spoke to Alex about who's debating Ben Shapiro today. But I didn't say it to him-

    14. GM

      Okay.

    15. CW

      ... 'cause he was talking.

    16. GM

      So, but you remember one thought from yesterday. What about the day before? I assume the day before is zero, right?

    17. CW

      Yeah, I think so.

    18. GM

      Okay. So, so you have 10,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day, and you captured one. Anyone listening at home, pause it and just go, "How many thoughts do I remember from y-" Like, clear sentences, not, "I feel hungry," or whatever. Clear sentences. So from a 24-hour window, kind of like Twitter or TikTok, the mind's thoughts completely disappear. And it's quite a useful tool that then when a, a thought loop appears, you just go, "Oh, this is going to disappear tomorrow."

    19. CW

      Yeah.

    20. GM

      And you realize the forgetting paradox is, uh, this is not just at the individual psychological level, it's at the general societal level of we forget how many things we forget, because by definition, we've forgotten them. And if we hadn't have forgotten them, therefore we would have remembered them. The same way you had 10 to 70,000 thoughts yesterday-

    21. CW

      Mm.

    22. GM

      ... and you remembered one. But you don't remem- You, you don't even realize how many thoughts you forgot, because by definition, you completely forgot them. And you see this with, like, trending topics as well, where it comes and then someone will mention that and you go, "Fuck, I haven't th- I haven't thought about that in years." It's only when the, that pops back in that you see the forgetting paradox that's happening.

    23. CW

      That guy cutting back in on the left wing.

    24. GM

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. W- You're very good at this. It's one thing I've changed my mind upon as a result of this. Like, there's probably a whole wave of guys that listen to your podcast who are, like, just ghost Instagram guys. Like, they don't really post to social media.

    25. CW

      Mm.

    26. GM

      But one of the, uh, second and third order consequences of that is you don't...... capture much of your life.

    27. CW

      Yeah.

    28. GM

      And I'm sitting here now at 29, uh, I've always avoided photos and videos 'cause I didn't wanna be seen as that vain guy on Instagram.

    29. CW

      Yeah.

    30. GM

      But I think something you're very good at is capturing content. And as I get older, you realize how important that is 'cause you go, "Fuck."

Episode duration: 1:38:26

Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript

Transcript of episode GOEsojRfo-w

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome