Modern WisdomThe Uber Eats to OnlyFans Pipeline
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,008 words- 0:00 – 2:19
Peanuts in Coke… Is This a Good Idea?
- CWChris Williamson
George, you're a connoisseur of beverages. Would you say so? As you open another carbonated beverage. Well, gentlemen.
- GMGeorge Mack
Cheers. Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you ever had full-fat Coke with salted peanuts in it?
- GMGeorge Mack
No.
- CWChris Williamson
I have not.
- CWChris Williamson
Say less. Uh, take a glass.
- GMGeorge Mack
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
Take a Coke, take a peanut. Um, so there's a viral tweet that goes out, "About 30 years ago, I read in a Haruki Murakami essay that in America it's popular to drink cola with peanuts in it. I just went, 'Huh?' And a long time passed since then, but I finally tried it. What the hell is this? It's ridiculously delicious. No kidding. It's at a level where I don't want to drink cola any other way anymore." So we are going to drink-
- CWChris Williamson
Have, have you before, or are we gonna find out?
- CWChris Williamson
I've been... I've saved this. I saw that, and I've been edging myself with fucking-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... cola and peanuts since then.
- GMGeorge Mack
Is there an order you have to do this in?
- CWChris Williamson
Peanuts first?
- CWChris Williamson
I think, uh-
- GMGeorge Mack
Shit.
- CWChris Williamson
That's crazy, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Peanuts first. Peanuts first seems more insane.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah, it's like cereal.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. I've o- I've, I've blown my load early. Hold on. Okay.
- SPSpeaker
Kratom last.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, peanuts in Coke is the most accidentally perfect food pairings in history. The chemistry explains why this guy can't go back. Coca-Cola sits at pH 2.5, roughly the same acidity as stomach acid. You... What, what's awful about it?
- CWChris Williamson
We need to show the camera what this looks like. It does not look as good as that photo. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
But look at how much it's, look at how much it's fizzing. Anyway, there's a load of signs. Salt on the peanuts suppresses the bitter taste receptors on your tongue, which amplifies your perception of the sweetness you can... without adding a single gram of sugar. The carbonation does two things. CO2 dissolved in liquid forms carbonic acid, which... Uh, wait. So I think we need to leave it. So we're gonna, we're gonna have-
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah, I, I agree
- CWChris Williamson
... we're gonna set this down and come back to it. We'll come back to it in, like, I don't know, a little bit.
- CWChris Williamson
Honestly, the f- original Coke like this alone-
- CWChris Williamson
Is pretty good
- CWChris Williamson
... already would've blown my mind.
- 2:19 – 5:53
The Most Ridiculous Paycheck in Sports History
- CWChris Williamson
Question.
- GMGeorge Mack
Question.
- CWChris Williamson
Who do you think is the highest paid athlete of all time?
- GMGeorge Mack
I know the answer to this.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Well done.
- CWChris Williamson
One year? All time?
- CWChris Williamson
All time. All time, who's the highest paid athlete?
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, Michael Jordan.
- CWChris Williamson
Ronaldo, Messi, they come to mind.
- CWChris Williamson
Michael Jordan will be second.
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Tiger Woods third.
- GMGeorge Mack
Joey Chestnut.
- CWChris Williamson
Arnold Palmer. Bonnie Blue, actually, is probably [laughs] the-
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... depends what-
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... kind of sport you're talking.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It is-
- GMGeorge Mack
Per, per competition.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it's real endurance.
- GMGeorge Mack
Can I throw in a guess out there?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
There was a Roman chariot racer-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
... who allegedly made over a billion dollars.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- GMGeorge Mack
You owe us Pullman, 'cause you just-
- 5:53 – 13:45
Is the Mainstream Media Overhyped?
- GMGeorge Mack
I have a question for the group that I wanted to ask people on.
- CWChris Williamson
Can we get a spoon for this? [laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, bullish or bearish on certain trends? So I kinda wanna know, um, trends that are big right now in society or aren't big right now that you think should be bigger. So just give me, um, things that people are maybe particularly, um, popular about right now that you think don't deserve to be, and vice versa.
- CWChris Williamson
Overpriced and underpriced?
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Uh-
- GMGeorge Mack
What are things overhyped at the moment? I wanna say AI, but then-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- GMGeorge Mack
... it's probably gonna change the fucking world.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge Mack
I just feel sick of hearing about it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge Mack
I'm kind of sick of hearing permanently about how it's going to be the end of everything or the beginning of everything.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge Mack
And there's no one that's in the middle. There's no one that's like, "Yeah, AI, AI is pretty cool." It's people who are complete doomers or just like David Friedberg.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge Mack
Like, there's only two ends of the barbell.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- GMGeorge Mack
But I'd, I would quite like AI to chill out a little bit in terms of everyone-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
... talking about it.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, y- I guess we've never lived through a mania like this. I guess the nearest one would've been the internet.
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Crypto with NFTs was a little bit, but it was different.
- GMGeorge Mack
Oh, crypto with NFTs was fucking hard, dude. That would've been top of my list.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- SPShaan Puri
But I think a lot of sensible people were skeptical about NFTs for sure, aspects of crypto. Whereas I feel like, you know, uh, AI right now, I mean, even the people who are doomers, they're not saying AI sucks. They're saying it's too powerful. It's either this is so powerful, life is gonna be amazing-
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm
- SPShaan Puri
... or this is so powerful, life is, like, over for us. And nobody's really, nobody really like, "Hey, this is, ah, it's, it's just a flash in the pan." Like, in the early-
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm
- 13:45 – 16:31
UK vs the Roman Empire: Who’s Actually Better?
- GFGary Faust
Yeah. So you're correct.
- GMGeorge Mack
Well, I'll give you ano- on hitting the basement right now, um, one that I would buy the shit out of is the United Kingdom. Everybody right now, the UK literally I think yesterday the news came out around it's, like, the worst, um, economic change in terms of the bond rating. Like, the doom and gloom around the UK is so strong right now, but you just go, it's we're the GOAT. Like, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
Hang on. Are you gonna say never bet against the UK?
- GMGeorge Mack
No, no, no. Long term, yes. Long term, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Just from, just from even if they do nothing again, just from a pure IP perspective, like, just what you ha- Like, I always think... I was getting in an argument today with Claude, um, in the car. Um, and sometimes I'll u- I'll, like, bounce between Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok. That's my, like, hack.
- CWChris Williamson
That's like when, that's like when one of your side pieces won't put out.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
You pivot to another one.
- GFGary Faust
Holy shit. That's accurate.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like, I went, I went to dad and he said no. Mom.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah. [laughs] Exactly.
- GMGeorge Mack
Well, I posed the question to Claude, and I'm interested in your guys' take on this, of who's had more... Who's more impactful to the world, the Roman Empire or United Kingdom? And I think it's the United Kingdom pound for pound. I think pound for pound, we're one third the size of Texas, and, like, who can... Who, who's managed to, um, do this level of output that we've managed to do? Which is a very un-British thing to say.
- CWChris Williamson
Really living on fucking borrowed time though, mate.
- GMGeorge Mack
No, not really. Not really.
- CWChris Williamson
When was the last thing we did that was cool?
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, DeepMind. AI. Like, the whole AI industry comes out of essentially London.
- CWChris Williamson
How many people do you think know that?
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, th- this is it. We're basically the technical-
- GFGary Faust
I didn't know that.
- GMGeorge Mack
The way of viewing UK to the US is like we're the technical guy that makes no money and comes up with all the ideas, and then these guys are just great at sales and marketing.
- CWChris Williamson
Marketing and marketing. [laughs] Yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
Like, you can do, um, uh, AI, essentially the UK. You could do Tim Berners-Lee, the internet. You could do, um... I mean, I don't know if this is fully true, but because maybe he's such a genius that he thought this through, but Bitcoin whitepaper wr- written in, um, British English, the correct English.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, come on.
- GMGeorge Mack
So-
- SPShaan Puri
We don't know who he is. Can't do that
- GMGeorge Mack
... we don't know who he is, but there's a little bit-
- SPShaan Puri
He's Indian for sure
- GMGeorge Mack
... there's a little bit of something there probably. [laughs]
- 16:31 – 17:38
Would Claude Beat Grok in a Fight?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GFGary Faust
What do you think about Claude?
- GMGeorge Mack
What do you mean? The-
- GFGary Faust
Do, do you like it?
- GMGeorge Mack
The AI?
- GFGary Faust
Yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
I personally think each, each different AI slightly different, so I'll use what... I, you might know if somebody's created this yet. What I want, and I kind of, I did this, but then I couldn't be bothered actually turning it into a product, which I just want a group chat where I can post something in there, they all reply, and then they roast one another back and forth in the replies. What's the best-
- CWChris Williamson
Do you not call it a GAN? It's a GAN, isn't it? General Adversarial Network. That's what that's called. So-
- GFGary Faust
Look at the big brain on Chris.
- CWChris Williamson
I know. Thank you
- GFGary Faust
That was amazing. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Big, big fucking... That's it. Um, uh, Jim O'Shaughnessy's got it for his super crazy fucking AI thing.
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, he said, yeah, they can get all of the different models to argue with each other behind the scenes, and then whoever has the best answer for this one does it.
- SPShaan Puri
When you use Grok, they show it, so that if you use, like, Heavy Grok or Super Grok or whatever Elon calls it, you ask a question and Agent 1 pops up, he starts talking. "I think what he wants to know is blah, blah, blah." Agent 2 comes in-
- GFGary Faust
Right
- SPShaan Puri
... "Well, that wouldn't really be fully accurate. He should really be thinking about this," Agent 3. And it'll show up to six-
- GFGary Faust
The thought process as it goes
- SPShaan Puri
... 15 or 16 agents basically, like-
- CWChris Williamson
Within the same AI. What you're talking about-
- SPShaan Puri
Within the same AI
- CWChris Williamson
... is you want Claude arguing with ChatGPT arguing with fucking Opus arguing with da, da, da.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yes. Like, literally a group
- 17:38 – 23:42
Is the LGBTQ+ Acronym Getting Out of Hand?
- GMGeorge Mack
chat.
- CWChris Williamson
Jared, pull up that New York Post article that I sent you. "Stressed Gen Z is carrying around anxiety bags with tools to calm their nerves. Uh, Hannah Fowles was spiraling. It'd been a grueling day at work, and by the time the 22-year-old from Provo, Utah, got home, panic was bubbling in her chest, and thoughts raced as her cheeks flushed red. 'I was starting to get super overheated. I couldn't calm myself down,' Fowles told The Post. 'Nothing that I normally do, like breathing exercises or lying down in a dark room, was wo- working.' Then she saw the bag."
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Jesus Christ.
- CWChris Williamson
"Just weeks earlier, Fowles and her therapist had put together a small g- grab-and-go kit filled with items to calm her when anxiety strikes. And, uh, she flicked on a small portable fan, letting the cool air wash over her face, pressed a cold pack to the back of her neck, while on the other hand, she gripped a spiky fidget toy, feeling its prongs dig into her palm as the panic began to ebb." Now, well, I, I know what you wanna do. What you wanna do is make fun of these people for having... Look how it's an EDC bug out bag that, like, military guys have, but for Gen Z, Gen Z people. What I wanna know, what I wanna know is what would be in your anxiety bag?
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Gary.
- GFGary Faust
Well, I actually have one of those bags. It's called a bag of drugs, Chris.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
Thank you for asking me. Uh-Yeah, just, uh
- CWChris Williamson
Five grams of whole leaf kratom?
- GFGary Faust
D- we got kratom, we've got some amphetamines in there, we've got nootonics, we've got valiums
- CWChris Williamson
But it's gonna help the anxiety or just-
- GFGary Faust
Oh, no, I'm just addicted to drugs. [laughing] But, um, no, this is, this is, uh...
- CWChris Williamson
What was the question? [laughs]
- GFGary Faust
I don't think you should make fun of people like this though, because it's not really their fault that they're being sort of conditioned to have this obsession with mental health.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, it-
- GFGary Faust
That's my theory about it
- CWChris Williamson
... that's exactly, that's exactly what I said
- SPShaan Puri
Like you take DEI. DEI starts from a good place. Hey, we should include more people. We should be e- more equitable. Everyone should get a sh- fair o- opportunity and a shot. But then these movements can get hijacked, and the movements can get hijacked and stretched until the point where it doesn't really resemble where it started. I don't... You guys see this thing with the Canadian politician who was using the LGBTQ acronym?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, but it's-
- SPShaan Puri
But it was like 14 letters long
- CWChris Williamson
... it's, what is it? Murdered and missing women and chil- indigenous women and chil- MM-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, Jared pulled that up. You know that?
- CWChris Williamson
... MMISJ.
- SPShaan Puri
Did you see this?
- GFGary Faust
Uh-uh.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a full sentence long, and, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
No, listen to this
- CWChris Williamson
... it's, it-
- 23:42 – 27:26
Why No One Takes Mental Health Seriously Anymore
- SPShaan Puri
You, you do have, um, like some of these language hacks that like exist. I, I always joke that like cybersecurity, nobody takes it serious as an industry because the naming's just awful. Like, and the biggest thing the cybersecurity industry could do is no new technology, if they just branded it as CTIs, like taking it from STIs, like computer transmitted infections. All of a sudden I'm like, I feel a little bit more-
- GFGary Faust
Dirty
- SPShaan Puri
... calm about it. And likewise, the homeless problem right now, how many people who are, um, are homeless, i- is that the main cause? It's often it'll be some, ironically, some serious mental health issue that's going on.
- GFGary Faust
Oh, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
So like the language that we use-
- GFGary Faust
You spend a lifetime interviewing these people. I've interviewed so many homeless people, dude. Half of them want to be homeless, and I'm... And to be quite frank, I don't really blame them. If you wanna go live in the woods, as long as you're not like murdering and raping-
- SPShaan Puri
Why would, why would somebody want to be, why would somebody want to be homeless?
- GFGary Faust
W- because they're not being tethered to this system that we're all living within that is currently kinda going down the drain.
- SPShaan Puri
Huh.
- GFGary Faust
I mean, I don't, I don't really blame them. That thing that we just pulled up though is exactly why people aren't taking mental health seriously anymore though, because there's a fucking, in that, what's it called? The DSVM III or whatever. There's a, there's a disease for everything.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- GFGary Faust
You know?
- SPShaan Puri
So, yeah, but you, 'cause you-
- GFGary Faust
Like, for example, when I was growing up, I got diagnosed all sorts of shit, but really I was just a little asshole, and-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
... when you, when you start saying, "I got ADHD," or, "I'm bipolar," or, "I got borderline," or you got this or that or whatever, you knowI got a, I got a crutch I can lean on for every-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- GFGary Faust
... single fucking shitty thing I do to somebody, which is awesome.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a-
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
There's a great, a great line that someone said to me, which was, "Mental health is both under-diagnosed and over-diagnosed."
- GFGary Faust
Mm, mm.
- CWChris Williamson
There's people who don't have it that just live through it-
- GFGary Faust
Dude
- CWChris Williamson
... and don't know, and people who don't have it that make it their entire personality.
- GFGary Faust
All the people that actually have serious mental health problems that I'm at least friends with are mostly undiagnosed, and they're just kind of, you know, wandering through life.
- CWChris Williamson
Trying to make do.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah, dude. Seriously.
- CWChris Williamson
But I, I th- I agree with you, and I, I think, uh, it's easy to be, like, callous or whatever, like, flippant about these, the people that have been diagnosed or self-diagnosed or found their sort of mental health become more fragile. They don't wanna be fucked. Like, they don't, they don't want to be that fragile. They're just trying to hold onto some sense of certainty, and the certainty is now come from their, uh, diagnosis rather than their agency. Like, they just can't-
- GFGary Faust
Yeah
- 27:26 – 38:19
Is Kratom More Addictive Than Heroin?
- GFGary Faust
Yeah. So the first thing I wanna bring to the table for today is kratom. Uh, kratom is something I've been looking into because there's, uh, I think sort of an epidemic happening. And, uh, th- there's a video we got here that I can, I can have pulled up. This is the guy I'm working with who I wigged out on the other day 'cause he didn't buy me $10 of kratom, and I, I quit the doc-
- CWChris Williamson
Huh?
- GFGary Faust
... because of that. Yeah, this stuff's strong.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- GFGary Faust
Like, so what he's talking about for, to contextualize all this, is 7-OH is 7-Hydroxymitragine, which is one of the, um, I, I guess it, we could just call it a chemical that's in here. I don't know the science behind it. We're gonna go actually interview a, like, a chemist about this stuff. But basically, people are taking kratom, which is sold over the counter at gas stations and head shops, and there's even kratom shops. But it is a leaf that's from Southeast Asia that sort of mimics the effects of certain stimulants but also opioids. It acts on your opioid receptors and SSRIs, and I think, I, I know a handful of people that have gotten very addicted to it, and they're saying that it is, the withdrawal is worse than heroin, which is-
- CWChris Williamson
Wow
- GFGary Faust
... pretty unbelievable [laughs] given that heroin withdrawal is horrendous.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's it there?
- GFGary Faust
Yeah, man. I should've brought some for everybody.
- CWChris Williamson
So [laughs] , but you're just drinking that?
- GFGary Faust
Yeah. This is a lower dose than I was doing.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, you're telling me it's, like, worse than heroin, but you're just casually-
- GFGary Faust
So, so here's the thing, though. So there's a difference between... And I'm still in the process of figuring all this out. Um, and it-
- CWChris Williamson
Literally
- GFGary Faust
... it literally, yeah. I, so I was drinking a bunch of this stuff every day for the past month, and then I sort of wigged out on my, my documentary partner because, uh, we [laughs] got... Yeah, it'll be in the doc. But, uh, there's, um, there's, we were at a head shop, and I was like, "Hey, dude, let's get some of this kratom. I wanna test this stuff out." And there's these thing, there's 7-OH pills, which is b- it's, like, almost like Percocet basically, and it's sold over the counter, which is nuts. I mean, I'm not, I'm not bashing it necessarily, but it's interesting. It's sort of the Wild West of this drug, and it's not, it's not like it's a new thing. They tried banning this in 2016. The reason I'm bringing it up is because we're doing this documentary, and I think that we're on the verge of potentially an epidemic with, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
This has been... I, I've seen this in Austin since I basically got here. So there's a few, uh, small glass vials, you know, like a 5-Hour Energy.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And there was a company that was making them, and one of my friends had another guy who'd been addicted. He'd had whatever the addiction gene is, addicted to every different drug throughout his entire life. There's even YouTube channels of these people, and they'll say, "Which drug fucked my life up the most?" And they'll just list every drug 'cause they tried everything.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And they're like, "Well, coming off LSD was actually not that bad, but I had this period where I was on MDMA every single day for, like, two months, and that was really, really rough 'cause my serotonin and da, da, da, da, da, da." And, uh, he said of all of the things that he tried, the hardest to get off of was kratom.
- GFGary Faust
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
And then he knew so much. At 6:00 in the morning, the Sunrise Mini Mart on whatever, fucking South Lamar Street or something-
- GFGary Faust
Holy shit
- CWChris Williamson
... he was outside, like, waiting, like-
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... waiting for this. And then this company had taken their, uh, the kratom content without changing the bottling from five grams of whole leaf to two and a half, and he knew. And as soon as he had it, he was like, "My fucking kratom's been stepped on." He li- felt like-
- GFGary Faust
From the Mini Mart.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It was the f-
- 38:19 – 46:09
What Can DNA Testing Reveal About You?
- CWChris Williamson
different.
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like we did, both me and you have done a Intelix DNA-
- GMGeorge Mack
Yes
- CWChris Williamson
... which by the way, this is the fucking sickest shit. Intelix DNA, company that's based here in Austin, but you can do it anywhere in the US. You spit into a tube. Not affiliated, I just think they're fucking sick. Spit into a tube, send it off. They'll give you your full allele genetic profile, and they'll compare you to the population. Hey, you, uh, clear caffeine more slowly.
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, you have a protective gene that's, uh, good for late onset Parkinson's. You have, uh, one which can be a risk for, uh, autism or for this or for that or for the other. And in loads of behavioral stuff like this has been associated with people who have addictive personalities. So I have the, the COMT, uh, gene, which is a, uh, I clear dopamine more slowly. That means that I don't deal with chaos and stress particularly well. But once I start doing something, I get completely fucking obsessed, and I lock in, and I can't stop. It's like literally one of the descriptions was, "May struggle to stop tasks once started."
- GMGeorge Mack
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like just the, the gene of an obsessive person.
- GMGeorge Mack
That sounds pretty cool.
- CWChris Williamson
What's sick is once you do it, it's like three grand or something, or maybe three grand?
- GMGeorge Mack
Uh, roundabout that. It's expensive, but it's worth it.
- CWChris Williamson
Three, three, four grand. It's not cheap, but it's like they're never gonna change. This is, my genes are my genes.
- GMGeorge Mack
So I always wonder with this, did, did you learn things you didn't already know about yourself?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Yes. Specifically-
- GMGeorge Mack
Like, 'cause that first one you would know, like, yeah, I, I don't handle this well.
- CWChris Williamson
So-
- GMGeorge Mack
But I do, I am able to obsess over ta- tasks. What-
- CWChris Williamson
So I'll, I'll give you... So the way I view these Intelix stuff, and it's like very early days and they're only gonna get better and better, is have you heard about the, uh, Air Force study in the 1950s where they took like 600 Air Force pilots who were already male, certain height, certain build, um, and they tried to build, um, like the average cockpit for all of them. So imagine the more- They tried to make the perfect cockpit- Perfect cockpit ... by aggregating all of the proportions of the pilots
- GMGeorge Mack
And when they went to test this perfect cockpit that they built, it fit zero.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
'Cause av- essentially-
- CWChris Williamson
Really?
- GMGeorge Mack
... averages are completely bullshit.
- CWChris Williamson
No one is average.
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, only, only, I think for, so it was 12 things that they measured, and only for, only three of them hit 3%, so you can see it here. And even that 3%, it's with a wide range. So the 3% that hit the range, for example, it would be between 5'9" and 6' like that level of range. So then they realized, and obvious- obviously it's so obvious now, but it's way better to just build a customizable cockpit. And I think we'll look back at everything like how we've grown up around the way people talk about studies and magnesium-
- CWChris Williamson
Right
- GMGeorge Mack
... and vitamin D and vitamin C is just absolute horseshit.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
Because what Gary should take is very different to what I should take, and likewise with Chris. So to give you some, to give you some concrete examples, one I was in, I found out I was in the bottom 10% of magni- magnesium absorption for my genetics. So I was like, "Oh, I've got to take way more than if I was to ask anything."
- 46:09 – 49:18
Do You Remember Every Porn Video You’ve Ever Watched?
- CWChris Williamson
I need to bring up something that you said at dinner the other evening.
- GMGeorge Mack
Oh, go on.
- CWChris Williamson
Did you say that you think that people remember every porn video that they've ever watched?
- GMGeorge Mack
No, no, it's this-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs] It's a, it's a private dinner-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
... the people had paid to be there, and you brought it up on the show. No, no, no. My, my thesis is, um, like one big meta criticism I have of the US that nobody warned me about as a Brit, um, is the, the toilets in America. Like, I could be at, like, Dean's, like a very nice restaurant in Austin. I'll be having, like, a, an amazing chat about, like, Kierkegaard. And I think, think about, like, Kierkegaard versus Aristotle, and I'm like, "Da, da, da. Sorry, let me just pop to the loos. Wipe your face a bit." And, like, you go to the loos, and in America, the cubicles, you can see people's feet in them, and the worst thing is there's, like, this slit in every single... And this is nationwide.
- CWChris Williamson
You're in the women's.
- GMGeorge Mack
You can be in the n- you could be in the n- like a billionaire's, like, hotel.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- GMGeorge Mack
And there's a slit there, which means with unisex toilets, it's horrific. Like, I don't even go in the unisex toilets for this reasons. You, you look. You can see people kind of just this carousel of them sat down squatting. And yeah, this whole idea that when you watch, like, graphic content, it stores in your brain forever. So I've just got thousands of men around Austin just, like, there, like these carousels of them.
- CWChris Williamson
And then you go to the bathroom.
- GMGeorge Mack
And this is supposed to be-
- GFGary Faust
You have the world's worst superpower
- GMGeorge Mack
... this is supposed to be the number one country in the world. And, like, this doesn't exist in Europe. This doesn't-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
... exist in the Middle East.
- CWChris Williamson
You know what you could do? Do you remember those things, like back in the day, the f- the first, uh, those cycling cylinders, and you look through the slit, and if you spin it, it makes a horse start to move? If you ran really quickly down a very long series of toilets-
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... and you're just looking at these different men at, like, stages of pooping.
- GMGeorge Mack
It's horrific.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, what-
- GFGary Faust
Dude, you know how I know that I'm watching too many graphic videos is because when you said there's a horse that starts to move, I heard there's a whore that starts to move. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Jesus.
- GFGary Faust
That's not good, man.
- GMGeorge Mack
Jesus. Every time, like, I speak to a Brit or a European now about coming to America, and they think, like, there's gonna be this chat about the economy, I go, "This is the thing that I've got to warn you about." It's so surreal, and I think about this a lot. Like, one of... You were talking earlier about, like, life hacks. Like, how much of life comes down to compartmentalization, which is why somebody made a great point the other day why meditation apps often don't take off on phones. Because you have your meditation app there, but then you have your strip club, you have, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Gary does
- GMGeorge Mack
... yeah, all this kind of [laughs] yeah, all this stuff there. Um, and with these bathrooms, you don't have any compartmentalization. I always say imagine a house. So my friend lives in a 80, um, story apartment building, and we're kind of sat there in his house. I go, "If everything was glass right now, it... This would be h- this would be horrific." But because you have compartmentalization, um, it has such an impact.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, your, your, your point is that you would be able to see one dude's taking a dump over there and another dude's banging his girlfriend right there.
- 49:18 – 51:48
The Ultimate Trick to Boost Uber Eats Tips
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Right, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Question.
- GMGeorge Mack
Go on.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you feel about feet? [laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Not a fan.
- CWChris Williamson
No?
- GMGeorge Mack
No. Gross me out.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- GMGeorge Mack
Not a fan.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you feel about feet?
- GFGary Faust
Pretty much the same as Shaan.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you feel about feet?
- GMGeorge Mack
Well, I have, like, a visceral-
- GFGary Faust
I'm totally neutral
- CWChris Williamson
... gross man. Feet neutral?
- GFGary Faust
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- GFGary Faust
In what capacity are we talking about here?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so there is a woman who does Uber Eats and has started including photos of her feet in the picture of the food drop-off-
- GMGeorge Mack
Oh, yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... and her tips have gone up by a ton.
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
Nice pedicure.
- CWChris Williamson
So this is-
- GMGeorge Mack
Not mad about it
- CWChris Williamson
... I mean, that, you know, as feet go, that-
- GFGary Faust
He said nice pedicure
- CWChris Williamson
... they're perfectly fine feet. Uh, but did not realize that this would blow up fast, and this is the OnlyFans pipeline.
- GMGeorge Mack
That's it.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, as soon as you, as soon as you post something and start to get free money for it, you're like, "Well, if I put my Cash App in here..." And if you scroll down a little bit more, she says, "Get a rotisserie chicken or a pedicure, first rotisserie chicken allowance." There we go.
- 51:48 – 53:38
The Peak Bachelor Pad Setup
- CWChris Williamson
Have you seen the subreddit Male Living Spaces?
- GFGary Faust
Yes. It's funny.
- CWChris Williamson
It's fucking brilliant. So this is a subreddit where guys post their bedrooms and their living spaces that they've sort of designed in sort of peak bachelor, uh, like solo degen life, and, uh, the photos are just fucking absolutely spectacular. This one, this first one, this guy's got a lat pull-down machine and a TV.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs] The face, Patrick Bateman.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah [laughs] .
- GMGeorge Mack
That, honestly, this looks... Have you ever seen Mr. Beast's office? It looks exactly like this. He has a bedroom in the office with a bench press right next to it, just like that [laughs] .
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, the one with the fucking-
- GMGeorge Mack
Little stormtrooper
- CWChris Williamson
... stormtrooper.
- GFGary Faust
I love it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
There's a U-shaped couch around just a huge TV. It's just, it's, like, literally you couldn't get in there without-
- GFGary Faust
It's not even-
- CWChris Williamson
... hitting the TV
- GFGary Faust
... It's not even hung on the wall.
- CWChris Williamson
But look, the reason is because he's wanting to get a, a big couch, but he needs to get in the door, so the door won't open. He can't fit the couch and the TV in without not being able to open the door. That's the only way he could've... That's actually some fucking Marie Kondo shit.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs] Transparent fucking blow-up doll.
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
This one's fucking great. It's an, an industrial container with a single deck chair in the middle.
- GFGary Faust
Wow.
- GMGeorge Mack
What's the, what's the camping chair pointing at?
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know [laughs] . And then-
- GFGary Faust
Wow
- GMGeorge Mack
... that's the living room.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, that is. That's the cuck chair for when I'm-
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... when I'm, when I'm crushing shit. Go to the next one. This is you, Gary.
- GFGary Faust
Wow.
- 53:38 – 55:44
Are Norwegian Prisoners Living Better Than Us?
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
Is it, uh, a flat in London or a prison in Norway? Have you seen that?
- CWChris Williamson
Was it not halls of residence?
- GFGary Faust
Oh, my God.
- CWChris Williamson
Was it not British halls of residence?
- GFGary Faust
I think there was a few. I think there was a few different ones.
- CWChris Williamson
No, sorry, prison, prison in Norway or halls of residence in the UK-
- GFGary Faust
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... I think was it. And, uh, yeah, it's because the fucking quality of the prisons in some Scandy countries are unbelievable.
- GFGary Faust
Dude, yeah, I've seen those. That, that pisses me the fuck off.
- CWChris Williamson
What, that Norwegians are living in-
- GFGary Faust
What-
- CWChris Williamson
... Norwegian criminals?
- GFGary Faust
... the people in prison in Norway are doing much better than me.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
It, it really irritates me. I'm dead serious because, like, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm gonna piss him-
- GFGary Faust
... I've been known to commit a crime or two, and if I get arrested and go to prison, I'm like... It just is-
- GMGeorge Mack
If you get arrested here.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah, dude. I mean, I'm... Part of me is like, "Man, maybe I should just go to Norway and, like-
- GMGeorge Mack
Hedge your bets
- GFGary Faust
... get in a shootout or something. I don't know.
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
Like that, you met, you guys remember that movie, um, Heat?
- GMGeorge Mack
Uh, I haven't seen it.
- CWChris Williamson
The Leon- um, Ro- Robert De Niro film?
- GFGary Faust
De Niro, Pacino, um, uh, Val Kilmer. Yeah. I think Danny Trejo's even in it. But, like, the, there's just that old, like, you know, every guy's, like, dream way they're, they're gonna go out is just basically robbing a bank and getting in a shootout. Or maybe that's just the people I hang out with, but are you familiar with this?
- CWChris Williamson
No. No, no, no.
- GFGary Faust
Oh, okay. Are you know what I'm talking about? You ever seen those memes or those-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. That, that's the dream.
- 55:44 – 1:00:20
The Analyst Who Sounded the Alarm on Hormuz
- GFGary Faust
But...
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Did you follow this, uh, Citrini analyst number three story?
- GFGary Faust
Um, no.
- SPShaan Puri
You didn't see this?
- GFGary Faust
No, no, no.
- SPShaan Puri
Have you guys heard about this, analyst number three?
- GFGary Faust
No. What's this?
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, dude, this is amazing. This is just, like, a guy doing a legendary thing. So the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, and there's the war part of it, but then there's the financial part of it. You've seen, like, oil prices going up, down, the markets are swinging, and so there's this f- research firm called Citrini. They do, like... They basically do research reports, sell them to hedge funds.
- GFGary Faust
[clears throat]
- SPShaan Puri
And so the hedge fund guys want information. If they get better information than-
- GFGary Faust
Mm
- SPShaan Puri
... they're getting from the news or from the, you know, the, the newspaper the next day, that's worth, you know, millions and millions of dollars to them. So Citrini, they're trying to figure out what the hell's going on with this blockade, and so this guy has this idea. High agency story here for you. One of the guys in the office is like, "What if I just go?" And they're like, "What do you mean, what if you go?" He's like, "What if I just go to the, to the s- strait, and I'll just count the boats?" They're like, "What do you mean count?" He's like, "I'll just see, like, how many are going through, and we'll know if it's, like, block..." 'Cause basically there were people trying to figure out is it blocked, is it not blocked?
- GFGary Faust
Oh, oh.
- SPShaan Puri
And the gas, the crude oil prices were going parabolic, and then they were crashing day, day over day, and so they had to figure out what was going on. And so this guy [laughs] basically, one of their analysts, they call him analyst number three, and he wrote this field blog. So just, "I see this." It goes... And I, I read this, and this sucked me into the story. He goes, "The front desk informed me there's two gentlemen from the CID downstairs to ask me questions." S- CID in the Gulf is like the CIA. "I chucked my phone in a safe, grabbed the burner," um, because they had seen tweets about analyst number three. Thanks a lot, James. And then it says, "I went downstairs in my pajamas and slippers." There, there's a pie- piece of op sec you learn when, when you're an Arab speaker. If things get sticky, you only speak English because Arabic opens a door you don't want opened.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
The possibility that you're a spy, a sympathizer, blah, blah, blah, basically play dumb. So I go downstairs and I say, "Hello, guys. How are you? I speak English." The hotel receptionist, the same man I've been chatting with in Arabic all day, turned to the agents and goes, "This guy speaks perfect Arabic." [laughs] And so the, this guy blogged his entire thing. So he basically left the US, went to the Middle East. They show his briefcase of, like, what he took. It's [laughs] it's, it's, it's pretty hilarious. So this is what he took for his field trip.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs] His anxiety bag.
- SPShaan Puri
He's got two-
- GFGary Faust
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... two Zinns. He, he brought cigars. Uh, he brought a, you know, pack of clothes, and then he had a, like, um, a m- a pair of meta recording glasses.
- GFGary Faust
Mm-hmm.
- SPShaan Puri
And so he goes, and this guy makes it all the way. So he, he gets to, like, Oman. He bribes a guy. They bring him in, and they're like, he's crossing the thing. They're like, "You're not trying to do any journalism or anything, are you?" He's like, "Journalism? No, I'm, I'm an adventurer, explorer. What... Are you crazy?" And they're like, they check his bag. They don't notice that the Ray-Bans are the glasses one, or the camera ones.
- GFGary Faust
Nice.
- SPShaan Puri
He gets through. He bribes this guy to take him on a mini, like, a paddle boat to get into the strait, and he has footage of himself on the strait smoking a cigar, watching, like, the oil, one of the oil tankers that got attacked, and counting the other boats, and he realized that the m- all the mainstream media was reporting that the strait was closed. He's like, "Dude, I'm here. I see them, I see them going through. It's not fully closed." And he f- they were figuring out what was going on. It turns out, like, actually the Iranians were checking, like, are you... If you're not US-affiliated and you brought, you pay us a toll, we'll let you through.
- GFGary Faust
Mm.
- SPShaan Puri
And that's why, like, there hadn't been this huge oil shock because actually the tankers were getting through, but nobody knew. Everybody was using these, like, the tracking data from the boats, but he's like, he's like s-
- GFGary Faust
Some of the boats aren't gonna be tracked.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, they were just like, "Hey, hey, watch this." And they just turn it off. They're like, "We don't wanna be tracked. They don't want us-"
- GFGary Faust
Wow
- 1:00:20 – 1:05:14
Are Gay Relationships a CIA Strategy?
- GFGary Faust
Wow.
- SPShaan Puri
Well, speaking of the Gulf CIA, I, uh, I got a story about a time I accidentally did a, a CIA field strategy, so to speak, if you guys wanna hear it. When I was in college in Santa Barbara, my buddy and I were absolutely hammered, just wasted out of our minds, and we had just run from a cab, and, uh, some other shenanigans had occurred. And we got back to my, my apartment, which was on the second floor of, uh, of the spot that... But it was on a hill, so it, it, out the window was, like, a huge, um... It was, it was, like, probably 60 yards to a pavement, to, to a parking lot behind a Chase Bank, and we were hammered, and we were at this place. The electricity had gone out, so all the f- the food in the fridge was bad, and it smelled like shit. So we just started throwing it all out the window because we thought it was funny, and then we started throwing bottles out the window, and then, like, some furniture and stuff. And, uh, somebody [laughs] somebody called the police, and we're sitting there. We're all fucked up, and we just hear, "Do, do, do, do. Santa Barbara Police, open up." And we're like, "Oh, fuck, dude. We... The cops." And he looks at me, and he's like, "Dude, get naked." And I was like, "What?"
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
He was like, "Trust me." And I was like, "All right."
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
So we get butt naked, and I'm like, "Oh, we're definitely going to fucking jail." So I, I immediately went to the bathroom because taking a shit in jail sucks, so I was like, "I'm gonna go force out a turd."
- GFGary Faust
Wow.
- SPShaan Puri
So I'm in the bathroom-
- GFGary Faust
That's a good thing
- SPShaan Puri
... and all I hear is this, like, thump noise, and then I hear the door open. I hear it creak, like
- GFGary Faust
And it's just a cop, and he goes, "What the fuck? What are you doing?" And I hear, I hear, like, feet s- stumble around. And, and then I hear my buddy go, "Sorry, officer, I must have forgotten my pants." And the cops are like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" And, uh, they're like, "Get... Put some fucking clothes on." So the cops come grab me and, uh-
- SPSpeaker
Naked
- GFGary Faust
... and they reali- well, they thought, they realized that we were two gay dudes in an argument. So we faked a homosexual domestic violence situation.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
And they were like, they were like, "Oh, shit, these, these are two gay dudes." And, uh-
- SPSpeaker
Going at it.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah. So they just ended up making us go clean it up 'cause they felt-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
... they felt bad because they thought that... Well, and my buddy was a lot bigger than me, too, so now I'm realizing telling this story that they probably thought I was just getting beat up by this guy.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
But anyways, um, so years later, uh, I've told this story a couple times before to people and, you know, it's funny, ha ha, but years later I find out from this guy Jack K- Karaku, CIA dude-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- GFGary Faust
... that this is, like, an old CIA strategy that they employ all the time. I didn't even know. Play the, play the video here.
- SPSpeaker
Headquarters says, "We want you to pretend that you're gay." I said, "Oh, come on." "No, we really need the information. You gotta pretend that you're gay." I said, "Okay, I'll do it. I'll do it for Uncle Sam." So I called her-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
... and I said, "Hey, I have two tickets to this show, and I was hoping maybe you'd be free. Maybe we'll grab some sushi afterwards." She said, "Yeah, I'd love to." So we go to the show. He thoroughly enjoyed it, and we go for sushi afterwards. Then we go out again, and he says, "Why don't you come over to my place some night and I'll, I'll make dinner?" I said, "Great." So I go over to his place. He made a lovely dinner. And then I thought, "Well, I have to invite him to my place." So I told my wife, "You're gonna have to, like, get out." So she left. I made dinner. I removed all the pictures of us together. And we had just gotten married, so we had, like, our wedding picture up and everything. At the dinner, he leaned in to kiss me, and I instinctively backed off. And he said, "Oh my God, I'm sorry. I thought you were gay." And I said, "Oh, no, I, I am gay. I'm, uh, I'm, I'm not into hairy guys." And he's like, "Oh, okay." I said, "I'm sorry. I think you're great, but I, I'm, I'm not feeling it."
- SPSpeaker
You didn't kiss him?
- SPSpeaker
No.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs] And, uh, I think there's another, there's, I don't remember if it was him, but there was another person who used an example of faking they were gay to, like, get out of trouble. But yeah, just a, that's another life hack for you.
- SPSpeaker
Just get naked.
- 1:05:14 – 1:08:08
Is Flighty the Greatest Life Hack?
- SPSpeaker
uh, you want, did you have a life hack as good?
- CWChris Williamson
I'll go one. Well, you know, the f- the first ever series that I did on this show was life hacks, so, uh, there's like 1,000 that I've got to pick from. But the one that I've been using the most, especially because I just got back from tour, I was in Australia, New Zealand, and Bali, uh, is an app called Flighty. So Flighty connects with your email, and when you book flights, it automatically pulls it over, and it tells you everything that's going on with your flight, what gate you're going out of, where your plane is inbound, where it's going to go, when you're on the journey as well. It also tracks everything, so it pre-downloads the map so that when you're flying in the air even without Wi-Fi, it knows sort of how long the journey's gonna be, can give you information about what the wait time's going to be like at your future destination, connection times, gate to gate, what, uh, carousel your baggage is going to be at. And it lives in just a little island at the top, you know, the floating island thing at the top of your iPhone, and it just fucking rules, dude. Like, the number of times that there's been some last-minute bullshit change, and because I'm not watching the board or I've got my AirPods in, and you're just in an airport-
- GFGary Faust
Like, you don't need to think
- CWChris Williamson
... doing your thing. You- it's just on your phone.
- GFGary Faust
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's quicker than the app. There was one flight that got diverted from Austin because of gale force winds. It got diverted to Houston, and I, I, I was recording with Andrew Schulz that day. I was like, "Fuck," like, "I need to get back. This better not be late," and blah, blah, blah, and I thought it was great. And then the plane just did whoop like that, took up again as it was coming into land. And I was like, "Oh, it must be coming back around for another one." Before the pilot even came over the tannoy, it updated and said, like, "You're now... Basically, you're landing in Houston." And I was like, "Oh." So i- in some ways it can be disappointing before everybody else knows, but, uh, it's fucking great. Flighty, and it's like 30 bucks a year. And you can have friends on it as well. You can add friends' flights to it, so if you've got a, your missus is flying in, you don't need to do it. It's, it's fucking epic. A quick aside. Look, you know sleep matters, but let's be real. Most nights you're probably not getting the sort of sleep that's actually restorative. Eight Sleep Pod 5 fixes that. It's a smart cover that you throw over the top of your mattress that actively cools or heats each side of the bed up to 20 degrees. They've even added a temperature regulating duvet and pillowcase, so you and your partner can sleep at your preferred temperatures covered head to toe like some temperature controlled mummy. Plus, it's got upgraded sensors that run health checks when you're asleep, tracking things like abnormal heartbeats and breathing issues and sudden HRV changes. There's a built-in speaker for white noise. The autopilot feature learns your sleep patterns, makes real-time adjustments to improve your sleep. It even detects when you're snoring and lifts your head a few inches to help you breathe better. That is why Eight Sleep is clinically proven to add up to an hour of quality sleep per night. And best of all, they have a 30-day sleep trial, so you can buy it and sleep on it for 29 nights. And if you don't like it, they will just give you your money back.
- GMGeorge Mack
Plus, they ship internationally. Right now, you can get up to $350 off the Pod 5 by going to the link in the description below or heading to eightsleep.com/modernwisdom and using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's E-I-G-H-T sleep.com/modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout.
- 1:08:08 – 1:12:17
Can We Trust Studies Anymore?
- GMGeorge Mack
My, my, uh, my life hack at the minute is, um, it's more kind of a, a, a philosophical stance to some extent. I think of a lot of gibberish that comes up where it's probably in the last 20 years, there's this particular discourse that happens online, but also in books, where you'll see... They'll make a point, and then they'll go, "So this study says," or, "Studies say." And I think what happens, for me for a while now, previously I would default to whatever this person's about to say now is completely true. But often my new default is whatever this person is about to say now is complete horseshit.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, 'cause first off, my friend Billy made this great point of, do you know anybody who's been in a study? Um, then have you actually ever inspected a lot of these studies? So I think previously what people used to do, nine out of, nine out of 10 times they would believe the study's true and one out of 10 is gibberish. I actually think the policy's much better the other way, that nine out of 10 studies that you hear about, particularly psychological studies.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge Mack
Guess what? Physics doesn't need a study. Physics goes, "Here's how it works." And you wanna always opt, like it's kind of the Deutsch argument, that you always wanna go for good explanations rather than studies of psych grads with people that had a specific hypothesis they wanted to confirm beforehand.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge Mack
And you'll, you'll often see these things that go viral on Twitter that get four million views. It's like 15 participants of, like, college males that are then making, like... Then the Daily Mail covers it, The Telegraph covers it.
- CWChris Williamson
Huge sweeping generalizations.
- GMGeorge Mack
It's, it's one, it's one giant scam. The other one is, um, my favorite one, is, um, science says or science-backed or trust the science. And my new default is if somebody says this, they're about to say something that's completely unscientific. Because by definition... Oh, sorry about that. By definition, if something is science-backed, [laughs] um... I didn't vast. There we go. Um, if something is science... If something is-
- CWChris Williamson
Fucking Neutonic says research-backed [laughs] ingredients on its packaging.
- GMGeorge Mack
Re- re- research-backed a little bit.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GFGary Faust
Well, I can say firsthand this shit definitely works.
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Got you off Adderall.
- GMGeorge Mack
Well, I guess, I guess the question is-
- GFGary Faust
Yeah
- GMGeorge Mack
... but then actually investigate what the research is essentially saying, which most of us, we just default to this is true.
- CWChris Williamson
So I read, uh, Adam Mastroianni, Experimental History. Everyone needs to subscribe on Substack. It fucking rules. And, um, he posted today, there was a wonderful one-two parter, Living Fossils that Rob Kurzban does, and, uh, Experimental History had these two things about the replication crisis.
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, Adam's entire point is that psychological theories don't ever be killed. They just become embarrassing. So, um, power posing, been completely disproven, but has now just been sort of retconned into, it's like expansive posture science and stuff. They've just renamed it. Uh, growth mindset, total bullshit. Totally does not replicate. Uh, ego depletion, like willpower stuff.
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Total, total bullshit. Does not replicate. But-
- GFGary Faust
What about retard maxing?
- CWChris Williamson
Retard maxing actually is at the forefront of cutting psychological science.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs] If it doesn't replicate, do a 360.
- CWChris Williamson
Moon walk out of there. [laughs]
- GFGary Faust
Moon walk out, man.
- GMGeorge Mack
The, the problem with the replication stuff is that it goes back to the conversation we had around genetics, that actually, um, some of this stuff may work for certain people depending on their specific genetics. That what you may have is 10% it really, really works for, and 90% it doesn't do anything, which is a way more fascinating conversation. Um, but as soon as you just default to, like, it feels like I have a point that disagrees with Gary now, and I'm just gonna say, "Well, studies say," and I've won. And there's never any, like, critical conversation around, "Well, can you explain the specific variables here that causes this outcome?" It's just studies say, or let me tell you about this study.
- CWChris Williamson
So increased, increased skepticism. Is that what you're saying? Is, uh-
- 1:12:17 – 1:18:04
Is California Trying to Bury Fraud?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
Dude, speaking of which, I, that, that actually ties into the other thing I sent you. Uh, did you guys hear about the Stop Nick Shirley Act in California? Dude, this is crazy. So s- there was, um-
- CWChris Williamson
'Cause he's trying to do the same thing he did in Minnesota in California, right?
- GMGeorge Mack
He needs to do that in Puerto Rico, dude. Seriously.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, I mean, if you're gonna list the places that are-
- GFGary Faust
So, so California has this act now? Who's, who's-
- GMGeorge Mack
This is it. This is the bill right here. They basically put, put together this legislation that says, it's called the Stop Nick Shirley Act.
- CWChris Williamson
Wait, the... Wait, is this like a draft? Why is there, like-
- GMGeorge Mack
Existing law prohibits a person, business, or association from knowingly publicly posting or publicly disclosing or distributing on internet websites or on social media the personal information or image of any designated healthcare services patient, provider, or assistant, or other individuals residing at the same home address with the intent to incite a third person to cause imminent great bodily harm to the person identified in the posting or display-
- GFGary Faust
Yeah
- GMGeorge Mack
... or to a co-resident of that person as specified, or to threaten the person identified in the posting or display, or a co-resident of that person as specified.
- GFGary Faust
So it's basically an extreme fascist bill that they're trying to pass to prevent people from exposing fraud.
- CWChris Williamson
So you think that they're getting out ahead of having exposed in California what was exposed in Minnesota, and by making it-
- GFGary Faust
Making it illegal
- CWChris Williamson
... essentially this kind of investigation illegal?
- GFGary Faust
Yeah. Yeah, and that's, um, of interest to me given all the st- the financial stuff I've exposed down in Puerto Rico. But the g- and on a, if you strap like that and map it onto freedom of speech as a whole, uh, this is a big problem. I mean, I, I don't know what the-
- GMGeorge Mack
This shit is fucking gnarly, dude. Having to read this thing, like the... Oh, here we go
- GFGary Faust
This guy, yeah, he explains it a little bit better here. It warns that it would restrict the release of investigative videos and impose penalties on watchdogs who expose fraud. Uh, it's a... I mean, I don't really believe in the two-party system. I think they're all just j- two... Everybody's full of shit, but it is a Democrat that put this out, and of course, there's, you know, the backlash from this guy. He's probably a Republican.
- SPShaan Puri
Okay, so s- sounds like what they're saying is when he exposed the Somali learning centers, that then creates, you know, sort of hostile potential violence against the Somali people. So in order to protect threats of violence against immigrants, uh, here's this act.
- GFGary Faust
Right, right, right.
- SPShaan Puri
So you can't expose that kind of shit.
- GFGary Faust
And which is totally, like, a load of bullshit because the real way you would protect from somebody being harassed like that is to stop the fraud in the first place from happening.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, or just separately prevent, like, violence in the way that we prevent vi- assault and violence in general.
- GFGary Faust
Yeah, yeah, or, I mean, and I, I'm just saying that, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Right.
- GFGary Faust
There's a number of other ways to handle it, but yeah, it's crazy, right?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- GFGary Faust
I, um, I was looking at this the other day. I'm, I'm kind of interested in how it plays out, you know?
- SPShaan Puri
You're, you're, you do-
- 1:18:04 – 1:23:13
Do Your Game Choices Define You?
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, I have a quote that I love. This is a little more positive. I feel like we've had some, some conspiracy, some darkness-
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... uh, some, some getting in trouble.
- GFGary Faust
Good.
- SPShaan Puri
I wanna bring a little, little, uh, positivity here.
- GFGary Faust
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
All right, so saw this quote from Blake Mycoskie, who created Toms Shoes. Uh, I don't know if you guys have seen this, but he, he has this... He's like, "I've had this on the wall of every office." So he says, "A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he's doing and leaves others to determine if he is working or playing. To him, he always appears to be doing both."
- GFGary Faust
Hmm.
- SPShaan Puri
And I just like, that, to me, has just been a very useful, um, I don't know, guidepost, or like, oh yeah, like, that is the highest calling. If you yourself basically don't differentiate between your work and your play, or, you know, are you... Is this, uh, is this something that you have to do, or you should do, or you want to do? The more those blend together and the less you sort of bucket things, I think the more you solve the problem of balance that I think nobody feels like they have. And so I just thought this was awesome, and I'm gonna put this up in my office wall. So-
- GFGary Faust
Well, this seems similar to what Michael was talking about of the childlike thing.
- SPShaan Puri
Hmm.
- GFGary Faust
You remember on the first episode-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- GFGary Faust
... that we did? And he was s- uh, be, he quoted some scripture. He was like, "Be childlike, my children," or some-
- SPShaan Puri
Mm-hmm
- GFGary Faust
... some, some, something like that. I think one of the problems that you have is working for yourself sounds great because it sounds like choose whenever you want to work. But for most people, what it results in being is just work all the time because there's no one to tell you to stop. And a great idea to think about, if this doesn't feel like play to me, scrutinize it and maybe try and get rid of whatever I can from this particular area of my life. But when you're compelled by, oh, well, I just wanna be more, wanna be more successful and more well-known, that is rewarding in and of itself. But-
- CWChris Williamson
It's not the type of reward that you want. So you need to almost be skeptical and discerning in the rewards that you get too.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
This feels like play, but it might actually be just shallow, juvenile status seeking-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... or it might be me, uh, playing, uh, the game of accumulating money when I already have enough. It's that line from James Clear where he says, um, "If you already live a good lifestyle and you sacrifice it in order to make more money, by definition it's a bad trade."
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And I think sometimes you... People are bad at distinguishing, determining what is and is not play, and what is and is not just more like limbic rewards. Does that make sense?
- SPShaan Puri
So there's, there's this book that talks, uh, that I'm reading, it talks exactly about this, called The Score. You guys ever heard of this book? It's basically, um, it's this guy who's a phil- he's a philosophy professor, but he's, he loved games growing up. He always plays games. He, he uses games as this analogy, and I think in general, uh, f- a far more important thing in life than being a good player is picking a good game.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, because it's very easy to be, you know... Uh, you were talking about Joey Chestnut earlier, right? Um, and like, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
The philosopher Joey Chestnut.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
No knock on him.
- 1:23:13 – 1:34:19
Are Likes and Views Changing How We Consume Content?
- CWChris Williamson
I've got... I mean, we've, we've like spoke about this hours. And yeah-
- SPShaan Puri
This is one of our favorite fucking-
- CWChris Williamson
One of my favorite topics
- SPShaan Puri
... you, you hit one of our trap- trap cards.
- GMGeorge Mack
Like there's a, weirdly pa- part of the, um, thoughts I was thinking about this week was going down, like how... 'Cause you know that Marshall McLuhan line that we, like shape our tools and our sh- our tools shape us.
- SPShaan Puri
They're after they shape us, yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
It was f- this great example of Nietzsche. Nietzsche used to write by hand, and then his eyesight began to go, so he started to write in a typewriter, and his writing completely changed. He went way shorter, way punchier, like he almost completely changed as an individual. And I've been thinking about that with a lot of these tools where, so I would... Like one of my life hacks at the minute is what I call doom scrolling. So rather than doom scrolling, I go on a treadmill at like 15 incline, three in.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
I've got Cher Believe on loop playing. I'm spinning around. I'm having a fucking great... I'm just sending links to people. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
But if you, if, if, if you, if you are either in his contacts high on the top of his list of iMessage contacts recently, 'cause he's got massive recency bias, so he only sends it to the people that he can see.
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
And if you're in Lifetime on South Lamar, and you walk downstairs and you see him, it's you with something from the '80s, some hair metal or like some like big pop star from the '80s.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And he's just furiously sending fucking links to people.
- GMGeorge Mack
So that's how social media, I think, is supposed to be consumed. If you're at 130, uh, beats per minute-
- SPShaan Puri
That's how it's supposed to be. [laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah. If you're at 130 heart, like heart rate per minute, you just like forget about... Like all the n- like new stuff goes, and I'm just in like these holes, like finding stuff.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
But one of the reflections I-
- CWChris Williamson
You, you've managed to find a social media flow state.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah, yeah, the flow state for social media.
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Boom scrolling, it's, it's coming back.
- SPShaan Puri
Boom scrolling.
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, so one of my, one of my actual realizations when I was in this high was-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
... one thing you, when you become, when you're in like a flow state or when you're more mindful, you begin, like the, a lot of meditators describe it as the frame rate of reality completely slows down. So it's kind of like going from a, a standard definition TV to a HD where everything's a bit clearer, everything's a bit slower.
- SPShaan Puri
Mm.
- GMGeorge Mack
And I started to notice this thing in my head that I was really embarrassed about, that when I would scroll, I'd see a tweet or I'd see a post, and there's this little thing in me that just looks at the views it gets, and then like determines if I'm gonna consume it or my reaction beforehand. And it's almost like imagine what we've created with this memetic algorithm. Imagine before you ever heard like a piece of music or you ever tasted a bit of food. It's like [clapping] people clapping or people going, "That's a bit shit."
- SPShaan Puri
Mm.
- 1:34:19 – 1:40:05
Does Everyone in the UK Know the King?
- CWChris Williamson
This is... Alain de Botton talked about this. He's like, people that come from, in the UK, working class backgrounds, they're probably not gonna try and rock the boat because that's not their place. It's not your place to do that. America's like nascent. It's like fucking two years old, right? In the grand scheme of things.
- GMGeorge Mack
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
We got 1,000 years of uninterrupted, uninvaded history, right? Apart from some planes in fucking like August of 1940. That's it. Right? Uh, and then fucking Rudolf Hess when he decided to try and land in, uh, Scott, do you know that story? Rudolf Hess, one of-
- GMGeorge Mack
Amazing.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh. Oh, gee, do you wanna tell it?
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, you, you tell it better than me.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So, um, Rudolf Hess was one of the-
- SPShaan Puri
That was the most English shit ever
- CWChris Williamson
... inner-
- GMGeorge Mack
You wanna tell it? No, you tell it better than me.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Crack on. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Rudolf Hess was a German fighter ace in World War I, and he then becomes one of the inner circle for Hitler in World War II. He starts to slowly lose favor toward the end of the war. I think '43, '44, he starts to lose favor with Hitler, and he sees himself being shunted to the side a little bit, so he decides that he's going to do something, uh, courageous and heroic that's going to save the war and also bring him back into the inner circle with regards to Hitler, because he's got this sort of win- this group of sycophants around him. He's got Himmler, he's got Goebbels, he's got all of these guys that are around him. And, uh, Rudolf Hess has been shunted out to the side. So Hess gets a two-seat plane, one of the long range bomber planes that the Germans were using. He gets it modified so that it can be flown by one person as opposed to two. He gets additional fuel tanks strapped to it, and he flies it without telling anybody in the middle of the night from Germany over to Scotland, 'cause he once met some aristocratic Scottish i- i- nobleman, and thinks because he's got this perspective of Brits, that it's all one Renaissance Bridgerton novel, that he is going to know Winston Churchill and the King-
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... and he's going to be able to... Or the Queen, and is going to be able to petition Britain to, uh, have an armistice, to put down their arms. Uh, so he leaves a, a note for the Führer and leaves a note for his wife and just sets off. Now, he doesn't know where he is when he gets to Scotland because it's dark. By the time he gets to Scotland, it's dark, and he can't see where he wanted to land. He can't see the fucking palace or the house of this, this nobleman. So he just pulls the ejector seat, lands in a farmer's fie- [laughs] lands in a farmer's field, very quickly gets picked up by the British military. They find out this is the fourth ranking Nazi in the entire Reich. Immediately take him into custody. Doesn't get to see the King, doesn't get to see the Queen, doesn't get to see anybody. Doesn't get to see anybody at all. Doesn't get anywhere close to the nobleman he meant to go out there and see. However, the British now have the fourth ranking Nazi in the world, and Hitler is furious. Absolutely fucking furious. Like w- like apoplectic apparently. And, uh, it just goes to show, I think, like first off, the weird incentives and the way that people respond to a tight sphere of a social circle with power struggles that keep on going on. It causes people to do crazy... It's being in a relationship with a hot/cold girlfriend, right?
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You're just doing fucking insane thi- You're like throwing rocks at her window-
- GMGeorge Mack
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... holding a boom box with a mixtape, and then the next day sh- you're naked fucking getting... You know, being beaten up by her or whatever. And, um-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] I told you that story in confidence. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs] And, um, uh, the, the other thing is that people still have this kind of archaic interpretation of what British life is like, especially back in the day.
- GMGeorge Mack
Mm.
- SPShaan Puri
He should've done a 360 and then moonwalked out of there.
- CWChris Williamson
Moonwalked out of there. Yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
You know, man. [laughs]
- GMGeorge Mack
Have you ever, um, heard of the story of Churchill and Hitler getting dinner?
- CWChris Williamson
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- GMGeorge Mack
Early 30s, Churchill's very much out of the, um, the picture and Hitler's on the come up. So I think he's just, he, he's either just became chancellor or he's just about to become chancellor. And one of the fascinating things that you, when you really study history, is how blurry it is at the time. So I always use the example of the Roman Empire, of you can ki- I think it's like 476 AD is when the Roman Empire fell. But if you ask, "Well, when did the people recognize it fell?" And it's a bit like, "Huh."
- 1:40:05 – 1:41:55
Could a Dinner Have Stopped WWII?
- GMGeorge Mack
like Churchill, who obviously ends up becoming Hitler's, like, nemesis, was intrigued by a dinner with him. So there was this guy called Ernst Putzi Hanfstaengl. You can probably search that one, Jared. And good luck. Um, and [laughs] he, um, he, he was like a socialite in Germany who wanted to arrange the meeting, and Churchill basically said, "Listen," he was really concerned about communism at the time, but he was also concerned with Hitler's antisemitism. So Putzi says, "Well, come through, I'll introduce you to Adolf. You guys will get on really well." Churchill turns up, he's got his whole family there, and kind of chatting to Putzi. "He's still not here. Still not here." So they kind of have dinner. Hitler's not there, and Churchill's like, "Where is he?" So Putzi goes, "Leave it with me." So Hitler famously lives in an apartment building in, um, Berlin, so he goes to his apartment building. Shit you not, Hitler's there just shaving his mustache. So he's just shaving his mustache at the time. 'Cause you've gotta... You... That's the thing about his mustache, like there's a lot of work that goes into that thing. So he's shaving the mustache and he goes, "Winston Churchill, um, very important British politician, wants to meet you." And, uh, he's like, "What am I gonna say to him? What am I gonna say? I have no interest in talking to that guy." And Putzi like argues with him for ages, and he goes, "Right, I'll come." So he goes back, tells Churchill. Churchill and his family sit there. Hitler never comes. So Putzi says, "I'll set it up the next day." Sets up another dinner. Hitler never comes. And it's like those moments of history-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- GMGeorge Mack
... that if those two met... Because famously, ch- I, I didn't realize this until I was reading about it recently, that Chamberlain met Adolf Hitler. He flew over to Germany and he was impr- Do this. Gives a handshake. He was impressed by the handshake, 'cause Hitler does these, like, double handshakes, and he was drawn in by his charisma and believed, "Oh, this guy will never invade." Um, but it's just this fascinating counterfactual that if Adolf and Winston met, what would have happened?
- CWChris Williamson
What year was that?
- GMGeorge Mack
I, I wanna say, uh, '31, '32. Around about then.
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck.
- 1:41:55 – 1:47:53
FTX’s Painful Anthropic Fumble
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's so cool. Uh, have you seen the Forbes under th- 30 Under 30 fraud list?
- GMGeorge Mack
Oh, wow [laughs] .
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. It's crazy.
- CWChris Williamson
Jared?
- SPShaan Puri
How long is it now?
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so it's just, this stinks of you two. This is really some... This is kind of just a gift for you two.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but this is the, uh, 30 Under 30 fraud watchlist. So if we scroll down a little bit and you hover over Sam Bankman-Fried, you'll see, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Oh [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... incarcerated. Terraform Labs, incarcerated. Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos, incarcerated. We'll keep going down. There we go. Time served for, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Shkrelli
- CWChris Williamson
... Martin Shkrelli. Um, and if you go, if you go to the black bit where it's, like, redacted, just scroll over the black, uh, text. The real numbers were 300,000. That's it. "Sold a student loan app to JP Morgan for 1, 175 million. Claimed 4.25 million users. The real number was 300,000, and she hired a data scientist to fabricate the rest. JP Morgan bought it anyway, then noticed. Oops." If we go all the way down to the bottom, there's actually a risk list. So this is people who've been on the 30 Under 30. It's like a, a, a, how would you say, prototypical algorithm that looks at some of the hype around the market. So these are companies that they think is going to be likely-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... to be on the fraud list. So I don't know. Any Sphere, Cursor? Do you know what that is, Shaan?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. Cur- Cursor is super legit. So-
- GMGeorge Mack
I did say SCPG, yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... I, I would say Cursor's super legit, but, uh, this is my-
- CWChris Williamson
They're not gonna come for you. Uh-
- GMGeorge Mack
The, the crazy one is, um, Sam Bankman-Fried. It came out today-
- CWChris Williamson
Is that Polymarket there? Oh, shame
- GMGeorge Mack
... Sam Bankman-Fried, it came out today-
- CWChris Williamson
Good friend
- GMGeorge Mack
... that, um, um, the shares, FTX. So Sam Bankman-Fried put an investment in Anthropic, uh, that owns Claude.
- CWChris Williamson
It would have gotten them out of the bankruptcy
- GMGeorge Mack
... it was, it's something like that. Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
No, it's like $60 billion
- GMGeorge Mack
... 60 billion, which Coinbase is worth 50 billion or something like that.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
So it's, um... But the, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
FTX at its peak was 30. So basically he's one of the [laughs] ... Had he not gone to jail for fraud and had not been using customer funds-
- 1:47:53 – 1:52:28
Does Momentum Suffocate Talent?
- GMGeorge Mack
exists. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
One of the things that I've always had a bit of a problem with, w- maybe because I was such an unpopular kid, that the fact that talent isn't enough, momentum is more important for the most part. You know, we can let a lot of people get away with some pretty gnarly shit if it seems like they're crushing it. I always use this example of, uh, Fyre Festival.
- SPShaan Puri
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, Billy McFarland from Fyre Festival. W- the, the festival was an entire catastrophe, multiple documentaries made about it. People are in basically FEMA shelters instead of the five-star huts that they were promised. Blink-182 doesn't turn up. People have got these, like, small cheese sandwiches. Maybe they're gonna be stranded on an island. There's not enough water, all the rest of it.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
But if Billy McFarland had been able to put together a half-competent festival, just passable-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... he would've been hailed as a marketing genius.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
The orange square, all of that stuff was hugely influential, and this is because we will forgive almost every sin of someone's if they're successful. And in a meritocracy, this makes complete sense, right? If you are crushing it, that means I wanna be around you. The blast radius of your success is so great. Fucking canonical perfect example that happened two weeks ago, Kanye West.
- SPShaan Puri
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Kanye West just sold out SoFi Stadium two nights, right? And the stage show is fucking spectacular. All that anyone can talk about is how cool the production was, and he's got all of these guests coming on. It's fucking amazing. He hasn't exactly showered himself in glory over the last five years, right? There, it would be difficult for a musician to try and torpedo their own musical career more aggressively than Kanye West did.
- SPShaan Puri
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But homeboy's got bangers.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
If you've got bangers, dude-
- SPShaan Puri
It's all forgiven
- CWChris Williamson
... you can do whatever the fuck you want. And that's, on one side, what happens with music-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... your point, and beauty, two things that hack the human brain so effectively that you will stay going back to the fucking crazy stripper girl because she's so hot, even though she's bad for you. You will listen to the person who put out literal Heil Hitler song, uh, fucking six months ago, because he's got three and a half hour worth set of straight heaters. And the same thing is also true with momentum. If somebody seems to be crushing it, we'll just, we'll, we'll... Sam Bankman-Fried is playing fucking, what, what, what was he playing, like, fucking World of Warcraft or something?
- SPShaan Puri
During the meeting and-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, during, and he's like, "Oh my God, this guy's a fucking super genius."
- SPShaan Puri
Genius, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, exactly. And it's like, no, no, no, no, because a- any person would be scrutinized. But if you've got the right momentum, people are happy to just fucking-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... shunt that to the side, and I've never liked it. And it goes to my theory about why people say the only insults that hurt are the ones that you believe, and I don't think it's true. I think the insults that hurt the most are the ones that you know are untrue, but that you fear other people might believe.
- SPShaan Puri
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Because that's optics management, because you have not only the unfairness, but you have the indignation of knowing that it isn't true. And this is the opposite side of the same dynamic that we're talking about here. You could put out something which is amazingly researched, a fantastic piece of work, but if other people say, "You're a bad guy," or, "That was done incorrectly," or, "We don't think he's cool"-It's not going to get anywhere. But that can't happen with beauty because it hacks the human brain. You-- It is so hard to say. You can say that girl or that guy that's very good looking, they're an asshole, they're a this, they're a that, and you go, "Yeah, but they're so fucking hot." The same with Kanye West. You can say, "He's an anti-Semite. We don't like him. He's crazy. He's addicted to nitrous. We da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da."
- GMGeorge Mack
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
It's like, he's got fucking heaters, dude.
- 1:52:28 – 1:53:19
What If Ja Rule Co-Founded Apple?
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, you know, I, I always use the, um, example with Billy McFarland of, like Steve, Steve Jobs is a little bit of a, a very, very different figure to Billy McFarland. But reality distortion field kind of makes things happen. Um, and like the counterfactual that, like the ultimate thing that McFarland did, or one of the big things is like his business partner, his co-founder was Ja Rule. And like I always want, like the counterfactual, if Steve Jobs' co-founder was Ja Rule rather than Steve Wozniak, like it, it, the McFarland story is very, uh, uh, obviously it's on him for selecting Ja Rule. Um, but if he would've selected a, a good operator-
- CWChris Williamson
He just didn't know what would've happened
- GMGeorge Mack
... yeah, what would've happened?
- CWChris Williamson
[chuckles] A question.
- GMGeorge Mack
Question.
- CWChris Williamson
What businesses would be made better by adding Ja Rule in?
- GMGeorge Mack
[chuckles] That's a great question.
- SPShaan Puri
Have you seen the old thing, what does Ja have to say about this?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- GMGeorge Mack
[chuckles] They, they spell.
- SPShaan Puri
One of the all-time old internet memes.
- 1:53:19 – 1:59:23
How Supernormal Stimuli Hijack Your Brain
- GMGeorge Mack
[chuckles]
- SPShaan Puri
There's a, there's a, a, a w- phrase that I've been, uh, very interested in recently called supernormal stimuli.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- SPShaan Puri
Have you guys heard this?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
This is pretty fascinating.
- GMGeorge Mack
No.
- SPShaan Puri
Are you familiar with this? You, you might be able to explain it. Uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, Skinnerian behaviorism stuff.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, there was, basically, there was a scientist, uh, back then. He won the Nobel Prize for this, and what he studied was, he, he got famous because instead of doing studies in a lab, he just went out into the wild and was like, "What do I observe is actually true? And then if I tweak a variable, can I just leave it in, in the real environment and see what happens?" And so what he did was, uh, you know, birds, the core behavior of a bird is to sit on, uh, the egg, keep the egg warm. That's your baby. That's like the entire, like Darwinian pressure is to keep this egg alive. So he goes, "Awesome. Bird loves egg. Does bird love bigger egg? Does bird love pink egg? Bird love pink polka dot egg?" So he started putting a fake bigger egg with bigger dots and bigger, brighter colors, put it next to it, and guess what the bird does? Gets off its real egg and goes sits on the fake egg 'cause it's more stimuli, hijacked the brain.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- SPShaan Puri
And so li- his point wasn't like, it's not like some rational pros and cons list decision. Bird just had a, a, a deep like, uh, part of its brain that you could just hijack by changing the st- to giving a, what he calls a supernormal stimulus. So he would give him a bigger, bigger egg. And he could just keep doing this up till the point where it's almost comical. The egg is so big that a bird finally, when he's like, "I can't even sit on this egg. Okay, I, I guess that's too big," right? And like, you know, you walk around and you'll see people with crazy lip fillers and BBLs, and it's like-
- CWChris Williamson
Correct
- SPShaan Puri
... what is it? It's a supernormal stimulus.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- SPShaan Puri
It's the same thing. It's like there's a way to hijack the mind. Beauty, uh, color. If you go to the grocery store, what do the food companies do? They basically take your normal stimulus, so like, you know, the humans were evolved to li- we like salt because we need electrolytes. We like fat for a certain reason. We need certain things in our, in our diet. So they just said, "Well, what if I give you a lot of salt? What if I give you fucking Doritos Cool Ranch? What if I give you triple, you know, triple pack Dorito Loco Taco?" Whatever, and you eventually get a supernormal stimulus that you really can't, like resist. Your body has this like, an extreme, like pull towards it.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, my favorite-
- SPShaan Puri
Wow
- CWChris Williamson
... supernormal stimuli is hunter-gatherers eating cheesecake for the first time.
- SPShaan Puri
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
Because it is so unique. There's a, the, a process called aurification. So aurification is the design of texture of foods, and if you think about ancestrally, almost every food that you can think of is a single texture, right? Meat, cooked, slimy-ish a little bit.
- SPShaan Puri
There's maybe. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Well, there we go. Supernormal stimuli with it. Let's see how this is getting on.
- SPShaan Puri
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Fuck that. Yeah, I'm out on this now. Two hours in.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm still enjoying it. I think I'm hungry. Um, Oreos.
- SPShaan Puri
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.
- SPShaan Puri
Mm-hmm.
- 1:59:23 – 2:03:29
The Burning Monk and the Extremes of the Human Mind
- CWChris Williamson
What's that, uh, Cookfucius Substack that me and you like?
- SPShaan Puri
That's great.
- CWChris Williamson
You see his staring at a wall experiment?
- SPShaan Puri
No.
- CWChris Williamson
So this guy's Substack, it's pretty niche, but it's fucking-
- SPShaan Puri
What? Cookfucius?
- CWChris Williamson
Cookfucius.
- SPShaan Puri
He's great. He's great.
- CWChris Williamson
Really well-written. You would love it. Fucking great.
- SPShaan Puri
I would say that.
- CWChris Williamson
Me and... George introduced me to him, and now I'm, I'm pretty... He, he, his first post that I saw was, uh, I am Andrew Puberman.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
That was the first-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... that was the first blog post that I read from him.
- SPShaan Puri
Subscribe. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Um, uh, and, um, he's doing an experiment. He did an experiment, I think, for 30 days, where he stared at a wall for an hour. And this is kind of a twist on an ancient Eastern practice, which I, I think Dr. K's got his clients to do as well. And after-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... 20 minutes, some people burst into tears.
- SPShaan Puri
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Some people are screaming. They kind of go a little bit-
- SPShaan Puri
I was gonna ask
- SPShaan Puri
What?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, because I th- at least what I think is happening, their baseline of stimulus is so low, even if you're in the shower, you're doing st- even if you're going for a walk, things are moving past you, right? You're locomoting and you see the fucking world-
- SPShaan Puri
But all they're doing is staring at a wall?
- CWChris Williamson
Staring at a wall for an hour. I would... I, I mean, I... Let's see. I would sh-
- SPShaan Puri
You know what would be, you know what would be an interesting test? Take people that have been to jail and compare them to people that haven't.
- CWChris Williamson
Because basically what you're saying is-
- 2:03:29 – 2:06:18
Why Everyone’s Dooming About AI
- GMGeorge Mack
Hey, what was that quote you said, uh, maybe 10 minutes ago about the g- the person that you look at the screen and it's reality?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, JL Toto's one.
- GMGeorge Mack
What did you say?
- SPShaan Puri
Like, we, we laugh when the moth confuses a, you know, a lamp for the moon, but here we are confusing the screen for the world.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Map that onto AI.
- SPShaan Puri
What do you mean?
- GMGeorge Mack
Just, just, uh, in general, like, what, like, uh, I don't know, in 50 years people are gonna be, like, laughing at us because of whatever we were doing right now.
- SPShaan Puri
Like we're confusing AI-
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah, yeah, like-
- SPShaan Puri
... for real intelligence, or what do you mean? How?
- GMGeorge Mack
I, I don't really know. I just, when you said that, it made me think of how AI's gonna be, like, um, people are gonna laugh at us for, i- in 50 years for what we thought was good AI. That's what I thought of when you said that for some reason.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, oh, yeah. I mean, that, that curve of technology always-
- GMGeorge Mack
Like, like they're gonna look at us right now in 50 or 100 years, like we're the fucking moth that thinks the lamp is a-
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- GMGeorge Mack
What, you got, you guys are both transfixed.
- SPShaan Puri
Did you guys watch the, the, you, you mentioned Demis-
- CWChris Williamson
Full of AI
- SPShaan Puri
... you mentioned Demis from, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes
- SPShaan Puri
... DeepMind. Did you watch the documentary?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Amazing.
- GMGeorge Mack
Oh, dude, it's so fucking good.
- SPShaan Puri
Unbelievable.
- CWChris Williamson
It's amazing.
- GMGeorge Mack
What is it?
- SPShaan Puri
He, he's got this, uh, the guy who created DeepMind, which kind of kicked off this whole AI wave. He has this documentary c- on Amazon, I think, called The Thinking Game.
- CWChris Williamson
It's on YouTube now.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, it's on YouTube.
- CWChris Williamson
It's on YouTube. It's got 40 million plays.
- SPShaan Puri
It's so good. Highly recommend to anyone.
- 2:06:18 – 2:11:19
Could AI Replace Doctors?
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's what you need to do.
- GMGeorge Mack
I mean, uh, like from the wider question of what happens, I don't know. But from first-hand, like, experience, like for myself, I, um, 'cause the image models are getting so good now. I've had like a, a, like, it's called seborrhoeic dermatitis for about 10 years. Like, sometimes it gets so bad I wouldn't wanna like go outside, like level of bad. I just showed it to Gemini.
- SPShaan Puri
What does that mean? What, what
- GMGeorge Mack
Um, so it's basically you're kind of like... There'll be a lot of people listening that have it. It affects like 5% to 10% of the population, and your face will just break out in, like, really bad eczema. So I went to one doctor who basically got me on a steroid cream, um, and said, "The reason why you have it is because of stress." It's like quite well known because of stress. Carried on. I started, like, meditating, like fixing my diet. I basically didn't eat sugar for like two years, and it calmed it down. I was like, "Oh, it's because of sugar." And then I saw a second doctor, um, and she said, "Yeah, you're too stressed out." I'm like, "Fuck, I'm getting stressed out by your guy's diagnosis that I'm stressed out." So she recommends another steroid cream. I end up tracking it for ages, and I just upload the whole document to Gemini, and it goes, "Oh, no, just, just put Nizoral on your face."
- SPShaan Puri
Hmm.
- GMGeorge Mack
So anybody who has seborrhoeic d- dermatitis, it fixes it for like 90% of people.
- SPShaan Puri
And Nizoral is a medicine or it's like-
- GMGeorge Mack
It's, it's shampoo.
- SPShaan Puri
It's a fucking shampoo.
- GMGeorge Mack
You can, for, it's a shampoo. You can get for a few dollars.
- CWChris Williamson
That's like Selsun Blue.
- GMGeorge Mack
And like, I, I've never had it ever again since. Out of 10 years, never had it ever again since. And that's just that. But these stories are like-
- CWChris Williamson
Calming down
- GMGeorge Mack
... it's not as, it's not as sexy as like the, the guy who speaks to the LLM and decides to take his own life. It's like, of... Not that that's like a obviously horrific story, if it's even fucking true, I don't know. Um, but like, I know just so many people whose, like, health is genuinely being, like, revolutionized by these things, and it's just, we just have such an anchor towards negativity. Um, well-
- CWChris Williamson
Also, you're, you're always gonna push back against something, some new technological development.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yes. It's, it's a, it's the most recurring lesson throughout history. Like I was reading, 'cause I was fascinated by, with AI coming on. I was like, "I wanna go study the, uh, Industrial Revolution." What was fascinating at the time, you had two groups that came up. You had the Luddites, who would just basically go and smash the factories in. I mean, you saw this recently with Sam Altman having a Molotov cocktail thrown at his house, um, a week ago. But then you also had the Romantics. So the Romantics would kind of pine about... And you kind of see this now with AI, where it's like they'll call things slop, which, which are. And there is, there's a... What you c- you do want the Luddites, and you do want the Romantics because they kind of act as, um, a balancing arc to, to the, uh, to the progression. But I think, like, net-net, most people alive today do not want to go back to pre-Industrial Revolution. They do not want... Like, the option is to go to Amish if you do want to. Like, that is available if you wanna go Amish, but nobody does.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- GMGeorge Mack
Uh-
- SPShaan Puri
I think AI's gonna make people go fucking insane.
- GMGeorge Mack
Yeah?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, because they're, they're, we're getting to a point where-
- GMGeorge Mack
So pull, pull, pull... I was gonna say, but pull, Jared, if you can pull up the new thing. I don't know, um, the FT produced this. I don't know how true it is. But essentially they argue it's, um, it's making people less polarized immediately, where social media was pushing people further to the left and the right, whereas AI, you can kind of already see it with Grok now. They fact check people a lot more, so they're bringing a lot more people into the center.
- SPShaan Puri
Well-
- GMGeorge Mack
Why do you think it'll make people go insane?
- SPShaan Puri
Because, dude, it's, we live in a post-truth age now. There's no way to determine... What, what flavor is this?
- CWChris Williamson
This is sweet whiskey. You want sweet whiskey?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, I do.
- CWChris Williamson
You're gonna have two toothpicks in? That's fucking dumb.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, I'm doubling down.
Episode duration: 2:18:15
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