0:00:00First of all I think the pod cast is a place where I'm going to be wrong quite a lot.
0:00:05That's a that's a really positive note
0:00:09and I'm going to guess maybe you're going to be wrong a lot as well unless you come prepared
0:00:13and I don't I don't know about that have you come prepared.
0:00:16I think you know me well enough to know that I have come prepared. But is that a bad thing.
0:00:21Like I know you don't like us.
0:00:24Well that's the impression I've always had it
0:00:25but like it doesn't bother you in conversation so why is it such a problem.
0:00:30Conversations are different right so you do know I get a little freaked out
0:00:36when I make those videos you know that's that's why I like a podcast is a different kind of thing right I can just I
0:00:43can just talk to you and the expectations the expectations are lowered. It's a different format.
0:00:48So you think because well because you've written a script there's a new a new level of responsibility on you on the
0:00:55Internet. If you're if you're making something for other people and it is it is a purportedly factual thing.
0:01:04And if you're not just a total jerk there's some kind of burden on you to make sure that what you're saying is correct
0:01:13and I think that that partly comes from just having having an audience of people who are interested in maybe hearing
0:01:20what you have to say you have to make sure that what you're saying to them is is right because those people are then
0:01:27going to maybe say what you told them to other people and it sort of spreads
0:01:32and if you said something that's wrong it's like you're making the world worse because you put out like this this
0:01:38incorrect piece of information that might also have a real chance of spreading to other people
0:01:43and to their conversations. And there's just there's just no good and that would make me feel very guilty.
0:01:49So these months that you famously spend researching video.
0:01:52Yes yes are you wanting them to be really correct because you feel this responsibility to make the world.
0:02:00Better place because you fear hateful comments and criticism which is it.
0:02:08I would say very honestly that that a huge part of it is actually that I just I don't want to be wrong in public right
0:02:18in such a such a visible way. It's a pride.
0:02:24Yeah there's a pride I guess the thing that I'm really the root that I'm really afraid of is if you go back
0:02:30and watch some of my videos in some of my videos.
0:02:33I am advocating for a position so the voting videos for example right.
0:02:39I am trying to convince people of something there. Or the video about the Electoral College.
0:02:45I'm trying to convince people how terrible the Electoral College is.
0:02:52Where the copyright video I'm trying to convince you I don't say it explicitly
0:02:56but I'm trying to convince you that that the copyright system that we currently have is kind of a terrible idea.
0:03:00Yeah
0:03:01and the thing that I live in terror of on those days the days that I have uploaded a I'm trying to convince you video
0:03:10is that within the first thirty minutes someone is going to leave a comment that just demolish is my central argument
0:03:19and that is that is a terrifying thing to to worry about because you know I've just made this video I've put it up on
0:03:27the Internet a bunch of people are watching it right now I'm doing my best to try and convince you of something
0:03:33and then someone comes along and just devastatingly shows that I am incorrect
0:03:39and I'm very happy in casual conversations to try to change my mind and to discover that I am wrong about something
0:03:48and then to to adopt a correct opinion.
0:03:51But to have that process happen in front of maybe hundreds of thousands of people is kind of terribly embarrassing.
0:03:58So when I upload.
0:04:00I really don't want to be wrong and I do worry about the big house
0:04:04or the little thing that slipped through the net because something that was said to me by a very wise man it was very
0:04:09true that is when you're making an argument like the ones you're talking about there.
0:04:13It can be the small thing that undoes you because someone might point out you said that that treaty was signed on
0:04:19January thirteenth when in fact it was January fourteenth
0:04:22and suddenly they use that mistake to undermine every single other thing you said in your video your argument so you
0:04:29wear if you're going to get you're going to trip over the small thing or are you worried about something so huge
0:04:33and fundamental which seems like a hard a mistake to make.
0:04:37I worry about everything but I do have to keep my own sanity I do have a kind of hierarchy of errors
0:04:45and so at at the top of this the worst thing is what we've just been discussing is the your argument is invalid error.
0:04:53Someone comes along and just demolishes the thing with a sentence.
0:04:57There are lots and lots of factual errors that do creep into my videos and that it is just it is totally unavoidable.
0:05:05And that's a kind of mid-level error which is irritating
0:05:09but it's survivable if it's an error that doesn't relate to the main point necessarily so like you say the treaty
0:05:14saying you know if it's a get a you're wrong on the treaty. That's embarrassing.
0:05:20And if you have too many of those that can start to undermine your credibility.
0:05:26Yeah you know I think everyone makes mistakes sometimes.
0:05:32But if you if if you always get the treaty you're wrong right
0:05:36or if you're always doing something just a little bit off it does start to undermine your your main point.
0:05:41And at the bottom of this hierarchy I have things like pronunciation errors which I have made an embarrassingly large
0:05:48number of times and things like typos where I do my best to just totally ignore those.
0:05:54I think if I make a pronunciation error that that's OK That's an OK error to me.
0:06:00I'd rather not but I don't in my own opinion I don't think that really detracts from a central point but and
0:06:05but enough little mistakes like Treaty years that's that's a bad sign right that doesn't that doesn't help.
0:06:11So you'll be quite introspective here talking about you know how you feel about your videos
0:06:15and errors in them how do you feel watching other people's videos their no other content on the internet does it.
0:06:22Do you apply the same standards to other people that your blog here so often and get really upset
0:06:27when people make mistakes or do you think this is just something you apply to yourself.
0:06:31Well OK here's a great thing right when I watched your videos.
0:06:37Almost every time the person talking right is an expert on this topic and I have no ability to judge whether
0:06:44or not they they've made mistakes.
0:06:47Right there's an asymmetry here so I would say you know most of the educational videos that I watch on on youtube.
0:06:55I wouldn't even notice a mistake right the people who are making them are so much more integrated into the topic.
0:07:01And they've done so much more on it that they're always going to be super aware of the stakes that come up whereas I
0:07:07can't necessarily see that.
0:07:10I'm going to guess that you get e-mails from people who are wanting to correct mistakes in your in your videos right
0:07:17where you're then on the receiving end right you've made a video and you put it out there to the world
0:07:23and you know someone in the world knows more about a topic or they think need a more about a topic than you do
0:07:29and then they contact you. Like how do you deal with that.
0:07:32I mean I think I mean I guess in most cases like you say I've been interviewing experts so I am a step removed so I can
0:07:39always say hey it was my mistake.
0:07:42But that also I guess I have one extra level of protection that you don't have
0:07:46and that is that hardly any of my videos are scripted or pre-prepared and I guess that I like conversations
0:07:52and as we were saying at the start of this chat people forgive a lot more in conversations than perhaps they do in a
0:07:58script so if someone gets it. A rumble misspeaks or or just stuffs up.
0:08:03You can always say well hey you know there was no script we were just chatting how can you know he
0:08:08or she didn't know what questions I was going to ask how could you possibly expect them to say everything perfectly so
0:08:15I guess I have that extra level of protection that doesn't make the wrongness any less I think it makes it maybe less
0:08:23embarrassing in a way. So in terms of dealing with it I guess that's another thing to talk about.
0:08:29Once it's out there and it's wrong and it happens to everyone how do you deal with it.
0:08:37So for me personally the way out the way I look at this is I try to keep a record of all the mistakes I've made on my
0:08:44own blog and I'm actually going to try to see if I can call it up here.
0:08:48Right or not I want to read that I always live in the newspapers.
0:08:51The corrections section
0:08:53but with a correct mistakes from the previous day's paper like it's the best bit of the newspaper saying apologize for
0:08:58their mistakes. They don't and I love that you have one.
0:09:01It honestly is and I know I mentioned this on Reddit a few times before
0:09:05but my favorite my favorite mistakes section is the one published in The Economist magazine.
0:09:12There mistake section is just hilarious.
0:09:14Well it's normally hilarious because the errors they're correcting are so minor as to be laughable.
0:09:22Write that and I do I do look it over and I mean sometimes they have genuine mistakes right.
0:09:27Everyone does that but for the
0:09:29but for the most part you know I think they have a deep apologies for every minor minor mistakes
0:09:38and that I do I do appreciate that.
0:09:40That's probably really technically SMA too isn't it because you're probably thinking Gosh if they're apologizing for
0:09:45that everything else must be correct because they let nothing slip through the net.
0:09:49Yeah that is definitely it's a good P.R. Move. OK so I'm looking at my most famous video the U.K.
0:09:56One and I have I have a website where I kept track of.
0:10:00Things that I need to change
0:10:04and I got some of these are just embarrassing to look at if I haven't looked at this list in a long time
0:10:09and it is really uncomfortable. OK One of the very very top one I will tell you at the end.
0:10:16So remind me if I forget to burn the burning one.
0:10:21God this is awful too this is not so much a mistake as it was just terribly insensitive
0:10:26but I colored Northern Ireland orange at one time right.
0:10:33Yeah I was not aware of the political implications of coloring Northern Ireland orange
0:10:41but boy did I hear about that right after the video was uploaded.
0:10:47And so I have a note here that as you know in these are these are notes for if I ever redo this video do you know what
0:10:56to do to an island in orange Northern Ireland will be yellow not orange.
0:11:03And also OK so a minor mistake was I was trying to do the national colors to some extent and I reversed England
0:11:10and Wales I had. So England should be white whale should be red I had it reversed in the video.
0:11:17I neglected to mention that the United Kingdom is part of the Commonwealth realm I think I described it as being sort
0:11:24of above the Commonwealth realm like it rules over this thing not as part of the thing itself
0:11:29but you know here's the thing I'm going to mess up again if they don't know how to do it right.
0:11:33I mispronounced the Orkney Islands. Yeah that's right. Is that right is that right now.
0:11:38Yeah although I notoriously mispronounced everything in the U.K. As well. I'll take your word for it.
0:11:44Yeah I have got a house also Yeah I said the Church of England was the Church of the whole of the United Kingdom
0:11:51but it is not as the name itself might specify it is just the Church of England it is not the Church of Scotland as
0:11:57well. Don't do this to yourself. No it's I have I can feel your pain. Ah God This one this one just killed me.
0:12:07This really kills me too.
0:12:08I use the word sovereign in just the wrong way many times and I just I felt really dumb about that.
0:12:17I called constituent countries sovereign and this is not the correct term to use it all to describe the situation.
0:12:23This video is the foundation of your success is where it all started
0:12:26and you know you're undermining everything I believe in.
0:12:29Oh I know and then I have I have this hole that I messed up a couple of places in the order.
0:12:35I'm saying the British overseas territory in order of descending population
0:12:40and there were a couple that I got out of order which is also just very painful. Let me tell you this.
0:12:46OK I know this is about being wrong on the Internet and being wrong on the Internet is a bad thing
0:12:52but as someone who used to work in newspapers I can promise you being wrong in newspapers is worse because it's printed
0:13:00so many times and it's you know it's a hard copy everywhere and when you go out for a coffee break and you see piles
0:13:09and piles of the newspaper sitting in the shop with your.
0:13:12I'm page that has happened to me one of my first ever front page stories was about a big macho parade that was
0:13:19happening in my hometown and I swear I get into work the next day Mr front page thinking I was all that
0:13:25and then the book The boss called me over and said Have a look at that
0:13:28and I had the start of the parade happening at like nine P.M. Instead of nine A.M.
0:13:33So all these people would turn up at the wrong time and it was this I when I went from hero to zero very quickly.
0:13:40Oh the best example of this that didn't happen to may happen to my mom there was a solar eclipse.
0:13:47And he was given the job of writing a story with labor you know he doesn't know too much about solar eclipses
0:13:53and he obviously misunderstood something he was told and he wrote in the story on the front page of the paper.
0:13:58Big big news today. Do not look at the solar eclipse. And unless you are wearing sunglasses.
0:14:06Oh gosh you know look at it even if you are and it will set you to do that the newspaper had to like old T.V.
0:14:13Stations and radio stations in the city
0:14:16and have them put out these emergency broadcast saying don't do what it said in the newspaper today you will go blind.
0:14:22You mustn't do it and it became this huge huge huge incident
0:14:25and there's nothing you can do about it you can even take the video down.
0:14:29You can't kill the web page you can't print newspapers. You've just made this mistake that is there in hard copy.
0:14:37Oh that is terrible.
0:14:40Those those two are particularly bad because you are compelling someone to action in an incorrect way
0:14:46but eventually a permanently life changing kind of way. Yeah I'd rather have someone miss the parade and go blind.
0:14:53But yeah definitely it's a it's a terrible thing yet so I will I will grant you that.
0:14:57Those are particularly bad kinds of errors and just to have them one.
0:15:03Yet to have someone not know the perfect order of the British territories populations that is less bad than missing a
0:15:10parade or going blind.
0:15:11Yeah I was going to like you know turn up to the wrong country because they misunderstood gravity.
0:15:16Yeah I hope so anyway so someone might win the nominee although OK so now so now.
0:15:21Now compared to your story of potentially blinding people the error that burned in my soul is going to compare is going
0:15:28to just hail in comparison to it anyway they got here.
0:15:33So what's this one that's top of the list this is this is top of the list and I try not to think about it
0:15:38but I would just honestly be minding my own business
0:15:42and this mistake that I made in my first video will still just pop into my head and I feel great shame
0:15:47and somehow I'm going to talk about it publicly. Talk to the great come on right.
0:15:52So yes my name is and I have been wrong on the Internet. All right.
0:16:00So low so I thought I should go with the advice I give hard to even build up to this but.
0:16:08So in the video I am talking about the island of Ireland.
0:16:14Right so next year Great Britain we have the island itself the geographical entity just sitting to the west.
0:16:22Yeah that might just get into the western Great Britain
0:16:25and so in the end the video I can't remember the exact phrasing and how to laugh my head
0:16:29but I start to talk about you know the various places here
0:16:32and I say OK we have this island which is Ireland we have Northern Ireland which is part of the U.K.
0:16:38Which as we mentioned I already showed an orange right which is bad as well
0:16:42and then I move on to talk about the country that takes up the rest of the islands which I made a big point.
0:16:50I hammered it home that the name of this country is the Republic of Ireland. Now here's the problem.
0:17:01I am a citizen of this country. Yeah right. And I say is that the name is the Republican violence.
0:17:10And immediately after the video goes up I have a whole bunch of people e-mailing me going that's not the Republic of
0:17:15Ireland the place is called Ireland
0:17:17and I think this might even happen on a public forum that might be a record of this somewhere.
0:17:22I got into an argument with a guy where I said I know the name of the Republic of Ireland.
0:17:28You don't know what you're talking about. I'm a citizen of this country.
0:17:32That's the name and he says that's not the name. And I go Yes it is I have my passport in the other room.
0:17:38I checked it before I made the video. That's the official name. He goes check again. I go fine I will.
0:17:44I walk into the next room. I look at the passport and it says Ireland. It does not say Republic of Ireland.
0:17:53And it just it it burns in my soul that I made a point of it in the video to say.
0:18:00You know people don't think it's called Ireland but it's you know it's really the Republic of Ireland
0:18:04and Ireland just means the island itself.
0:18:07Right and I'm a citizen of this place and I got it wrong in such a public way and I thought I had checked it
0:18:16but obviously my my brain was already pre committed to this piece of information and so
0:18:22when I glanced at my passport my brain was like oh yeah it's the Republic of Ireland that's what it says in that piece
0:18:27of paper don't look too closely.
0:18:29You know you have to you know change your beliefs
0:18:33and God is just awful I'm getting I'm going to put in a few people are going to say.
0:18:37People can say why not take the video down or replace
0:18:40or perhaps you know I guess I don't know if this is really obvious to people or not
0:18:46or whether it's something that it's more people who make videos think that perhaps you should point out why you haven't
0:18:51just pulled down this video
0:18:52and corrected it would you know it was a hard thing to say technically your title right there there's a couple things
0:19:00here. But but the technical side is that it is it is difficult on You Tube to do this.
0:19:11And so you cannot edit a video that is in place in the You Tube system.
0:19:16I cannot submit a fixed version of the video and have You Tube replace it with and I'm like
0:19:22and I was set up that that is the problem there with the same link.
0:19:27And this is both a blessing and a curse because I've I've spoken to other You Tubers about this.
0:19:34If You Tube did allow people to correct the video to upload an amended version I would still only have that one video
0:19:43right.
0:19:43I would I would have just spent all of my time revising and perfecting
0:19:49and changing a whole bunch of stuff in it because even if I watch it now there's a couple places where I know there's a
0:19:54few little little visual glitches you know and then listening to it again I think I'll go.
0:20:00What I have to just record the whole of the audio right which would then doubtlessly introduce some kind of additional
0:20:06error which then I would have to fix.
0:20:07So if You Tube did allow me to replace the videos I would have only made one video so it is a blessing in the sense
0:20:14that it forces me to move forward
0:20:17but it is it's a curse because it forces you to live with your mistakes right which is which is why I think I tend to
0:20:25obsess about the stuff so much because you know once it is up there you cannot change it.
0:20:31Come up with something else out there that I want to talk to you about because I know you're a stickler for things
0:20:35being right.
0:20:36Yeah
0:20:37and I don't want to come across as the advocate for romance because I hate wrongness as well you know I think that obviously
0:20:43I've obviously has to be your position right you're the advocate for wrong as you are making any kind of argument
0:20:49there's no there's no greater It's all black and white.
0:20:51Let me put this to you I don't know if it's a term you're familiar with but I mean I used to work for the P.D.
0:20:57Cena Nady and this is TELL they say wrong but not for long.
0:21:03And what that refers to is usually when there's like a breaking news story.
0:21:07OK I'll give you an example say there's been some some catastrophe or something's happened something something serious.
0:21:13Well I don't want to belittle serious catastrophes but they happen and there's a lot of interest in them and
0:21:18when that happens and institution of the B.B.C.
0:21:21Which sort of prides itself on correctness is very cautious
0:21:25and they're very careful about what they broadcast them say
0:21:27and they won't release any information about maybe casualties and names
0:21:33and information until it's been you know triple checked and confirmed by the appropriate source
0:21:37and signed in triplicate. And then you get your T.V. Stations perhaps like in the U.K.
0:21:43Sky which is you know a news network and they are perhaps a bit more cavalier about things
0:21:48and now they just say what they know
0:21:51or what they hear speculation you know we're hearing that they could be five people dead.
0:21:56And then if it turns out they're wrong or they're wrong.
0:22:00So long and now I'll change and say well actually it turns out no one's died or that it might be.
0:22:05Turns out it's even worse than we thought and this has happened and I used to work for the B.B.C.
0:22:12and We used to sit in meetings sometimes and discuss this cavalier attitude and all the B.B.C.
0:22:16People be very sniffy and smug and say what we would never do that and it's irresponsible to be incorrect.
0:22:22But when these things happen when when a big story like this happens I find myself gravitating towards the sky
0:22:31or the more gossipy the more gossipy ones because most of the time it turns out they're right and their rights are
0:22:40and I think there's a case to be made for risking wrongness for the sake of sort of time and information.
0:22:49It's the same if you read a story like on the B.B.C.
0:22:51Website you'll read some story that will say this politician has resigned in disgrace
0:22:57and I won't tell you any more information and the first thing you do is you go straight to the tabloids and stuff
0:23:02and if you find out this is what they're really going to have a mistress and I was with this celebrity and right right.
0:23:08So where do you stand on tolerating the risk of wrongness for the sake of it.
0:23:15I don't like gossip or information or just fast information I think I think you
0:23:20and I in this in this ten episode series we should see if we can do one on the news because I think we can have a whole
0:23:28a whole separate conversation about that. Yeah but but for the fourth episode has done that.
0:23:35Yeah I think I think we could have a lot to talk about there.
0:23:41I would say that the whole reason that those tabloids exist is because you're exactly right where the B.B.C.
0:23:49Is all stiff upper lip and you know someone has resigned and we're not going to tell you why.
0:23:52Right and of course of course you want to know why people want to know the gossip
0:23:57and that's why other news channels can exist right because you.
0:24:00Go over and you see right even if you are even if you hold the B.B.C.
0:24:03In high regard and you know you would never trust anything from anywhere else.
0:24:06You're still going to go and try to find out more information.
0:24:09Yeah that's just human nature
0:24:12and I think I have a real problem with that just because of naturally people's short attention spans
0:24:24and the way people memories work is that well sure a news organization can say that they're wrong but not for long.
0:24:31Oh we corrected it later.
0:24:34But lots of people don't pay attention for the full duration of the story and they all know and I know why Sky
0:24:40or no other news organization actually uses the slogan wrong replied.
0:24:47Yeah I didn't I didn't mean that like that's the banner underneath the sky.
0:24:52That's when I think of selling point what it was like What. So OK I I you know if I was if I was in charge of some T.V.
0:25:02News organization I would try to resist that pressure but I'm not going to I'm not going to sit here
0:25:08and say oh you know what those other news organizations are terrible for doing it.
0:25:12I understand structurally why it happens. I would just say I think that that's that's not good.
0:25:19I think that that doesn't that doesn't help anybody the wrong
0:25:23but not for a long kind of attitude of like you made a mistake.
0:25:26But you're going to going to correct it later
0:25:29but I do think this kind of is kind of segues into the issue of how much time can you spend researching anything.
0:25:40Yeah and I was going to say how much I love your videos
0:25:42but you are the worst person in the world to run a news network that something would happen
0:25:47and it would be like six months later do you actually made a video about it.
0:25:51Yes that is right
0:25:52but I would like to hear about you know where is the where is the kind of point that is a that's a really interesting
0:25:57thing to hear your opinion. You know you're right I would drive any.
0:26:00News organization just straight into the ground right just destroyed.
0:26:05And yeah it's a problem because you can't research stuff forever. And news T.V.
0:26:12News
0:26:13or newspapers with a breaking story there on a certain they're on the cutting edge of one side of that the quick side.
0:26:20But but even on the long side right so you know on average it takes me sort of five weeks to make the videos
0:26:25and they still feel rushed.
0:26:28From my perspective it honestly I have never made a video
0:26:32and thought you know boy I had just the right amount of time I have always thought I could I could use another five
0:26:37weeks to really iron this out.
0:26:40But you know I have to draw a line and say no you can't spend another five weeks on this.
0:26:48You need to finish it
0:26:50and just record an animated over the weekend to just get it done right you can't continue to research.
0:26:56I want the videos to be perfect
0:26:58but the the cost the way I look at it the cost of perfection is infinite in terms of time and in terms of resources.
0:27:11So you're always going to have to make some judgment call about how reliable is the source
0:27:17or how many experts do you want to contact before you're OK with this and I mean I will give you I will give you a.
0:27:29I'll give you an example of a place where I thought my ten tendencies to continue to research
0:27:34and this this might sound crazy
0:27:36but for the last video about the CBOE effect I was really nervous about this because I felt a little bit responsible in
0:27:44a video like this where I'm talking about medical stuff right.
0:27:48I'm not talking about history
0:27:51and I felt like there was a greater burden in a video that touches upon a medical topic to make sure that it's really
0:27:59all correct.
0:28:00Yeah and so I ended up going through a whole bunch of research archives online trying to find papers from doctors
0:28:12or researchers who had worked on this this know CBOE effect you know the opposite of the placebo. Yeah.
0:28:19And I ended up sending out about twenty emails to people who had published a bunch of papers
0:28:24and I ended up getting I think in the end I got six people to reply and they had looked over the script
0:28:31and basically every one of them gave it a thumbs up and amazing for most of them I got a thumbs up
0:28:38and a by the way you cannot mention my name or the organization that I work for.
0:28:46You know I can't have it be publicly known that I like gave is the thumbs up right because they face a similar kinds of
0:28:52kinds of issues but they just say if I said the places where these people worked everybody would recognize the names.
0:29:00But even after I'm getting thumbs up from people in the field I had this feeling of OK I have to
0:29:07but I have to really make sure I let me how many.
0:29:10Let me wait until I get responses from more doctors or and that
0:29:13and that is the point where it is clearly just insanity.
0:29:19And I had to say OK I just have to stop there and I have a thumbs up from actual doctors.
0:29:25I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to record the script
0:29:28but my nephew doing the tipping point for you kind of that kind of rational thought that you know well I can't do it
0:29:34forever and I have to draw an arbitrary line. Or is it just the need to eat.
0:29:40Well I mean that is the ugly side of the business is that at a certain point you have to pay your own bills.
0:29:46Right which is which is what I don't exactly have but fairly close have a monthly cycle.
0:29:52There is there is that pressure on one side of it right I can't release one video a year because I will be homeless at
0:29:59that.
0:30:00That just is not practical
0:30:01but it is it is something I keep in mind very much that that the cost of perfection is infinite
0:30:06and so you have you have to draw the line somewhere
0:30:08but with the last video it was very difficult because I was I was extra worried
0:30:14and I think because of that I might not be doing another medical topic any time soon because that was a that was a very
0:30:21stressful experience and I was very nervous when that one went live for quite a while.
0:30:27I kept I kept waiting for some e-mail that would just you know make the whole empire crumble.
0:30:33And fortunately it hasn't come yet.
0:30:35Let me ask you something else and I'm I'm not I mean I'm I'm conscious of time and we can't talk forever.
0:30:39Oh yeah I'm sure we could talk forever.
0:30:41But you do talk there that sort of sources and I and this does tie into things wrong on the Internet. Yeah yeah.
0:30:47How much do you trust the internet.
0:30:50Will he use the Internet as a source or we only trust sources like human beings
0:30:56and I know you spent a lot time in libraries and things like that. Is can the Internet be trusted.
0:31:00The Internet represents a whole lot of things. So I think with where this comes up the most is like with Wikipedia.
0:31:09You know so right so
0:31:10when I used to teach kids there was there was a fierce debate between teachers on the pro vs the anti Wikipedia side
0:31:19and I always came down very strongly on the pro side
0:31:23and I told my students if they were researching something for me like Wikipedia is totally OK copy
0:31:27and pasting from Wikipedia is not. But there's no place to get a better overview from things.
0:31:34You'd be amazed the number of times I've been with like top professors in the field in asking a question
0:31:39and I said I'm not to sure about that let me check and gone straight to work. Yeah so.
0:31:45So here's the thing either it all depends on on what do you need
0:31:51and if if you just want to check some quick fact about something which is totally reliable there's reasons why you
0:31:57can't cite it as a source but ignoring that. For the time being.
0:32:01We compete for a huge number of people's needs is totally fine.
0:32:06The thing that I have and I've complained about this on Twitter sometimes
0:32:09but the thing that I am occasionally disturbed by is if I see something interesting on a weekly article for a topic
0:32:18that I'm pre researching I will go through the sources
0:32:22and try to find the original source of some comment that is mentioned in the Wiki article
0:32:28or the original source of some statistic that is mentioned that extra material to talk to another day.
0:32:35Yeah I mean that's just it right.
0:32:37You can't you can't you know you can't just make a video from the Wikipedia page right. It's not possible.
0:32:43But but the thing that is disturbing is the number of times that that source link doesn't go anywhere
0:32:49or I have found
0:32:52and sometimes where the context of the source link says something that is completely contrary to the feeling that you
0:33:00got from the Wikipedia page itself.
0:33:03And so nothing in the world is perfectly reliable and it's it is hard to know when to trust a source completely
0:33:16and you know for me again while the why we can have a conversation about newspapers all the time for me.
0:33:22General newspapers you know T.V.
0:33:25News that that is the absolute bottom of the barrel for me right that is that is if you want an accurate representation
0:33:35of knowledge of the state of the world that is the worst place that you could possibly start discussing a whole bunch
0:33:41of people with this I'm going to protest. Yes well your former work colleagues.
0:33:46Yeah maybe don't share this with them most of my best friends though so I try to write so that that is at the bottom of
0:33:55my list. But it but it gets really ambiguous very quickly.
0:34:00And it is ultimately going to have to come down to some judgment call that I have to make
0:34:04and that's that is not easy to articulate because sometimes but
0:34:08when you're looking at statistics the organization producing those statistics has some agenda right there pro
0:34:16or anti something
0:34:19and I think on the Internet too often people will just dismiss that they'll say oh you can't trust it is that from that
0:34:24organization because they're pro whatever.
0:34:27But an interesting question is maybe they're pro whatever because because of those statistics.
0:34:33Yeah right that you know there has to be some actual state of the universe.
0:34:38Right there's some state of this thing that is correct.
0:34:41And so there's going to be some organization that is advocating for that thing because of those statistics
0:34:47or against the thing whatever it is
0:34:50and that is yeah I don't have a solid answer for that it ultimately just comes down to a judgment call
0:34:55and it is very very hard sometimes to know who to trust. And at one point what point you have to stop. Stop looking.
0:35:05I will just mention one one last thing here quickly which is I wish I could come up with an example off the top of my
0:35:11head but the number of times I've been looking at some historical stuff
0:35:16and I come across information about how some historical figure the existence of this person is not certain
0:35:25and I find that just fascinating
0:35:28and I think history is a topic in particular where the realm of the unknown is very large.
0:35:35And here's a case where I won't I won't venture venture to be wrong I'll just be vague.
0:35:40Yeah I know this is true for one of the Greek philosophers that there is there is a serious debate over whether
0:35:49or not they existed or whether they were just a debating tool in the writings of other philosophers.
0:35:56And that's probably not going to ever be solved. Yeah right. We'll never know maybe if if you know Greek philosopher X.
0:36:04Was real or not real or if they were just a rhetorical device that was used by everyone at the time or an amalgamation.
0:36:10Robin Hood has sort of said today this amalgamation of a whole bunch of different rogues around at the time
0:36:16and they get sort of merged into one to the road.
0:36:19Right that's the same kind of thing an infinite amount of research is never going to make that situation any more clear
0:36:25that you know there's only so much data that has survived
0:36:27and you run into those kinds of situations as well which is very strange
0:36:31and sometimes very hard to talk about without trying to be wrong
0:36:36or stating something too clearly which is one of the reasons why I can say my videos take a very long time because I
0:36:43think sometimes if you listen to my wording I have chosen very careful wording to not explicitly say something
0:36:51when I
0:36:52when I run into those kinds of situations where you know maybe maybe we don't know maybe there's some amount of uncertainty
0:36:58about this thing
0:36:59and so I think very hard about how to get past something without necessarily bringing this up is a big problem.
0:37:06And I mean I guess the other thing about internet wrongness that sort of flows from that in some ways is that we
0:37:12haven't touched on is the amazing ability now for incorrect information to propagate replicate.
0:37:20Spread wildly and it's become this crazy Google searches show that all the time day he went to so
0:37:26and so is sighting so and so's starting zone sound you like Lagaan.
0:37:30Oh just happened so quickly and so you know pervading. Yeah you come across these this sort of information.
0:37:38Infinite loops where the citations just go in a circle and that is very disturbing.
0:37:45Or it's very hard to find out the original source of the thing because it's just so convoluted
0:37:50and it makes you think of the quote right which jumps right into my head which is that you know the a lie gets halfway
0:37:54around the world before the truth has a chance to put pants on which is usually quoted to Winston Churchill.
0:38:00But if you look into that it's it is not clear where this first came from.
0:38:05It's quoted do a whole bunch of people
0:38:06and I love that there's this quote about this spreading of incorrect information.
0:38:11The origin of it is also uncertain and I think that's those kinds of things which is very interesting sometimes
0:38:18and we live in a world where things are just uncertain it is you can't know
0:38:24or one hundred percent I mean unless you're a mathematician I guess mathematicians know one hundred percent.
0:38:29I think there's one thing we know almost one hundred percent and that's that at times pretty much come to an end.
0:38:34We're going to do another one of they say What do you reckon. OK I think that sounds good I think that sounds good.
0:38:40All right good and going to see a time there. Yeah I'll talk to later but I have to.