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Episode Out of Time: Rio Heist

 

00:00:00   - It's an episode out of time.

00:00:01   - Yeah, it is an episode out of time.

00:00:03   - If you're new to Cortex, what it means is,

00:00:07   we recorded this episode in advance,

00:00:09   much more in advance than we usually do.

00:00:11   We'll get into why later on,

00:00:13   but what that means is, things get a bit weird.

00:00:16   It's what happens, 'cause there's,

00:00:18   especially where we are right now,

00:00:20   there's like stuff coming up,

00:00:22   and this episode will be released

00:00:24   either after or during those things,

00:00:26   and it would make sense that we would talk about them

00:00:28   the show but we can't because we needed to record this one a couple of weeks earlier than usual.

00:00:33   B: Yeah, episode out of time to me is defined by the future past tense of speaking.

00:00:39   M- Yep.

00:00:40   B- Right? We will have, right? That's what that's what an episode out of time is.

00:00:44   We will have had done this thing.

00:00:48   M- Well, here we go then. If you want to get into this. We will have had an incredible poster made

00:00:57   for this episode?

00:00:58   - Yeah, well, maybe.

00:01:00   So it's actually the imperfect future past tense.

00:01:02   Maybe we will have had an incredible poster made.

00:01:05   We don't know because the poster will have to relate

00:01:08   to the contents of the show, which as we're recording,

00:01:12   we have no idea what that's going to be.

00:01:14   And if the poster will come out well.

00:01:16   - Incredible artist, Siege Rowland,

00:01:18   who I've used before for my PodCon posters.

00:01:21   - Yeah.

00:01:22   - He's working, will be working, have worked

00:01:25   on this art for us, but cannot start for another three days from today.

00:01:31   So we have no idea what it's going to be like,

00:01:34   but I expect it's going to be great.

00:01:37   The poster is going to be an awesome Rio heist.

00:01:40   I'm looking forward to seeing it, and it is one of these funny things of like,

00:01:44   "Oh yes, we will be trying this out and seeing if we can make a fun poster for the episode."

00:01:50   And we don't know, although of course if you're hearing this now,

00:01:53   Future us has decided to keep this part in, so there definitely is a link.

00:01:58   But if you're hearing this, it has happened.

00:01:59   Or will happen.

00:02:00   Or it will happen.

00:02:01   If it doesn't happen, this won't be in the show.

00:02:04   And if you are still hearing this, it's because you're spying on us in some creepy way.

00:02:08   That's episode out of time!

00:02:11   Real heist!

00:02:13   Alright, so why are we doing this?

00:02:16   Why have we created this terrible time paradox for ourselves?

00:02:19   I think it's mostly my fault, but also you were very willing to go along with it.

00:02:25   Yeah, this is one of those classic "Gray has a problem, Myke is very happy with the solution."

00:02:30   Yeah, so you are in the world of podcast-a-thon planning. That's what your life looks like right now.

00:02:36   Oh, there's like, I mean, knee-deep in podcast-a-thon planning with an, at the time of recording,

00:02:44   imminent announcement of an iPhone event.

00:02:46   Right.

00:02:47   which looks most likely to me right now

00:02:50   to be occurring in the week of the Podcastathon.

00:02:53   - Perfect timing.

00:02:54   - Is it?

00:02:55   It feels like a tough time,

00:02:57   it's a rough, tough time for me,

00:02:59   but hey, we're gonna make it work

00:03:00   and it will help content for the Podcastathon anyway,

00:03:03   'cause we'll have iPhones to talk about.

00:03:04   But in the coming days,

00:03:07   I'm gonna start breaking down my studio

00:03:09   to start setting up the gazebo again, the balloon room,

00:03:14   and also setting up kind of a new and improved

00:03:17   video recording set up for this year's Podcastathon.

00:03:21   So that's kind of what I've got on my radar right now.

00:03:24   - What's new and improved?

00:03:25   What are you doing?

00:03:26   - I have better lighting and better cameras

00:03:28   and stuff like that than last year,

00:03:30   which is basically all stuff that I've amassed

00:03:33   over the last year of doing Twitch streaming and stuff.

00:03:35   - Ah, okay.

00:03:36   - So I'm able to repurpose all the gear

00:03:38   that I've been using to make my Twitch streams better

00:03:41   into this.

00:03:42   I've got my big fast gaming PC, which is gonna help big time.

00:03:46   I'm in a better kind of like equipment space than I was last year.

00:03:49   Because plus if you remember, trying to buy lights in July and August of 2020, or cameras

00:03:56   was really hard.

00:03:58   Oh right, yes.

00:03:59   Because everyone was buying them for their home working zoom situation.

00:04:03   There were no extension cords to be found anywhere.

00:04:05   It was so different, I was like significantly overpaid just for a Logitech webcam, because

00:04:10   I needed one.

00:04:11   So all of that stuff, it's all a bit easier to procure this time and get everything set

00:04:16   up and have been kind of like adding to my knowledge of how to do good video streaming

00:04:20   or halfway good video streaming stuff over the last year.

00:04:24   So I think I should be in a much better position.

00:04:26   I got a ring light.

00:04:27   Oh, wow.

00:04:28   You're a real beauty vlogger now, Myke.

00:04:30   I know.

00:04:31   It's going to be amazing.

00:04:32   I look forward to seeing that ring of light in your eyes.

00:04:34   I know.

00:04:35   It's going to be beautiful.

00:04:36   I get some real zooms going on.

00:04:38   So we're, we've got a lot going on.

00:04:41   The podcastathon, in case you don't know what that is, it is an 8 hour stream that

00:04:45   we're going to be doing to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

00:04:48   We'll talk about that a little later on in the episode.

00:04:51   But the podcastathon itself is going to be occurring on the 17th of September from 12

00:04:57   to 8pm Eastern Time.

00:04:59   We've got a lot going on there.

00:05:01   And it's at twitch.tv/realafm.

00:05:03   So I'm setting up for that.

00:05:04   And just in general right now, my schedule is bananas.

00:05:08   We're doing a bunch of extra streams and stuff as we hit fundraising goals throughout the

00:05:13   campaign.

00:05:14   So I'm doing one basically as soon as we finish recording today, which I'm sure is going to

00:05:20   go great.

00:05:21   You've got a long day ahead of you.

00:05:22   I feel rough for you after doing a Cortex episode and then going right into a live stream.

00:05:26   I couldn't do it.

00:05:28   You're a real hero.

00:05:29   I actually feel like I'm a little hoarse today.

00:05:31   Like I feel like I can hear it in my voice a little bit.

00:05:34   This is just a busy time.

00:05:36   There's definitely been some better planning this year, because we would usually be coming

00:05:41   straight off of our member specials in August.

00:05:45   So this is one of the reasons we moved those earlier, and I will tell you right now I am

00:05:48   feeling the benefit of that.

00:05:51   The only way that this month could be worse is if you moved the member episodes into September.

00:05:55   If you said, "Oh, we're going to do member episodes."

00:05:57   Some of them were, because some of them would take a while to make, and I was definitely

00:06:00   doing some in September in previous years.

00:06:05   We spaced things out a bit, but as is very normal, we gave ourselves more space and then

00:06:09   put more stuff in.

00:06:10   So, you know, it was a free space.

00:06:13   We just got a lot going on.

00:06:15   September is Myke's busy season, so I think that that's part of the reason when I suggested

00:06:20   to you, "Hey, can we record as early in the month as we possibly can?"

00:06:26   You were very on board with that.

00:06:28   Very into it.

00:06:29   Oh yeah, because this is, at the moment, this is me at my best.

00:06:33   You're getting me at my best, even though it's not as good as normal.

00:06:37   You're getting me at the best I can give you.

00:06:40   [laughter]

00:06:41   P: Aw, thank you, Myke.

00:06:42   I appreciate that.

00:06:44   [laughter]

00:06:45   M: But there was an inciting event, though, right?

00:06:46   Like, you're doing something.

00:06:48   P. Yeah, my inciting event is that I am finally going to be traveling internationally, and

00:06:56   so I view this as the end of my horrible summer swamp of uncertainty that has been really

00:07:03   miserable for the past several months of playing this game of trying to delay travel or like

00:07:11   time travel to be in between COVID waves or-

00:07:14   - Time travel?

00:07:15   (laughing)

00:07:16   If you can time travel around COVID, my friend, I would appreciate it.

00:07:20   (laughing)

00:07:21   We're really leaning into the lore of this episode out of time.

00:07:26   - I was like, "Why did I say that?

00:07:28   I have no idea."

00:07:30   (laughing)

00:07:31   just talking and you say weird words sometimes.

00:07:33   - That's so good. - I think it means like,

00:07:35   I'm trying to time the travel between COVID waves,

00:07:38   but whatever.

00:07:40   - See now, we're leaning into the creation of the poster now.

00:07:43   - Right, okay. - This is how that works.

00:07:44   - Okay, so time travel can be a theme of the fantastic.

00:07:47   But yeah, so like I said, what feels like a lifetime ago,

00:07:54   I think maybe the last theme episode,

00:07:56   I was like, I will not let this year go

00:07:59   without seeing my family. Like, I just refuse.

00:08:02   So this is part of what's ending up happening is I'm going to travel to see some friends

00:08:07   with a thing that we've arranged, took us months and months to try to arrange, and then

00:08:12   after that going to America and I'm going to see my family. And very quickly that ends

00:08:17   up just taking an entire, like, the last three weeks of the month up. And I was like, "Sure,

00:08:25   I can theoretically podcast from the road, but I would just really rather not if there's any way that we can do it in the first week.

00:08:33   And so that's why I was like, I know normally we would do it later, but I don't want to be trying to set up a podcast little studio at my parents' house if I don't absolutely have to.

00:08:43   We've done it before.

00:08:44   Many times, but not for a long time.

00:08:46   Yeah, and also, plus, this is one of those cases where, especially now, I'd rather not

00:08:52   take an afternoon out while I'm with my parents for a Cortex recording if it doesn't really

00:08:57   need to happen, since I haven't seen them in so long at this point in time.

00:09:02   I would feel pretty guilty in requesting that you take time away from your family during

00:09:08   that.

00:09:09   Like, I would feel pretty rough.

00:09:11   I thought, "Come on, I really need to record the show!"

00:09:17   I wouldn't feel good about that.

00:09:18   B: Yeah, so it worked out for both of us that were able to record it, but it does make it

00:09:22   a bit weird because you have all of the biggest events in your whole year, which we would

00:09:27   normally talk about.

00:09:28   I'm going to be releasing a video very soon and it's like, "Oh, we would normally talk

00:09:32   about that," but it's not, like it hasn't actually happened yet, so it's our episode

00:09:37   out of time, which I feel like we do just about every year.

00:09:40   There's at least one, so.

00:09:41   So it's around this time of year. Summer of grey, you know, this is how it goes.

00:09:45   How are you feeling about making the big trip to America?

00:09:50   Um, I'm a little uncertain. I definitely have had this feeling of I don't have any idea

00:09:58   what even to pack anymore. I'm going to be trying to do a gear minimum version of this

00:10:04   trip which is also why I didn't want to record a podcast on the road if I didn't have to.

00:10:08   But yeah, I think, I guess maybe the way it feels is I think I used to be a lot more anxious about travel

00:10:19   years and years ago, and then as the amount of travel in my life increased,

00:10:24   I got less anxious about it and it became more of a routine sort of thing.

00:10:28   And I think now I'm feeling like I did years ago with just the uncertainty of everything,

00:10:35   especially with all of the COVID restrictions, like,

00:10:38   it could very well be that all of this gets cancelled if a COVID test goes wrong,

00:10:43   and I feel like I hate that kind of stuff.

00:10:46   - Yeah, there is a little swab that decides whether all this is happening or not,

00:10:51   and the outcome of that swab, at any point during the many times you need to take one,

00:10:56   - Yeah. - could change everything.

00:10:58   - Yeah, I think I...

00:11:00   according to the current plan, I need to do three COVID swabs,

00:11:04   or four before I can have the full green light to see my parents with the way the travel's

00:11:10   working out and I just hate that. I really hate the uncertainty of that. I haven't done

00:11:14   the first test yet. I think I'm doing it in a couple of days but yes I feel like this

00:11:18   has brought back in all of this feeling of uncertainty around travel that I just don't

00:11:24   like.

00:11:25   So I felt this. I felt this too. So we spoke a little bit in the last Mortex episode about

00:11:31   the fact that I had taken a trip to see some family in Bucharest.

00:11:35   And the way that you're explaining this now too,

00:11:37   it's kind of hit on a thing for me. Now, you know,

00:11:39   me and you were business travelers, right?

00:11:41   We would travel many times a year for business, right?

00:11:45   And in doing that you establish rhythms and you become comfortable with it.

00:11:50   I think what COVID has done,

00:11:52   I expect for many people who are in similar situations to us,

00:11:56   is knock away all of the benefit.

00:11:59   Like I remember what it was like when I used to travel before I travel regularly

00:12:03   and how like I was uncertain about everything.

00:12:06   I was nervous about everything.

00:12:07   I didn't know how it was going to go.

00:12:08   What papers do I need to bring?

00:12:10   I'm back in that, what COVID has done and the amount of time it's been since we

00:12:14   traveled frequently and we've just added uncertainty has basically removed all of

00:12:20   the benefit that I'd gained for being a frequent traveler.

00:12:22   Yes.

00:12:23   Yeah.

00:12:23   100%.

00:12:25   And I'm now back to where I was in 2014 or whatever.

00:12:30   - Yeah, like I've had this anxiety about this stuff is,

00:12:34   so in the UK, you need to get this international pass

00:12:38   for proving that you've been vaccinated.

00:12:41   And I have spent three weeks attempting to get this pass

00:12:46   in time of like, oh, you can order it

00:12:48   and they'll send one to your house and it doesn't,

00:12:50   or you can try to verify it through your phone

00:12:52   and you can get a copy.

00:12:53   but the verification doesn't work.

00:12:55   And so I've had this like slowly increasing level of anxiety

00:13:00   of, oh, I'm doing this three weeks in advance.

00:13:03   So I've got plenty of time to get this one like

00:13:07   Soviet style travel document

00:13:09   that I need to leave the country.

00:13:11   - Papers please.

00:13:12   - Yes, exactly.

00:13:13   Like, oh great, I've got plenty of time.

00:13:15   And it's like, oh, a week later it hasn't arrived.

00:13:16   Okay, well I'll submit it again.

00:13:18   A week later it hasn't arrived.

00:13:19   Okay, I'm gonna try to do it this other way.

00:13:21   And as I've mentioned before on the show,

00:13:23   There is some problem with my particular NHS records that constantly flags up these weird issues.

00:13:29   And so I was trying to do everything just purely electronically,

00:13:33   and getting these bizarre messages where they're like,

00:13:35   "Oh, you don't seem to be registered with the NHS."

00:13:37   I was like, "Oh my God, please just give me this piece of paper so I can travel."

00:13:43   I actually just got it yesterday, but I was literally minutes away from resorting to begging on Twitter.

00:13:52   Is there anyone in my followers?

00:13:54   Oh boy, it got bad.

00:13:56   That's when you know it's bad.

00:13:58   It got really bad.

00:14:00   I am very close to doing this.

00:14:03   To be like, does anyone on Twitter

00:14:05   work at the NHS technical support

00:14:07   to fix whatever this problem is

00:14:10   so that I can fly out in three days?

00:14:13   I've spent three weeks trying to get this stupid piece of paper

00:14:16   and I've just run into all of these.

00:14:19   That, to me, is really what travel used to feel like.

00:14:23   Everything is this one-off, you don't know how it's going to go,

00:14:27   and also with travel, it's like, it's why you get to the airport way early,

00:14:31   because you never know what the variance and delays are going to be like,

00:14:35   and this is what this felt like, of like, "Oh, great, I started three weeks ahead of time,

00:14:39   I thought I had more than enough time, and I actually made it with three days to spare,

00:14:45   which is way too close for comfort to get this piece of paper."

00:14:48   - I agree with all of the reasons

00:14:51   for having this documentation, right?

00:14:53   Like I think proof of vaccination for travel,

00:14:56   I think makes a lot of sense.

00:14:57   And it can help make things easier

00:15:00   for you on the other side, right?

00:15:01   But it doesn't take away the fact

00:15:04   that it is an increasingly

00:15:07   and incredibly complicated procedure.

00:15:09   - Yeah.

00:15:10   - And when it doesn't work right,

00:15:11   then what are you gonna do, right?

00:15:13   - Yeah, and the other level of anxiety is,

00:15:16   So I'm going to Europe first before I'm then traveling straight to America

00:15:20   and just trying to work the logistics of getting a COVID test in time to be able to take the flights

00:15:27   and it's like "oh I'm in a slightly remote area so this is difficult"

00:15:30   It's all very anxiety producing so I cannot say that I am loving getting ready for travel

00:15:40   Yeah I'm still not sure why you're doing this on medium to hard mode

00:15:44   I know that there's things you want to do, but stacking trips together just seems like

00:15:49   you're making things way harder for yourself.

00:15:51   I know that I am, but there's two things here.

00:15:54   One of which is stacking trips together allows me to go to America sooner.

00:15:59   So that's something I would like to do.

00:16:01   The other thing is I just want to try to minimize time at airports.

00:16:05   So that's my main thing.

00:16:07   That all seems fair.

00:16:08   I mean, I get it, but it's still like it's harder.

00:16:13   It is harder.

00:16:14   I'm not that worried about being on the actual plane, that's not my primary source of concerns,

00:16:19   but just think if I can just spend less time at the airport, that would be fantastic.

00:16:25   This is also where I don't know what odds to give it, but I don't know, I would say

00:16:33   there's like maybe a 50/50 chance that I have to come back to the UK anyway before going

00:16:38   back to America.

00:16:39   I don't know, so like we'll have to see.

00:16:42   But that's exactly the kind of stuff you just don't want with travel.

00:16:45   With travel, I want it nice and certain so you don't have to worry.

00:16:49   That's where I currently am.

00:16:50   I will feel much better when I get four, three or four green lights from COVID tests and

00:16:56   I'm able to fly to America.

00:16:59   Good luck.

00:17:00   Thank you.

00:17:01   I feel like I'm gonna need it.

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00:18:51   Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Let's do it again. Come on, let's do it again.

00:18:56   I want to do it again.

00:18:57   Oh yeah? You want to have that conversation a second time?

00:19:00   I don't want to do over.

00:19:01   - We really worked ourselves up in that conversation.

00:19:04   That was a funny one to listen back to in the editing bay.

00:19:07   - We got upset, huh?

00:19:09   - Yeah, I was really surprised at how worked up

00:19:11   I got during the show.

00:19:12   - We were, I mean, the thing was we were riling each other up

00:19:14   because we both hit upon things that we didn't like

00:19:17   about the book and then finding somebody else

00:19:19   to complain about, we were just like,

00:19:21   we were whipped up into a storm.

00:19:24   It was one of those things where, you know,

00:19:25   you always say this and I get it sometimes,

00:19:27   but this was definitely an episode where I'm listening back

00:19:29   and I'm like, I'd love another go on that.

00:19:32   Because I could feel my point in some of the stuff

00:19:35   that I was trying to say,

00:19:36   but I know I didn't get it across just right.

00:19:38   But not in such a way that honestly I feel like

00:19:40   is necessary for me to clarify now.

00:19:43   I'm happy with the episode, but there are just points

00:19:45   where it's like when you hear yourself say it,

00:19:47   I wish that everybody that was going to hear me

00:19:51   say this thing, I could see their faces when I said it.

00:19:54   - Right, right.

00:19:54   - So I could gauge if my point had been understood.

00:19:57   And that's just the risk that you make

00:20:00   when you create things for people to hear.

00:20:03   - Yeah, well, and also I think it's very clear

00:20:05   that we also sound riled up, right?

00:20:07   Like you could just hear the riling up increasing.

00:20:10   And so I do think that helps in people's listening.

00:20:13   It was just very funny.

00:20:14   Like I didn't realize how annoyed I was in the book

00:20:16   until we started talking to each other.

00:20:17   They were like, "Rah, this is terrible."

00:20:21   But one thing I do just want to say at first,

00:20:23   I feel like there was just a fantastic discussion

00:20:25   in the Reddit about that episode.

00:20:27   I feel like it was a really great discussion on all parts.

00:20:30   - I greatly valued it.

00:20:31   - Yeah, yeah, it was very interesting to read.

00:20:33   I think it was also just a great case

00:20:35   where people clearly disagreed with each other,

00:20:39   but everyone was being civil about it.

00:20:41   And it's like, oh, you know,

00:20:43   we're arguing it from this side or from that side.

00:20:45   So I really enjoyed the conversation in the Reddit

00:20:48   from that last episode.

00:20:48   - I greatly value when somebody can disagree with me

00:20:52   and I can be frustrated that they disagreed with me,

00:20:55   but know that they're right.

00:20:56   - Yeah.

00:20:57   - You know, 'cause it's like,

00:20:58   no, you didn't understand this point correctly,

00:21:00   or like, I understand that you're upset,

00:21:03   but you have misunderstood the fundamental issue

00:21:05   of what he was trying to get across.

00:21:06   And it's like, I'm still annoyed at what I've read,

00:21:10   like in the book, and I'm annoyed that someone

00:21:12   has been able to show me where I'm wrong,

00:21:14   but I appreciate it because I can understand it.

00:21:16   You know, and it's 'cause there was like a lot of people

00:21:18   saying like, some of the stuff I was getting

00:21:20   the most upset about was exact examples

00:21:23   of what Kahneman was trying to point out.

00:21:25   My system one was making me mad and that was the point.

00:21:29   And I still stand by the fact of like,

00:21:31   okay, I understand that,

00:21:33   but I don't think he explained himself very well.

00:21:35   And so, you know, this was the kind of conversation

00:21:38   that was going on in the subreddit.

00:21:39   I know that we both really enjoyed it

00:21:40   and I loved how many people you got to introduce

00:21:43   to replication crisis to.

00:21:46   I have had people like in my life tell me about that,

00:21:48   like that they first heard about it on the show,

00:21:50   like in this last episode and it's freaking them out.

00:21:52   - Oh yeah? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:54   me and my wife had had a great discussion about it

00:21:57   'cause I was telling her about it

00:21:58   on the night we were recording

00:21:59   and not doing a very good job of explaining the point.

00:22:03   And she was like, "Nah, I don't know

00:22:04   what you're talking about."

00:22:05   And then when she heard the episode,

00:22:06   she was like, "Oh yeah, no, this sounds terrible."

00:22:08   (both laughing)

00:22:11   'Cause she was in the camp of like, "Nah, there's no way."

00:22:14   - There's no way what?

00:22:15   What does she mean by there's no way?

00:22:16   - As in there's no way that journals would publish stuff

00:22:19   that wasn't thoroughly researched.

00:22:21   - Right, right, right.

00:22:22   Just because our brains, I think, like to believe that there's just no way that would happen.

00:22:27   Yeah, I think there's um...

00:22:29   I don't know how to express this in a way.

00:22:33   I think I said this in the last episode.

00:22:35   I'm very cautious about...

00:22:38   You don't want to encourage people to become cynical about everything.

00:22:43   I think a cynical and reflexive disbelieving in things

00:22:48   is worse than a credulous believing in everything.

00:22:52   Like I think there's a way in which that can be much worse.

00:22:54   And sometimes when you talk about these things,

00:22:56   it's very easy to give the impression

00:22:58   that everything published is totally wrong.

00:23:01   And that's not what I'm saying here.

00:23:03   But I say that as preface to the sentence

00:23:06   where partly because of replication crisis

00:23:08   and partly because of the work that I do

00:23:10   on videos and things,

00:23:11   I wanna kind of express this idea very delicately

00:23:16   that things like books and journals for me have totally lost a certain shine that they

00:23:24   used to have when I was younger.

00:23:26   Where you'd be like, "Oh, this book!

00:23:29   It's full of knowledge!"

00:23:31   And now my feeling is a lot more like, "Oh, this book!

00:23:35   It was written by a person!"

00:23:36   You know, like a person.

00:23:38   All these books were written by a person.

00:23:40   And it's not like "the book is this thing that has knowledge."

00:23:43   Like no, no, like a person wrote this book.

00:23:45   I know people who write books and I just look at it very differently in this way

00:23:49   that's a little bit hard to articulate.

00:23:51   And that also translates to these papers and journals that get published.

00:23:55   It's like, yes, it's a scientist who's publishing this or a social scientist

00:24:00   who's publishing this, but they're a person, right?

00:24:03   It's not true.

00:24:04   It's not automatically true that this is, this is the case, but I'm sometimes just

00:24:09   hesitant to express this idea too much because I think people can trip over into

00:24:13   cynicism too fast.

00:24:14   I think we put weight in the idea of something, sometimes too heavily.

00:24:20   Like, "This is science."

00:24:23   Okay?

00:24:24   Right?

00:24:25   Like, you know what, like, this is science, so it must be true.

00:24:29   It's science.

00:24:30   Yeah, I really like, I don't want to get off on a tangent on this, but I feel like over

00:24:34   the last 10 years, I've just gotten really sad with the way people use the word science.

00:24:39   I've heard this word to describe it, which is like "scientism," which describes the way

00:24:45   that people talk about science as someone who did a bachelor's in physics a long time

00:24:51   ago.

00:24:52   It's just, I don't know, there's something about it that really breaks my heart in the

00:24:54   way that it's just become another one of these, like, "You have to believe what I'm saying!

00:24:59   Like, this is science!"

00:25:00   Like, "Oh, did you, like, did you look at that paper that you're pointing to?

00:25:04   It's terrible!"

00:25:05   [laughs]

00:25:06   You know, this isn't a word that just wins an argument that says that you're right.

00:25:11   But it's like, how do you express that idea without also unintentionally tearing down

00:25:16   the entirety of our knowledge-making institutions?

00:25:20   I don't know a way to properly thread that needle sometimes.

00:25:24   And also like I was trying to express last time that it's very different depending on

00:25:28   which fields you're talking about.

00:25:30   It's not equally applicable to everything.

00:25:32   more problems in some areas than in other areas. But yeah, so the other thing that I

00:25:38   thought was just interesting timing on the part of the universe was between when we recorded

00:25:44   that episode and when we published that episode, there was another huge researcher who got

00:25:52   wrapped up in the replication crisis, which is Dan Ariely. And he's been doing work for

00:25:59   for 10 years about honesty and like a bunch of studies about honesty in the social sciences

00:26:06   and it came out while we were editing this like let's just put it this way there are

00:26:10   some doubts about the veracity of this data about honesty so it's really kicked up a lot

00:26:18   of conversation again about the replication crisis and what's going on

00:26:21   I know you were particularly excited to send me that link.

00:26:26   Like I could feel it, you're like, "It's happening again!"

00:26:28   You know?

00:26:30   Well, you know, it's just further example, Myke,

00:26:32   that my attention directs the actions of the universe.

00:26:34   It's like, "Oh, of course this happens right now.

00:26:36   Why wouldn't it?"

00:26:37   That's an interesting view to have.

00:26:38   I think a lot of this stuff, we'll get back to it in a minute,

00:26:41   but like a lot of this stuff, it underlines like a thought that I've had

00:26:44   since I was kind of like a late teen and not enjoying math anymore.

00:26:49   The thing I used to struggle with quite a bit, and I still do it to an extent, which is

00:26:54   everything we know has been explained by and codified by other humans.

00:27:03   And humans make mistakes, sometimes purely based on

00:27:13   the maximum amount of technology they have available to them.

00:27:18   And as technology develops, we learn new things which invalidate the previous way that we thought about something.

00:27:26   So if we base our truth on other human discoveries, it's only waiting until the next discovery is made to invalidate that previous truth.

00:27:37   And I find that very troubling as a thought.

00:27:41   Yeah.

00:27:42   Like I think about the best example for me is like medicine and the way that we treated things

00:27:48   100 years ago, 20 years ago, to the way that we treat certain things now.

00:27:54   And that's the kind of stuff where it's like, well, we thought we were doing the right thing

00:27:58   because that was what we had discovered, but it turns out that there was a different thing

00:28:02   or it was the wrong thing the whole time.

00:28:04   Yeah, I mean, I have a little bit of a different take on this.

00:28:07   And this is that idea that you're expressing is actually the idea that I am concerned about

00:28:13   being too deep in people.

00:28:16   And it's because, again, I know the social science people hate this, but you have to

00:28:21   suck it up for a minute that your field is terrible and doesn't replicate.

00:28:26   And medicine has a bunch of particular problems.

00:28:29   But in general, the path of knowledge, the more you get down towards the fundamental

00:28:35   pieces of the universe, the more it is like we are approaching building a model that represents

00:28:43   what the universe is like.

00:28:45   And this is why physics is really at the bottom of this, where you can look at the history

00:28:50   of physics and go, "Oh, there was the, there's the Copernican revolution, and then there's

00:28:54   the Newtonian revolution, and then there's the Einsteinian revolution."

00:28:59   And I think it's easy for people to get the idea in their heads that, "Oh, everything

00:29:06   was wrong and then Einstein came along and now we think everything that Einstein said

00:29:09   was right and we're just waiting for the next person to come along and then it's all gonna

00:29:13   get turned over again."

00:29:15   But in the physical world, when we're talking about those kinds of changes in science, what

00:29:19   we're actually talking about is very small changes in increasing edge cases of how does

00:29:28   the physical universe work? And so, you know, Einstein comes along with his theory of general

00:29:34   relativity and sure, there's a way that you can say, "Oh, Newton's formulas of motion,

00:29:41   they are now wrong, but they're only wrong for objects that are approaching the speed

00:29:48   of light," right? Which is something that Newton just totally couldn't have known about.

00:29:53   And so Einstein and Newton completely agree on the physics of how do objects move at everyday

00:30:00   speeds and everyday sizes.

00:30:02   There's like a refinement that's gone on there.

00:30:05   But lots of sciences are not like the physical sciences.

00:30:09   And that's where there is this difference.

00:30:11   And I think medicine is a particularly interesting case because for a huge period of history,

00:30:18   basically until the Spanish influenza in about 1912, you could kind of say that all medicine

00:30:26   was just random, ineffective guessing, like for the most part.

00:30:32   Medical treatment was just a total roll of the dice before 1912.

00:30:38   And in 1912, we then learned some very basic things about hygiene and the germ theory and

00:30:46   communicable diseases and sanitation and we've reaped huge rewards from that over time. And

00:30:54   it's like, why did we reap awards from that? Because what we learned about medicine represents

00:31:00   the physical way that the world works. Like we have a better understanding of that. But

00:31:06   some of the modern medicine stuff doesn't work out as well because you're trying to

00:31:11   measure like very small effect sizes across large populations. Medicine is just an intrinsically

00:31:17   messier field. It's a lot harder to know certain kinds of things. The joke about this is always

00:31:24   like, "Are eggs good for you? Are eggs bad for you?" Right? But if we were to discover,

00:31:30   "Oh, there's definitely a measurable effect that eggs are bad for you," it doesn't like overturn.

00:31:37   But we know washing hands is good.

00:31:39   [laughs]

00:31:39   Like, it's incredibly unlikely that we're going to discover at some point,

00:31:44   "Oh, we were just making a mistake about washing hands."

00:31:47   And the reason it's unlikely we're going to make a mistake about that

00:31:51   is because it's built on a physical model of how does the world work.

00:31:55   Like, we have evidence that germs exist.

00:31:57   We know the physics of why does soap kill germs?

00:32:02   Why does it break cell walls down?

00:32:03   Like, we know all of these things,

00:32:05   so you should be building up a stronger and stronger knowledge of how does the physical world work.

00:32:10   But the further you get away from the physical world,

00:32:16   the more you can be certain that the knowledge is uncertain.

00:32:21   And that's what brings us to the social sciences,

00:32:23   which are trying to study the interactions between humans,

00:32:27   which, while yes, at core,

00:32:31   humans are just made of atoms and atoms follow physical rules. It's like, yeah, that's great.

00:32:37   It's technically true, but it's totally useless for talking about humans. So the way that we

00:32:42   actually have to talk about how are humans under these circumstances? When do humans lie? When do

00:32:49   humans act greedy? When do humans cheat each other? Like all of these things that we study,

00:32:55   The uncertainty there is just huge because you're not really dealing with a physical world system

00:33:02   and it's why it's sort of brutal to say but particularly in the social sciences it's like

00:33:09   "Oh if Einstein went back in time and could talk to Newton, he could teach Newton a lot about physics

00:33:16   that Newton would understand and go 'wow that's amazing' but if social scientists go back in time

00:33:23   they're really just gonna have like an ideological argument with their predecessors.

00:33:29   They're not gonna have so much like a "here's the improvement we have made in the physical model of the universe" argument.

00:33:38   I do believe that there is great value to be found in this kind of work,

00:33:46   but it's the way that the conclusions are presented is the important part, I think.

00:33:50   Yeah, so part of the problem here as well is when you talk about the social world,

00:33:54   is it's people talking about the results.

00:33:56   So one of the things that I got a bit of criticism on, on the last episode was,

00:34:02   why do you not get this angry at people for the business books that you read?

00:34:08   Now, one, I feel like we do get angry at the business books, but maybe don't try and like

00:34:13   fundamentally disagree with them and say you have no proof of this.

00:34:19   The reason that Thinking Fast and Slow specifically perturbed me is that everything that was being

00:34:28   posed in this book was being posed as science, where typically in the books that we read

00:34:34   they are posed as somebody's opinion or things they have observed.

00:34:38   And they say, "From these observations I have drawn this conclusion," but they are not trying

00:34:43   to suggest to me that it was done through a series of scientific experiments and that

00:34:50   makes a difference for me because now we're talking about in the effective executive is

00:34:56   like here's a bunch of ideas that I've come from my experience which I like that kind

00:35:01   of thing on a general level but in thinking fast and slow Kahneman is saying to me I have

00:35:06   scientifically observed this here is truth.

00:35:09   Yeah.

00:35:10   And that distinction is important to me.

00:35:11   - Yeah, I think it's like listening to people

00:35:14   talk about productivity.

00:35:15   Like it's something I enjoy doing,

00:35:16   listening to how people work.

00:35:19   But people, when they talk that way,

00:35:20   like when we talk about that,

00:35:22   the sentence never ends with,

00:35:23   "And that's why everyone should work the way I do."

00:35:26   - I feel like we're pretty good with that.

00:35:28   Like we talk about what we like and what works for us,

00:35:31   but I don't think we've ever said like,

00:35:33   this is the way to do it.

00:35:35   Like this is the app, this is the system.

00:35:37   If you're not doing it this way,

00:35:39   except for the theme system, of course,

00:35:41   If you're not doing it this way,

00:35:42   it's all a mess for you and you won't make it work.

00:35:45   - But even the theme system is very flexible, right?

00:35:47   On purpose.

00:35:48   - That's the point of it, right?

00:35:48   For this reason, 'cause of our tastes, right?

00:35:51   Which is why we don't, I've never defined like,

00:35:54   in this box you write this, in this box you write this,

00:35:56   because that's not how we work.

00:35:58   Like that's kind of the whole point,

00:36:00   because I bristled at so many of those things out there,

00:36:03   because they were trying to put me in boxes,

00:36:04   as to say like, your life will improve

00:36:07   if you do it the exact way that we want you to.

00:36:09   and I don't like that kind of stuff.

00:36:12   And I feel like as well, like we have, I believe,

00:36:14   shown over time with the way that we get our work done

00:36:18   that we change.

00:36:20   So we would never say like this is the only way to do it.

00:36:24   And that's, I think, the main thing that frustrated me

00:36:27   because I do feel like, as I say,

00:36:28   I feel like there is value in the social sciences

00:36:31   but we need to understand that they are flexible

00:36:34   and much more opinionated than physical sciences.

00:36:38   Yeah, I mean I can't quite get behind that sentence because I feel like that's a sentence if you write it down I go

00:36:43   What is that? What does that sentence mean? What's that sentence?

00:36:45   Let me tell what I was trying to say there is I feel like I feel like at least from my limited experience

00:36:51   That say some of the stuff in thinking fast and slow

00:36:54   He will observe something and then say I believe it means this basically but the I believe part is taken away

00:37:02   I'll give you a sentence that I highlighted last time and I was I was sad that we missed over it

00:37:06   Okay.

00:37:07   Kahneman has an amazing sentence.

00:37:08   I think it's at the end of chapter four, where he says,

00:37:12   "Disbelief is not an option.

00:37:15   These results are not made up, nor are they statistical flukes.

00:37:19   You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions

00:37:23   of these studies are true."

00:37:25   I hate that so much.

00:37:26   Like that is-

00:37:27   What a claim, man.

00:37:28   What?

00:37:29   Like-

00:37:29   That, the reason that really stuck out to me is I thought, you know, I've, I've

00:37:33   had the experience of working with physicists who would not make a sentence that strong.

00:37:38   It's like, "If you tell me this, I am not going to believe you."

00:37:42   You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true.

00:37:49   It's really, it's quite, it's amazing. And considering everything that's happened

00:37:53   since, that sentence is extra amazing for a bunch of reasons. But it's like, we weren't

00:37:58   just pulling out of nowhere, Kahneman is telling you, like, these things are true.

00:38:03   you have no choice but to just go along with it.

00:38:06   He literally says, "Disbelief is not an option."

00:38:10   It's just like, I've been in churches

00:38:12   that wouldn't make that sentence, right?

00:38:14   It's crazy.

00:38:16   - I think, again, it's just like, what annoys me is,

00:38:18   I've really taken something away

00:38:21   from system one and system two.

00:38:22   Like, over the last few weeks, it's been popping up.

00:38:24   Like, I've done a thing and I'm like,

00:38:26   that was system one way of doing things.

00:38:28   Like, I just reacted immediately without thinking, you know?

00:38:33   And so I genuinely believe that there is value in this book.

00:38:36   It just wasn't presented to me in a way

00:38:39   that I was comfortable with.

00:38:41   - Yeah, it wasn't.

00:38:42   - And then you made it worse.

00:38:43   (laughs)

00:38:44   - And then I made it worse.

00:38:45   And so I do, with the replication crisis,

00:38:48   I do just wanna follow up just a couple of things

00:38:50   that I think were interesting for like after the show

00:38:53   and what happened about the book.

00:38:54   Not just that, oh, now the universe is tossing up

00:38:57   the replication crisis again.

00:38:58   And so a bunch of like writers and podcasters I follow

00:39:01   also talking about it because of the Dan Ariely thing, which I can just say is an interesting

00:39:07   case of there's a question of did this major researcher fabricate data and who knows if

00:39:13   it's true. I don't know if it's true. I haven't looked into it that much, but it doesn't matter

00:39:17   to me because it still gets to the heart of the replication crisis where one of the most

00:39:21   high profile researchers, no one tried to replicate his results for 10 years and it

00:39:27   It just stood as a thing where people are like, "Oh, it's true.

00:39:31   Yeah, it must be true."

00:39:33   - And it's also like, it doesn't matter whether he lied.

00:39:37   Someone will.

00:39:38   - Yes.

00:39:39   - Somebody's going to because they're human beings.

00:39:42   - Yeah, exactly.

00:39:44   You have to know that when people's careers depend on publishing papers that other people

00:39:51   cite, there is going to be an incentive to make interesting, citable papers, which does

00:39:57   not always align with the incentive of accurately describing how the world works. So if you

00:40:03   can write a paper that you know will, one, get a lot of attention, and that two, people

00:40:08   in your field will love and want to link to, there's a big incentive to write that paper,

00:40:13   even if it's not based on anything. But so just a couple little things I just want to

00:40:17   mention that happened since the book was published that I just, I think are great, and that we

00:40:22   could just kind of close this forever. But so where is the link? I stumbled upon there's

00:40:28   a great blog post that tries to summarize a whole bunch of the replicability of Kahneman's

00:40:36   work. Oh yeah, there it is. So it's this replication. replicability index.com wrote this article

00:40:43   a couple of years ago called reconstruction of a train wreck how priming research went

00:40:50   off the rails. So it's an interesting article, I won't put it in the show notes, I won't

00:40:56   go through all of this, but just a couple of things that are interesting to point out.

00:41:00   So the title actually comes from Kahneman. So my guess about this book being published

00:41:07   right at the end of when it was possible to publish this book looks like it was correct,

00:41:12   because the year after it came out, when people had lots of suspicions about these sorts of

00:41:17   studies being replicable,

00:41:19   Kahneman wrote an open email

00:41:22   to his colleagues who had done a bunch of this work.

00:41:25   And I think this quote from this email is astounding.

00:41:27   So I'm just going to read this.

00:41:29   This is from Kahneman in an open email.

00:41:31   As all of you know, of course, questions have been raised about the robustness of priming results.

00:41:37   Your field is now the poster child for doubts about the integrity of psychological research.

00:41:43   People have now attached a question mark to the field, and it is your responsibility to remove it.

00:41:48   All I have personally at stake is that I recently wrote a book that emphasizes priming research

00:41:54   as a new approach to the study of associative memory.

00:41:57   "Count me as a general believer. My reason for writing this letter is that I see a train

00:42:02   wreck looming." So that's where the title of this article comes from.

00:42:05   Do you not think it might have been your fault then?

00:42:08   I mean, I think that is a very interestingly worded open email.

00:42:13   Yeah. And it is worth, I think, the quote here. It looks like it has been in this blog

00:42:18   post because there's a lot of ellipses has been like chopped up.

00:42:21   Yeah, it is a chopped up quote, which is fair to say, but I still think like the basic sentences

00:42:25   there are conveying a certain idea that Kahneman has reinforced at later points in time.

00:42:32   But so, it's this really interesting thing that goes through and tries to talk about

00:42:35   what is the replicability of the studies that are in the book.

00:42:39   And the bottom line is the researcher comes up with this score of a replicability index

00:42:45   where you can say, "Oh, if a paper scores below 50, it means that it was probably the

00:42:49   result is by chance."

00:42:51   the average score of the studies cited in the book is 14. It's a 1 to 100 scale. It's

00:42:59   brutal. Like some of the specific studies are scored at like 6, which is like you can

00:43:06   say, oh, it's almost certain that this will never replicate.

00:43:10   Okay, this is this is a little complicated, I think for me to get my head around. But

00:43:15   basically what you're saying is, you have a score of up to 100, right? Imagine it's

00:43:21   a math test or whatever, and Kahneman's work scored 14 out of 100.

00:43:26   Yeah, well again, it's not his work, it's the things that are being cited in the book.

00:43:31   The things that he is showing in Thinking Fast and Slow.

00:43:33   Yeah.

00:43:34   Is that what he's saying?

00:43:35   Yes.

00:43:36   You're trying to do a statistical analysis which says, you can use a combination of things,

00:43:39   you can say, what is the strength of the effect that you're trying to measure?

00:43:43   So if an effect is very strong, you should be able to measure it with fewer people.

00:43:47   And then they're saying, you know, what is the number of people that you studied this

00:43:50   effect on?

00:43:51   So you can use those numbers to come up with a rough, how replicable might this be at all

00:43:58   kind of score.

00:44:00   And so this is a little bit of what I was talking about last time, where you just like,

00:44:05   people who are not good at math don't make it in the physical sciences, but you can make

00:44:11   it in the social sciences.

00:44:13   It's really interesting.

00:44:14   So anyway, this article goes through this whole thing.

00:44:15   It is, there's no other way to describe it.

00:44:18   It's brutal.

00:44:18   Like the description of the studies and the likelihood of them replicating is brutal.

00:44:23   The number of them that have never been attempted to be replicated, it's absolutely awful.

00:44:27   But what's really interesting is that Kahneman himself actually replied to this thing.

00:44:34   He leaves a comment at the bottom, and so here's his remark on it.

00:44:38   "What this blog post gets absolutely right is that I placed too much faith in underpowered

00:44:44   studies.

00:44:45   pointed out in the blog, "There is a special irony in my mistake because the first paper

00:44:50   that I published was about the belief in the law of small numbers, which allows researchers

00:44:55   to trust the results of underpowered studies with unreasonably small sample sizes. I failed

00:45:01   to internalize this message." So Kahneman here does admit and does say that like, oh,

00:45:09   yeah, tons of the studies have tiny sample sizes, so they can't possibly be measuring

00:45:14   what they claim to be measuring.

00:45:16   But it still ends in this weird way, so he's now talking about chapters 3 and 4, he says,

00:45:23   "Clearly the experimental evidence for the ideas I presented were significantly weaker

00:45:27   than I believed when I wrote it.

00:45:29   This was simply an error.

00:45:31   I knew all I needed to know to moderate my enthusiasm for the surprising and elegant

00:45:35   findings that I cited, but I did not think it through.

00:45:40   I am still attached to every study that I cited and have not unbelieved them.

00:45:45   I would be happy to see each of them replicated in a large sample size.

00:45:50   The lesson I have learned, however, is that authors who review a field should be wary

00:45:54   of using memorable results of underpowered studies as evidence for their claims."

00:45:59   So I just think it's like, oof.

00:46:03   Here's what I don't understand.

00:46:06   So this was in 2017.

00:46:09   is the book still being sold unaltered?

00:46:11   That's what I want to know.

00:46:14   If he believes this now, why is there now not at least an updated foreword from Kahneman

00:46:20   where he explains that? Where he's like, this is the book that I wrote then, since

00:46:24   then some of the examples have been caught into doubt, I still believe everything that

00:46:29   you're about to read. You know what I mean? Like, because he's saying here he stands

00:46:34   by it, which, respect to him, right? Stand by your work if you believe in it and you

00:46:38   you still want to make money from it, right?

00:46:39   Like if you think it should be sold still,

00:46:42   you have to stand by it and he's doing that

00:46:43   and that's fine, right?

00:46:45   But I didn't know any of this when I started reading

00:46:48   Thinking Fast and Slow.

00:46:49   So I'm buying the book and believing what he has to say.

00:46:53   And it wouldn't bother me if he did that, right?

00:46:56   Like if there was a new forward and it was like,

00:46:58   this was written a long time ago,

00:47:00   this is what I knew back then or believed to know back then,

00:47:02   I stand by everything.

00:47:04   but the validity of some of these experiments

00:47:08   has been called into question.

00:47:11   - Yeah. - You know?

00:47:12   Because this is what I wanted to get across.

00:47:14   I have no issue if that's the case

00:47:18   because it doesn't bother me.

00:47:21   And what I would prefer is if he just explained these things

00:47:24   that he believes, these conclusions that he's drawn,

00:47:28   in a human to human way.

00:47:30   But the problem with the book, I'll say it again,

00:47:34   All he wants to do is tell me about the experiments,

00:47:37   the science of what he's done

00:47:41   as a way to prove the conclusions that he draws.

00:47:44   And so I'm only more annoyed now.

00:47:49   Because in 2017, he was like,

00:47:53   "Oh, I'm not so sure about this anymore."

00:47:56   But it's 2021 and I can still give him money for his book.

00:47:59   - Yeah, that's the thing that I,

00:48:02   going through this and reading his responses.

00:48:04   They're carefully worded sentences,

00:48:07   but I was surprised that the current editions of the book

00:48:10   make absolutely no reference to this.

00:48:13   - And like, I am not saying the book shouldn't be sold,

00:48:18   right, like, "Oh, burn the book, take it off the shelf!"

00:48:20   - Yeah, yeah, I'm not saying that either, yeah.

00:48:21   - But I feel like there should be

00:48:25   some kind of reference to this.

00:48:28   That just seems so strange to me

00:48:30   that the author publicly says it.

00:48:33   That's the part that's weird.

00:48:35   People saying, like that blog post existing

00:48:38   doesn't make me feel like Kahneman needs to update the book.

00:48:42   But if Kahneman will say it if you ask him,

00:48:45   why doesn't he tell me?

00:48:48   - Right, this is the interesting thing.

00:48:49   Like people can criticize other people's ideas all the time

00:48:52   and the originator of the ideas

00:48:54   cannot necessarily agree or whatever.

00:48:57   But this is a case where it's like,

00:48:59   oh, this brutal takedown of the work,

00:49:02   and the author's like, I agree.

00:49:04   Although, comma, I don't unbelieve my ideas still,

00:49:08   and I would love to see them replicated.

00:49:10   Like, yeah, of course you would.

00:49:12   Of course you'd love to see them replicated.

00:49:14   - 'Cause then you can believe them

00:49:15   as much as you like, right?

00:49:16   - Yeah, but to conclude with,

00:49:17   like the lesson I have learned is that authors

00:49:19   who review a field should be wary

00:49:21   of using memorable results of underpowered studies

00:49:23   as evidence for their claim,

00:49:24   and that clearly the experimental evidence

00:49:26   for the ideas I presented in the chapter

00:49:28   significantly weaker than I believed when I wrote it, like maybe take out that sentence of "disbelief

00:49:35   is not an option, the results are not made up, nor are they statistical flukes, you have no choice but

00:49:40   to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true!" It's brutal!

00:49:45   Got him!

00:49:45   Got him!

00:49:46   It's brutal!

00:49:49   That is incredible to put those two things next to each other! And again, it's like,

00:49:54   This wouldn't be fair, I feel like, this wouldn't be fair if we were taking this from like a blog post he wrote in 2015

00:50:02   and said like "hey look you said this back then how can you because I believe people can change their views"

00:50:09   but if you've changed your view and you sell a product you've got to up you got to change

00:50:16   you got to make an amendment to the book.

00:50:18   Yeah, like I've been seeing this book in every airport I've ever gone to in a prominent place for years.

00:50:24   I'm sure I'm gonna see it when I get to the airport in a couple of days like there it's gonna be!

00:50:30   Thinking fast and slow.

00:50:31   That's why we did this book.

00:50:33   We had to pick one and we've seen it everywhere forever!

00:50:37   Yeah, exactly.

00:50:38   And considering he just published a new book, you've got to assume that they're reprinting this one.

00:50:45   Yeah, that's wild. This is wild to me. This is wild to me.

00:50:50   You know, again, we're not trying to do a takedown here of someone.

00:50:54   Again, it's such a weird position to be in because we keep saying like,

00:50:57   I actually agree with the fundamental thesis of the book in almost every general way.

00:51:02   System one and two is so good. It's so good. It's so clever.

00:51:08   It's like just a great way of encapsulating something.

00:51:11   And if like, this was Thinking Fast and Slow by like, Steven Levy, right?

00:51:16   Or he's not pretending to be a scientist, we would have come away from it and been like, great.

00:51:21   Yeah.

00:51:21   Right?

00:51:22   Yeah, so it's just a it's such a weird thing of like, oh, there's a lot of work that says humans aren't perfect economic rational decision makers.

00:51:30   Like, yeah, right behind you on that dude.

00:51:33   Having done a lot of research, it sure seems like Kahneman is right at the heart of this replication crisis.

00:51:39   and it's like sort of going along with it.

00:51:42   - Yeah, weirdly chooses to be as well.

00:51:46   Makes choices in his life to be a part of it,

00:51:49   which is very peculiar to me.

00:51:52   - Yeah, the whole thing is very strange.

00:51:54   So anyway, I felt like because we had

00:51:56   such an impassioned conversation about that book

00:51:59   and because all of this stuff happened

00:52:00   and then like finding out the author's

00:52:02   own comments on afterwards,

00:52:04   it just felt like it had to be brought up again

00:52:07   as "Boy, you can do a lot of interesting reading about thinking fast and slow after

00:52:12   you read the book Thinking Fast and Slow."

00:52:14   It's very strange.

00:52:15   And I guess we'll see how this conversation goes on Reddit, I guess.

00:52:22   Yeah, see you on Reddit.

00:52:23   Man, I wasn't expecting us to get this fired up again.

00:52:26   This f***ing book, man, is gonna be the bane of our existence, I'm telling you that.

00:52:33   This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to help

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00:53:39   something online and this is one of my very favourite things about Squarespace is they

00:53:43   make the process of starting a website so simple.

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00:54:09   of cortex and Relay FM. Okay so we are still in September. We know that to be

00:54:15   true. Mm-hmm. In our out of time time. September is childhood cancer awareness

00:54:19   month and for the third consecutive year Relay FM is supporting the life-saving

00:54:23   mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and that is finding cures and

00:54:27   saving children. Why do we do this? Well for almost 60 years St. Jude Children's Research

00:54:32   Hospital has been on the front lines of research, care and treatment of childhood cancer. Treatments

00:54:38   invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from

00:54:43   20% to more than 80% since opening. They just flipped it. With 1 in 5 children not surviving

00:54:50   though, St. Jude is not going to stop until no child dies from cancer but they need our

00:54:55   support. So this September you can help Relay FM surpass over $1 million raised for the

00:55:02   kids of St. Jude during our third annual Relay FM for St. Jude fundraising campaign. Honestly

00:55:07   Gray by the time this episode goes out we might have gotten there to that million.

00:55:12   I hope so. It's an incredible number. Right now we have raised, we just went up as I opened

00:55:17   the page, $174,174.11 is where we are today. Right.

00:55:24   We need to get to 196 to raise a million over the three years.

00:55:29   So I feel somewhat confident that by the time people are listening to this episode, we have

00:55:36   surpassed that $1 million.

00:55:38   If that is the case, I cannot express how grateful I am to our audience for making that

00:55:46   happen.

00:55:47   A million dollars is just an incredible sum of money.

00:55:50   and for everyone to come together over these last three years to donate that to St. Jude

00:55:55   is, I genuinely mean this, one of the greatest accomplishments of my professional career.

00:56:02   We consider this every year to be so important, but I love what I do.

00:56:08   I love that I get to do this stuff.

00:56:10   To be able to be a part of making a change to donate to an institution like this one,

00:56:23   it kind of is like a weird way of like, makes all of this kind of worth it.

00:56:31   It gives me these incredible feelings every year.

00:56:33   It's why we love doing the Podcast-a-Thon as well because it's like, that is like a

00:56:38   focused time, right?

00:56:40   We do this for like a six week period every year,

00:56:42   but on that day, it's all it is, you know?

00:56:47   Like my entire day is talking about St. Jude,

00:56:50   watching videos about St. Jude, interviewing doctors,

00:56:52   we interview patients, like that's where

00:56:55   this incredible focus is.

00:56:57   And I mean, last year we raised $100,000

00:57:00   during the podcast.

00:57:01   I have no idea what's gonna happen this time.

00:57:04   I would love to beat it.

00:57:05   So by the way, tune in on September 17th

00:57:08   twitch.tv/relayfm and like help us beat that like because we get to compete against ourselves

00:57:15   every year while at the same time raising an incredible amount of money for an incredible

00:57:20   charity.

00:57:21   Yeah it's a good way to compete against yourself.

00:57:23   Yeah.

00:57:24   I also just think it speaks to the generosity and the caring of the audience.

00:57:28   Like it really is just astounding how much is given like I would never have guessed these

00:57:33   kinds of numbers.

00:57:34   So we get thank you so much to the audience for so much.

00:57:37   for donating to this. It's really incredible.

00:57:40   And if you want to donate and help us continue to set goals and milestones,

00:57:45   go to stju.org/relay.

00:57:48   If you donate more than $100 in a single gift,

00:57:51   you will receive an exclusive Relay FM sticker or thanks pack at the end of the campaign.

00:57:55   And if your company matches charitable donations,

00:57:59   that can be added into our total.

00:58:01   So just send us an email.

00:58:03   just email stephen@relay.fm,

00:58:06   that's S-T-E-P-H-E-N @relay.fm,

00:58:09   with just the receipt of your company donation,

00:58:11   and we can add that into our total as well,

00:58:13   so that would be great.

00:58:14   And also if you didn't know that,

00:58:15   check if your company matches charitable donations,

00:58:18   'cause they might,

00:58:19   and that's more money that goes to St. Jude.

00:58:22   - Yeah, double your effectiveness with one question.

00:58:24   - Exactly, do you charity match?

00:58:26   That's all you need to ask.

00:58:28   And then you can double it, which is an incredible thing.

00:58:31   And it's a big thing for us.

00:58:33   We're lucky to have a lot of people in our audience

00:58:36   that work for a lot of tech-focused companies,

00:58:38   and a lot of tech-focused companies do this.

00:58:41   And it helps us raise even more money.

00:58:43   So thank you so much if you have donated,

00:58:46   and thank you so much if you will.

00:58:49   Go to stjou.org/relay.

00:58:50   Let's cure childhood cancer together.

00:58:53   - You're a busy man, Myke.

00:58:54   (both laughing)

00:58:57   Again, every September I feel the same way.

00:59:00   I just, I don't know how you do all the things that you do.

00:59:05   - Yeah, I mean, I feel it.

00:59:07   Especially like I've got this little thing

00:59:10   in the back of my mind, which is like, yearly theme.

00:59:14   - Yeah, no, yearly themes are coming up.

00:59:16   I feel that way too.

00:59:19   - I've started an Apple note

00:59:20   and I've started writing some things down.

00:59:22   - Ooh, intriguing. - I mean, I feel like

00:59:23   I always get to this point if I start it right now

00:59:26   where I'm like, less work.

00:59:30   Next year, less commitments, you know?

00:59:33   I feel like I write that every time.

00:59:35   But when I then sit down to actually think about it,

00:59:38   I'm like, I can't let go of anything.

00:59:40   Who knows what's gonna happen next year, no spoilers.

00:59:43   But that's coming up soon, right?

00:59:47   Like we have three more episodes this year after this one.

00:59:51   And State of the Apps in November,

00:59:55   which I'm excited about.

00:59:56   I'm actually really excited about State of the Apps this year

00:59:58   'cause I've been doing a lot of things differently

01:00:00   that I haven't spoken about and I've been holding it

01:00:03   and people keep asking me, what is that app on your iPhone?

01:00:06   Like if I share my home screen, I'm like,

01:00:07   I'm not telling you 'cause I'm waiting for state of the apps

01:00:10   - Very exciting.

01:00:11   - And yearly themes, obviously I'm excited about that,

01:00:14   but like I'm preparing for those now.

01:00:15   Like the other day I redownloaded the episodes

01:00:18   'cause I like to listen to previous years

01:00:20   'cause I'm getting ready.

01:00:21   So it is kind of wild to think that like

01:00:24   there's three more episodes for the year.

01:00:27   I can't believe how fast this year has gone.

01:00:31   - No, it's absolutely shocking.

01:00:32   It's also why I've had yearly themes whispering

01:00:34   in the back of my brain too, because it feels like,

01:00:37   wait, didn't we just, did that, has it been a year?

01:00:41   No, it can't possibly have been, so.

01:00:42   - You're finally gonna set a theme around the same time

01:00:45   as me, 'cause usually you get them in the summer,

01:00:47   but this one's creeped up on you.

01:00:48   - Yeah, what summer?

01:00:49   There was no summer.

01:00:51   It was just that swamp I've been trudging through,

01:00:56   miserably.

01:00:57   But obviously with yearly themes, one of the other things I'm working on right now is preparing

01:01:04   for journals.

01:01:07   I mean, our expectation is yearly theme setting time will always be our biggest time of the

01:01:15   year for journals.

01:01:17   That's how it's been so far.

01:01:18   I mean, we can assume it's probably going to be that way.

01:01:21   That is the expectation, that is the assumption, but it doesn't help when once again we have

01:01:29   to have conversations about "But how much are you willing to bet on that?"

01:01:34   - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:35   We had our meeting before the show today.

01:01:37   - Yeah.

01:01:38   - And we were talking about stock.

01:01:40   - Mm-hmm.

01:01:41   - And you know, just going over paper shortages again and we have, we have right now more

01:01:48   in stock than we have sold for this entire year in preparation for the beginning of the year.

01:01:55   Which logically would suggest we're going to be okay, but we have no way of knowing and that is

01:02:05   so terrifying because we're making bets with our money, right? Like it's really like... I find

01:02:15   Cortex brand so exciting but also so intimidating.

01:02:19   B: Yes, I completely agree. I was thinking when we were having our conversation about like, oh,

01:02:26   the details about stock levels and how much money to spend on various things. I realized that with

01:02:31   our first product, we accidentally wandered into a seasonal business, the most terrifying of

01:02:39   businesses to try to run, which it's just like, it's just the nature of the thing that lots more

01:02:44   people are going to buy a thing about starting your yearly theme in December and January

01:02:52   and it's like oh my god for seasonal businesses you think woof it's terrifying having to

01:02:58   make these decisions.

01:02:59   Because it takes multiple years to try and understand because like for any pattern you

01:03:04   have to go through it a bunch of times right but if your pattern is once a year it takes

01:03:10   a long time to understand what's going to happen. So yeah, we're in that kind of mode right now.

01:03:18   Plus, I mean, plus, I think it's pretty fair to say that we have gotten a little punch drunk

01:03:25   in the idea of creating products. Yeah. Yeah, I like, behind the scenes listeners,

01:03:33   I messaged Myke like a week ago, like, "Hey, guess like, you know, like I woke up. Oh my god,

01:03:37   "Listen, you need to make this thing.

01:03:39   "Here's what we're gonna do."

01:03:41   - Because we have learned how to do things,

01:03:45   now we can't stop doing things.

01:03:48   So right now, we are working on our journal stock,

01:03:52   we have an accessory that we're working on

01:03:55   and a brand new product.

01:03:57   Plus now, as of today,

01:04:00   and we're gonna start working on another one.

01:04:03   And we don't really know when these things

01:04:06   are gonna be available.

01:04:07   I had hoped I could maybe try and do it all by the end of the year.

01:04:10   Gray told me that that was the method of a madman.

01:04:15   Yeah, I was like, "Veto on that!

01:04:18   If you think all of this stuff is going to be done by the end of the year, you are a

01:04:22   madman and that's a terrible idea.

01:04:25   No."

01:04:26   So, but I'm working on stuff and I actually want to try something out that we've not done

01:04:31   before.

01:04:32   This is, okay, this is weird for us

01:04:35   because long time listeners will know

01:04:38   that me, especially Gray, are very cagey

01:04:41   about talking about things that aren't real yet, right?

01:04:45   So, you know, like when Gray will talk about a video,

01:04:48   he won't tell you what it is until it's done.

01:04:51   And I'm somewhat similar

01:04:52   and have been with these products, right?

01:04:55   I have been very hesitant to talk about changes

01:04:58   that we're making and things that we're working on.

01:05:00   You know, initially I was pretty hesitant

01:05:03   to talk about how many would sold, all that kind of stuff.

01:05:06   'Cause I just, I feel like I've,

01:05:09   that's kind of like the area where I've come from.

01:05:11   Like you kind of keep it to yourself

01:05:13   until you're ready to share it.

01:05:16   And I think a lot of that stuff comes in like software

01:05:18   and technology, you know,

01:05:19   which is where I kind of come from.

01:05:21   Like you don't talk about what you're working on

01:05:23   until it is a real thing.

01:05:26   But in other areas that I follow,

01:05:30   people talk more about what they're working on.

01:05:33   And we've done a little bit of that on the show,

01:05:35   but I wanna get a bit more kind of visual with it.

01:05:38   So we have an Instagram account,

01:05:40   it's @cortexbrand is our Instagram account.

01:05:44   And I am going to start now posting

01:05:47   more behind the scenes stuff

01:05:50   of products that we're working on, ideas that we have,

01:05:54   and just see if people are interested in that.

01:05:56   So if you like hearing us talk about this kind of stuff,

01:05:59   maybe you would also appreciate that.

01:06:01   So it's gonna be on the @cortexbrand Instagram account.

01:06:04   So maybe that accessory in your product

01:06:06   that I was talking about,

01:06:07   you might see some stuff about that.

01:06:09   - It also brings up an interesting point

01:06:10   because obviously we're running Cortex brand together.

01:06:14   And this is one of these cases

01:06:16   where people don't always agree on everything.

01:06:18   And I don't agree with you on this.

01:06:20   - No.

01:06:21   - So, Myke is a big proponent of this idea.

01:06:25   And as the other person involved in this,

01:06:28   I view the Instagram showing the behind the scenes stuff

01:06:32   as a total waste of time and energy.

01:06:35   - Fair enough.

01:06:38   I'll tell you why I wanna do it.

01:06:39   'Cause I feel like if I do this,

01:06:43   there'll be a couple of things happening.

01:06:44   One, I will get to talk more and crystallize my ideas more,

01:06:48   which I appreciate,

01:06:49   which I value doing when we talk, but just in general.

01:06:53   The other is if I can get feedback that's valuable

01:06:58   before I send something to print,

01:07:00   that will be good for me.

01:07:02   Now I'll say, like, I'm sure I'm gonna get lots of feedback,

01:07:06   but I'm not gonna consider it all valuable.

01:07:07   Our products are, they come from our opinions, right?

01:07:10   And people wanna do things in different ways.

01:07:13   However, what I do know is journal version one

01:07:16   to journal version two picked up a lot of changes

01:07:20   based on feedback from people that used it.

01:07:22   And I'm wondering if maybe people seeing stuff,

01:07:25   they might be like, "Hey, does it do this?"

01:07:27   "Hey, why don't you do that?"

01:07:28   And there might be the occasional thing where I'm like,

01:07:30   "You know what?

01:07:32   Great idea."

01:07:34   We'll see.

01:07:34   - Yeah. - And I like this.

01:07:35   I like this as well for talking about on the show

01:07:37   because it is rare that we will do something

01:07:41   if the two of us don't agree on it.

01:07:43   But this isn't one of those things where like,

01:07:45   I'm going rogue.

01:07:46   Gray doesn't think it's a great idea,

01:07:48   but he has no problem in me doing it.

01:07:50   - Yeah, and this is what I mean by,

01:07:52   I think it's sort of an interesting point

01:07:54   about working with someone,

01:07:55   where it's like, yeah, I do very strongly think

01:07:59   it is a waste of time and energy

01:08:00   to do the behind the scenes stuff on the Instagram.

01:08:04   But it's also not a place where I'm gonna go like,

01:08:07   I hard veto this, right?

01:08:10   Like I'm like-- - It's just not your energy.

01:08:11   Is there, either, you know?

01:08:13   I waste my energy.

01:08:14   (both laughing)

01:08:16   - Yeah, I don't have to do it, which certainly helps.

01:08:19   If I had to be involved in it more directly,

01:08:21   I'd be like, no, that's LOL, that's not gonna happen.

01:08:23   I think it's a waste of time.

01:08:24   But it's also one of these cases where I also have to acknowledge you are way more connected

01:08:30   into this world than I am.

01:08:31   And so it's very possible that I'm wrong.

01:08:34   And so that's why I'm like, give it a, give it a try.

01:08:37   See if it works.

01:08:38   See if you find it effective.

01:08:40   See if people like it and see if it translates directly into sales.

01:08:45   Again, I'm doubtful about that, but it's not a strong enough thought that it would make sense to say.

01:08:51   No.

01:08:52   And it is also not the area that I am the expert in.

01:08:56   So I guess if you want to prove me wrong and Myke right, go follow

01:09:00   the Cortex brand on Instagram.

01:09:01   I'll be like genuinely curious to see how this goes and what you try to do with it.

01:09:06   But yeah, I don't know.

01:09:07   My, my default position is still, you know, talk about things when you have

01:09:13   an action for people to perform, which is like, you can pre-order it right now.

01:09:17   At the very least.

01:09:18   And I don't like talking about stuff before there's an action for the person to take.

01:09:23   But...

01:09:24   Well, I agree with you to a point, which is that I believe that we have

01:09:29   stages of places where we can tell people to do something and like there

01:09:38   is more people that listen to this show, then we'll follow the Instagram account.

01:09:42   Right?

01:09:42   Yes.

01:09:43   Yeah.

01:09:43   So my thinking is on the show,

01:09:47   we don't really talk about upcoming products

01:09:50   until they're ready.

01:09:50   - Yes.

01:09:51   - Because this is the largest audience.

01:09:53   So, and then, you know, even greater,

01:09:55   if you promote one of our products on your YouTube channel,

01:09:58   it's the biggest possible audience, right?

01:10:00   You know, I feel like there's a stage.

01:10:01   Like if you show something on the YouTube channel,

01:10:03   it's completed and available, right?

01:10:05   On this show, we sometimes tease that we're working

01:10:08   on something like we just have,

01:10:09   but then on the Instagram,

01:10:11   we'll actually show you some of it.

01:10:12   And so it's like this staging of,

01:10:15   depending on how interested you are,

01:10:17   you can tune in at any one of those points

01:10:19   and then decide to make a purchasing decision

01:10:21   either with your YouTube channel,

01:10:24   it's immediately available,

01:10:25   with our show, it's available or it might be coming soon,

01:10:29   in the Instagram account, this might never happen,

01:10:32   but we're working on it

01:10:33   and maybe in six months you'll get it.

01:10:35   That's how I think of it.

01:10:36   - Here's the design prototype on the Instagram.

01:10:38   - Yeah, and then it kind of like goes forward from there.

01:10:41   and it's about how engaged are you

01:10:46   with what we're doing here.

01:10:47   And you can choose as a listener

01:10:50   at any point in that process.

01:10:52   If you just wanna hit, just like,

01:10:53   "Ah, don't tell me about it until it's done."

01:10:56   You're in the right spot already.

01:10:58   But if you are intrigued about what it's like

01:11:01   to try and do this stuff,

01:11:03   then you can go there and you can get it.

01:11:05   Which is why sometimes as well,

01:11:06   like we've had some more detailed conversations in Moretext.

01:11:11   because people that want to pay for more for the show

01:11:14   are naturally more interested, I feel like.

01:11:17   And so we've had some more details

01:11:19   about upcoming stuff in Moretex.

01:11:22   So it's like, that's the stage.

01:11:23   So I guess it would go YouTube channel,

01:11:26   Cortex, Moretex, @CortexBrand, Instagram.

01:11:29   - Right.

01:11:30   - That's how I view it.

01:11:31   - TikTok?

01:11:32   (laughing)

01:11:32   - No, no, no, no.

01:11:34   You know, have you ever,

01:11:36   have you ever played around with TikTok?

01:11:40   No, I have not looked at the talk and how it ticks.

01:11:44   So no, I've literally never even seen the app.

01:11:47   So I'm very out of touch with TikTok,

01:11:49   but I hear all the kids love it.

01:11:51   - Me too.

01:11:51   - Why do you sound so sad about that?

01:11:55   - I'm not sad about it.

01:11:56   I'm not sad about it.

01:11:58   I don't want to like age myself out, you know?

01:12:02   But I do feel like it's maybe just not the social network

01:12:07   or not the app I need right now.

01:12:10   I'm very much like a subscription box person, you know?

01:12:17   And that's exactly not what TikTok is.

01:12:21   What TikTok wants to do is just serve you more content

01:12:24   based on an algorithm.

01:12:26   And I understand the algorithm is very good

01:12:29   and like will show you the things that you like

01:12:32   because you just engage with what you do and don't.

01:12:34   I get it, but I'm very much like a,

01:12:38   I have subscriptions on YouTube

01:12:40   and I save the things I wanna watch to my watch later.

01:12:42   Like I'm very particular about that.

01:12:45   Like I never watch videos from the YouTube homepage.

01:12:49   I don't care about the YouTube homepage, you know?

01:12:51   - Right, so no promotions on TikTok then.

01:12:54   - Not yet, you know, you never rule it out,

01:12:56   but no TikTok for now.

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01:14:58   So we spoke about what I have got going on or what we have got going on but what about

01:15:03   what you have got going on? Is there anything else we can use to just date this episode

01:15:07   even more because it's the best thing to do with an episode at a time?

01:15:10   No.

01:15:11   No? No? You've given up. That's it for you?

01:15:15   I don't. I don't. I don't wanna. I've just. I've. I've. I have never been.

01:15:24   more over a project than the thing that I'm finishing up right now.

01:15:32   For listeners in the future, they will know that this video, from my perspective, is going up in three days,

01:15:42   come hell or high water, like I do not care. There's no choice.

01:15:48   I have, I've picked poorly for the last several topics and the thing that I'm just wrapping

01:15:56   up is this video about trying to track down where did a poem come from.

01:16:06   And this is sort of like a follow-up or like a parallel video to the one that I did about

01:16:13   the origin of the name Tiffany and this is a little bit like, I don't know, I guess like

01:16:16   a spin-off video of like here's a related thing it's not really the main thing but

01:16:21   - I've watched it or at least a version of it and it felt like an expanded entertainment

01:16:27   focused behind the scenes video - Yeah yeah so this is part of the problem with this project

01:16:33   like it's one of the reasons why I've just been very unhappy with this because it's like okay so

01:16:39   I created when I do a main video I now do these director's commentaries for the more complicated

01:16:45   ones where I can talk about a bunch of the behind-the-scenes stuff.

01:16:48   And I originally thought that, okay, well, there ended up being this

01:16:54   interesting thing trying to track down where did this one poem

01:16:58   that mentions this name come from. And I was like, "Oh, I should probably talk

01:17:03   about that in the director's commentary. This is perfect."

01:17:05   But I realized, like, it's just too complicated of a story to try to be able

01:17:10   to tell off the cuff. Like, even if I were to try

01:17:13   to describe it to someone now. You know, like when you're doing a bad job telling a story

01:17:19   and you go like, "Oh no, wait, but there's this part. This happened before, like that

01:17:22   happened later." It's very hard to do. So like an idiot, I told myself, "What I'll

01:17:29   just do is I'm just going to make a casual video where I talk through – here's a

01:17:36   more complicated behind-the-scenes bit about the research." And of course I say, "Like

01:17:41   an idiot because I'm not really capable of writing things casually.

01:17:46   Like it's, it's very rare that I'm actually able to do it.

01:17:50   And so it just morphed and morphed and morphed over into this, from my

01:17:55   perspective, horrible Frankenstein's monster of, is this a video that's

01:18:03   just like casual extra information behind the scenes or is this a main

01:18:09   video and it's kind of neither.

01:18:10   and I hate it.

01:18:12   - It's like feature length for you.

01:18:13   It's like 20 minutes long, right?

01:18:15   - Yeah, I'm trying to get that as close to 15 as I can,

01:18:19   but yeah, the current cut is like 18 and a half minutes,

01:18:22   which is, I think it's the second longest thing

01:18:24   I've ever made.

01:18:25   - I mean, you know me though,

01:18:27   like I liked this more than the name video.

01:18:31   - Oh, okay, that's, okay.

01:18:33   So I haven't heard you say anything about it,

01:18:35   but that's interesting to hear.

01:18:36   - Yeah, I think if you give me feedback on it,

01:18:37   to just realize this is your feedback.

01:18:38   I like it, I like this one more.

01:18:40   this is more my thing, this type of like,

01:18:43   I love it when you get worked up, right?

01:18:47   You get real worked up in this one.

01:18:49   And I really enjoy the mix of you and the animation.

01:18:54   There's a lot of like backwards and forwards,

01:18:57   like you're going out and like tracking down the information

01:19:00   in these incredibly old books, like I like it.

01:19:03   - It's interesting to hear,

01:19:05   I like, I have no perspective on this project.

01:19:06   I'm kind of just assuming that it's going to really bomb on the channel like, "Oh,

01:19:13   maybe the core audience will really love this kind of thing."

01:19:16   But…

01:19:17   S - I understand that feeling.

01:19:18   It doesn't have the… thing?

01:19:21   Because it's about a thing?

01:19:23   It's not the thing.

01:19:24   B - Yeah, exactly.

01:19:25   S - Yeah, I understand.

01:19:26   B - This depends on two things.

01:19:29   You've watched the main video, and you're also a viewer who has some sense of who I

01:19:34   am.

01:19:35   Like, as we've talked about, I think quite easily 80% of the audience of my YouTube videos

01:19:41   doesn't really have a sense of who I am as a person, or like, even that there is a person

01:19:45   behind these videos.

01:19:46   So I think it just has two brutal strikes against it right from the start.

01:19:51   So I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being one of the real bombs on the channel,

01:19:55   and really struggles in terms of view numbers for something that's animated.

01:19:59   We'll see, but it is also just like, I've totally lost perspective.

01:20:02   I think there is no other time other than like the end of quarantine where this video

01:20:07   would have happened and I feel like I feel like this has some real going crazy and quarantine

01:20:14   vibes in it like I just spent so much time on this thing and it's awful.

01:20:22   Well this is kind of the perfect video for this episode because you're not sure about

01:20:31   it and you don't think it's going to do well and by the time this episode comes out people

01:20:36   will already know the answer to that question.

01:20:39   Perfect.

01:20:40   Yeah exactly.

01:20:41   People will know.

01:20:42   As it is currently I'm in the stage where it's this frustrating stage where the video

01:20:47   is assembled enough that I can show people like I could send you a link and be like oh

01:20:52   hey here's a preview of the video and most people I know go oh great you should like

01:20:58   when are you gonna put it up you should just put it up right now and I go no.

01:21:01   No, no, I have three or four more days of making a thousand tiny changes to this thing.

01:21:08   I mean, I will say it to you right now, I don't know why you don't just put it up right

01:21:11   now.

01:21:12   Like, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't put it up right now.

01:21:16   That's what everybody says, "But Myke, you don't understand all of the changes I have

01:21:19   to make."

01:21:20   There's just a sea of changes.

01:21:22   No one ever does.

01:21:27   All joking aside, there will probably be, I mean considering very small things, but

01:21:32   like 400 changes between now and when I actually publish it in terms of like tiny little things

01:21:36   to adjust.

01:21:37   Well look, as somebody who shares editing projects with you, I'm not surprised about

01:21:41   that.

01:21:42   Yeah, so.

01:21:43   Because I see some of the things that you tweak, and I'm like, "You didn't need

01:21:46   to do that."

01:21:47   But I did, Myke, I did need to do that.

01:21:51   None of them matter.

01:21:52   I can assure you that Breath was in the right place before.

01:21:54   No, it wasn't in the right place before.

01:21:57   You've done this to me though.

01:21:58   - What do you mean?

01:21:59   - This, you've affected me. - Oh, I've infected you.

01:22:02   - Yeah.

01:22:03   'Cause this leaks out into all my,

01:22:05   it's why I have to edit less now.

01:22:07   Because I just cannot edit the same way that I used to.

01:22:12   - Yeah.

01:22:14   - No matter what I tell myself,

01:22:15   if I'm getting into it, it's not gonna be quick.

01:22:18   - And this is what I mean by like an idiot, I thought,

01:22:20   oh, I'm just gonna casually explain this complicated thing

01:22:25   and somehow thought, "Oh, I'm-- I really thought,

01:22:28   oh, I can sit down over the space of a couple of days

01:22:31   and just write a rough script and then just--

01:22:33   and then just record it and I don't have to--

01:22:36   don't have to be really complicated about it."

01:22:38   Like, I have done this sometimes,

01:22:41   but it's just very rare and this was the wrong topic for it

01:22:45   because there's just so many things involved.

01:22:46   It's like, "Dude, you should have known you were gonna do,

01:22:49   like, a hundred drafts on this thing."

01:22:50   And I know I say this a lot, but it does feel like

01:22:53   this is just a terrible use of my time. But I also I'm like, when it will be up, I'll

01:23:00   be happy because I really do feel like I'm going to be closing the door on this weird

01:23:08   end of quarantine time that has been miserable for me for a bunch of reasons. And this this,

01:23:17   even though I don't love this video, it does feel like, okay, goodbye this period of time,

01:23:23   Like this is over, I'm never gonna think about these things again.

01:23:28   So yeah, anyway, that's the video that's gonna be... that will have gone up by the

01:23:35   time this Cortex podcast goes up, for sure.

01:23:38   Definitely, no doubt.

01:23:40   Oh no, there is no doubt.

01:23:43   No doubt.

01:23:44   You know, it's funny to me really.

01:23:48   As somebody who is so clearly very aware of themselves, it surprises me that you get surprised

01:23:55   about how long this project's gonna take.

01:23:57   Yes.

01:23:58   That…

01:23:59   Yes.

01:24:00   That is true.

01:24:04   There isn't really an answer to this.

01:24:06   It just is what it is, you know?

01:24:08   It is what it is.

01:24:09   It's interesting because I knew that I wanted to have something for early September because

01:24:13   of the travel and just against, you know…

01:24:16   psychologically if you make things, even though my channel isn't uploaded to super

01:24:21   frequently, you just feel bad when it's been a while since you've uploaded a video.

01:24:26   And I was looking into, you know, my end of the year plans and I thought, man, I know

01:24:30   from experience that travel really impacts the ability to finish videos.

01:24:35   Like I can still do quite a lot of writing work, but all of the stuff that needs to happen

01:24:39   to finish the video just really at this point requires like I'm at my home office with my

01:24:45   equipment and able to do a bunch of things. So I was like, if I don't get something out

01:24:51   before I leave, I'm gonna just feel really guilty and miserable the entire time that

01:24:56   I'm traveling because then it will just have been too long. It'll be like two months since

01:25:01   the last video went up and then that can that can easily start to creep into three when

01:25:05   you feel bad and it's like, oh no, I want to avoid that. So I knew that like come hell

01:25:13   or high water, there's a video early September. And I also thought like, okay, I gotta sit

01:25:21   down and think about this. I've done a terrible job picking topics. And I think some of those

01:25:28   topics in retrospect, have properties to them, which are foreseeable in the future of like,

01:25:36   "Oh, okay, stuff that involves ongoing legal situations with people who are alive, don't

01:25:43   be surprised if that's really messy."

01:25:45   Or, "Oh, hey, history, you know the topic that you hate because everything is uncertain?

01:25:52   It's never going to be fast, buddy.

01:25:54   It just isn't because you're incapable of reading a book that says something happened

01:26:00   in the past without having to also find out where is the source for this claim.

01:26:06   Like that's just something I can't do and that's why I can't really read those books

01:26:10   because it drives me crazy.

01:26:11   I should have known this but I just didn't.

01:26:14   I like willfully sort of ignored this and plunged headfirst into these topics.

01:26:20   But knowing that I was thinking about this and after the last main video went up I thought

01:26:26   But okay, what I'm going to try to do is I'm going to try to pick a topic that I can reasonably

01:26:36   bet will be done in a shorter amount of time.

01:26:41   And if I'm thinking about it, if I'm very consciously selecting the topics, I know the

01:26:47   properties that are helpful.

01:26:49   These are things I've talked about before, like constrainedness is a really useful property

01:26:55   where like, this topic can't spill over into other areas.

01:26:59   There's some reason why it naturally fits into a little box.

01:27:04   Like the video about which planet is the closest

01:27:08   is very constrained as a topic.

01:27:11   The better boarding methods

01:27:12   is like very constrained as a topic.

01:27:15   And so I tried to pick something to work on

01:27:18   that genuinely would be a fast and easy video

01:27:22   that I could do in under a month

01:27:24   so I could have something early September.

01:27:27   Now, the spoiler here is that I was wrong

01:27:30   and I failed in that task.

01:27:32   But, I've always talked about this idea of like,

01:27:35   trend lines are the thing that you wanna focus on,

01:27:38   you don't wanna focus on success or failure as the metric,

01:27:41   like which direction are you going in?

01:27:43   And so, the topic that I gave myself two weeks to write

01:27:49   after the Tiffany video,

01:27:52   I didn't finish it in that period of time, but it is also very clear, like, this was

01:27:58   way better in the right direction.

01:28:01   This topic was, I mean, I could literally say one one hundredth the amount of work easily.

01:28:09   I just still missed the mark of let me try to pick something that I think I can write

01:28:16   in two weeks.

01:28:17   And I was wrong, but I wasn't wrong by a lot.

01:28:20   I think that would have actually been a month-long project if I had spent all the time on it.

01:28:26   As opposed to this thing, which is a six-month project that's going up right now.

01:28:31   So there's another one that isn't done but is better than what you're uploading

01:28:38   about the poem.

01:28:39   Yeah, so the poem project, looking from like when did it originally start, is six months

01:28:45   from start to finish, where like what's the original version of this to it's getting

01:28:49   uploaded.

01:28:50   My original idea was like, "Oh, okay, I'm working on this thing in the poem, but I'll

01:28:53   have it later in the year.

01:28:54   I won't try to have it for September."

01:28:56   So I was trying to pick a easier project to do before the poem for the beginning of September.

01:29:03   And this is where I failed, but I'm still pleased because like the trend line is in

01:29:07   the right direction.

01:29:08   Like I did a much better job of picking something that was constrained and that wouldn't explode

01:29:15   all over the place.

01:29:16   just because of my requirement to put something up before I went traveling,

01:29:21   that after two weeks I had to look at it and make the call and be like, "Okay,

01:29:25   what is the probability that you'll be able to completely finish this by the beginning of September

01:29:30   versus spending the next two weeks to finish this poem thing,

01:29:35   even though in theory you want to upload it later in the year?"

01:29:38   And it's like, I had to make the call of like,

01:29:40   "If I want something for September, I've got to finish the poem."

01:29:43   So all of this is just to say, I think, and I'm really, really going to focus on it for the next few videos,

01:29:50   I think I can be better at picking projects that won't explode in every possible direction.

01:30:00   If the trade-off is like, I have to not just let 100% pure interest drive like,

01:30:07   "Oh, which way is the wind blowing today?"

01:30:09   It's like, no, no, you've got to focus on like constrainedness at least for a little while.

01:30:16   I do like doing big crazy projects, but two slash three in a row, particularly at this time of year,

01:30:24   has really just killed me. So I've got to change things up for the next couple months at least.

01:30:30   - Seems like it could be incorporated into a theme there.

01:30:33   - I don't know. I don't know.

01:30:34   - We'll see, I suppose. Got a little bit of time left.

01:30:36   - We'll see.

01:30:37   I have actually, before we go today, one #AskQuartax question that I felt like would be the perfect time to ask.

01:30:45   Okay.

01:30:45   This comes from Hunter.

01:30:47   When you fly, do you prefer the window or aisle seat?

01:30:50   If you need to get up, would you want to be the one asking other people to get up or the one who's subject to the asks of others?

01:30:57   Oh my god.

01:30:58   I have literally changed planes, changed my entire flying schedule around the ability

01:31:07   to get an aisle seat.

01:31:10   For me, it is very close psychologically of if I have to have a window seat, I find it

01:31:18   so uncomfortable I will do almost anything to fly at a different time.

01:31:23   Window seats, it's awful.

01:31:26   I cannot deal with it.

01:31:27   I have to be able to get up whenever I want and not be trapped in the window seat.

01:31:33   I 100% agree with you.

01:31:35   Yeah, because it's reasonable.

01:31:37   I'm aisle all the way.

01:31:38   I don't...

01:31:39   If I'm in a window seat, I feel pretty claustrophobic.

01:31:42   I feel like I'm trapped in.

01:31:44   I have no problem being asked to move because also I never want to ask someone to move.

01:31:51   So I don't mind being asked to move because then I don't need to ask anybody.

01:31:55   Yes, so I can and do plan travel around getting aisle seats.

01:32:02   100%.

01:32:03   Very important.