Cortex

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.

00:17:06 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Setapp.

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00:18:49 ◼   ► Relay FM.

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.

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00:53:36 ◼   ► This is the kind of stuff that I don't want to ever have to deal with when I'm putting

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.

00:53:47 ◼   ► Go to squarespace.com/cortex and you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card

00:53:52 ◼   ► required and when you're ready to launch you just use the offer code 'cortex' and you'll

00:53:56 ◼   ► get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

00:53:59 ◼   ► squarespace.com/cortex and then when you sign up use the offer code

00:54:03 ◼   ► cortex and you'll get 10% off your first purchase and you'll be showing your

00:54:07 ◼   ► support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support

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.