Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 127: Living In Ed Sheeran's Dream (Rabbit Hole) | Ear Biscuits Ep. 127

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

A Middle Ages man in a modern world and human perception of reality. R&L go back down the rabbit hole to discuss these topics and more on this week's Ear Biscuits. Listen to Ear Biscuits at:  Apple Podcasts: applepodcasts.com/earbiscuits Spotify: spoti.fi/2oIaAwp Art19: art19.com/shows/ear-biscuits SoundCloud: @earbiscuits Follow This Is Mythical: Facebook: facebook.com/ThisIsMythical Instagram: instagram.com/ThisIsMythical Twitter: twitter.com/ThisIsMythical Other Mythical Channels: Good Mythical Morning: www.youtube.com/user/rhettandlink2 Good Mythical MORE: youtube.com/user/rhettandlink3 Rhett & Link: youtube.com/rhettandlink Credits: Hosted By: Rhett & Link Executive Producer: Stevie Wynne Levine Managing Producer: Jacob Moncrief Technical Director & Editor: Kiko Suura Graphics: Matthew Dwyer Set Design/Construction: Cassie Cobb Content Manager: Becca Canote Logo Design: Carra Sykes To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Rhett. And I'm Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we're going into uncharted territory. I see the hole, it's shaped like a rabbit, and we're gonna dive in after it. Leave it right there.

So there's an envelope here. That has a question or a statement or something from a fan, from a mythical beast. Yes. And we use that as a jumping off point to go where the conversation leads. Follow the white rabbit. No.

Is that what we're doing? No. No, no, we don't follow the white rabbit. It's not a white rabbit, it's just a rabbit. I thought the rabbit. It's a rabbit hole. No. It's a rabbit trail don't follow the white rabbit. It's not a white rabbit, it's just a rabbit. I thought the rabbit. It's a rabbit hole, it's a rabbit trail. But in Alice in Wonderland, it's a white rabbit. Yes, that's true.

I'm not being racist, I'm just saying that's what it was. I thought that was a drug reference, I just wanna make sure we weren't making any of those. I do think it is a drug. We're not making the drug reference. No, we're not. You can make a drug inference.

We weren't doing. That would be you doing that. Yeah, that's your problem. We don't make references, you make inferences, that's what makes the world go around. But before we do, we should catch up a little bit, being as this is the only time we have legitimate conversations with each other.

That's not true. It's not true. We talk to each other. But we do save conversations for this forum. I mean, what we haven't talked about is we're at that point in the year, in the fresh year, when it starts to dawn on you that the resolutions that you made and that the paths that you well laid

are not being well trodden, or are they? You know, I just wonder, did you fall into a New Year's resolution trap? I don't make resolutions. And are you in it or have you escaped? I don't make resolutions. I thought. No, I don't call what I do resolutions.

You did the most cliche thing, right? I started going to the gym? I'm already. You resolved to get back in the gym? I'm already. You resolved. No. To get back in the gym. Let's clarify things here. I've been going to the gym. I've been going to Pilates class.

Oh, that's right. For two days out of the week, for about a year now, consistently. It's been great for my self-image to say that I'm a Pilates man. It's been great for my back. But the one thing that I have noticed is that it's great for your back but I feel like,

you know I turned 40 last year, I'm not doing anything to get the heart rate up to some place that does good things for your body. There's no cardio in Pilates? You can work really hard but no, you may get an elevated heart rate at times but it's more about core and balance and strength and you don't put any muscle on.

You just gain strength and peace. Peace? I gained some peace from it. There's a. That's what the P in pilates stands for. It's actually an acronym. Peace, intentionality, love, affection, tension, exceptionalism, and Socrates

because the whole thing is based on Socrates. I made all that up on the spot. That's the kind of thing that happens on an Ear Biscuit. When you say, it would have been great and if you wouldn't have said I made up all, if you don't brag, you bragged at the end and it just shriveled away just like your resolution to get in the gym, I bet.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So it's not a resolution. Well one of the things that happened is I. You seen my wife in there by the way? No, we, different times. Christy started going to the same place because she, you know, with her head injury, I don't know if I've ever

talked about her head injury. It's weird that I never talked about it, but she's suffering from post-concussion syndrome from having it. You make it sound like it's Head Wound Harry or something. You remember that? You mean? You remember that SNL character?

Yes. Head Wound Harry? Yeah, well who was it? I think it was Dana Carvey. Wasn't it? Well I think there are, I immediately thought Will Ferrell but I have no clue who Head Wound Harry? Yeah, well who was it? I think it was Dana Carvey. Wasn't it? Well I think they're, I immediately thought Will Ferrell but I have no clue who Head Wound Harry was. Head Wound Harry, it was a guy who would just be in public.

Who Head Wound Harry was played by. And it was just, he had a gaping open wound on his head that like part of his brain was showing. And he guided on things, like he would go to a party and he would like get it on things. They probably only did it once but it happened at a certain point in my childhood so that it's iconic in my memory. You have those things where you're a certain age

where certain changes are happening in your life and the entertainment that you were enjoying at that point in your life becomes this iconic thing that you will never ever forget and head wound hairy that era. Dana Carvey. It was Dana Carvey. My first guess was correct. My doppelganger.

Yeah. Yeah and so Christy has a gaping, oozing, bloody head wound. She's been walking around with it. It's embarrassing. For over a year. And Pilates really helps. It's a story for another time except to say she was, it was just like an innocuous,

she stepped up on a curb and those few inches is all it took for her to hit the very top of her head on a tree limb. Yeah. There was no blood. It wasn't, just to clarify the joke, it wasn't a gaping wound, it was a concussion. It was a concussion and no bleeding on the brain

certified by emergency room. But lo and behold, over a year later, she has post-concussion syndrome symptoms which is like a, anyway, she can't go to the gym that I still go to because it's too loud, she has sensory issues, and she can't move her head around and throw it around all over the place, so it turns out Pilates. Because you do jazzercise, right?

Yeah, I do. There's a lot of this. A lot of head bobbing, yeah. Right. It's like, not at the Roxbury, another SNL reference. That's what I do every morning. I just start bopping the, so she goes to Pilates. So I think, my impression of Pilates

is people who have problems and, you know. And the P is for problems. Yeah. You know, like. And the I is for intelligence. She has the sensory brain issues, you have the back issues, and you're all there like Island of Misfit Toys on like some weird

Informer, what's it called? Informer is the song by Snow. Zabba-dee-ba-ba-dee-ba-dee-ba-dee-ba-dee-ba-dee-ba. Informer! No, it's a reformer. And you never see her there. No, because I go to the men's class, and she's a woman. Oh. They don't mix the men and the women's at reformer. And you never see her there. No because I go to the men's class and she's a woman. Oh.

They don't mix the men and the women's at Pilates. And I used to work out with your wife, Jessie. They do, they just don't at this particular place. And then she bailed on the gym so I'm the only one left of all three of us who went there. You went there too. Yeah we all did. Now let me clarify because I feel like

you're crapping on Pilates. I have an impression that it's the island of misfit workout toys. And what I'll say is that you could say the same thing about any sort of exercise that's low impact and can be considered therapeutic because yoga could be the same thing. People who are having issues

and can't do high stress exercise, Pilates, yoga, but Pilates is really, really, really difficult. It's basically as difficult as you make it because you're using your body weight on this reformer, not informer. Reformer. And it's, I don't know, it's great. And if you do it enough.

I don't know, it's great. If you do it enough and you do it long enough, you can get ripped doing it, but I'm not doing it to get ripped. I'm just doing it because I want my back to be functional and I don't wanna be like an 80-year-old man in a 40-year-old's body. But you want.

40-year-old man in an 80-year-old's body. But you want cardio so you resolved in 2018 to Resolved is the wrong word. Go to the gym. I don't like resolutions because resolutions fail. What I decided I was going to do is I said, I would like to get up at the same time every day because I keep hearing so many people say

that you need to get into a rhythm, you need to get up at the same time every single day. And I'm getting up, I'm actually only getting up once a week for Pilates because my other class is an evening class. And I'm like, well what if I got up at the same time, 6 a.m., every single day. Walked to the couch and went back to sleep.

And I was like, I can't do Pilates every single day. And I don't really wanna go back to the place that you're at because I hurt my back at the place that you're at. I just wanna go to a place that's got some classes, but it's also got some machines I can get on and put my headphones on and listen to other podcasts besides ours because I don't listen to ours

because I'm listening to it now as it happens. It goes out of your mouth and into your ear. And so yes, I did join a gym and I had a- Have you ever thought we're the first people that listen to our podcast? Nevermind, go ahead. It's just a stupid self-serving thing to think about. Well, everyone else in the room right now is also.

I mean, Kiko and Jacob are listening as well. Yeah, I question that sometimes. But I made it one solid week getting up at 6 a.m., getting to the gym, I sweated like I've never sweated before. Out of what? Pores. You've never done that before?

I haven't sweated out of pores in a while. I've been sweating right out of my mouth. No. It's drool, brother. Just my nails in my mouth. No, I took a shower at the gym. I was one of those dudes, I was showering at the gym and then I was fixing my hair in the mirror at the gym.

I was a gym guy for a week. Five days. And then I got, I pushed it too hard, man. I got sick, I got this cold. Well you don't get sick from working out. Yes you do. Read up on the internet, Link. What do you mean?

Are you crazy? You do, yeah. It may be weak, it may be. Stressing, you don't get sick. Right, you can't blame it on that. Yes you can. You get sick from viruses. You stress your body out and it becomes,

your immune system is busy trying to repair your muscles and then you get exposed to a virus and you make yourself weaker. I worked myself too hard, too fast, five days in a row. You became susceptible. I was sore, I became susceptible to the virus. The virus got me. It's the gym's fault, is what you're saying.

And so now I'm two weeks into this and I've only got one week of gym under my belt but I'm gonna have to just get back up and start again because getting up at the same time, that one week that I was doing it. It is helpful. It is very helpful. And I was using that, I know you started using the Apple Bedtime app. Yes. which tells you when to go to bed.

If you would like to get seven and a half hours of sleep, you need to go to bed now. So I had to go to bed. You're in 10 minutes. I had to go to bed at 10.30, which is like so early for my household. My kids don't go to bed at 10.30. Like I'm the first one going to bed. Oh wow.

I mean, my kids do, they're supposed to, but like our family, McLaughlin's are not like the Neils. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't. I'm not gonna ridicule you for that. We're not. I mean my kids do, they're supposed to, but like our family, McLaughlin's are not like the Neils. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't. I'm not gonna ridicule you for that. We're not. I'm embarrassed. We're not on a schedule. To say that I now go to, I'm in bed at 9.30.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm actually embarrassed by that. You should be embarrassed. There's so much life to be lived, so much TV to be watched, so much food to be eaten late into the night. And I get up at 8.45. No, just kidding, I get up at 5.20.

Yeah, well, my goal is to work my way to 5.30 because I would like to, because I'm cutting it close. I'm cutting it close sometimes, getting here a little bit late, you know. Yeah, I've noticed that. Well that's the other thing, it kinda, it was a blow to my routine that like, okay, you're like, we can't,

I gotta go to this gym so we can't carpool anymore. I'm a little concerned about that. Well we had carpooled three out of five days probably. Yeah, I can still call you. Yeah, yeah, you can call me on the way in. Yeah, we do that, the times when we don't carpool, we end up talking on the phone on the way in because it's like, you know.

We just can't get enough of each other. No, well it's, once you get in here and we're like in execution mode, and to be clear, we're like killing people. Killing people, yeah. Like cutting their heads off. That's really the 2018 Rhett and Link is just killing people left and right.

You just can't have idle conversation. Or you can't talk about things that we need to just, you know, the stuff that flutters through the gaps. Flutters through the gaps. That's my resolution for 2018. Don't let things flutter through the gaps. Don't let anything flutter through the gaps. But, so yeah, you gotta do it more than a week

to make it a habit. Yeah. Ear Biscuits is supported by Mattress Firm. Now do you know that the average person spends about a third of their day in bed, which means Or night. That every three years, you've spent one year in bed. What?

One year in bed. Does this seem like something that you should take lightly? Does it seem like something that you should just leave up to circumstance and happenstance? No, it's an important place. And that's why we wanna direct your attention to Mattress Firm. Mattress Firm, America's neighborhood mattress store,

lets your budget stretch further when you're looking for ways to improve your sleep. And they're more than mattress experts, y'all. They have the whole package that helps you transform your mattress into a bed, from adjustable bases and sheets to headboards and bedroom decor. They got you covered literally and figuratively. Go to mattressfirm.com slash podcast

to see what deals are happening right now. Again, go to mattressfirm.com slash podcast to learn how your sleeping could be monumentally improved. Ear Biscuits is also supported by HelloFresh. It's a meal kit delivery service that shops, plans, and delivers your favorite step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients so you can just cook, eat, and enjoy.

Now, HelloFresh has become a staple at my house because we do not like to go to the grocery store and try to put together meal and buy all the stuff and you gotta get the right ingredients in the right amounts and then wonder, oh, did I forget something? Do we have that already? No, they give you exactly what you need to make the meal in the right amounts and you don't have to think

about the recipe, you don't have to think about whether or not the meal is balanced. It's all taken care of, it's all easy and convenient, it tastes great, and they do it all for less than $10 a meal. There's nothing worse than forgetting the one thing that's like a key ingredient and then it's like, well, what am I gonna do, take a risk and substitute and-

Don't substitute. Oh gosh, that always scares me when I hear the word substitute coming out of the kitchen if I'm not in there. You can feel confident when cooking with HelloFresh because the recipes are outlined. There's pictures. There's a step-by-step instruction card and the meals themselves only take around 30 minutes

to prepare, which is also great. You know, there's lots of great things to make. They've got three plans to choose from, classic, veggie, and family, with a variety of meat, fish, and seasonal produce. So again, there's lots to choose from, get it done in 30 minutes, and feel confident doing it. So it actually turns out to be very fun

if you didn't previously think cooking was fun. Yes, and for $30 off your first week of HelloFresh, visit hellofresh.com and enter code Ear30. That's code E-A-R 30. Now back to the biscuit. Let's get into this. Link, you wanna do the honors of opening this up? Okay, where is this gonna take us?

Who knows, that's the whole point. It's got a little number five on the outside. Whabam! Nutsa Corelli commented, "'What would happen if you took a guy from middle centuries "'and just dropped him somewhere randomly in this century? "'What would his reaction be?' I love how this question is like we know this.

And like we know this. And like we can talk about this for, you know, like 40 minutes. Of course we can. Well we don't have to talk about this, we're gonna talk about whatever this makes us talk about. If you took a guy, like if, I mean. What do you mean middle, let's just. From middle centuries?

Middle centuries, I mean. Let's just say it's the Middle Ages. You're going back to the beginning of time. Is that what we're talking? The beginning of humanity, you know, a couple hundred thousand years or whatever. No, we're not talking about that, hunter-gatherer. Because the hunter-gatherer would be paralyzed.

It would be essentially the same as dropping like a chimpanzee into the middle of New York City. Well, it would be like putting me, putting a virtual reality headset on me for the first time, which, you know, when we were at Sundance and they had this whole expo where they have the latest virtual reality technology and short films that people have made,

experimenting, pushing the genre, and when Rhett and I went, we waited in this line, signed up to come back and still waited in a line. And we put on all of this garb. And so it wasn't just the headset, but it was all, it was gloves and it was shoes. Shoes. Pants. Like, thigh. Shirt.

I put on underwear. Thigh things. I didn't put on underwear. Thigh things. I didn't put any underwear on. Like torso things. I had underwear on, don't get me wrong. The guy was dressing me and I felt like a knight from the Middle Ages. So at this point, if I was from the Middle Ages.

Oh so you're saying we are considering the Middle Ages, not the middle century. We can consider whatever you want. Let's go Middle Ages. First I'm saying Middle Ages. It was like I was a knight and my squire was putting all this VR stuff on me and then you right beside me.

And he puts all this stuff on except for the headset and then he puts, and I'd never done VR before. I'd never had an Oculus Rift on. This was a couple of years ago. Two, three years ago. And I was just, I had not been interested in it. I don't wanna do that VR stuff until this. And then he finally puts the VR headset,

he's standing right in front of me, on my face, like brings it down and immediately I'm in a world, I'm in the future, immediately. Well, you're in VR. And I was ecstatic. And the first thing I did instinctively was both of my hands just thrust up in front of me so I could look at them.

And the moment I thrust my hands in front of me, I felt that my index finger and my middle finger from my right hand had been forcefully thrust into the mouth of the guy who had dressed me. Yeah. And not only into his mouth, but it went in front of his teeth and behind his lip. Like my two fingers were like jammed up in here.

Yeah, you almost did dental damage. It's like I could've broken through to the sinus cavity. Yeah, right, you could've killed him because if you go up high enough, you hit the brain. And I did it so forcefully. And I said, whoa! And then I was like, I'm sorry. And I moved my hand down.

Of course, I never saw the guy. He wasn't in the future with me. Right, he didn't have all the gear. And I said, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were there. And he said, don't worry, it happens all the time. And he was literally, it was like he was in my ear. He was that close, you know? He didn't back, don't worry, it happens all the time.

And I felt horrible. I don't believe that it happens all the time. And I think that is the answer. The same thing happened to me and I didn't infiltrate anyone's mouth. Did you, where did your hand go? I knew there was a guy in front of me putting the thing on me because I could tell

he was putting it on me. I just forgot. I was maintaining an awareness in VR and the real world at the same time. That is crazy. Which is not one of your strong suits. No. But. Well I've never done it.

I mean how can one maintain a dual reality? We're doing it all the time. But okay, but let me just say that this is an interesting question because you tend to think about things like, well, any technology that is introduced too soon, there's a famous quote probably by Isaac Asimov which essentially says,

any technology that is not understood is just magic to people, whatever. I know that's a horrible paraphrase. He probably didn't even say it, correct me in the comments. Isaac Hayes maybe. But essentially is you immediately just think that something is coming from the supernatural

if you have no category to put it in. And so, especially if you already have a mindset that is predisposition to believe in the supernatural, which everyone in the Middle Ages believed that. So every single thing that this dude would be seeing, whether it was the screen of a phone, or a television, or a car, the sounds, all the technology would be immediately interpreted as magic

and it would either be hell or heaven. I think he would immediately think that he was in hell or heaven because again, that would be the predominant. There's no way there's that much advertising in heaven. But he wouldn't interpret it as advertising. Or even screens. He wouldn't interpret it as a screen.

Just like I didn't interpret the screen on my face as a screen, I interpreted it as another world where there was not an open mouth in front of me. Arthur C. Clarke, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Thank you, Jacob. I was wrong about the science fiction Arthur. Arthur, Arthur C. Clarke, author.

But you know what I was saying. Anyway, but I think the more interesting thing is not just to think about the immediate technological things that would be interpreted as magic, because that's easy, we know that. But the things that we take for granted, the way that we see ourselves, the things that we take for granted, the way that we see ourselves, the position that we see ourselves in the world

based on the things that we know about, things like very simply knowing that we're on a rock that's hurtling through space, I think we underestimate just how much that impacts the way that we think about things. Whereas if you go back to the year, you know, 1000, everybody just thought they were the center of the universe and everybody just thought they were on a flat, you know,

disc or whatever, even though surprisingly, there are still people who think we're on a flat disc now. But I just like to think, just conceptually the way we think about things and how different it is, and so many of these things we take for granted, we don't keep having the same sort of conversations about these things because you're just born into a culture

where you take all these things for granted. Like the fact that there's bacteria. You wash your hands. Is that what you mean? for granted, like the fact that there's bacteria. You know? Mm-hmm. You wash your hands. Is that what you mean? He would need to wash his hands. Maybe he didn't know that. Well, it makes me think, are we at a point now

when, you know, with the revolutions that we've gone through, when with the revolutions that we've gone through, the technological revolution, the internet revolution, that are we prepared for anything? So I think the question is if you took us and plopped us as far into the future as the Middle Ages would be till now, I feel like we wouldn't freak out. It's so different, you know? You're wrong, brother.

I feel like I wouldn't freak out. No, no, no, no, but I believe you're wrong because of a principle called the acceleration of change. We talked about this many times before. But. And that is the difference between now and the year 1000 is much less compared to the difference between now and 1000 years from now.

Because. Things would change a lot more but our mindset and ability to be open to it is different. I mean. Whoa, whoa, whoa, what you're. And the enlightenment. What, no, what you're. What was it, I mean before and after the enlightenment.

What you're assuming by saying that, first of all, is pretty presumptuous, maybe a little bit arrogant. Well, it's the future, we have to presume a lot. Because what you're saying is that we have learned more than there is to learn, we've learned more in the past 1,000 years than there is to learn in the next 1,000 years. No, to learn in the next 1,000 years.

No, no, no, no. How could you not be saying that? I agree with what you're saying about the acceleration of change, but there's a mindset that's like, you know what? I'm up for anything. Anything is possible. We conjecture about AI and stuff like that.

Okay, okay, here's where you might be right. Oh yeah, there's people whose lives are dedicated 110% to conjecturing about things, about the future and all the different things that can happen. What you're saying is now that we're in the middle of a quick changing landscape. Yeah, it's like nothing would surprise me. So in other words, if you go back to the middle age night,

there were no, he had no contemporaries that are like writing science fiction at the time, predicting what was gonna be next. Sure, there might be like a Leonardo da Vinci down the street who was like jumping off of a building and trying to fly. But to think that, oh, one one day there's gonna be this thing that flies around that has this thing called a camera

which is like an eye and it's gonna be able to send the thing that it's seeing back to a little device that a man has and he can look and see. Talking about a drone. And. You talking about a drone here? Let me get it straight, you talking about a drone? And we also are constantly being bombarded

with things that are impossibilities because of CGI. So we can watch movies, not only can we read books and imagine things that are impossible, we can actually see those things come into physical reality, VR as an example, or movies as an example, not physical reality, but visual reality. And so we can see things that aren't real. So we're actually, we're used to seeing things

that are clearly not real and not thinking they're magic because we know that technology can produce those things. That's a pretty good point. But I still think that you're underestimating, like think about how crazy of a technological movement the internet was. You realize there's something, there's something that's not in the predictive capabilities

of people that's gonna happen. Just no chance that that's not gonna happen. I think about this, like if you plucked me from now and then plopped me in the future on the precipice of a chasm. Chasm. And then beside me is. Did you see that movie?

No, is that a movie? Chasm? You talking about? Isn't that a movie? It's a horror movie, isn't it? Well then no, I haven't seen it. And then beside me on the precipice is Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford or Indiana Jones?

Indiana Jones. The character. Yeah. And he says, walk out there, just like you saw in the movie that I was in. By the way, I'm not the guy from the movie, I'm the real guy. In the future, I exist.

Now, if I believed I had been plopped into the future, I could believe the Indiana Jones part. I'd be like, okay, somehow, in the future, I bet you're AI, I bet you could be a hologram, you could be real, you could be flesh, bone to the core and you could be, if you told me, if I asked you in Indy you told me how you were produced, I could buy all of it. And I would just be like okay, I'm not freaking out.

I'm like wow, somebody was right. Somebody who predicted this was right. I didn't read their book but they were right. But then I don't know if I would walk out like he did in the movie without throwing the dust out and even I threw the dust out and I saw that there was some sort of a invisible path across a chasm but if you dropped me, if you plucked me from here

and then plopped me out on that path, I would have a visceral emotional response. I would freak out, I would go into shock because I would think I should be falling through and I wasn't so I'm not saying that you couldn't freak me out but I'm saying if you sat me in an office chair and you like informed me and educated me these things, I just think my mindset.

Office chair. Office chair. My mindset would be different. There's no such thing as an office chair a thousand years from now. I just think we're that, our minds are that open at this point. Is this another way of saying what you're saying is that we have crossed some sort

of threshold of possibilities. Openness. Openness to possibilities that didn't exist before and you don't think that there's another threshold that we can't even foresee that then would just be so mind blowing that then you would conclude things, you would be trying, again, in the same way that the middle ages man takes what he's seeing and he categorizes it, right?

You only can categorize things according to categories that exist in your own mind. Yeah. And so if you're from the year 1000 and you see the modern day, you're like, I'm in heaven or hell. There's no other possibility. I'm obviously not in earth.

I'm not on earth. But you think that you've got enough categories now. You think that you've got categories of like, it might be parallel universes, it might be some sort of simulation, it might be something where my brain is being manipulated in a way, this may be a hallucination induced by a drug,

what, there's so many different possibilities that you, as a modern man can appreciate. The level, yeah, the level of trauma, because I think that's the answer to this question, what would his reaction be if he was plopped here? It would be utter trauma. It would be permanent damage.

And you don't think that you would be traumatized. So what you're saying is, and you may be right. Not in the same way. Unless I'm floating over a chasm. So you don't think that there's not another walking on it. Game changing technological threshold that will happen. Well.

That will fundamentally change. You make a good point, because this is a trap, right? If I say no, there's no new category, that there's no box, there's no new box that I don't have that I could throw whatever I would experience when plopped into the future into. Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. Well, let's use music as an example, right?

Because if you go back to the 40s, right? And then play, I don't know. Post Malone. Post Malone, okay. Since he was hanging around with us. You play Post Malone. He's on the brain. You play Post Malone for somebody in the 40s. And what, is there, okay, so we know the kind of reaction

they would have to that. We can anticipate it would be like, I don't understand what's happening. I can vaguely recognize that there's like A couple of words. A beat, but I don't understand why, I don't necessarily. They probably wouldn't categorize it as music, right? Right, right. It would be an alien language.

But do you think that there is a music genre that will be created that would be surprising to us in the same way that Post Malone would be to somebody from the 1940s, or do you think it's like, no, I mean, at this point, any combination of noises could be music because, you know. Yeah, I think at this point, any combination of noises

would not surprise me if you told me it was music. Because if you think about EDM. I wouldn't be surprised. This is a good, this is a. I would be surprised by the sounds and that it was enjoyed by people and I have an opinion about it, but I wouldn't be surprised that it was music.

Right, because if you think about EDM, EDM, one way to see EDM is, and I'm not gonna say EDM music because that's like saying ATM machine. Okay, so I'm just gonna say EDM. Well, that's good of you. And why can't we just call it EM? Because why do you have to dance to it?

You know what I'm saying? Do you have to dance to it? Why can't it just be EM? I'm sure there are. You think, I've never heard EM, everybody says EDM. We're not cool enough to have heard about it. Is there just EM that you don't dance to? I hope so. I've never danced to EDM. We're not cool enough to have heard about it. Is there just EM that you don't dance to? I hope so. I've never danced to EDM.

We'd probably like it. But I would say, without a doubt, that there are probably albums out, and there's probably a song out right now, and probably this was what the composer was thinking when he or she put the song together. I'm going to create a song that has every single frequency that can be understood

and perceived by a human ear to be in this song. That's an easy thing, right? If any of you EDM producers haven't done that yet, get on it, right? Catch up with the EM producers. So basically every single sound, for lack of a better way to put this, encapsulated in one song, at least every frequency.

And I'll go- There's only so many frequencies that we can hear, and with the technology that we have right now, You think it exists, but- We can generate every single frequency in a given song. Well, and I'll go one further, and then scrunch it all down into a millisecond. But then.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, now you're in the mathematical territory because what is the minimum amount of time required for the human brain to perceive every single frequency and can you just do it all at once? In one split second. every single frequency and can you just do it all at once? In one split second. And there's something about our brains and our ears in the future, are we in the future or the present, by the way?

Well you may, I don't even wanna throw off your thought experiment. So finish your thought. I'm using music as an analogy. To try to ascertain whether or not your perspective is correct about, you're basically saying that you could be surprised but you would not be traumatized by the future because you're open to all possibilities

because you're a modern man that is on this side of the technological revolution. Yeah. And more specifically the internet revolution. Yeah. And so I'm saying that music. And I would say on the precipice of the artificial intelligence revolution.

Like I talk, I talk to things that aren't listening now because I talked to the freaking Google Home and the Alexa at home. Like I've- They are listening. They are listening. But now I've, you know, I find myself wanting to talk to my sink. We got a fact here.

A team of neuroscientists from MIT has found that the human brain can process entire images that the eye sees for as little as 13 milliseconds. Yeah, so then you start writing a song and then you scrunch it into 13 milliseconds and in the future, somehow our brains have been tweaked or they've been added onto with technology so that you can experience like a world of song

in 13 milliseconds. I mean, it wouldn't traumatize me. I wouldn't be like, oh my gosh, I must be burning in hell right now. You know, it's like, what I was saying was, I talked to my refrigerator by accident now. I'm like, okay, refrigerator, make me a smoothie. You know, it's like, I haven't actually said that.

But I, in the same way that like my- But you should. But my, yeah. I mean, we really need that. My kitchen sink, I touch the faucet and it turns on. I don't have to turn the faucet. You know what, I'm constantly touching faucets. Other people's faucets.

Because you got that faucet, because I had that faucet. You know what, I'm constantly touching faucets. Other people's faucets. Because you got that faucet, because I had that faucet. Yeah, that's right. And so. I touched your faucet and water came out of it. And now we have that faucet. And I was like, I gotta have my own faucet to touch. And now we've got that faucet at the office,

but you have to touch the base of this faucet where you can just touch the entire metal part of the faucet. Every part of our faucets. I touch everybody's faucet now and I'm disappointed when it doesn't produce water. It's like what? When I'm touching it. This thing won't cut on.

I talk to my children and I ask them to do things. Okay Lincoln, take out the trash. And I'm disappointed because he's not like Google and Alexa. But he is in a certain way because often he does something that you did not ask him to do. I mean that's what Alexa does for me quite often. And we can see the future that, you know, and we know that they're listening, you know?

We're being served ads based on conversations that we're having with other people. So. It freaks me out. Okay, hold on, that freaks me out for a different reason. You're saying there's absolutely no future that would ultimately traumatize you. I don't know. Surprise you, you know, because you may also,

I mean, what if somehow you were to learn that the entire world was just a figment of your imagination? As long as it's mine. Well, if you heard the people, you should look this up, because some people, there's a pretty good theory that the entire world is just Ed Sheeran's dream. This is a really interesting theory.

And just go with me here. And I'm sorry if you're an Ed Sheeran fan, you're gonna be insulted here in a second. Now, I'm not saying that I'm, I don't consider myself an Ed Sheeran fan, I think he's a talented guy, I think that he's got very catchy music, I think that he seems like a good guy,

he's got a few too many Shrek tattoos, but whatever, you know, a lot of people make mistakes. But, if you were to go into a coffee shop and you were to see, you got something, Jacob? Now just to clarify, Jacob, don't get in the shot, Jacob, because I'm about to say that Jacob is just, he's our AI. It's just a box over there. Okay Jacob, hand me your computer

with an Ed Sheeran article entitled Scientists Confirm We Are All Living in Ed Sheeran's Dream. Yeah, so this is from the Daily Mash, which it was, Like the onion? It's a joke article, but the point of this is this, and I haven't read that article, I've just had a conversation with a friend who had seen that and he thought

this was a really interesting theory. Put yourself in a situation where you go into a coffee shop 10 years ago and you go in there and there's Ed Sheeran. And he's Ed Sheeran before he's Ed Sheeran, right? He's just a dude. And he's playing like. Before he's famous.

He's playing an Ed Sheeran song on the acoustic guitar and he's doing some like singing and some interesting rapping, sort of white dude rapping, rapping kind of thing. And you're like, this guy's pretty good. Hey honey, we should give him a tip. You know what I'm saying? Like that's how you would respond

to seeing Ed Sheeran 10 years ago in a cafe, right? Yeah, I'm tempted to buy a CD, but I know if I do, I'll listen to it and then I'll be disappointed. It won't be as good as it was live, whatever. This internal dialogue is gonna end with me not buying a CD. Right, now, going to the same coffee shop,

Beyonce is in there. You'd be like, what, what, what, what, what? Who is this woman? Why is she at this coffee shop? This is, she's got so much talent in her little finger, she shouldn't be in a coffee shop, she should be on stage in front of millions of people. She's amazing, this is crazy,

this is a once in a lifetime talent. That's how you would respond to seeing Beyonce in a coffee shop. Yeah. But the fact is is that Ed Sheeran, not Beyonce, was the number one most downloaded artist on Spotify last year. Isn't that right?

Look that up, I think I'm right about that. He sells out arenas just like Beyonce does. So many people are led to believe that a normal dude with a normal level of music, okay, he's an exceptionally talented person. Well you know what? Frodo destroyed the One Ring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

but that's a movie. Exactly, exactly. That didn't happen in real life. That's a freaking story out of Tolkien's mind. It's really Sam. You know what I'm saying? Which is even worse. Yeah, so you're playing right into this

because the story that we all want to tell is that the underdog wins, right? The underdog, but that's what we see in movies. Take that, Beyonce. That isn't what you always see in real life. But Ed Sheeran is the classic example of just a normal dude dominating, and so it could be true that this is just me and you and this whole conversation

are just a figment of Ed Sheeran's imagination in the world where he decided that he was gonna be the man. Most streamed artist on Spotify, Ed Sheeran, confirmed fact. You tell me how we don't know that we're not a figment of Ed Sheeran confirmed fact. You tell me how we don't know that we're not a figment of Ed Sheeran's imagination. Well, the most, I mean, the most viewed channel on YouTube is a kid talking about toys. You know. I feel like I can explain

that though. Because a lot of children are left just in front of a computer screen and they love to watch unboxing videos of their peers talking about toys and parents just leave YouTube on for them just endlessly. That's why so much of the YouTube algorithm, or not algorithm, but just what's popular on YouTube is so driven by kids' tastes.

I can understand that, I can explain that. But I can't explain it to you. But the only explanation is that he's, this is his world. I'm just saying that it's plausible. You cannot tell me that it's impossible that we are not just a figment of Ed Sheeran's imagination. No way to prove it.

And it makes sense that he would have, just like Ed Sheeran, Ed Sheeran, if this were just all his imagination, within that imagination, he would have two dudes on the internet right now talking about how this was all his imagination because that's the perfect play. Red herring. The perfect play.

It's the perfect way to throw you off of his trail. We are being pawned, we are pawns. We are Ed Sheeran's pawns right now, having this conversation, perpetuating this idea that we're a figment of his imagination because we are a figment of his imagination. If that's true, we should keep talking about Ed Sheeran and how this is not his world

to keep talking about Ed Sheeran and how this is not his world so that he will continue to make us more popular. Well, this makes me think about the thing that we were talking about the other day, which is we talk often about whether or not we're in a simulation and how there's really no way to prove it and recently some scientists said that they proved that we are not in a simulation and I read the science

in just one article and I was not convinced. I was not convinced. But you know, the theory goes that at some point in a civilization's timeline, they will have the ability to generate a reality, a virtual reality that is indistinguishable from reality. And if that's gonna happen, it's gonna happen millions of times and any given civilization will be able to do it millions of times,

just the only limitation is their computing power. And Andy's circus will be really busy. Right, and that means that just statistically speaking, that we're probably in one of those simulations because there's gonna be that many more simulations than there are realities, right? And so I've been thinking about that, and then I was like, well, what if we are

in a simulation right now, but we're essentially avatars, and we are playing a game, we were talking about this the other day, and we are, there's a real being that's controlling me, this avatar, you, that avatar. Matrix situation. And life is essentially a computer game that we're all playing.

And somebody's keeping score, you know, the game, the game master, God, whoever you wanna call that, and there's a way to beat the game. And I was sitting in my hot tub a couple weeks ago, and I was like, what if the way that you break out of the simulation is just saying that you know it's a simulation and saying that you wanna get out of it? If there was some sort of way that you know it's a simulation and saying that you wanna get out of it.

If there was some sort of way that you could be like, okay guys, I know it's a simulation, I'm ready to get out. Okay. And I was in my hot tub and I was- Can I right now, can I please ask you not to continue this story? I don't want you to tell them what you told me. I don't want them to know what you did next.

Do you remember what I did next? I remember what you did next. I was just about to say what I did next. I know and I'm just, I don't know. Okay fine, tell them. I was basically saying it. I just said, out loud, I know this is a simulation and I'm ready to get out.

He said it out loud. And I'm still here. So. You actually tried it. I did. So either. You didn't have to tell anybody you did that. No I did.

You didn't have to tell me. That's what the Ear Biscuits, that's what Ear Biscuits are about, man. Your secret was safe with me, dude. I was never going to tell anybody. That's what Ear Biscuits are about. Okay, but let me tell you what I learned by saying that. You could probably cover it up right now.

You could back up and you could say, you know what? I don't wanna back up. You know what, I thought it'd be funny to say it out loud, but I didn't. Because I learned for everybody that A, that is not the way out of the simulation, okay? I've confirmed. He's learned it for everybody. That's not how you get out, so don't try it.

You don't have to try it. It is a low, low moment. Or B, we're not in a simulation. I mean, those are the two options. But I tend to think we're in one and I just don't know the way out. Maybe you gotta learn a different language. Maybe you have to talk someone else into doing it

and then you both. Hold hands? Yeah. Come on, let's do it, man. Okay. Whatever, listen. I'll do it. Wouldn't it be so awesome if we're recording

a podcast in the simulation right now. And we were the ones. And then we, all of a sudden the headphones just fall to the ground because we leave and then that is broadcast back to the people in the simulation. Like Obi-Wan? Yes, hold my hand. Just hold, do it, hold my hand.

Do you think this could do it? You have to have faith. I don't think, ah. Quit hitting the daggum cord! I hit the freaking thing with my foot! Quit hitting the daggum cord! You're screwing it up! We're definitely not gonna get out of this simulation

if you keep hitting the cord. Maybe that's the glitch. No, no, that's a distraction. Hold my hand. Now we need to say our names, and we need to be in agreement, and we need to have faith, okay? This is like. Faith.

Faith shouldn't have anything to do with it. No, this is like Indiana Jones, man. This is like throwing the sand out. You gotta take the step. Well, if it is about faith. Hold my freaking hand! If it is about faith, you shouldn't throw the sand out. You gotta take the step. Well if it is about faith. Hold my freaking hand. If it is about faith, you shouldn't throw the sand out because that always bumped me. It's like why did he throw the sand out?

That's not faith. Well faith's gotta be based on something. It can't just be blind. You gotta throw some sand out. Here's the sand, it's my hand. Hold it, man. Well that's the part that doesn't make sense. Let's say we are Rhett and Link.

For the fresh listeners, I'm currently holding his hand. And we're gonna say we are Rhett and Link and we know we're in a simulation and we want out now. Do we know if we want out? Just think about how cool it will be if we figure out that we're in one and we get out. Come on, man. I'm afraid. Here we go. Do you want me to repeat that we're in one and we get out. Come on, man. I'm afraid.

Here we go. You got, do you want me to repeat what we're gonna say or you got it? I got it. We're Link and Rhett. No, come on. And you don't. Can I be first for this?

You think that'll screw it up? That's fine, we can be Link and Rhett for this, that's fine, as long as we get out. They're gonna think it's a person. And let's say we are. Yeah, that's what. We are. We two guys are Link and Rhett. And just say the and really clearly

so it doesn't sound like Link and Rhett, like a guy named Link and Rhett. We two guys are Link and Rhett. Here we go. We two guys are Link and Rhett. And we know. We know we are in a simulation. And we won out now, okay, let's start over again.

We two guys are Link and, it's tough, it's tough, it's a habit, man, it's a habit. It's years of saying it the right way. All right, here we go. We two guys are Link and Rhett and we know we are in a simulation and we want out now! Maybe it takes a second.

You didn't have enough faith, man. Or now! You didn't take it seriously. Now! I could feel it in your hand. Well, the sweat is from your hand. Maybe next year. Why are you disappointed actually?

Hold on, this is the moment we celebrate. That this is reality? Yeah, it's just like, Again, we. What you had said a second ago was, It's too simple. Don't worry about it. I figured it out, this is not a simulation. It's too simple though.

And now we. There's no way that's the way out. There's no way that's the way out. There's no way that's the way out. It's gotta be a little door somewhere in like an old shack. Wires. It doesn't look like there's any power or anything going to the shack,

but then you open it up and there's wires and stuff. Yeah, follow the wires. Well, I tried, I really, I definitely tried. My middle ages college professor was Dr. Riddle. Yeah. And. Why'd you take that class, by the way? I was taking summer classes.

This is when Christy went to the West Coast, you went to Slovakia, me and Matt Newkirk went to the gym and I took some summer classes. Got bulked up. And he talked like this and he was very boring but occasionally he would tell a story about the Middle Ages. And he told a story, he was that old?

He was very old. He was a thousand years old. He was from the Middle Ages. He told a story about, I guess it was a legend about a guy who, I don't know if he was a thinker, philosopher, what he was, priest, monk, I wish I could remember. I don't retain much information I wish I could remember.

I don't retain much information, but I do remember that the story goes that he decided to go to a point in town and never move. And he would crap there. When you don't leave, you gotta use the bathroom there. And over many years and many deposits, he created a tower of his own poop. That he sat upon. That he sat upon.

It sounds like a fable but I believe that it's true. It sounds like grim fairytale but oh you believe it's true? It was, yeah believe it's true? Yeah, so it was like a guy in the Middle Ages who supposedly did this. He was like David Blaine. Yeah. But it wasn't like a weekend in New York City, it was like his whole life.

His whole life. And the story had no point that I recall. Well, I think we can, well, the point is the big pile of poop that he was in. But I was riveted by it, so I asked Dr. Riddle if I could meet him at his office and interview him. Yeah, that was the summer that you had the handheld recorder and you recorded a lot of things.

And I started, I got him to retell that story and many other stories, many other middle ages anecdotes that I've never gone back to. I think the tape, you know, when we were writing the book, I was looking through a lot of archival stuff that I've kept and I felt sure that I would've kept the tape but I never kept it. I never found it so I guess I must've lost it along the way.

I wish I had that tape. That's it? That's it. Well, I don't know why. Well, I think we can draw many conclusions from this. I bet there's something to be learned from that because it sprung up in my mind and I just thought it was important to tell the story.

Well, one conclusion is. With no point in mind. You gotta keep moving or else, unless you wanna sit on your own poop, you gotta keep moving. You can't stay in the same place for too long. Get a bed sore or you just, you sit on your own poop. Well I think analogously, that is a word.

Maybe. It relates to the whole question of. Oh back to the question from Nutsa. You can't stay where you are because you'll just be sitting in a pile of your own crap. It will not end well for you. You'll be high atop your own crap. You gotta be as open as you can

so you can decrease your chances of being plopped into a place in the future where you're gonna freak out and become shell shocked, a shell of a person. Is there something we can do to not be this middle ages guy? And is that a virtue? Well I think what you're saying is that if you wanna boil this down to a life lesson,

is that what you're trying to do? I'm trying to bring it full circle and answer Nuzza Kareli's question. To make it practical? Well we've already answered the question. But to make it practical, if you can get to a certain threshold in your own mind where you are willing to

where you are willing to be open to the possibilities of all your disparate futures so that nothing that happens to you, no matter how good, no matter how bad, will be traumatizing, traumatizing in quotes, because sometimes it's just gonna be traumatizing, traumatizing in quotes, because sometimes it's just gonna be traumatizing, literally, physically, you get a horrible disease or you're in an accident, things that we can't avoid. But can you get your mind to a place where regardless

of what the future holds, you can take it in stride? the future holds, you can take it in stride. That is the lesson of the question of Nutza Corelli. Are we saying that right or is it Nutza? Nutza, I like to say Nutza. I don't know, this printout does not have a pronunciation guide. Don't be a closed-minded middle-ages man who would be traumatized by a step 1,000 years

into the future. How do we do that? We realize that we're all in the simulation, most likely the figment of Ed Sheeran's imagination, and therefore, if Ed Sheeran can think it, it could happen to you. And Ed Sheeran can think of a lot of things because he mixes rap with folk.

I just, you know, I never, there was not an ounce of my, there was not just an inkling of myself that thought that maybe we'd pop out of a simulation. I mean I thought it was fun that we did it, but maybe that's what kept us from it. Exactly. I had a seed, I had a seed of faith.

Well I will say, I had a.1%. If you're sitting there all alone and you audibly said that, I keep going back to that. It's hilarious to me. What if I would've decided to stop by and you didn't know I was coming over. Well you would've had to sneak up on me because I know who's at the pool.

And I came back there and I just happened to be walking through or if Jess. I had my eyes open. If Jessie was walking through, I mean behind you. She wouldn't be surprised. And all of a sudden you were like, she just heard you out of the blue just audibly say, what, how did you put it?

I know I'm in. I'm Lincoln Rhett. I just said I know I'm in a simulation and I want out now. See, for me, if I got to the point where I knew I was in a simulation, what I would say was, I know I'm in a simulation and I'm good with it. Well then, it's not worth saying at all. That's what I would say.

If you can't transition out of it, then it's not even worth acknowledging. Well, I think, no, I think that isn't, couldn't that be a way forward, like we're talking about? Well, what you're really talking about is the Morpheus scene in the Matrix where he's in the white world where he's given the option to take the red pill

or the blue pill and you can either take the red pill and get out of the Matrix or you can take the blue pill and go back in and you're saying that simply asking the question. Must have been a good movie if we're still talking about it. Think about that. At the time. And here's the funny thing.

At the time, it seemed so revolutionary. I was like, how could this even, like, I didn't even. Well, Matrix Revolutions seemed so revolutionary. I didn't even get it. I didn't even get it the first time I saw it. I didn't even understand fully what was happening. It wasn't until the second time that I really began to realize that the real world

like implications that the story had. But the thing is is that people like Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov have been, you know, they've been thinking about this kind of stuff for a long time. And then they died. Yep. And they they died. Yep. And they didn't figure it out.

They got close though. I wonder if they were pretty frustrated people. I wonder. Oh, I don't think so. I don't know. I didn't know them personally. Sad. It's a sad simulation.

I'm not sad. I'm not sad. I'm pretty happy. I wanna be clear, just in closing. I wanna be clear that when I said I want out now, I wasn't saying that I don't like this simulation. I love the simulation. You wanna shake the hand of the man who's making the simulation.

I am having a great time. I'm having a great time in the simulation. But just the thought that there is a more grounded reality. You know, I'm a sucker for truth, right? And so even if the truth is unpleasant, even if the truth makes me feel uncomfortable, I tend to try to move towards it. And so I think that if there's a more grounding reality

underneath this reality, even if, because I mean, think about it. That could help you appreciate like if there was a positive motive for the simulation to have been created. Well I mean think, I mean again. Oh now I see why there's a simulation because this truth is horrible.

I don't want to keep going back to the Matrix but that's the whole point of the movie. Yeah it is. You've got the guy who turns on them and starts killing them because he likes it. He likes the steak that he's eating. It's good, it's real to him. Yeah.

But then Morpheus' whole idea is that no, the reality, the truth will set you free. The truth is more important than just giving yourself over to the simulation because ultimately, if you follow the truth, wherever the truth leads, you and mankind will ultimately be better off. I have to believe that. I have to believe that, right?

No, you do not. I don't have to believe it, but I choose to believe it. And you can also be wrong. Yeah, but you know. So you're saying that I might be in a weird gelatinous pod right now and waking up in that and choking on my amniotic fluid is not a reality that I really want to experience?

Yeah, we could simulate that within the simulation and see how you feel. Let's do that. Let's inception the matrix. Now you're talking. Yeah. Now you're talking. We're gonna have to get a sleeping bag and some slime.

And while we're at it, let's add in a few transformers. No, no, no, no, no, no, nobody needs that. Well, I think we've solved something today. Hopefully we answered your question, Nutza. And if you didn't like this one, there'll be another one next week coming right at you. And it'll be different. I don't know how.

We won't talk about the same stuff. But let us know what you think. Let's continue this conversation with you, Mythical Beast. Hashtag Ear Biscuits. Yes, let us know your perspective on the stuff that we talked about. Maybe we'll engage on Twitter. I'm not gonna make specific promises,

but I'm saying there's a distinct possibility that I or Link or both of us will engage on Twitter. You wanna engage on Twitter? Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Hashtag Ear Biscuits.