Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 143: Why You Procrastinate (Rabbit Hole) | Ear Biscuits Ep. 143

Episode Date: May 14, 2018

The one word Rhett uses frequently on GMM and the type of person Link aspires to be are just a few of the many topics R&L discuss on this week’s rabbit hole episode. 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/Mythical Twitter: twitter.com/Mythical 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. Man, I'm glad you're listening because this week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting, we're talking at each other and going down a rabbit hole. Where's it gonna take us? We don't know.

We've got an envelope. Depends on what the rabbit decided when he dug it. With a topic of discussion, maybe a question, I don't know, haven't seen it. Well that is an interesting question. Is the rabbit hole that we're going to go down determined already by a rabbit that dug it? Or are we the rabbits digging the hole?

That's a deep philosophical question. It's a mythical beast who responded to a social media post. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about who asked the question. Yeah. I'm saying the people going down the rabbit hole. Are we the rabbits digging the hole

and determining the direction of the hole? Are we following a hole that has already been determined ahead of time? It's really a question about determinism. Oh, well the saying. Catch up, Link. The saying implies that there's a hole and you're just going down it.

You're not the rabbit. So you believe that our conversation is already determined. Are you saying that we do not have free will and how we interact with the question that we're going to be. Free will. Free will. Free will. Em we interact with the question that we're going to be. Free will. Free will.

Free will. Emphasis on the wh-e-l. Lincoln always makes fun of the way I say white. White. Every time I say white, he says white after me. Yeah, no, because there's an H in it. White, white. Well, are we gonna prematurely go down another rabbit hole

which is determinism versus free will of conversation? I just raised the question. I mean, when I, you know, the story of my concussion is what really made me pause and start to think about the determinism of conversations in life in general. That is a really good point. You know, as we talk about in our tour of mythicality, we have a whole bit about it on the stage.

We also have a book. Which comes from the story in the book about me breaking my pelvis and losing eight hours of memory because, well, you don't lose eight hours of memory because of your pelvis. I also hit my head. Well, Link keeps his memory in his pelvis. It's deeper.

It's an unusual thing. I keep my memory deep. It's actually more protected down there. But my point is, you put me in a certain situation and the concussion allowed me to be in the situation again and again and again and I kept saying the exact same thing again and again and again. Right.

So if you say a certain thing with certain, I mean there's lots of variables, but with all of those variables cascading from the Big Bang to now, I'm bound, I mean, I could easily believe if you twisted my arm hard enough that, man, with all the variables, I'm bound to respond in a certain way.

Well, and most research shows that you actually, your frontal cortex is just narrating the decision that another part of your brain already made. And so it's making you think that you made a decision, but really the decisions that you make are just your DNA interacting with the environment. That doesn't make life any less meaningful. It just means that- You really fought saying meaningless twice.

It doesn't make life less meaningful. It just means that me and you are- Here's what it makes less meaningful. Are wired in a certain way, and we're gonna look at this question, and the way that we're gonna interact with this question is already determined, man. I think you're making this podcast and the way that we're gonna interact with this question is already determined, man.

I think you're making this podcast feel more meaningless because the moments that, if I were gonna listen to this podcast, the moments that I would be listening for and perking up for will be the points where it's like, where the unexpected thing happens. I mean. But to you and to me and to the,

your business, your listening. It creates laughter, it creates thought. Yeah, but none of that changes. I mean. But to you and to me and to the ear biscuits that you're listening. It creates laughter. It creates thought. Yeah. But none of that changes. It creates. People get really upset when people start making that argument. But it doesn't change your experience. Me and you are gonna interact with this question

as if, and we're gonna be narrating to ourselves that we are making all these decisions and coming up with all this stuff and the person listening is gonna be reacting to it because they're hearing it for the first time but even their reaction to it is predetermined. I mean, people get upset about it but it doesn't change life at all.

If you go to a car dealership and you're like, oh, I'm excited, I'm gonna buy a car. I'm so excited about this and I'm gonna, I get, let's say I've won the lottery and I get the pick of the litter, any car that I want off the lot, but then, and help me with this analogy. That's always a good sign.

But then somebody, as you walk in the front doors, with the power and the ability to pick any car you want and just drive off the lot like a mogul, leans over and whispers in your ear and says, we already know which car you're gonna buy. And all the paperwork's done, the plates are on it. And it's already taken care of. I can't think that that wouldn't negatively impact

my experience. I was like, man, you just ruined it for me. I won the lottery, I'm gonna roll out of here like a mogul. The process of like picking out the car. But now in my mind, I'm like, well which one did I already pick? But that's not how it works. I need to pick again.

But hold on. And I would feel like my experience was robbed from me. But here's where that analogy breaks down. Because by saying that things are determined ahead of time and that ultimately your decisions consist of your genetic makeup interacting with an environment, is not, the environment is also that car dealer coming up to you, the salesman, and saying,

you've already made a decision, we know which one you're gonna pick. At that point, the environment has now changed. And so your DNA, your mind is gonna react to that and you may end up picking something different than you would if he had not interacted with you in that way. But it would have been the thing that he whispered in my, and said that he knew.

So it wouldn't have changed that. It wouldn't have changed it. He would then have been lying. But you don't, it's impossible or it's very difficult to calculate the probability of how much his interaction with you and telling you that he already knows what you're gonna do would impact your decision. But that doesn't mean that you actually had the choice

to make a different decision. It just means that the environment impacted your decision. But it still feels like a choice, so what's the difference? I think I'm just gonna turn around, go back to my farty old car, and just get in it and drive away and say, you know what, I'm no one's pawn. Right.

And nobody would win at that point. I've lost, they've lost business. They shouldn't have whispered it in my ear. That was their mistake. If you know what someone's gonna They shouldn't have whispered it in my ear. That was their mistake. If you know what someone's gonna do, you don't whisper it in their ear that, I know what you're gonna do. But the thing is, is that an omniscient computer

who analyzed your environment and your genetic makeup put you into that situation, they could determine ahead of time if they had perfect ability to interpret all the events, they would be able to interpret, they would be able to perfectly predict that in the end you would say, screw it, I'm going back home, nobody's my boss.

That doesn't mean that you didn't have agency. It just means that you didn't really have, I don't know. It means that agency is not exactly what you feel like it is. I don't even like to talk about this because all it does is make people mad. People get so upset when you start telling them that you're actually not making any free decisions. You're just interacting with your environment.

I feel, it actually makes me feel better. That's one of the good things about it. Ironically, it's like, you know, it's like once it's done, it's like I did it. And I couldn't have done anything else. Once it's done, it's like I did it. Okay, well, let me airport my phone here. It's buzzing.

Who is that? Is that business or pleasure? It was both, you know, one of those deals. Business and pleasure? Explain yourself. It was just the Slack conversation, the office Slack conversation, which can get a little overwhelming, the general Slack especially, you know, and it's just- Slack conversation, the office Slack conversation. Which can get a little overwhelming,

the general Slack especially. General Slack comes in here with his tanks. Before we get into the question though, I do want to, I was talking to you a little bit about this. I had an interesting experience last night. I was in the father-son three point contest in my son's basketball league. And so this is like, why does this exist?

Fun, man, fun times. Oh it's just for fun? Well it's a fund raiser. Okay, that's what I thought. To raise money for the team. So who was, did you give money or did you just show up and grace them with your three point presence? Both.

How much money did you donate? I'm not gonna tell you that. Six million dollars. I've floated, I'm floating the team for the next seven generations. So anyway, Locke tells me on Monday, well first of all, on Monday we're going to this, and he's like, Dad, there's a fundraiser,

and, well that was Saturday night, I'm going to shoot free throws, I'm gonna shoot 100 free throws, and you have to give a certain amount of money for every one I make or whatever. He was like, oh, also there's a dad three point contest. He tells me this as I'm driving in there. I'm like, Locke, I don't, what?

Oh, as you're driving to the thing? Yeah, he told me this on Saturday. When we got there, first of all, I was upset with him because he thought that it was Saturday night and I was like, you gotta tell me, you know I care about these things, you know I'm competitive, you know tell me, you know I care about these things. You know I'm competitive. You know if this is a dad versus dad situation

that I wanna be, you know, I want my game to be in tune. Oh, you gotta prime the pump on your jump shot. But it turns out it wasn't Saturday, it was last night, several nights later. He accidentally gave you a heads up. Right, so. But you still got angry with him and that's all that really matters.

Yeah, that's a good part. But I still didn't practice. What I did. You were going to practice but then you never got around to it. I kept intending to practice. Right, because of television. And then the situation rolls around last night

and I'm sitting up there and I'm like, looking at the other dads and I'm like, first of all, Locke's gotta shoot, there's not a lot of room for error here because he shoots five three-pointers and then I shoot five. We go around the horn, around the world from one elbow to the other elbow.

And so you get 10 and it's hard to just, And that's it. Get out of the stands and not get into a groove and just start hitting three-pointers. Had he shot 100 free throws already? On Saturday night, yeah. Okay, at a different night. So I see a guy.

There's no warmup, huh, for the three point thing? All it was is once it got to be that set, that part of the night, because there was like a kid's three point contest and then there was like a mom and son free throw contest. Now I'm there for that. Yep. A kid three point contest,

that also sounds amazing. It was absolutely riveting the whole night. And then it gets down to the moment we've all been waiting for, the dad three point contest. And I can look around and I see that there's other dads who are pretty serious, including one guy who was in a head to toe North Carolina Tar Heels basketball uniform.

What? Yes, and as you know, even though people assume that we are fans of North Carolina, because we're from North Carolina, we hate them. Quite the opposite. We hate them with a fiery passion. If the school could completely just be obliterated without any of the actual individuals being harmed,

and I could press a button, I would do it. You'd press the button? I'd press the button. If it meant that all of the people could be safe, but all the buildings and the institutions and the Dean Smith Center could just completely blow up, I would do it, I'm just gonna be honest with you. Can I hold your hand while you did it?

Can I make it push harder? I mean- And no, I don't hate Duke. That's the thing. I don't also hate Duke. I don't like Duke because it's still a rival, but I, with a fiery passion, hate UNC. And I would just like to back away slowly from your fervor because in college-

And my wife went there by the way. It was really fun to have an arch rival, especially when they refused to acknowledge that we even existed. Right, because. It made it even worse. They don't consider us a rival because we suck so bad at sports historically.

And they consider Duke their rival. At least the past 30 years or so. And so in college I cared about it, but now I mean, the Wolf a Duke, but their rival. At least the past 30 years or so. And so in college, I cared about it, but now, I mean, the Wolfpack have burnt me so much that I'm still, you know, I still claim my alma mater, don't get me wrong, but like, I don't watch the games like you do. I don't follow it, and I don't get upset anymore.

I still embrace the- My life has extended. Well, being an NC State fan has given me a level of character that other people, people who are UNC fans don't have. You know, when your team actually wins national championships and cheating included, by the way, I will throw that out there. Do the Tar Heels not have character,

to clarify your statement, because they don't lose or because they're horrible people? Once you submit yourself to that school for four years or so, you lose character. Right. I saw it happen to my wife, I saw it happen to my brother. You know, they went in certain people and they came out people without character.

Right. And slowly, throughout the years, I've slowly built her character back. Oh, you have? Yeah, yeah. Oh, because I went to NC State. To your credit, I'm sure she thanks you all the time for building her character back. So anyway, I see this NC State. To your credit, I'm sure she thanks you all the time for building her character back. So anyway, I see this guy in the head to toe, he had on freaking UNC socks.

I do hate him. You know, and I was like, what is wrong with you, man? Of course, I went and talked to him. And I had to talk to him, I was like, oh, UNC, huh? Did you go to school there? I always doubt that they go to school there because it's kind of like the Lakers, you know? Yeah.

Like you wear, it doesn't mean you're a fan. I hope he went there. If he's got a full outfit, he better have been on the team. He was not on the team. In his defense, he did graduate from UNC. And then I was like, well, I went to NC State. He was like, oh, ACC battle. Now what are you wearing?

I'm actually wearing exactly what I have on right now. This shirt, these jeans, different underwear. In what kind of shoes? I wore like my high top gray high tops. Okay, your Air Force Ones. But no, the other ones that zip up now. You did, oh those. So you just walked in and off the street.

Every other dad is also not in a full basketball uniform. One guy was in a gi. One dad was in a gi. Hold on. Yes. I don't know if he's excited about the new Cobra Kai on YouTube, Brad. Or what, but.

You didn't talk to him, did you? No, I refuse to speak to a man in a gi. Unless he's actively fighting. Unless he's geeing. You also shouldn't have talked to the Chapel Hill guy in full regalia. I had to. So what do you mean, you didn't have to?

I wanted to intimidate him. Oh. So I talked to him and. Did he apologize for, was he self-conscious about his uniform? Yeah, yeah, he said, I've only worn this one time and that was when we won the championship two years ago. I was like, yeah, thanks for rubbing it in, jerk.

But he said, I don't get a chance to wear this and I almost thought, well, this is not the chance. I mean, you know. But good, you know, he is playing basketball. Anyway, by the way, super nice guy. He seems to have gotten back most of his character. He's not playing basketball, by the way. He's shooting five three-pointers.

He's actually shooting 10, because he's got two sons, so he gets to do it twice. Oh, good for him. A guy of that level of character had two children. I'm gonna have to throw Locke under the bus here. Sorry, Locke, but Locke missed all five of his three-pointers and he's a great three-point shooter. It was just a little bit of an off night for him.

Did you yell at him? No, but I gave him a very piercing look of disappointment, which I've gotten very good at. And so then I'm like, okay, this is all on me. And of course, I'm not actually thinking, I'm a little bit of a narcissist and very selfish. So I'm not thinking about the McLaughlin team score. You wanna plug anything right now

after you've made the narcissist comment? No, I didn't talk about this on Twitter or Instagram, which would be RhettMC, both places, shout out. But no, I didn't do that. Anyway, so once Locke has missed all five, I'm just like, this is about me. Oh. You know what I'm saying? This is about me saving face.

This is about. But before then, it wasn't all about you. Right, but when McLaughlin, Team McLaughlin had a chance, it was about Team McLaughlin, but now it's just about Team Rhett. You know what I'm saying? And so, first of all, a lot of these kids know who I am,

and so there's that pressure. It's like, okay, here's the internet comedian getting up there, and he's tall. We know he likes to win things. So at this point, I'm like, well, I can't look like a jerk. I wish I was there so I could have kept score like in the old days. It's pretty easy to keep score

when somebody's shooting five three-pointers. So I get up there a little disappointed in Locke having missed all of them, and I line up the first one, air ball. Short, they missed everything. Oh, wow. And again, historically, I'm a good shooter. So immediately, there's a wave of embarrassment

that begins to come over me. Yeah, yeah. But I'm like, these are the kind of moments I live for. Starting off a five string, three point series with an air ball. Step up to the next one. Did anyone chant air ball? Lots of dads had air balled.

One guy threw it over the entire goal one time. I mean dads aren't made for shooting. The backboard? Yeah, most dads are not ready for this. Yeah, I would have not been not embarrassing. Second three pointer, swish, I'm back on track. Third three pointer from the top of the key, another air ball.

Now that's the place where you could easily bank it in, which again, it's not cool, but it would have counted. Yeah, one dad did that, and several moms did that on free throws. So now I'm one for three, 33%, not real bad when it comes to three-pointers, but two of them are air balls, which is real bad. And then the fourth one, swish.

Swish? I only swish. I don't hit the rim. I either goes in or air balls. You're not gonna hit that rim. And then. What about the last one? Fifth one, swish.

Swish? So I made three out of five. 60%, pretty good. I wish I hadn't air balled, but at that point, I was just like, the guy in the full Carolina outfit cannot make more than three out of five or else I will feel defeated. That was your game.

At that point, that was all I cared about. Just tying him, because I knew he was gonna have two chances at it. Him tying you, all right. And long story short, the first time around, he hit three and he missed the fifth one. He had made three out of four and Jessie's recording this. On her phone?

On her phone. To rub it in your face? On the fifth one, well, to post to her Instagram story. I'm not gonna shout her out. I don't want you guys to flutter. The fifth one, he would've been a four out of five, he missed it, and there was an audible, yes, on her Instagram story, and it was me.

It just involuntarily just screaming yes when he missed the fifth one. You screamed yes when he missed it? It wasn't like super loud. Yes! I was right next to her phone. I couldn't help it, man. He's freaking wearing the enemy's uniform.

And then he gets up there for his second son and he makes three again. Dude, I'm surprised you didn't start heckling him. He makes three again. So, and no dad made more than three. There was like four of us that made three. So I left with a little bit of my pride intact. Two air balls, though.

Gotta work on that, Rhett. A little bit of disappointment in my son, a little bit of disappointment in myself. You know, just an average Wednesday. We're gonna go down a rabbit hole after we crack open an envelope here in a second. But first, Ear Biscuits is supported by Oatly, the original oat milk from Sweden

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Oh yeah. And I'd never tried that. And then ever since I've been craving it. And now with the Oatly in my home, I have my lattes exactly how I want them. And it just tastes so good. I tasted almond milk and then I tasted the Oatly and it's just so much better, so much tastier to me.

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I'm opening it up, having never seen it. You said that as if you're lying. You know what I'm saying? Having never seen it? Yeah. Like a magician. I've never met this man before. I just trained him earlier tonight. We haven't actually seen it.

Morgan posted, why do people procrastinate? Why is putting something off only to have to deal with it all in one go and in such a short amount of time much more tempting? Okay, Morgan, you want us to get into the art or the vice of procrastination. He wants to know why people do it.

He can't understand it. So we should each probably say where we fall on this spectrum because it's not a I do or I don't. I imagine it's more of just a general trajectory of procrastination or not. Would you consider yourself a procrastinator? This is a tough question for you.

It's easy for me, so I'll answer. I would not consider you a procrastinator by any means. No, I mean, when I think about procrastination, I always think of it in terms of like tests, high school and college or haiku. Haiku school. Which I almost said. Yeah, you almost got a scholarship to haiku school. Whenever I get a haiku assignment

or I'm being tested on my haikus, I'm like immediately studying. How would you test haikus? I think is it the right number of syllables or not? You count the syllables. If it isn't. You blew it. It's an F. You blew it.

How many syllables is it? Could you tell me that? I should because I just watched that movie, because we talked about it, Taika Waititi movie, what's it called? Searching for. Search for the Wilder People. Search for the Wilder People. Hunt for the Wilder People is how I would say it. Wilder People, sure.

Excellent movie, by the way. Watched it with the kids. I was like, all right, the kids are like, it's Friday night, let's have a family movie night. And I'm like, yes, I have the perfect movie. I'm actually keeping a list of movies so we no longer have to argue for 30 or 45 minutes on what movies everybody wants.

So basically, I've started keeping a list of movies that I wanna see that they can tolerate. And then I'm just making an executive decision. That's good can be the worst. So basically I've started keeping a list of movies that I wanna see that they can tolerate and then I'm just making an executive decision. Oh, that's good, be a dad. Yeah, because otherwise we never get anywhere and I know how to make everybody happy with this movie. Wow. And so I said we're gonna watch it

and everybody's groaning and I'm like, no, groaning. You don't know anything about the movie. I think they know everything. You tell them something, that's just, and then they groan, like they had decided, like it was predetermined that they were gonna groan. It didn't matter what I was gonna say. They do the same thing with food.

Yeah, it's like, even if it's something they love, like we're gonna get some Mexican food takeout. No, it's like it has to be their idea. I don't get it. Teens, man. Well, I got something that aren't teens. Yeah, me too. They're still doing it. Me too. It's just progeny.

Yeah, yeah, children. It's our fault. In the movie, which I highly recommend for family viewing. For all viewing. The kid says haikus, you remember that? Yes. And it's been a while since you've watched it. So I think it's five syllables.

Is it five, seven, five? Verify that. Anyway, really great movie. I just freaking love the first 30 minutes. It's so funny. It's funny throughout, but like really funny, I'll call it an indie-ish movie. 575.

575 is a haiku. What was I saying? Oh, sometimes even the funniest movies, by the second half, they're not funny anymore. This one's even better. And this, I wouldn't say it got better, but it didn't get unfunny. And that's a hard thing to do with a movie.

And this, the type, Made you cry a little bit too. That New Zealand sense of humor is just so delectable. It's my, I think it's my favorite. So dry. It's so, it's my favorite. And that's why I like Thor Ragnarok because Taika also directed that.

Yeah, I love that guy and What We Do in the Shadows. He's the rock guy. He's the rock guy in Thor. What We Do in the Shadows, What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, if you have not done yourself the favor of watching both of those movies, what are you doing? I think you can't.

What are you doing with your life? I would say you can't be sleepy because you have to be in tune to it. Like what we do in the shadows, I actually saw it twice I think and I was very sleepy both times. It's like you have to have a level of concentration in order to really appreciate it

because it's not actually, it's dry. It's dry comedy. That was one of those movies that experimented with the sleep induction. You didn't know that? No, I didn't. Yeah, yeah, well you should have known that and you would have been calfed up for it.

It didn't make me sleepy, I was just already sleepy. So for me, I hate procrastination because I just hate having an assignment looming and then not making progress on it, like I don't have to complete something but I have to know that, I have to do enough to know that I can complete it easily. Like, something about the way my brain works,

I think with everything that becomes a to-do item, especially with tests back in the day on my haikus, I think the way I interacted with those psychologically was I always started from a place, even though I was a very diligent student, that I was going to fail. I just wish that I would've gone to therapy much earlier in life, honestly.

To start to unpack these type of things, like I never stopped and thought to myself, okay, the moment you get an assignment for a test, you have this sinking feeling that is a dread that like, like oh yeah, this means automatic failure for me. Or on the opposite side of it, sometimes I think I would think, I think I would think, that my standard was perfection

and then it was a sinking feeling unless I knew I could achieve perfection. I think that rings true for me. Both of those factors together, A, would be great to have talked through with a qualified therapist. I think that's something I wish I would've done in college. So that being said, the way that I would cope is

I would start to study immediately. Or I think actually a long time ago in A Near Biscuits, or I think actually a long time ago in In Your Biscuits, I talked about another example which was, just engineering school is an example and my heart was never in it yet my time and my energy, my blood, sweat and tears was all invested in it just because I was doing it and I had to do it as perfectly as possible.

So to me that's very tied to procrastination because then it's like I have no defense. It's my fault if I wait too late and it's like okay, well I didn't know how much time it was gonna take for me to know that I could ace this test. And I will never have more time than I have right now to know how much time I need. Well I think it's.

So I mean, so just because you're not a procrastinator doesn't mean that you're healthy. I think I've just proven that. I mean, in college I was definitely a procrastinator. If procrastination is waiting, like postponing getting into something, I don't do that as much anymore. But the same factors that contributed to procrastination,

which I think this gets a little bit at Morgan's question, like why do people procrastinate, is how easily distracted I am, right? The main factor is how easily distracted I am. I get that. Whereas you have like a laser focus on things, it's kinda like a laser focus like a tube. Like the way that I picture your attention.

See this? Is like a, I don't see that at all. See what I'm doing? No, because I have such a, there's a tube that's going right to your face. I'm making a flying butterfly with my hands. Underneath the butterfly. But like for instance, I, you know.

That's good, it didn't distract you. I noticed this, when we ride together, we haven't been carpooling together that much because we're going to two different gyms and stuff. Because our relationship's on the rocks. But, or even the other day when we were getting ready in the ready room, the wardrobe room. My mom has a ready room.

It's an entire room dedicated to her getting ready in the morning. So what we do typically when we're getting ready to shoot some Good Mythical Morning is the writer and producer of that particular episode kind of come in and begin talking through what we're about to shoot. Even though we have familiarized ourselves

with what we're gonna do, it's just like we're getting, everybody's getting all their ducks in a row, especially for the more complex episodes. And there was music playing in the room. Now the music playing in the room was so quiet that I had forgotten that music was playing in the room. Now the music playing in the room was so quiet that I had forgotten that music was playing in the room. Bobby Gentry. But.

I started playing that music before he got there. But so they come in the room and they start talking to us and I noticed like 15 seconds of them talking. You get up, you go over there, and you turn the music all the way off. And I'm like, oh, music was playing. And that music playing, which I didn't hear, was distracting Link so he couldn't listen to the,

or when we ride together, which is what I was getting to. Well, first, okay, go ahead. I'll come back to the music, but go ahead. This is also a music example. I've noticed that when we are riding in a car, if we're talking, you don't want music to be playing at all. It's not like, I remember Ben Greenwood's mom used to play music almost where you were like,

is there music on? Is the radio on now? I was like, what is the point of it right now? Right. Whereas in my family is more like, we play music where most people would be like, why are you playing it that loud and trying to have a conversation at the same time?

But that's, in my house all the time, like Saturday morning, the music starts playing. Yeah. Also most weekday mornings, like music starts playing and we're having conversations. We play music while we eat dinner at night. And like sometimes it's like loud. But everybody's on the same page

as how we interact with each other. So there's music that you're enjoying but you're also in the midst of a conversation. But like if we and me and you are driving down the road, and the music is Ben Greenwood's mom level, you have to turn it off before we begin a conversation. Now I'm not, good, bad or indifferent, but what that does is it highlights the amount of tolerance

that you have for anything that might be distracting. Now my tolerance is so high for things that might be distracting. Now my tolerance is so high for things that might be distracting that I get drawn into them. So when I sit down. That doesn't make sense. No, what I'm saying is that. I thought if you were gonna say that you never get distracted by things,

then you would never be drawn off of your task into them. No, no, my propensity to incorporate those things into my life in a way that is like, it doesn't compromise my conversation with my wife or with my kids or even a conversation that I would be having with you, especially music because it's the kind of thing that you can easily categorize and be like, oh, there's music playing,

but now I'm having this conversation with Link about this serious thing and I'm not hearing the music anymore. But what I'm saying is my tendency to leave things on and kind of leave a lot of tabs on my computer open, leave a lot of apps open, what that ends up doing is I've just set the table against myself with a high number of things that could at any point

draw me in. So, and it's actually gotten worse as I've gotten older. Back in the day in college it would be like, I'd put things off, I'd do the classic procrastination. Just let me jump in about the music and say that a lot of these things, you know I'm not gonna take it as a criticism. I'm not gonna take it as you think that I'm lesser

because I'm distracted by things. I'm gonna leave that. I'm not gonna take it personal. It sounds like that's how you're taking it. It's hard not to take it that way, but I'm not. Okay. But I just wanna go ahead and say it. The reason why I turn off the music is for you because you're the one who might get pulled into that

and I would hate to do that to you. I appreciate that. That's not true, by the way. I turn the music off because, yeah it's distracting. It's distracting to me because I know what, I'm into, I started playing the music, I know what it is so I have a connection to it. It's not background music that like,

oh I walked in the room and it was just there. No it's something I was listening to intently and then I'm like, I don't wanna pull myself away from it. That's my point. My point is that the question was, why do people procrastinate? And I think that it is a direct correlation between your tolerance to,

so in other words, if you have a laser focus on things, then you're much less likely to get pulled into other things that would distract you and keep you from getting into the thing that you want. And it may be your anxiety that drew you in in the first place to doing it, but I'm saying that once you get into something, what I'm gonna do is, like, I do,

the most work that I do at this point that's anything related to a test is sitting down and writing something. And I'll sit down and write something, but if you were to look at a graph of my time, when I say I'm gonna set aside this day to write something, it'll be like write for 20 minutes, read an article. Write for 35 minutes, go check my email.

And I'm not saying this is healthy. I'm just saying that that's how I approach it now. So now it's just a bunch of distractions that get thrown into what I'm doing, which prolongs the time that it takes. But that's not procrastination though. Yeah, but in some weird way, my tendency to interact with those things

ends up impacting, especially creative work kinda coming back in. Because once I, if I just go nose down into something and it's like three hours in, I'll be like, I can't do this anymore. I need a distraction to like almost fill the tank up again. But procrastination is different. So let's talk about, I think in this instance,

it would be that you're intentionally doing something that is not pressing instead of doing the task that is more pressing, say the thing that you set out to write. And in that moment, I am procrastinating. If I'm not, even if I've started it. Well taking a brain break or like stepping away so you can step back in is probably an efficiency

to a certain point but it's all about motives. Like are you not doing it because you don't think you've got anything? Are you looking elsewhere for inspiration that you need? you've got anything? Are you looking elsewhere for inspiration that you need? Are you avoiding a task? It's much more carnal than that.

It's more, there's something else. What is that? It's not like, man, I'm getting tired of this. I need to actively make a decision to open a tab. Again, that's not how my brain works. My brain is like, oh, I've now been reading this article for seven minutes. I don't remember making a decision to do that.

Do you know what I'm saying? It's like. So do you think subconsciously that is procrastination? Yeah, because in that moment it is because it's putting a task off. And I think to read between the lines and to know you, I think it, would you say it's because the other thing is more exciting?

It's more intriguing. In that moment, yes. Yeah, and I've thought about doing the thing where you put the app on your phone or your computer where you can't get on the internet for a certain amount of time. Then I'm like, well what if I, a lot of times I'm in the middle of writing something, I'm like. You gotta Google something.

I need the internet. And then I'll remember something that I wanna buy. Like, I mean, it really is kinda sad. Again, I don't know why you took what I said personally because it wasn't personal, it's ultimately a compliment in the context of procrastination. Because if you looked at what I did in a day that I was trying to be productive,

I would have bought three or four things that I don't need, I would have read articles, I would have clicked on an article that was like, what do these celebrities look like now? Like that stuff is designed for people with my personality. Yeah. And after I've clicked on an article and then clicked on an article

and then clicked on an article, it isn't like I'm sitting around thinking, I'm awesome because I click on all these articles. I'm thinking, why can't I just do the thing that I was trying to do? So I think it's a little bit, and I've never been diagnosed with ADHD, but I think that people who, again,

we're not doctors or scientists, so we don't really know what we're talking about, but I have to assume that people who have an attention deficit disorder are much more likely to procrastinate because even if it's not just something that's keeping you from even beginning a task, which used to be my problem,

but now my life is a lot more scheduled and so I'll be like, I need to do this. I'm going to start doing it now, but then my road to getting it finished will have all kinds of potholes in it. Some productive, most of it not productive. So for me, why I procrastinate is because of my attention deficit issues.

And Morgan, you're gonna shame him for that? Did we answer the complete question? Why is putting something off only to, I mean, because I think, you know, when he says, why is putting something off only to have to deal with it all in one go and in such a short amount of time much more tempting? It's applying.

It's the other things that are tempting. He's applying like a purely logical analysis of procrastination. It's like, and that's just not how it works either way. I mean, plenty of people procrastinate from fear of not being able to get it done, so you'd rather do something else to make yourself feel better

than something that's gonna make you feel worse, like failing in the process of doing it. I'm just guessing. Do you wanna open another question? I think we settled that one. I think we're- I don't think I've ever clicked. I may be click bait proof.

I'm not bragging. I'm just saying I don't think I've ever clicked on, I'll be more specific, an article related to something I'm reading online. Now don't cheat. You're already looking at the next one. Yeah, yeah, I'm reading online. Now don't cheat. You're already looking at the next one. Yeah. Yeah, I'm easily distracted.

I don't think I ever click on. I clicked on this next question like it was a click hole. Do you click on, you get to the bottom of an article and you click on another article. All the frickin' time. I've never once done it. Why do you think those exist? Do you think it wouldn't be an incredible business model

if there weren't a lot of people who were susceptible to it? I mean, I am so susceptible to that. That's why I love reading Twitter moments because they're so quick and limited. Like I just don't read articles. But here's the thing. Because I get, again. I don't like the feeling of getting sucked into things.

But here's the thing, this is why we, It's a burden for me. This is why we work well together. Because if we both were like me, there would be a problem. And if we were both like you, there would be a problem. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's like, But if we had to choose.

No, no, there's, and again, this is, we talked about this before when people ask us about the creative process, but like, and again, this is why I don't consider myself a procrastinator because I'm very much an initiator and a starter, it's like I'm the one who wants us to start on something, but you're the one who wants us to finish something, and I think that our tendencies

to get distracted to be like, all right, listen, sometimes I'll be like, we have seven minutes before this thing starts and I wanna start a conversation about a project that you're not ready to talk about because you don't wanna talk about it unless we have two hours to talk about it. And I'm like, yeah, we got seven minutes. In seven minutes, we may solve the biggest problem. Seven minutes worth of it is how I feel.

With this thing. Or less. And I'm like, we may make the breakthrough that we've gotta make in this seven minutes. And so, but then sometimes it's like, well, it's not worth it to get into the seven minutes because it made us be frustrating. So there's a little bit of a give and take

that I think ends up working really well. Read this next one, the envelope is open. Jacob asks, So there's a little bit of a give and take that I think ends up working really well. Okay. Read this next one, the envelope is open. Jacob asks, I don't have a question so much. Okay, that's fine. As a burning desire to see the statistics of my life on a spreadsheet, which we just alluded to. The statistics of my life on a spreadsheet?

Stupid stuff like words I said the most and least with an accurate word count, as well as how many breaths I took among other things. Was it on a podcast that we talked about this exact thing or was it just, where do we talk about this? I think we did talk a little bit about records of everything but the thing specifically, I don't think we've discussed that he makes me think of here

is stuff like words I've said. It's interesting that with all the lifestyle data that he would want tracked in statistical form on a spreadsheet, that his first examples are stupid stuff like what words I've said the most. And now I find myself interested in that too. We started to make an observation that we both said a couple of things a lot on.

On this show. On GMM2. And it was right off the bat. And we say right off the bat a lot. I noticed it on this show and I think somebody commented. We say right off the bat a lot. I noticed it on this show and I think somebody commented. We say right off the bat a lot. Right off the bat. I've been trying to be more conscious of it.

And there was another phrase that we said. There's quite a few. You say golly. I noticed that. Golly. It's like gomer pile. I think that's one you might wanna, you might wanna watch yourself back saying that one.

On this show? No, on GMM, like when you're reacting to something. Like, your go-to phrase for exasperation is golly. I bet you you say it a thousand times a week. I wanna see a golly supercut. I've asked the editors to cut all of them out. So they never see. No, I think they make it through.

I do think that this, okay, so I've been reading, it's a long book and I kind of, I work it in. This is another thing I do that is indicative of my, you could call this procrastination. I read between seven to 10 books at a time. I cannot read one book at a time. Like at any given time, there are that many books that I am some of the way through.

And the majority of them I probably don't finish. So I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just giving you the facts of the way my life works. But I'm working in that Sapiens, the sequel to Sapiens, the Homo Deus. Okay. He talks about basically dataists, dataism, is sort of the age that we're in right now

in terms of the ultimate thing that matters to people is the data and that's how we make decisions. And so the person who has the data has the power. So many things can be measured. I mean, for us as content creators on YouTube, I mean, YouTube gives you so much data about everything, about how many people and what types of people are they and how much of an individual video do they watch

and when do they stop watching and at what rate do they drop off. I mean, you've got your phone recording your number of steps and you don't even know it. Well, and the thing is is that you can get to a place. Or if you're driving. if you get to a place where something isn't even worth doing if you're not gathering the data as it's happening,

like the extreme dataist sort of position is that any problem can be solved with it. And I mean, I think I'm in this boat. I think it's basically the best thing that we've got to go on right now. Like so if we're gonna be arguing about something like controversial issues, like if you get into something like climate change,

which is very dividing politically. Okay. It's just like, and so what people begin to do is they begin to go to the data, right? And what does the data suggest? And the person who has the most data and the most accurate data can win that argument. And so, and I think that that, I think it does apply to,

and it does help us make a lot of decisions about things. But for me, like when I think about if I were to see a breakdown of the way that I spend my time when I'm trying to work on something, I would probably be like a little bit ashamed of it. I'd be like, that article you read about Danny Bonaduce that led to the article about Danny Bonaduce's son that led to the article about Danny Bonaduce's son, that led to the article about Danny Bonaduce's son's

prom date who is a meth addict. I don't know, I made all that up. That was- You shouldn't have chosen Bonaduce because that's a hard word to say. That wasn't fruitful. That did not contribute positively to my life.

I also don't like feeding into that whole system that people are making money off people like me clicking on things. So I think that if I could see this, just like when I came to you and I said, we have both been saying right off the bat a lot, especially me, but you've been saying it too. That was data that changed how often we say

right off the bat, which ultimately makes a better podcast, right, because it's just like when you're reading something and you notice that people say the same phrase or the same word, it feels like this isn't great writing. This isn't a great book. That guy just said coincidentally twice in that paragraph. Hack, you know what I mean? So I would love to have this power.

I remember the thing that we were talking about. We were talking about the number of, it was something related to our kids, like seeing which of our kids are, we weren't talking about how many rolls of toilet paper you go through. I can't remember what it is, but it was something from this table that we were talking about,

about tracking data. But we interact with it so much, like the gym I go to, if you wear your heart rate monitor, they send you a graph of the whole workout and like what you did and how many calories you burned, supposedly, and your heart rate and all that, you know, it's all of this data that then it's supposed to, I find myself looking at it

and then it provides some motivation. And this is ultimately why, you know, people are really nervous about this, understandably so, about having some sort of microchip implanted inside your body. And there's already people doing it right now, and there's people who have a lot of hang-ups about it, whether it's a particular way that they see things religiously, as if this has the whole mark of the beast thing.

And then there's other people who are just like very wary of the government in any time that you can be tracked or you can be controlled if you've got some sort of bionic nature to you. I get all those concerns but the driving force that is eventually going to move us into transhumanism like we talked about with Zoltan Isht, we didn't talk about it with him but Zoltan Ishtvan, is that his name?

You know the guy that we endorse for president? Who continues to be, I follow him on Twitter and I continue to see the stuff that he talks about. The thing that's gonna ultimately get us there isn't going to be the convenience of buying and selling, I think it's going to be the fact that the data gathering and processing that the people gathering and processing that the people with transhumanist parts

are gonna be able to have. So you're gonna have an advantage over somebody else when you can do things like measure your heart rate constantly and the number of breaths that you took and what's happening with the food that you're eating. When you can begin measuring all that stuff and it begins listening to you and telling you what you're saying and what you happening with the food that you're eating, when you can begin measuring all that stuff and it begins listening to you and telling you what you're saying and what you're not saying,

you're gonna be a little bit more powerful because you're gonna have access to that data. And that's what's gonna ultimately, and people are gonna, the whole privacy thing is gonna be this huge battle over the privacy thing and people are gonna be super wary about having anything in them that can be tracked, they're gonna get over it. Eventually they're gonna get over it

and everybody's gonna have it. People are gonna fight about it though. Potential bloodshed over it. It's gonna get serious. But on the other end of it. Over the privacy debate. Yeah. So would you like to, I mean,

you're being served up ads based on conversations you're having with people. I mean, the technology is already listening to everything we're saying. Wouldn't you just, you know, wouldn't you like to have access to the data just to know how you talk, how many times you say certain phrases or?

I would, yeah. It would be kinda cool, but I mean, it's kinda like, you know, it seems to me a very good thing for cops to wear body cameras because it's a record that holds them accountable because we hold them to a standard of excellence in a job that is so important and that we depend on so much and that has such a sway over society.

I'll just leave it at that. Well especially when we have reason to believe that people are being taken advantage of in those situations. Absolutely. And so if there's potential for people to be taken advantage of and there is potential and there's plenty of evidence that that happens all the time, then clearly that's only gonna be better

for society if we have access to that information and what those body cams are recording. I mean I'd like to hear the argument on the other side as it relates to my personal privacy but I, because I tend to say well, I'm not proud of everything I say and do by any means but I aspire to be the type of person that like if anybody saw a transcript of what I said

and did that I would be okay with that because- What about a transcript of what you thought? I guess so. I mean, you can't control your thoughts, you can control what you do with them, but that sounds really scary, it does. Okay, but I am fully aware of the fact that this whole transhumanism thing quickly moves

to a place where your thoughts are being openly shared, right? Now this gets into some really interesting stuff. So I don't know what book it is, what movie it is, but I'm sure it's been done, where they begin to police your thoughts. So basically, if you have the thought of committing murder, well, if the cops can know that that's what

you're thinking about, shouldn't they take action on it? That's kind of the argument. And you can see how easily this completely gets out of hand, right? Because freedom of thought, freedom, there's this, even freedom of speech is an example. I should be able to say, I should be able to wish death on whoever I want to, and as long as I actually

don't do that physically. In the United States of America, for the most part, we have decided that you have the freedom, unless you're talking about like the president, to basically say what you want to. But that is also, that's kind of in question right now. People are beginning to question that. But the idea that your thoughts are suddenly now transparent

to anyone who wants to access them, which I think is ultimately where this is all going, is essentially changing the way we see humanity from the hyper individualistic way that we see people now to more of one organism. And there's a really interesting writing about this. Not that I can remember and point you to because I haven't read enough about it.

But basically, and it's really scary for us to think about, very scary for us to think about, for lots of good reasons. But basically, it's the way that, you know, like a colony of ants communicates with each other, and basically, their thoughts are super, super simple, and they don't have like, ants don't have a private life. They are part of this organism that is the colony of ants.

And they're communicating, and of course, what they're trying to do is not nearly as complex as what we're trying to do. But them having access to each other's thoughts through what's happening with their pheromones and the way that all that works is a great benefit to them. There's a lot of people who believe that we're moving quickly to a place

where we're treating humanity as an organism and there's some really weird moral things that start coming up because then you start, people start justifying things like well, if we're just an organism, well these individual, like a bunch of cells that contribute to a body, well if these cells are not contributing or these cells are cancerous for whatever reason, let's just get rid of those cells

and now you got individuals. I'm not saying this is something I'm looking for. This is not gonna happen in our lifetime. It's not something I'm looking forward to being ushered in. But I think with technology the way that it's progressing, it's an inevitable destination for humanity. Well, you scared me to definitely back off. I mean, even I think, like not my thoughts,

which is very disturbing, I've got disturbing thoughts. And they don't become speech for good reason. There are exceptions and I try to learn my lesson. But even stepping back from that and saying, well like a transcript of what I've said, because I don't have anything to hide, even in the transcript form, it's like I've texted enough people

to know you can get in trouble with misinterpretation of just raw words on a page. I mean, it just doesn't, so even that seems dangerous. Well, but what if I could know, what if every person could know every single thing that every other person was thinking? Now, if that was suddenly, if we pressed a button and that happened,

given the way that we built the society, there would be a lot of, an incredible initial shock, just like an amazing shock, like if all of a sudden your wife can know everything that you think and vice versa, there would be this shock, just like an amazing shock. Like if all of a sudden your wife can know everything that you think and vice versa, there would be this shock, right? But don't you think that after the initial explosion of realization that we could be at a healthier place

as a society if everybody knew what everybody was thinking? Piecing that back together would take decades. But ultimately, what if it took decades? Well, I believe that there are people like on a spectrum of I'll just call it purity, like purity of mind, purity of motive, like I certainly know that there are of motive, like I certainly know that there are people who are motivated more by love or greed,

just to take two examples, okay? Like I really enjoy reading about Mr. Rogers. Can't wait for that movie to come out. It's so interesting to read about this guy who the way that he talked about himself in interviews was this, a level of unselfaware, pure motive of love that I wish I had that. Like I read articles about Mr. Rogers in order to be inspired to make decisions

to become more like someone who he was naturally. But what if you were able to tap into Mr. Rogers' thoughts and you found out that it was all an act? I'm not saying it was, I'm not trying to be cynical. I'm convinced that it was not an act. But what if it was? No, and so my point is, because I'm convinced that it's not, before I take your hypothetical,

I'm saying that's the first thing that would come out was how many people were, like there would be a ranking of purity of motives. I mean, across politics certainly. I mean it would be something that would be on the ballot. Be like this is, the data suggests this purity of motive. The data suggests this purity of motive. Like how, you know, you'd have another indicator of how owned a politician was that wasn't just like the pork barrels or whatever you call it.

Yeah, well it's true. But then it goes to everybody. I think there would be a ranking of where everybody was at on a character scale. But you could only get that if you had access to the thoughts. Is that what you're saying? I think so, yes. Because I think what we ask for a lot of times,

I think one of the reasons that the internet has become a genre of entertainment and vlogging has become a genre of entertainment that's not going away anytime soon is authenticity, right? We want authenticity, we want transparency. And I realized that there's this whole, I'm not saying that privacy is not important. All I'm saying is that there's so many times

where you really just wish you knew what someone's actual motives were. And of course, in a society where we don't have any way to penetrate beyond just what people say, and maybe if we're really skilled, we can kind of interpret some of their body language or whatever, it's invasive if you're able to actually get into somebody's thoughts

against their will, obviously, it's super invasive. But if it was just a given that the way that the world worked is that you could know what everyone was thinking in the same way that you can know what everyone is doing. It's interesting just to think about what existence would become. Because right now there's- It feels like-

One out of every hundred people is a sociopath, right? You know, they only have the ability to empathize with people. And, but they're really good at seeming normal. You don't know the people who are that way in your life. If you knew how everybody was thinking, you'd know. I guess the question is then what does that person do? What does the person who's got the thoughts

that would cause them to be guilty in the eyes of other people do at that point? Sounds like a black mirror episode. They're kinda trapped. Like the one I have not seen about like the human Yelp reviews, but it would be much more definitive. It wouldn't be people reviewing their interactions with you. And that's what.

Which again would be a big indicator of character, but I mean it's like people would have reason to lie. Well there's a couple of Black Mirror episodes that explore this, right? There's one in one of the first couple of seasons that explores this, essentially a score that you have based on the way that you're ranked by other people. That's the one I was talking about.

Yeah, and so, but then there's the other one which is about, which is I think in this season, most recent season, which is about compatibility with people and it's like a simulation that's running and it's pretty awesome. You just spoiled one, because that's the one you and I watched together. Oh.

So we can't say which one that is because that's a spoiler. But yeah, I mean, without a doubt, every single thing that we're talking about can be horrifically, nightmarishly abused and probably will be. But I also think- But your point is on the other side,

like if you could fast forward through the pain of transition, wouldn't we all want to know? I think only the people who have nothing to hide, which doesn't everybody have something to hide? Yeah, but if it's such a, if it's a small enough percentage of who you are that no one has pure character, not even Mr. Rogers,

but I don't know, I think he might be one of the, you know, then on the other side, it's like, okay, we're gonna elect this person because this is their character, this is what their character comprises of. Well, we know without a doubt that the way things are done right now is, in terms of how we elect our leaders, is not a good system. You know, we know right now that it's based on

the amount of finances you have, it's based on how well you are at marketing yourself. Showmanship. It might be based on how much you can, how well you can lie. Like we have a lot of things in our system right now that reward a lot of things that we don't want in our leaders.

So I'm just saying that as crazy as it would be to get to a place like that, if I were to tell you that, you know what, I've been to heaven and I know what heaven is like and heaven is a place where everyone is completely transparent and everyone communicates telepathically with one another and you are exactly who you are in all your raw glory

and we all exist in peace and harmony with one another, you might be like, oh, I can see that as how heaven would be. And it'd be like, well, technology, through a lot of ups and downs, is eventually gonna get us to a place where we're communicating seamlessly with one another as a human organism.

But I think a perfect knowledge of everyone's character would re-stratify society in such a way that, because just because. That already happens. It would be different, it would be a reshuffle. And I think that the people who aren't trustworthy or have ulterior motives or who act upon greed much more than love, you start to have a strata that way.

And then you've got, you've got greedy people with less money. And what are they gonna do? But you're assuming that just. They're gonna become dangerous. You're assuming that transparency would lead to a place where we were reordering our society and the people at the top would be the ones

with the best motivations? I don't necessarily think the transparency would lead to that. I think when somebody was screwing you over, you would know it but that wouldn't necessarily keep somebody from screwing you over because I think the same things like. Well I think for politics, I mean for elected officials,

it would be, that would be the first thing that would change I would hope. So then you'd have people with, the more impure your character was, the least likely that you would be elected to anything. Trusted. You know what? And then it would create this underground of nasty.

I want to believe that you're right. But we have more access to people's personal lives and their information and their background than we ever did. And we seem to, as opposed to holding people to a higher standard, we're holding our politicians to a lower standard than we ever did. You remember back in the day?

That's true. Back in the day being like 10 years ago, when if you found out that a person running for president had like a maid working at their house who was an illegal alien, they were completely out of the race. Like that was it. He had an undocumented worker working at his house.

And that right there was it, you were out. You could not run for president. That was a scandal 10 years ago. Yeah. Think about the stuff that people are willing to tolerate now. It's crazy the way things have changed. We know so much more about what people have done

and we just seem to not care. So then why do you wanna know even more? Because you're painting a different trajectory, which is even worse. I'm not painting a trajectory in terms of what I think. I'm just saying that I think that whenever things start, there's an inevitable direction that technology moves us into,

and you just kinda have to know this is where we're going. There's so many Luddites who just wanna keep pushing back technological advances. It's eventually gonna get there. It's like pushing back on an ocean that is slowly eroding a coastline. You can't change it. You can build a wall, you can build an eddy,

I mean, you can build like a, you know, whatever they do, whatever those things are called. I should know I'm a civil engineer, but I can't think of it right now. But eventually all that stuff is gonna get washed away. And so I'm not saying you should just let it all happen. You should do it smartly, but you shouldn't deny that it's actually gonna happen.

We're gonna be transhumanist, man. It's going to happen unless we destroy ourselves. Let's look at this not through the political lens, but through the lens of family for a second. The lens of family. Well, we make fun, if you listen to the top of our conversation, our dad conversation, we find comedy in how selfish we are as dads.

And it's cathartic to joke about it because it's our way of saying, you know what, we're far from perfect dads. You make the whole freaking three point competition about you at a certain point. That's right. And it's funny because it's true. And I aspire to be someone like who is just so honest.

Like there's an appeal to podcasting because I think there's a lot of successful podcasters who just they're not, they don't seem like they're hiding anything. I'm sure they still are, but it's very intoxicating and engrossing to listen in on a conversation with somebody who doesn't seem to be holding anything back.

But if my children knew exactly what I thought about them in a particular moment, like, I mean, they could listen to the podcast and know some of it because I joke about it. And I do joke with them about it. And they wouldn't, I don't think they would be crushed to know that there are plenty of times when I'm annoyed to no end by them and I don't wanna be around them.

I don't think they would be surprised, but I think it would hurt really bad if they could experience those thoughts in the moment. You know? Initially. Because by the way, they feel the same way about me. With the eyes rolling, you know, and the comments that are made.

Don't you wish, I mean. It goes both ways. And so let's explore that. Well. The last thing I would wanna do is crush the heart of my children. You would only crush. Because I love children. You would only crush their hearts because we have been, we live in a society where we've never broken through that.

Where it's crazy, like our entire like biology is based on the fact that the only thing that we kind of have to ourselves is our thoughts. You know, like we haven't evolved in a place where our thoughts, other than the ways that our thoughts are expressed through emotions or with facial expressions and those things that we've learned, but there's a very important core, which is, you know,

it's in there and it's protected and it's our own and we value it probably more than anything and that's why there's a lot of people who are listening right now who are just really uncomfortable with the whole conversation and are gonna comment, have already commented, I don't like when you guys talk about this kind of stuff. Talk about stuff that's lighter hearted, whatever.

And I completely understand that and you're not wrong because it's just an uncomfortable thing to talk about. And it would be really uncomfortable for you to suddenly know exactly what your kids think about you and to know that they also know what you think about them. But what you feel about your kids and what your kids feel about you is what everybody feels about their family.

And the reason why I bring it up is because my love for my kids and their love for me is not in question. So I'm bringing it up as a thought exercise because even when you love somebody with your whole heart, there's still things that if they knew exactly what you were thinking, it would hurt their feelings in the moment.

There would be this nuclear bomb that goes off in everyone's brain the moment that they had access to each other's thoughts. And we'd be like, I can't believe that that person thinks that. Oh my, that's the kind of thing that you think about? I can't even look at you the same anymore. But in that moment, you've also released your thoughts

to someone else and they're thinking the exact same thing about you. Everybody would kind of realize, ooh, we're all pretty nasty. We're all pretty good and pretty nasty. And there are some exceptionally good people and there are some exceptionally bad people and then there are kind of most of us.

And I don't know what the outcome would be. It would probably be pretty bad for those exceptionally bad people. And then they'd all get together. That's what I was getting at. In a new strata. And the bad people would revel, it's like, oh, we can now band together.

I know how bad you are. Like, we're gonna do some bad, bad stuff. We'd send them all to Australia like they did back in the day when they sent all the inmates to Australia. So we'll do that again. Let's run that by the Aussies when we go down there at the end of July.

Wow, okay, this has been quite a conversation. Thank you to Morgan and Jacob for asking these questions that led us down this rabbit hole, which got a little dark, made some of you very uncomfortable. I do think that within the safety of loving relationships in an effort to bring some conclusion to at least part of this conversation.

And to be a little positive, in on a positive note. I think so. Well, aspirational at least. I aspire to be increasingly honest within those loving, trusting relationships because I believe that it leads to growth and it leads to understanding it and knowing, like truly loving somebody that you don't fully know is,

and what is to fully know somebody? But to get closer to fully knowing somebody is to more fully love them. I think you have to, you know, when you love somebody, you've gotta love the, you gotta love the warts too. And if you can get to a place where you have radical honesty,

if we can get to a place as a society where we have radical honesty, then the inevitable transition into whatever the next version of humanity is, which will someday definitely include the ability to read each other's thoughts, it won't be that big of a leap. The more you have to hide,

the more frightened you are of that moment. Mm-hmm. But that moment's gonna come. It's not gonna come in our lifetime. If you're listening to this in the year 2018, you don't have to worry about this. Well, it might come when you die. It might come for all of us when we die. When you escape the simulation.

Well, or I mean, depending on what you believe when you die. Yeah, right. I would like to commit to be more honest and I'll get to it eventually. Get it? I like that. Get it? I'm in agreement.

Good luck with that. But not really. We'll talk at you next week. Thanks for listening and processing this with us using hashtag Ear Biscuits. Oh, and those of you who know the books that have been written about some of the stuff that we kinda touched on, I'm sure there's some really good

science fiction about what we've touched on, recommend that to us with hashtag Ear Biscuits because I definitely want to read some of that stuff that better explains this. You know who you are.