Hello Internet - H.I. #62: Cheer Pressure

Episode Date: April 29, 2016

Grey and Brady discuss: environmental nagging, cheer pressure, apple products and wants/needs/weeds, singular use of 'we' and caring less, Boaty McBoatface, Encryption and if your phone is part of you. Brought to You By FreshBooks: Online invoicing made easy Squarespace: Use code HELLO for 10% off your website Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes Discuss this episode on the reddit Brady Haran or Edmund Hillary A year after its launch, it’s now clear that pretty much no one needs an Apple Watch Jordan Spieth Danny Willett We are Numberphile H.I. Twitter account I am Brady Boaty McBoatface Sunshine Megatron Mister Splashy Pants Should all locks have keys? Phones, Castles, Encryption, and You. FBI–Apple encryption dispute Apple's iOS Security document I, Phone

I did go out onto the scaffolding outside the house. I plucked up the courage. I made it. I went out. I looked at my roof. I took the nail and gear flag and I fluttered it in the wind above the house. So inspired by Grey's Batman efforts. Basically, I just didn't want him to be the only Batman.

Right. So I did it. I did it. It's another very cool picture of you, Brady. I feel like that one too is calling out for some photoshopping just like your looking cool explosion photograph you know you've got the the wind blowing the mighty nail and gear flag like it's you know it's calling out for a little modification i think gray i'm i'm open to that i i'm even willing to make some suggestions there's a there's a fantastic picture don. Don't tell the internet what to do, Brady.

You'll regret it. Can I suggest perhaps Tenzing atop Mount Everest could be used as inspiration? Hillary and Tenzing together on the summits going up the southeast face there. But you're right. I mean, I think the picture is magnificent enough on its own that it doesn't need photoshopping, but... Yes, it looks absolutely magnificent. You on the scaffolding leading up to your house.

For those who have asked, I went for the shimmy out the window option rather than the going up the ladders option. I just didn't trust those ladders. Yeah, this is a popular request. Lots of people dying to know which way it was. Do you know what yes a lot of people have asked did you do did you do the ladder or did you go out the window um so for those who are for those who are asking i went for the window i'm very proud of you we've got to we've got to tie up the loose ends oh yeah is that is that is that what we do on the show we tie up the loose ends. Oh, yeah? Is that what we do on the show?

We tie up the loose ends? Yeah. I like to think it's like a whole complete thing. I would like to think when the last ever episode of Hello Internet is recorded, it will somehow close some loop that started like with the first episode and people will go, do you know what? I think they planned the whole thing. I think the whole thing was scripted.

It was like a genius Agatha Christie sort of thing where every single sentence in every single episode was somehow working towards some moment at the end. I went to my regular gym this morning and I'm walking up to the front desk. I'm getting ready to go in and there's a big pile of towels that you're supposed to take from as you go into the gym. But the new thing this morning was a gigantic sign. And by gigantic, I mean as tall as me. They erected a huge sign which said,

please think about the environment and only take one towel into the gym. And this kind of thing infuriates me. It absolutely infuriates me. And at my gym, it infuriates me many multiple times over. So I took four towels into the gym today. I did not take one towel into the gym. And two whale skins. And I clubbed a seal on the way, right? I feel like I don't even need to explain why this is infuriating. Let me just run through why in a gym I find this particularly frustrating. There's another sign later in the gym, which is in the actual equipment.

Like when you're doing your workout, they have these little signs up all over the place which say, please be considerate to the other patrons and make sure to wipe down the equipment after you've used it. Totally reasonable, right? This is a totally reasonable civilization like request. You've been a sweaty, gross person on a piece of equipment. You're going to wipe down your gross sweat off of it. Right?

Reasonable? Yes, of course. Yeah. Okay. Except that the question is, wipe it down with what? Because in the gym, there are no little hand wipes for you to use. There's no equipment there at all. So unless you're going to wipe it down with your hand, the only thing, the only conceivable thing

that you could use to wipe down the equipment is the one towel that they want you to bring into the gym. But nobody's going to use the same towel to clean the gym equipment as to clean themselves later in the shower. I think that is just vastly, vastly unreasonable. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's completely unreasonable. I'm glad you're on board with me, Brady. I really appreciate that. I'm not sure that's what they mean by the one towel thing though. Surely, surely you can then get a different towel when you go for your shower afterwards. Here's the thing. Here's the thing with the setup of this, with, with the, the fascist like setup that this gym has has has

arranged right the setup is such that you can only pick up the towels before you go in with this little membership card that they give you so the towels are not accessible when you are inside the gym right so they have this big sign saying please take only one towel and then you have to pass through a barrier through which you cannot return to get another towel later. Like they clearly just want you to take one. So this is why I don't just take one. I'm going to take, well, we'll just start out with, I'm going to take two, right? Because I'm going to need one to clean down the equipment and a separate one to clean down myself in the shower.

Now, I also happen to take a third towel because I think it's quite reasonable to do the same thing in a sauna, right? Like you're laying down in a sauna as a gigantic sweaty piece of meat. You are sweating everywhere. It's nicer for everybody. Again, this is how civilization holds together. If you put down a towel in the sauna and you sweat out your gross bodily fluids onto the towel instead of onto the wood.

So this is why I would normally take three towels into the gym. One for the sauna, one for cleaning the equipment, and one for cleaning me. I think this is totally reasonable. I think three is too many, Gray. I think you could get away with two. I could get away with two. I'm not arguing that I could get away with two if I was willing to introduce an unacceptable level of grossness into my life. I'm like, oh, I've used this towel to clean down all of the equipment and I'm I've used this towel to clean down all of the equipment and I'm also going to use it to clean down the sauna. Like, no, no, that's not, it's not going to happen because the cleaning down in the gym towel, that one never really

touches my skin, right? Because I'm wearing gym clothes when I'm in the gym. Whereas in the sauna, that towel is also touching my skin. So I don't want to use the same towel. I think that's quite reasonable. I've never been to a gym where they haven't got like rolls of blue roll everywhere, that blue paper that you could just use to wipe down the equipment or your forehead and things like that. Do they not have paper towel? I know, I know. This one does not. In the main area, they have drinking fountains and that's it. And I see people using their one sad towel to clean the equipment or to do that thing where like you reserve a piece of equipment by draping the towel across it. They're using that same towel that they then take back into the showers. And like they're all being, oh, I'll follow the sign, right? But I'm not

going to follow the sign. So normally, I would take three towels. But today, because this new sign was there about like, think of the environment as well. I took four towels because one of them was just out of pure vengeance and passive aggressiveness. I thought, if you're going to tell me, you're going to tell me how many towels I'm supposed to take because of Mother Earth. Like, no, no, no, I'm going to take more towels because I don't think that sign is there because this gym company suddenly really cares about Mother Earth. No, I think they're just trying to come up with a better way to make people use fewer towels. And their normal sign that just said, oh, please take one towel, they didn't think was effective enough. So they've decided to

introduce this kind of environmental nagginess into the system to try to be more effective about reducing towel usage. And I feel like, screw you. If you're going to do that, if you're going to be passive aggressive towards me in that way, I'm going to be passive aggressive towards you. I'm taking an extra towel today. It's so clear to me that the company's primary concern is the amount of money that they are spending on towel laundering, right? And it is, it has nothing to do with the actual environment itself. Like that's clearly what's going on. And that's the thing that really bothers me about these kinds of situations that you see. Like, you know, like you go out to California and you're in a hotel or somewhere and they have a little sign. They're

like, oh, there's a drought in California. Please don't take a very long shower. Please don't wash your hands super thoroughly. And it's like, no, I'm not going to listen to you, little sign. Like, I don't think the environment is really your primary concern here. Like, I think your primary concern is the water bill at your hotel. I only ever see these kind of environmental signs in places where people are using a company's resource that is extraordinarily difficult for the company to police its usage? And then suddenly, they're very concerned about the environment and wanting you to use as little of the resource as possible, right? Oh, please only take one napkin. Think about dear precious Mother Earth. Like, no,

I don't think that's the reason here. And I'm going to take extra napkins just because you told me not to. But it is like a sort of a tangential benefit that the earth does come out on top if we do use less water and wash less towels. So it's almost like you're cutting off the earth's nose to spite the company's face. I mean, you say that, you say that, right? But how much water can possibly be used by the global consumption of cleaning towels? I don't think very much. I don't know. Quite a lot. I bet you it's a lot. Sometimes you see statistics on those little nagging signs where they say they give you all these litres of water and things like that. See right there, right there what you're doing, you're falling for their trap, right? Because look at the way they always express

those things. They will always give you statistics in just huge numbers, right? They play the huge number game. Did you know that people washing their hands in California, they use a bajillion liters of water every minute? And like, oh my God, a bajillion liters of water. That sounds like so much. The only relevant question in any of these scenarios, like if you're thinking about, I really care about Mother Earth and I really care about not using her resources. The thing is not the absolute amount of resources in any particular situation. The question is, what percent of the pie chart of total resource use is this? Water use, for example.

Personal water use, like people using water for drinking and for showering and for laundering towels, presumably, this is like 0% of the water use. And the huge, huge amount of water use usually goes to things like agriculture or some industrial processes, right? Like if you care about the environment, that is the thing to focus on, is like changing how the vast majority of water is being used. It's crazy making to focus on like the little thing that you can see. Like I think that's naturally where people's brains go with this kind of stuff. They focus on like, oh, there's this little thing that I can see in front of me, and I'm going to spend some time on changing it. But it's like it has no impact whatsoever on the global scheme. Journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, Gray.

But if you're just walking a thousand random steps in random directions, you're making no progress on anything. No progress whatsoever. That's all I'm saying. All right. This seems like a good time to promote one of my topics up the running order then, because it sort of ties in. Go ahead. It's a bit of follow-up. It involves the invention of a new term, which is a favorite pastime of mine. Oh, we have another pretty term, do we?

We do. I want to talk about something that I'm going to call cheer pressure. Cheer pressure? Yeah. So if I take you back to last episode i was talking a bit about this this cricket match and how this guy had mucked up at the end of a cricket match and and then a lot of people had criticized him online and then all these other people kind of rushed to his defense and said you shouldn't pick on him he tried hard he put his hand up at the end of the game and

you know had the courage to try and if he fails you shouldn't you shouldn't pick on him and i didn't completely agree with that but then it had echoes later in the same show when i made a few glib comments about the spacex program elon musk's private rocket company that has been attempting to land rockets on platforms in the sea to sort of make them reusable so they sort of self-land which is quite a quite an impressive thing to do to make a rocket re-land after use standing upright and there'd been a few spectacular crashes and they blew up and just my luck straight after we recorded there was a very successful landing so it made me yeah but anyway that's that's it was it was like the day after we recorded he had a huge success yeah and then i

waited eight weeks to actually release the episode making you look like a total idiot yeah anyway that's that's beside the point that there were a series of quite spectacular crashes and i made some some jokes about it and i don't want to say that lots of people got in touch and lots of people complained, because it's very easy to think when you see five or six comments on Reddit, that that's lots of people. When of course it's not, whenever how many hundreds of thousands of people listen or whatever. But it does seem like loud in your head when you're reading the comments. And it's easy to have them stick in your craw, right?

Where you feel like you need to address those things. Yeah. And the main sentiment of them, I haven't got any of them in front of me at the moment, but I think the main sentiment of them were, A, I should know better as an enthusiast about space and the Apollo program. I shouldn't be speaking down about SpaceX, basically. I should be supporting them. And there was also comments, which are true, along the lines of that space exploration is really hard and lots of things go wrong. I'm sure you were unaware of that.

Are you aware space exploration is difficult, Brady? But this new thing that's happening, it echoes something else I've complained about on the show before, and that is these kind of, and I relate it to science more than anything because i guess i'm a sciencey person and i follow lots of sciencey people on twitter and that is this science cheerleading and this this this um over enthusiasm and over positivity about anything sciencey related and this and now it's going the other way into what i call this cheer pressure of this kind of turning and belittling people if they dare criticize or speak against science or

exploration or whatever the whatever the chosen topic is like how dare you speak badly about spacex you're supposed to be one of us brady you're supposed to be a space person you're supposed to be a science person you're not allowed to be a science person. You're not allowed to criticise SpaceX. You're not allowed to make jokes about his rockets falling over like drunk people as they try to land on the platform. And my attitude is, yes, I am. Stop peer pressuring me. I'll make jokes about it. It doesn't mean I don't think it's awesome.

It doesn't mean I don't like space exploration. But, like, you're allowed to criticise things. You're allowed to make jokes and like chill out everyone. And like this sort of now rabid turning on people if they dare. It's almost, it's like, you know, it's like cult life. Elon Musk, who's Elon Musk, man? He's a science guy himself. He's not L. Ron Hubbard.

We're allowed to make jokes at his expense and pick on him, you know. Everyone picks on Elon Musk musk it's like a it's like a fun sport isn't it i would never say anything bad about elon musk brady no well you would you wouldn't say anything bad about him but but you also wouldn't turn on someone who did yeah of course not of course not do you am i am i imagining this this is cheer pressure a thing i'm already trying to formulate in my mind like a definition for what you mean by this. But I think you're on to something here, Brady. I'm immediately latching on to cheer pressure sounds right.

Yeah, that it's like a reverse bullying from people who are into a thing. I don't know. I'm having a hard time articulating what it is, but just like hot stoppers, something about this feels innately right. I mean, it's basically pressuring people with similar interests to all be positive about the same thing. We must all cheer it together. We must all be cheerleaders for SpaceX because if one of us doesn't toe the line, I can be interested in space exploration and still make jokes and criticize and things like this. There's nothing wrong with that. It's quite a scientific thing to do, isn't it? It's also just funny.

I think that's a good working definition. And I like that. And I think that there is something along those lines. What you're feeling here is one of the various and multitude side effects of humans and their group thinking. I think there is just something innately in humans that is desirous of being part of a group. Like when someone listens to the podcast, right, and they hear you and they hear you talk about the space program and like, and you love all of this stuff. And if they're a person who's super into space, they are now mentally categorizing you as like, oh, this person is in the exact same

group as me. And so then when there's any kind of divergence from that, the person, this kind of cheer pressure is coming out, right? Where the person wants to bring you back into line with like, you are part of my group. Like I listen to the podcast. I like you. I like space. Hearing you say something I don't like about space is suddenly causing a problem in my brain because I can't neatly put you into the group of people who are super into space

all the time, 100%, just like I am. I think that's what's occurring. It's because the people like you, Brady. They want you in the group. That's what's occurring here. That's why I think like relating this to peer pressure is the right metaphor to make, where peer pressure is about group conformity. And this cheer pressure is a similar thing, but it's like the next level up of not just

conformity, but visible and obvious enthusiasm for all of the things that the group has decided are good to be visibly and obviously enthusiastic about. I can get behind this one. And I'm well aware. And, you know, when they were testing for the early space program before Mercury, their rockets were blowing up all the time. There's a really famous montage in the film The Right Stuff that just shows all these rockets blowing up one after the other. It's a classic moment in the film. And we're just going through that again. And I'm sure they were getting flack at the time too

when the press were there filming and their rockets were blowing up. And you've just got to get through that. It's just part of the drama of it all. And we don't all have to just – if everyone just cheers 100% and pats him on the back every time one of his rockets blows up and says, don't worry, you'll get it next time, and no one says, gosh, do these people know what they're doing? Nothing ever gets achieved. There's no pressure and criticism.

And that really pushes people, that scrutiny and that fear of failure. If people aren't worried about things going wrong, I don't think they work as hard. It keeps them on their toes. In a free society, I should broaden this out to the widest possible net. Like in a free society, you should be able to criticize whatever you want. That doesn't exist. And even if through like tremendous peer or cheer pressure, like you, you feel like you're not allowed to say things like, I don't think that's good for a, for a free design. Like even if you're into space, you should totally be able to criticize SpaceX if you want to, or just make jokes at their expense. Like, yeah, they're doing a great thing, but you can laugh at it. Like it's totally fine. You know,

they're just, they're just words floating in the air. They're just like thoughts in people's heads. You're not going out there and like sabotaging the rockets when you criticize them for falling over in the first few attempts. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks is the ridiculously easy to use online accounting software designed to help creative entrepreneurs get organized, save time, and get paid faster. FreshBooks is a super simple way to create and send an invoice online. It literally takes like 30 seconds to do. There's no formulas or formatting, just perfectly crafted invoices every time. Your clients can pay you online, which often means you end up getting paid a lot faster.

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running a company and you're looking for a better way to handle your invoices, make things simpler, get paid faster, show FreshBooks a little bit of the Hello Internet love by going to freshbooks.com slash hello and telling them that Hello Internet is how you heard about them. Thanks to FreshBooks for supporting the show. I love, I love this is a recurring theme of you, Brady. You put things in the show notes, and then when it comes around to the episode, you think, I put this thing in here. Why did I put this thing in here?

I remember it made me really angry at the time, but now I can't remember why. Yeah, I know. I think the thing is that it echoed a few of the things I thought, I guess, that it just wasn't massively useful. Can you recap it for me? Can I tell you why you put this article in there? Yeah. I think this was just one of a series of articles. Because the Apple Watch has been around for a year,

people are doing retrospectives on it. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's why there's been Apple Watch talk in the air. It's been a long enough time. Interestingly, Apple hasn't released another one, which makes people sort of question things, That's why there's been Apple Watch talk in the air is it's been a long enough time. Interestingly, Apple hasn't released another one, which makes people sort of question things because it's quite a long time for them to have a generation one product. This is one of the many articles kind of speculating about how many watches they could possibly have sold and coming up with numbers that don't necessarily look great.

As always, with this kind of stuff, it's shockingly hard to speculate about some of Apple stuff because they play their cards close to the chest as much as they can. And the Apple Watch is one of these things that they group into like an other sales category and like, who knows what's in that other sales category? Yeah. But either way, the other sales category didn't shoot up a tremendous amount. So you can safely assume like they didn't sell a bazillion watches. Like that's part of what this is. But I see this sentiment a bunch of times. And this always drives me crazy with not just the Apple Watch, but with any technology products out there in the world that people always phrase it in terms of need, where they say like, do you need X? And whenever anyone is asking that question,

the answer is almost always no. No, you don't need anything. Even I would argue like a smartphone. Do you need a smartphone? No, like it doesn't really fall under the category of need. It's a thing that's incredibly useful. I just always think that that framing is so wrong. But I think you're thinking of need in the wrong way i think you use the word yourself they're useful is there a usefulness i think that's what they mean by need they don't mean like food or oxygen or water i think they mean it as in can you get use out of it and even that i know you know you don't get use out of a diamond necklace i guess but that's not really how the apple watch sells itself as just purely a piece of ornament it does sell itself as a useful item so i think it's a fair question to ask about sells itself as just purely a piece of ornament. It does sell itself as a useful item.

So I think it's a fair question to ask about it. It's just a different type of need, I think. Yeah. I mean, I guess the title I would want would be ungainly long. Do people find economic utility in the Apple Watch? Like that's the title that I would want. So I guess I could see why they might want to use the word need. But I always feel like that is just too strong.

If they want a four letter word, I think they could say want, like, do people want an Apple Watch? Like, I think that conveys a much better idea. And like you said there, it's like jewelry. Nobody in the world needs jewelry. But do people want jewelry in its various forms? Yes. Like that is clearly a demand that people have, even though there's just no utility to it whatsoever. But it doesn't matter because monkeys like shiny things, right? And so like they want to buy them. Want is slightly the wrong word too for me though, Gray, because if you gave me one for Christmas, I'd say thank you. And I'd maybe wear it occasionally and look at it. And so I want

one. I want one. I want to look at it and play with it, but nowhere near enough to pay for one. So I don't think want is the right word either, but I don't know what the right word is. We need a word between need and want. Yeah. You're the word man, Brady. Yeah. I haven't got that. It can't be weed.

That was precisely like, do people weed an Apple Watch? I don't see any problem with using a word like that. You know, within context, I'm sure it'd be very clear. Do people weed an Apple Watch? I don't think so. I don't know. It's almost like, yeah, does the Apple Watch have a role in the world is what it's coming down to. Is there a role for it in people's life?

That is the question. And as we discussed last time, like I'm, I am surprised by the lack of Apple watches that I see in the real world. It provides a great deal of utility for me and I totally love it, but I would just, I would die to know like, what does Apple internally think about their own Apple Watch?

I just don't know. But speaking of things that I weed, because of you, Brady, I actually went out and bought an iPhone SE. Oh. And I am entirely blaming this on you because we have have these conversations sometimes and like you plant a little thought in my head, this little irritating grain of sand in my mind that I don't want there, but that you come along and you just drop into my brain. And you planted one of these irritating grains of sand in my mind about the iPhone SE when we discussed it last time. I know. I heard the moment it happened. I could

hear, as I was listening back to the podcast, I could hear something flip in your voice. You're like, yeah, maybe I should too. Perfect. It sounds just like me. So there's these two conflicting aspects of my personality regarding the iPhone SE. The primary one, which I was thinking is, I know that I'm a person who likes to have up to date technology. That's just part of my personality. That's the way that I am. I know and accept that. Right. And so I thought, well, getting on the iPhone SE track, this is no good, because Apple's probably not going to update this for forever. But you, you planted this idea of like, just try it. Maybe it's like a fun, romantic fling with this other device. And like that just lodged into my brain in this way that I could not possibly

remove. And so I found myself going to the Apple store and like picking up an iPhone SE and looking at it and like turning it over in my hand and turning it over in my mind. And like, I couldn't let it go. And so I eventually caved and I did decide to get one. And so I have been using the iPhone SE for the past couple of days. Wow. And? Man, I just, like, I forgot how perfect of a physical size this phone is. Wow. Just, it is like sweet, sweet relief after this long nightmare of the iPhone 6 and 6S generation.

Do you know how pleasurable it is to hold a phone and to not be thinking, I hope this doesn't slide out of my hand. I can hardly grip that round edge. Like, oh, it's slippery. Don't drop it, right? God, like the thought that is in your head every single time you pick up one of the iPhone S models. Or like when I first got the original S, like, oh, this phone, it's a little too big and a little too small at the same time. Like it's just these frustrating things like to pick up a phone and to have it one fit entirely within my hand to have a single thumb be able to reach every single point on the screen and three hold it securely with straight edges on the phone. It is just amazing.

It's absolutely amazing. I am so happy to be using this size phone. Wow. What about things like the smaller screen for, you know, watching video and had you gotten used to the bigger screen? And what about memory and battery life and the other potential drawbacks? Yeah, there are potentially a bunch of drawbacks. And when you do start using it at first, like some of the icons do seem ridiculously small. And all of the icons bunched together on the screen seem like, boy, there's not a lot of space between these icons. to review. And so I was taking a look at it on the smaller phone on the go. And it didn't even occur to me like, oh man, I just wish this screen was bigger. Like it was totally fine for purpose,

like to be able to do some basic work on it. Like it was absolutely fine. So the smaller screen is not an issue. This is really interesting. I'm convinced my bigger phone's giving me RSI. Oh yeah, why do you say that? I just feel like the back of my right hand hurts a lot when I use it a lot, from all that reaching and shimmying. And so I think I'm going to go small too.

Yeah. And gripping it tightly in your hand to make sure that it doesn't fall, right? Like, oh, I got to put a death grip on this. Like I'm choking a chicken to death, right? Like you got to hold onto that phone. You know what the message here is, Gray? What's the message? Brady was right. right oh yeah is that what it is yeah I do I do have to say like you you planting that seed in my head as irritating as I found it for I mean I don't know like two weeks that just kept rolling around in my brain and I couldn't let it go. And I was genuinely annoyed with you in this way.

I was like, this is not rational. But nonetheless, like I can't let go of this thought. I am just so happy. I'm so happy now. And I love this phone design. Probably the biggest challenge going back to it. I still, like I've been using it for a few days. I still have to do sometimes is that, again, I use my iPhone in my left hand, and I have to kind of re-remember how to type with a single

hand. And I often catch my right hand reaching up to help and to type on the phone. And I have to go like, no right hand, no, you're not actually helpful here. Like left hand can handle this, this thing all by itself, like it can do all of the typing. And so I'm like, I'm trying to train my right hand to not come up. But I want to try to type with two thumbs, even though that's, that's totally impossible, but I'm getting used to it very quickly. That's probably been the biggest adjustments, but. I led you out of the wilderness. But you are still in the wilderness, Brady. I know, I know. And I'm, I'm coming, Gray. Are you going to change? Yeah, I might go and, I might go and have a look in the store this weekend or something.

Looking at it in the store, I was thinking, oh boy, this size is really nice and it's interesting to use and I love this design. It obviously looks better than the Garbage 6 design. I was thinking all of those things, but actually using it for a few days is like seeing it in the store times 10. It's just, I's, I keep feeling this, this word of like relief. Like I am relieved to have this phone now. It's just so much nicer and so much more pleasant to use in every possible way. I like that it's smaller. I find it like in the gym, taking it in and out of my pocket to record like exercises is better across every single axes i find this phone superior so great i'm

gonna have a mechanical watch on your wrist by christmas you will not you will not my friend you will not chihuahua by next june i'm becoming concerned with the amount of humility that golfers are showing and it's being it's being led by this guy who's one of the big hot golfers at the moment this guy called Jordan Spieth and I know that he's not the only one who does this but he's the one that I've really strongly noticed doing this and that is referring to himself as we and and partly that's because he has got a team of people and he has got his caddy. So when he's on the course, there is a real teamwork between the golfer and the caddy. I do get that. And I do get that being a professional golfer these days isn't just like

one person. There is like a team around you. But this sort of humbleness at the end of the round, when you do something good and saying, yeah, we had a great day and we were really happy with how we played, when really there is only one person striking the ball and doing these things, sometimes seems a bit disingenuous. I'm not familiar with this person. Would he really say a sentence like that? Yeah, we had a really great day today. And don't get me wrong, he has got a caddy standing next to him who is doing more than just carrying his clubs i do understand the role of a caddy in modern golf but still it reached a zenith at the recent masters tournament when it was won by a guy

called danny willett who's an english guy and he it was being interviewed afterwards he was obviously trying to do the we thing which obviously has become the thing to do now and he was talking about how we're really happy we we we and he was sort of slipping between we and i in this uncomfortable way and it reached it reached farcical proportions when he was talking about his parents and how much his parents did for him when he was growing up and he said that that, of his parents, he said, I hope they're really proud of the person we've become. I don't think even the Queen would use we in that way. No.

But it did remind me that this is something that I think we, as in people like us, Grey, can be guilty of, and I can be guilty of and i can be guilty of and that is i quite often use we when referring to things i'm doing like if i'm talking about something at numberphile or something at periodic videos i will often use we and should i be using i and partly using we because i do work with all these other people and there's all these people I film and it's this huge team effort. But if I'm sitting here at my desk saying, we love all these tweets you're sending in and I'm the only one reading them who knows about them,

it is a little bit disingenuous of me to be using we. People like me who is sort of individuals but work with other people. I sometimes get myself into a tangle about when I should use we and I. I wonder what you think about that. Fine. It didn't really occur to me. I mean, there are scenarios under which maybe theoretically this would be a problem for me, like with the Star Trek video that I made, where Canute did all the artwork. But it wouldn't occur to me on Twitter to say something like, we are really happy with the way the video is being received. Like that would seem like I'm having some kind of psychotic break to write a tweet in that way.

Even where it's a case like, obviously, I didn't draw that artwork. I'm obviously not that talented. But it would seem so strange to use a we in a scenario like that. Yeah, but I don't feel strange when I do a tweet, like say I'm tweeting under the periodic videos banner, which is, you know, I work with all these professors and chemists and stuff. And if I say we're really excited about the video we're putting out tomorrow, when I'm just sitting at my desk on my own, I haven't spoken to the others for a week or two. They don't know the video is even coming out tomorrow.

Right. It's just you and the dogs there. Yeah. Yeah. So, and yeah, I feel completely comfortable saying that. I do feel completely comfortable referring to my projects with a we. Okay. I think there's a couple of things that are different here though, right? Because one, you're tweeting from the periodic videos tweet, right? And you have a separate Brady Haran Twitter that is you as an individual. So this is periodic videos, the corporate entity talking about what everyone has done. In the same way, like we don't really use this is we all of a sudden it's all tangled in my brain. You and I, Brady, you and I do not tweet from the Hello Internet Twitter account very often. I don't think I would go on to the Hello Internet Twitter account and make any kind of statement in the first person, I. I don't think I would do that, right? I think if you and I use the Twitter account to announce that you and I are going to be

recording an episode, I think I would use the word we if I was tweeting from the Hello Internet account. We are going to be recording tonight. Is there anything we should talk about? That seems very natural because it's you and me, right? Yep. I think, though, where you run into more trouble to hopefully poison your mind a tiny bit is whenever you're talking about any of your videos because you are not on camera very often in most of your projects objectivity is a notable exception but for like a number file

you're behind the camera most of the time you know sometimes the audience will hear you ask a question right and like you're there but the person you are filming is the visual on-screen presence. Yeah. And you are the editing presence. And so it seems like it's almost impossible for you to talk about any of your number file-like videos in anything other than a week. Yeah. Because it's so intrinsically a multi-person project. Even though you are doing the filming and you are doing the editing you aren't really doing any of the explaining like someone else is on camera doing the talking like

you're guiding that and editing that it's obviously the two of you so from now on you should never use the first person singular when referring to any of your videos like that you should always use we that's what you should do yeah yeah even if you're tweeting from from brady harron we are quite pleased with the reception of the latest number file video that's what that's what you should do from now on the main reason i started at brady harron twitter was i was getting myself into such a pickle with disentangling myself from being me and being in projects but all right let me ask your opinion on another use of the wevo yeah what do you think when say a couple you know comes up to you and says say like at a dinner

party something they go oh we have an exciting announcement we're pregnant what do you think about that use of the way i am not a fan of it i don't want to offend anyone but i think i think only one person can be pregnant in that scenario i appreciate the solidarity of it and if you choose to do it i respect it and if if someone came up to me and said we are pregnant i wouldn't laugh at them and say you're an idiot only she is but it's not it's not the path I would choose. Yeah, you wouldn't go that way? No, I think it seems strange. Yeah. But I get it, you know, in the modern world.

Look at you being all diplomatic. Well, you've got to, you know, you have to be. Sometimes you have to be. I don't think you have to be. I think it's better to say that the individual who's pregnant is pregnant. I guess if you come up and say we are pregnant, it takes away my ability to make the who's pregnant is pregnant. I guess if you come up and say we're pregnant, it takes away my ability to make the who's the father joke. Is that your go-to, Brady, when people announce their pregnancy?

Who's the father? It depends on the tone of the announcement. I think you could say we're having a baby and i'd be really comfortable with that i think only one person can be biologically pregnant i have no such compulsion to avoid offense in this case whenever i hear anyone say we're pregnant i just internally i'm thinking do you know how stupid you sound right now like i know i know like this is supposed to be a moment where I'm really happy for you. But really, internally, I can't help but the reflexive thought of like, you sound like

idiots at this moment, right? Saying we're pregnant. Like, no, you're not pregnant. She's pregnant. You got her pregnant. That's how this works. We are having a baby is the appropriate way to phrase that. You two are having a baby.

But the we're pregnant thing, it seems like bizarre over solidarity. Aside from just being idiotic, it's almost just creepy. Like there's something about it, which is like, I don't know. It's like, it's too much, man. This is a nice segue to a Brady's paper cut. Because I haven't done a Brady's paper cut for a while. It's been forever. It has been forever.

But my paper cut that I wanted to bring up today is also to do with a turn of phrase that irks me and I want to see where you stand on it. If something happens and you're not particularly bothered by it, your shrugs about it, which is often your response to it. A saying you may use is, I blank care less. What would the blank be for you there? Couldn't care less. I couldn't care less. Thank you. I know. Lots of people say I could care less. I think this is an Americanism. I don't know. Oh man, that annoys me. Because it completely changes the meaning of what you're saying. It's the opposite. And it takes away the impact.

Saying I could not care less is like funny. Saying I could care less means there is scope for me to care less. So I do care to some extent. And it's taken away all the meaning you were trying to give of being completely indifferent. I agree. I think couldn't care less is the only appropriate way to phrase this. Thank you. There's no other way to phrase this. And yes, it is almost unintentionally hilarious that the person gives the exact reverse of what they're usually trying to say.

People do it all the time. Oh, I could care less. Oh, really? So you do care, do you? Oh, that's good. No, no, I don't care. Well, you just said you could care less. So that means... I think this is one of those cases where in language, you often have cases where people don't even hear or think about the words they're saying. There is just a phrase that exists that expresses a thing. And the person is not thinking about the actual words. I just came across something like this the other day, where I used some phrase and then I had to stop and I thought like, what does that even mean?

Like these words that I've just said, I know the feeling that I'm trying to express, but it's never occurred to me to examine these actual words before. A really good example of that, I always think, it's not a phrase, but a word, is breakfast. Like the word breakfast has transcended breaking the fast now and no one thinks of breaking fast when they say breakfast breakfast is just its own thing now that's that transcends its origins that's that's that's a good way to

put it and i think maybe maybe brady if you're feeling in an accepting mood you should accept i could care less as breakfast that the person is you know what they're trying to express and they're just using a sequence of sounds to express that idea no no you're not gonna you're not gonna go with that you're not gonna accept that because if people started misspelling breakfast i wouldn't just accept that i would not accept that, sir. Because the thing is as well, saying, when you say, I couldn't care less, you are being smart ass. Like you are being sassy when you say, I couldn't care less.

As you know, on the internet, when you are a smart ass or when you're being clever, there is huge extra responsibility on you to get things right. That's a good point. Like I'm sure if you've ever written a snarky comment on Reddit or Twitter or YouTube, you check it and triple check it. You haven't made a spelling mistake. Because nothing looks more stupid than being snarky, Mr. Smartass, and then being wrong yourself. So I think when someone says, well, I could care less and they think they're being all that, I feel like saying, well, you knob, you just said it wrong.

I think you're right. I think you're right. There's something like intrinsically slacker teenager-y about the phrase, I couldn't care less. That's the feeling that comes along with that. But when you're being snarky, you have

to be on the ball it's like everybody's had the experience of giving into their inner grammar nazi and correcting someone about a picky point and then discovering later to their horror that they made an error in their very correction it's like oh no now i look like a total moron the number of times i've corrected someone on a fact like, oh, didn't you know everyone knows that after spending eight hours researching on Wikipedia? Ah, the internet. Thank you to Squarespace for their support of this podcast.

If you've never used Squarespace, I recommend you listen for the next few seconds because it's really worth hearing about them. I have to admit, I used to find it a little bit hard explaining what Squarespace is. I looked it up on Wikipedia to see how it was described there, and there it was called a SaaS-based CMS, which kind of makes sense if you know what those things are, but still sounds kind of technical. I'd describe it as a website that lets you make your own website. Now, I run two sites via Squarespace, my own blog and the podcast postcard site. And basically, I just log in and

it gives me access to the back end of both those websites. It's a really simple, clean, really cool interface. And from there, I can add pages. I can update pages. I can embed my YouTube videos, insert pictures, write blog posts. I can do anything on both the websites. And within a few keystrokes sometimes, the site's updated. They look great and they work on everyone's devices, on computers, on mobile phones. That's all taken care of behind the scenes. Squarespace has got great templates

to get you started. That way you can rest assured your work's going to look professional, but you can also get into those templates and customize them. Really tweak them to your heart's content. Make the site look your own. So if you want to be more a part of the internet, maybe you want a blog, a portfolio, maybe you want to start a shop, Squarespace is great for that too. Really, just give them a look. Give it a try. You can actually set up a practice site without making any commitment just to see how well it works for you. That's what I did at the start. If you like what you see, you can then get 10% off your first purchase by using the offer code HELLO. That's squarespace.com, offer code HELLO, so they know you came from the podcast squarespace all one word with the dot com

as i said i use it i know grey uses it we're really pleased to have them as a sponsor of the show our thanks to squarespace just a quick mention by popular demand and how appropriate actually just as i started that sentence i'm looking out my window at a huge container ship going along the bristol channel because and it's a red container ship going along the Bristol Channel, and it's a red container ship, which is the same colour as this polar research vessel that is to be constructed by the British government, I believe, to go and do science in the Antarctic and Antarctica. And they decided they would allow it to be named by the public, by sort of public suggestions and public votes.

What could possibly go wrong? Everything. Everything could go wrong. Don't people know? You don't just open up an election to the internet. That's a terrible idea. Exactly. They made two mistakes that you and I did not make when we had our flag vote.

Yeah, that's because we're professionals. So what they did not do is create their own shortlist, which we did. And another thing they did not do is put physical and financial constraints between people and their ability to vote, which we did via the postcards. And because they made that mistake, the internet had fun with them. And by far and away, the most popular name that was suggested jokingly and then received well over a hundred thousand votes to win the poll was Booty McBoatface which does not seem a very grand name for a you know a polar exploration ship I think they were imagining it would be won by something like,

you know, the Scott or the Her Royal Highness or Anthem of the Seas or something so suitably grand. But no, Boaty McBoatface. So obviously I think the minister, the government minister, has had to intervene and say, we're not going to call it Boaty McBoatface. I think that's been taken off the table. And I don't know what you think about that, Gray. Okay, well, I mean,

as often happens with Hello Internet preparations, you bring up a thing and you say like, oh, should we talk about this thing? And then I say, I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard about this thing. So this Bodie McBoatface thing is new to me as of literally an hour ago. I had never heard about this. But you sent me an article which says that what you described, that this internet election occurred, Bodie McBoatface was selected, but then that the UK government is saying, no, we're not going to name it Bodie McBoatface. And obviously, I haven't been following this story but it feels like okay one uk government you ran your election horribly for the reasons mentioned before two you were the luckiest bastards on the face of the earth to get the name bode mcboat face like do you know how horribly

this could have gone like b Bodie McBoatface, you should be kissing the ground that the internet selected that name. That's because it's like, it's a fun name, right? Everybody can get behind it. It's like, oh, look, now you have this adorable Arctic research mascot like Bodie McBoatface. This is like the internet is, you know, sometimes it can be horrible, but this is a moment where the internet is blessing you with a bit of hilarity. And then you make the final horrible step of coming in like some grumpy parent and saying, no, we can't call it Bodie McBoatface. We're going to give it some serious name. Every step of the way you have done this wrong, like roll with it if it's Bodie McBoatface.

I agree. Commission an artist to paint gigantic cartoon letters of Bodie McBoatface across the side of this thing, right? Like just go with it. And big eyes on the front of the boat. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, make the stovepipe like a little hat, you know, do whatever you gotta do.

It would be, it would like, this has got worldwide attention for something that no one would have ever heard of. People will flock to see it whenever it comes into port, like in Southampton or wherever it is, to, like, you know, restock before its next mission. People will come to see it. They'll have their photo taken with it. And that's a magnificent opportunity to then say,

look, I know it's got a funny name. Let us tell you a bit about the science we're doing. And, like, this was a, you're right, this was a gift horse. This could have backfired terribly. And instead it became this, I'm actually surprised it didn't get through the grey bubble because it even became a bit of a meme for a few days. And people were like, were adopting the term and people would say, oh, look, it's grey face.

And let's go, you know, people were changing it to whatever whatever they wanted let's know this is the meme mutation that always takes place right yeah this was fantastic and then to come to appear like you said like a grumpy parent like to be so draconian about it i think i think they've missed a trick and i i kind of get it if i was spending hundreds of millions of pounds on a ship that i was really proud of and it had and i thought it was going to have a magnificent name and it had a silly name i might think yeah yeah but that but if you did that's because you're a grump with no sense of humor or delight or anything right that's that's why because you're a government commission or something dumb and you don't understand how the world works and what'sights and sparks people's interest, right?

Like that's probably why you're in the position that you're in right now. That's probably why you ran this internet election the way that you did in like the most cursory of research would have revealed that this would be a terrible way to run an internet election. This is not the first time someone has opened up something to the public for the internet to vote on. And it's like, guess what? They don't do the thing that you want them to do. Like almost by definition,

you are going to get opposite results from what you want. The first one of these I can ever remember is, this is ages ago, but the first one was it, I think it was T-shirt hell, but this guy who ran this T-shirt selling company, he ran a poll on the internet to change his name like he didn't like his name and he thought oh i'll let the internet select my name and now he's named sunshine megatron like this is what happens you know yeah like but there's like a a now decade plus history of this kind of nonsense happening. Yeah. I don't know. I also wonder how many times they're going to have to paint over someone breaking into the docks in the middle of the night and putting Boaty McBoatface on the side of the thing anyway now.

Yeah, that's exactly what's going to happen. Mr. Splashy Pants was another one of these things where Greenpeace had some internet name to pick like a humpback whale they wanted to name. And of course, it comes up as Mr. Splashy Pants. And it was a similar thing about like there was, you know, there was some pushback about it. Like this is a long time ago. This is one of like the earlier Reddit history kind of things. It's like, this is always what's going to happen. You want the internet to name your thing? Like, be careful what you wish for.

But if they're going to name it, like, for the love of God, don't go against what they've you've just like, you're guaranteed just to make everybody angry. And I agree with you. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they end up having to deal with vandalism, like people spray painting, you know, Bodie McBoatface lives across the side of the boat. It's interesting seeing like big organizations interact with the internet. And it always just feels like, do you guys know what you're doing? Like, is there anyone on your staff who's ever been on the internet? Like, can't you think this through? To take the other side for a minute,

because it's only fair. And I do see the other side. This is like a funny joke for a week or two, but like you hadn't heard of it and the joke will go away and we'll all forget about it in a few weeks. This boat, sorry, it's not actually a boat, which is another issue. This ship won't be built for another couple of years and then it will probably be in service for 20 or 30 years. Is it right to have this flash in the pan joke on the side of the ship for all that time when you could do something a bit more dignified? Call it the David Attenborough or something.

Okay. Let me ask you something. How many boats in the world can you name? Uh, well. Yeah. Yeah. Only a handful. Right.

But they all have very majestic names, like the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth and things like that. They don't have names like Silly McSilliness. Right. But the thing is, the majestic names don't guarantee notability because every boat has some majestic name, right? This is one way that this boat will at least be remembered and known about for a long period of time.

This makes it stand out. Like, it's a funny thing. It's a bit of fun history that goes along with it. It makes it unique among the boats. I don't agree with the, like, oh, 30 years from now, we're going to have to be telling a story about how we ran an internet poll and they named it Bodie McBoatface. Like, that's part of the fun of it.

I think that's what makes it unique. I don't know, Gray. I don't know. Let me argue the point then. I think it's incumbent on leaders and people in position of authority to think beyond a meme-y joke for a couple of weeks. It's easy for you and I to sit here. Don't get me wrong. I know I've been saying they should call it Boat in My White Face, but it's easy for you and I to sit here and think it amuses us and it has amused the internet.

Let's do it. Whereas there are other people who have to think about other considerations i mean in 10 years the people who run this ship are going to be applying to a different government in a different time in a different era to a different funding body saying can we have 20 million dollars for our penguin research aboard the boaty mcboat face and i think and i think that and that's going to them that's gonna hurt them because of a jokey decision that's made now whereas if they said can we will it hurt them though i don't think that's a guaranteed thing i don't know i think it could i think i think people who bequeath large sums of money and allocate funds are drawn to integrity and seriousness more than they are to jokiness and flippant things. And I think labelling it Boaty McBoatface for all time will always be a bit of a wink,

wink, are they serious? But don't you want to stand out in the application pile? I think that's a legitimate argument. Well, yeah, you could stand out in the application pile by dressing up as a clown as well. Standing out doesn't always mean success. Nope, sure doesn't. I do see the other argument. I do think go with it.

My overall, all things considered, I do say roll with it. Not such a bad name that it's going to hurt you forever. It's not like, you know, they said, let's call it the Adolf Hitler. Yeah. But I do think... Even the Adolf Hitler, I's call it the Adolf Hitler. Yeah. But I do think... Even the Adolf Hitler, I would feel like you got off lucky. Right? Yeah, well, I could have said something else, but that would probably contravene some of my swearing policies.

Yeah. It could be called, like, the c***, m***, face, c*** yourself boat. Right? Like, that's what it could be called. I think you just used your full quota of beeps for the episode there. Yeah. But, like, that could easily happen, right? Easily.

I do have some sympathy for putting your foot down and saying, no, we're going to have a more dignified name. One of the best suggestions I read was someone saying, because it's not actually a boat anyway, but it does have like a little small boat on it, presumably to go and do little coastal runs to go and see the penguins. Oh, like the captain's yacht in Star Trek. Basically, yeah. Call the little mini boat, Boaty McBoatface, and give the big ship,

not Shippy McShipface, but like give the big ship its dignified name, but at least do a nod to Boaty McBoatface by calling the small one that, which I thought was not a bad compromise. No, no, no, no, no, don't compromise. No compromise. Don't accept that internet. I'm actually talking myself out of calling it Boaty McBoatface now. I can hear it in your voice as you go on. This is what happens. Like you initially take the other side as a devil's advocate, and then you suddenly find yourself on the other side. But this is what makes you good at your job.

I'm very persuasive, Gray. I can even persuade myself. After much to-ing and fro-ing and spiking and unspiking, you did do your encryption, Apple, hacking, iPhone-y videos. I did. I did. There was a bit of anguish about this. There was a bit of anguish about this. There was a bit of anguish about this.

I even asked you if you thought I should go ahead with making the video or not. I know. You even gave me a sneaky look at a script. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted you to put on it. You told me to go ahead. A bunch of people told me to go ahead.

So yes, I did make it despite several weeks ago. The case that brought this up originally was this whole like Apple versus the FBI thing where the FBI wanted Apple to open up their phone and make a bunch of data available. And it's like it's a whole big complicated thing with tons of details that don't really matter. But I was working on a script about that. And then that whole thing just ended. And I thought like, oh, well, this is over. And I thought the script was kind of useless after that point. But the story is not over. And I did end up continuing to work on it, thanks partly to

the encouragement of you and some other people. And so yeah, yeah, I put two videos up, which are sort of about the Apple FBI thing without ever mentioning the Apple or the FBI thing, because I think there's a much bigger question here, which is about encryption just in general. I have two questions, Gray. Both of them will betray perhaps ignorance in the subject, but that's okay. I revel in my ignorance. The first one is about this warrants and searching. Because obviously there is this different situation.

Like a judge can issue a warrant and then the police can break your door down and search your house if you don't let them in. What's the situation with phones in terms of if you were still alive and the judge said the police have the right to look into CGP Grey's phone, Grey, please enter the code so the police can look. Presumably you can be compelled to do that. And if you don't, they'll put you in prison for contempt of court. Like, I'm assuming they can still do that because also they do that with, you know, when people were texting while they were driving and things like that. Or what's the law there? I'm not talking about Apple breaking into the phone, which I think is very different. Yeah, that's a different question. But what's the situation with compelling you as the phone owner to,

presumably that's like any other warrant and a judge can do that? The answer is it depends on where you live. And so if we take where we are right now in the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom has written into the law that they can compel you to reveal the passwords to your devices. Right. So if you're involved in a trial in the uk they can say open up your phone and if you say no there are criminal penalties for saying no you know that's it's time in prison you're in contempt of the court right

enjoy your time in solitary until you open this phone yeah like that that's what's going to happen you know you can choose not to but they're going to compel you. Now, what I think is a very interesting, unique, and I think important part of the U.S. legal system is this protection against self-incrimination. Now, some other places have this, but the United States has a particularly strong version of this, where essentially, like, the court cannot compel you to speak or to act. And so in the United States, if you have a phone, and they say, open up this phone, you are legally allowed to just sit there and do nothing. You don't have to comply and they cannot punish you for non-compliance. And so this places the burden on the state to prove things like you cannot incriminate yourself. And I think that's where a lot of the really interesting parts around this issue turn. My understanding, I might not be 100% accurate about this. My understanding, though, is that there is a little wrinkle with the fingerprint sensor that police

in the United States can compel you to like touch the fingerprint sensor. There's like, there's something about this where like the police are allowed to put the phone against your finger. And that doesn't actually count as compelling you to do anything and so like the fingerprint sensor is like a is a bit of a weird loophole in this so there are ways that they can try to legally get into your phone but they can't they can't make you reveal the password which there's some interesting consequences to both sides of these for example i think the right to be able to remain silent, I really think that that should be part of every legal system. Because one of the things that I don't like about the UK system, where they can compel you to speak, is that you can end up in

situations where you are trapped. So, I mean, let's say that the police raid your home and within your computer file somewhere is an encrypted file that you don't know anything about, that you, like, you downloaded from somewhere, like some malware put on your computer or whatever. You can be in a situation where they want to compel you to open that file. And it's like, I can't, I don't know the password. And they're like, well, we're gonna make you think about that. Like go ahead and sit in prison until you're able to open up this file.

Like I don't like even the legal possibility of a situation like that occurring. I don't think that's a good thing to have in a legal system that a person is required to perform an action in order to not be in prison. I am very strongly on the opposite side. Like the burden should be on the state to do everything to prove your guilt, not the other way around.

Like I don't like making things super easy for the government to put people in prison. I think it definitionally should be a difficult thing. I'm sure I've seen lots of American TV shows where people are put in prison for being in contempt of court until they cough up the name or they cough up a source or something. So surely there are some situations in America where they compel people to do things. I know you shouldn't base your knowledge of the law on American TV shows, but... I'm going to guess most of those cases have to do with the horrible, horrible plea bargaining system that occurs in the United States. There are many ways in which you can be

held in prison, like awaiting a trial. And then there's this whole question about like, what counts as a speedy trial in the United States? How long can they keep you just waiting around? Like, I think there's certainly an amount of wiggle room about that. I am just talking about the situation of when you get to a trial, like a trial is occurring, what can happen in that scenario? But in the US, I always keep meaning to do something about this, but it is a horrible situation where very, very few cases ever make it to trial. They are all handled in this very, very high stakes, confrontational, high pressure, plea bargain kind of way, where a lot of the normal protections just don't work because you're

like bargaining with lawyers. So I imagine that's what you're thinking about. That's what's occurring there. Another thing about your video on encryption that struck me was a kind of, not that it was your job to question it, but you kind of had an unquestioning faith in the integrity of encryption. I don't know whether that's founded on it. I know, like, how safe is, you know, mathematical encryption? I mean, you know, I've done videos about it and I'm aware of some of the things involved and these prime numbers and how it works and things but you know with it we don't know where quantum computing is really at yeah yeah and things like that so i mean how

you're assuming a lot about the integrity of encryption when you're making your arguments do you question that in your head there there is is a brief moment in the video in one of the slides where I make a reference to, on the screen, there's a visual reference to quantum computing just messing all of this up because I did want to kind of get it on record. I acknowledge there are future technological problems that may undo all of our current state of encryption. They may actually end up introducing with quantum computing greater levels of encryption, but we can certainly say like stuff encrypted today could be quite trivial for a quantum computer years from now to unencrypt, like that we may very well be in that case. But there's two things that are going on here. Like one is just this idea of, as a person, can you encrypt data on your computer in such

a way so that no one can practically access it? And the answer to that is yes. Like, as far as we know, unless the NSA has some secret quantum computer somewhere they're not telling us about. Like, an individual on their own computer can encrypt files in a way that it makes them essentially unavailable for the rest of time, presuming no massive technological changes. And I think that that's a really interesting fact. And I was trying forever to come up with an analogy to explain like how is this the case because when people think about like locking something away fundamentally what you're doing is

you are putting a thing in a container and you're trying to make the container really secure right but the thing is still inside the container but the way encryption works is it's like, well, if you encrypt a drive on your computer, it's almost like the data isn't there on the drive anymore until you enter the password to move all of the bits back around into a readable fashion. So it's not like someone can crack into it, like you can break into a safe and retrieve the thing. Like encryption, because of the magic of mathematics, like it makes the stuff not there until the password is provided. Like there's nothing to break. You're splitting hairs now, though.

I mean, that's like if I had a completely unbreakable safe with a million dollars in it, I could say, well, the million dollars isn't really there because it's an unbreakable safe. But there's no physical safe that you could build that's unbreakable well you could argue there's no form of encryption of the data that's unbreakable too i don't know but see this is your assumption your assumption is that encryption is unbreakable i am saying that like my understanding of this is that if if you if you encrypt a drive with a secure enough password, the only way to get to that password is to brute force it. And like all of the computing technology in the world will not let you do that.

Basically, you're saying to me, you do have faith in modern encryption, barring people having password 123 or being stupid. You do have faith in encryption. But, and fair enough, fair enough. Maybe you're right. Maybe I don't know about encryption. I guess a bit of an elephant in the room. And I don't know if more has come out about this or you have your own theory. But the FBI did suddenly say in this San Bernardino case, they suddenly said, oh, we've got into the phone now.

How do they get into it? So this is the other issue that I'm not touching on in the video, because again, I'm trying to keep it like, oh, we're in the platonic ideal of encrypting a phone, right? Like that is the realm in which my video exists, right? But there is a totally separate unrelated issue, which is how secure can a particular company make a particular model of phone? And that is the question which I'm not talking about because the answer is like there have been tons of security exploits with Apple stuff and Android phones over the years and various models of phones. Like they are no stranger to various ways of people breaking into their particular phones, right? Like that definitely exists. And Apple over time has,

I will just speak about Apple because that's the one I'm more familiar with, but Apple over time has tried to increase the security of their phones. And if you want to read a document, which I think exists at the intersection of fascinating and deadly boring, Apple makes a lot of their security documents available online. And I was reading through a bunch of these where they talk about how their security systems work.

And like, they have such a difficult problem because the example I was using before where you are an individual on your own computer attempting to encrypt your own files, that's very straightforward. You can do that with available software. But Apple is in this difficult position of like, they want to sell you a device that they want to be able to remotely update to make changes to, right, in which you are also going to put on your data. And like, that's an incredibly difficult thing to do. Like they want your data to be secure on the phone, while also they have the ability to remotely change the software on the phone. Like, it never really occurred to me before

reading through some of the security documents, but that is a hell of a hard problem to solve. And it's fascinating, like all of the ways that they have tried to go about this, like they, you know, each each phone has like this randomly burned in series of on and off transistors that are used as like this local thing to encrypt the files. And then they combine that with like data from your fingerprint. Like they do, they're doing so much crazy stuff to try to prevent them, prevent Apple to prevent anybody else from being able to access the data on the phone except you. And it's so hard, especially when you consider like most people are using a four digit pin on their phone.

So it's a fascinating problem that they have. But because their situation is not straightforward, because they are putting out into the world these phones that they also want some level of access to, this is one of the reasons why there are particular security flaws in the phones that do allow people to get access. Like Apple tries to fix them as much as they can. They're always trying to make the phones more secure with each generation. But they're just doing a thing that's going to be fundamentally flawed in some scenarios. And so, again, I don't really want to get into some of the details of this particular case. But I'll just say that it came up because that particular phone the iphone 5c had some particular security flaws that the fbi wanted apple to exploit right and that had it been a newer phone like oh we we

we solve those security problems that can no longer be fixed this to me is two different questions like is encryption a thing that that exists that can be theoretically unbreakable? Yes. Can Apple make a phone that is perfectly always unbreakable in all scenarios? The answer to that question so far is like, no, but they're always getting better at that. Like, they're trying to move more and more toward that direction. Like they are clearly trying to close off more and more of people's data from themselves, from anybody being able to access it. But I really think those are two very different questions.

This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by Backblaze, which again, quite frankly, I'm always a little bit surprised that Backblaze keeps buying these ads because it means that you listeners, there are still so many of you who keep signing up with Backblaze because you are living with unprotected data. Just sitting on your hard drives waiting to disappear at any moment. I don't know how many times I have to keep telling you, if you don't have online backup, you are crazy. You are just living a wild, reckless life, inviting digital disaster in. If this is you, go to backblaze.com slash hello internet right now and sign up for unlimited, unthrottled backup for just $5 a month.

These guys are the total experts. They have over 150 petabytes of data backed up. They've restored 10 billion files for their customers. If you're away from your computer and you need to just get access to one file, this is something that you can totally do. I have done this so many times for video projects that I have archived on this huge hard drive that's sitting next to me here now. That stuff's not in my regular syncing system, but I can get access to it through Backblaze if I'm somewhere else and I need to get an asset file from a video. It's just, it's fantastic. Now, since we've been talking about encryption, one of the little features that Backblaze has is if you are extremely concerned about your digital security in the way that I am, Backblaze has the option where if you know what

you're doing, you can enter a private encryption key. This means that all of the data that's uploaded to Backblaze, even if say, oh, I don't know, some government issued a warrant saying that they wanted access to all of your digital backups, there's nothing Backblaze can give them. They can hand over the encrypted files, but tough luck. Now, this is for experts only. If you are going to enable this feature, you really better know what you're doing. Because if you lose your private encryption key, and your house burns down, and as I have learned, disasters always come in more than one, you are going to be totally out of luck, you will not be able to restore your files, there is nothing Backblaze is going to be able to help you with. That is the flip side of security. But I really like that Backblaze even has this as an option for

the super duper privacy concerned. Once again, it just shows these guys are the pros. Again, I cannot emphasize this enough. If you are still listening to me and you don't have online backup on your computer, you need to go to backblaze.com slash hello internet right now and sign up for their $5 a month per computer for unlimited unthrottled backup. Their trial is risk-free, no credit card required. You have nothing to lose except all of your data if you don't sign up. Thanks to Backblaze for supporting the show. You said one other thing in your second video, which, unless I misunderstood it, I disagree with. In your second video about how important our phones are to us. You made the point that given the choice

between allowing someone to read your mind or read through all the contents of your phone, you think reading the mind is the better option. I think under certain circumstances, yes. Yeah, I do think that. I think that's only true under very, very limited circumstances. And I can't agree with you. I think that was a slightly inflammatory and ridiculous thing to say. Why do you think it's ridiculous? Because someone being able to read all the contents of your mind is far more revealing

and potentially damaging. And I'm assuming damage limitation was the premise of the question. And far more damaging than someone reading the contents of your phone. And I think you agree because you have that sound about you. I'm trying to think about how to bring a Brady over to my side here. All right. to my side here. But I think this is, there's a fundamental problem, which is that I am a very present and future oriented person. And I think you are much more of a past oriented person. And I have a hell of a hard time remembering lots of things in my own life. Like there's just so

much stuff that I just forget all the time. Like my wife constantly comments on this about how things that happened a year ago, from my perspective, it's like they never happened ever. Like what? When did this occur? I have no idea. And so I feel like my mind might be particularly, perhaps unusually devoid of records, right? That there's just not the whole lot stored in there, that it's much more like, oh, what's going on right now? Now, of course, like, people have thoughts, like there are things that you don't want other people to like hear that you're that of course, the sub vocalizing voice in your head is talking all the time. But I can honestly say that would I rather have someone read my mind or read my phone? I think I would rather have someone read my mind. Your phone

has just so many records of absolutely everything in your life that you don't even know what's in your phone. Like what embarrassing stuff is in there. That's crazy, Gray. That's crazy. Let's use the extreme criminal example first, right? Say you were accused of some terrible heist in um it's a diamond heist in the center of london and the police have got you in a cell and they say gray can we read your mind or can we read your phone well have i committed the heist yes you've committed the okay i've committed the heist what's the situation here you've committed now you're not going to forget that you committed the heist. You might forget where you were on April 2, 2014, when you met with me to plan it.

But you're not going to forget you did it. So, when they use their incredible mind-reading probe that they've borrowed from Darth Vader, they're going to know straight away. They're going to say, the first thing they'll ask you is, did you do the heist? Your brain will say, yes, and then you're off to jail. It was awesome. Yeah, whereas it's very unlikely you have written in your phone, I did the heist.

There'll be lots and lots of evidence. I was at this place at this time. I was at this place at this time. Here are the blueprints of the building. Here are all this. Here's discussion about where i can here's me looking at websites about selling diamonds there's going to be a ton of circumstantial evidence that they that they can use to build up the case against you but nothing more powerful

than your brain just saying yes i did it like with this perfect brain reading machine so straight away they've got you by reading your mind regardless of all this evidence and also so i think the criminal example just falls to pieces because no one forgets they're a criminal and just to be clear i agree with you there right like i'm not i'm not i am not going to take the opposite position that like if i am actually a diamond heister then yes i would rather have someone look at the phone than have my own brain and play back the memory of like, here's me doing this diamond heist. Now, let's say you're talking about like just your friend, like, are you going to let me

read your mind, Gray? Or are you going to let me look at your phone? And if I look at your phone, I'll see all the texts and emails you sent to your friends and family saying, oh, Brady's really pissing me off today. And all those embarrassing things that you don't want me to say. And you've forgotten you even sent them. Right, of course. Like you've forgotten someday you were pissed off at me two years ago. And it'll be really embarrassing if I then read it because you don't even feel that way anymore. But I still think it's

much more damaging if I'm able to go into your brain and find out your true real feelings like, oh, I don't like the way he looks or I don't like the way he smells or, you know, because that's also more truth. If I look at your phone, I'll have my feelings hurt, but at least I can tell myself, oh, well, okay, that was two years ago and I was being a bit of a dick that day. So fair enough. But if I can go straight into your brain and know your innermost feelings and your deepest thoughts, that's much more potentially hurtful or private. And sure, you can't remember little details, but that's the core of who you are in your brain. And you can tell me it changes over time and that, but I think

that's much more damaging. I can't see a circumstance where I think being able to read my mind would be less damaging than being able to read my phone. I certainly don't want people to read my phone. And you're right. I've forgotten more than half the stuff in it. And it would be really embarrassing. But being able to get into my brain where all my deepest, darkest thoughts are, things I would never even write into a phone. I don't want people going in there.

See, I don't know. I genuinely feel if we were sitting at the pub and I could hand you my phone or hand you my brain, I'd rather hand you my brain. It's really interesting. I feel like, yeah, go ahead, look through. Like, obviously, there'd be embarrassing stuff in my brain, but I feel like the phone, you know, again, assuming that you were able to, like, understand everything on the phone in the same way that you were able to understand everything on the brain, I feel like there's potentially way worse stuff on the phone that I don't even remember or think about. Or like you said, stuff that is not even relevant now, but could somehow be damaging. Like, it just feels

like there's so much more potential there than like, what's in my brain now? Like, not a whole lot. I don't agree. Because with this brain, with this hypothetical brain reading that we're talking about, I can, you know, interrogate you for what I want, like your opinions and feelings. I am presuming that. I am presuming that you would have access to the state of my brain in the same way that I have access to the state of my brain. Surely that's more damaging because I could find out really personal things about you that you would never have committed to your phone before.

Yeah, but I don't know. Like, did years ago me commit really personal stuff to my phone? I don't know. Possibly. Probably. I don't know. I'm not saying there's none of that there. Of course, there's going to be tons and tons of it.

But not more than the ability for me just to read your mind and find out what you think about everything. I guess what I feel here is like I am more confident in the limited content of my brain than I am in what seems like near infinite content of my phone. It's almost like a devil you know versus devil you don't know situation here. And I feel like the phone is the devil I don't know. Like know like dear god what did i type into that thing three years ago i have no idea like man let's not let anybody look at that i don't even want to look at that i don't know if i should read into this that you're actually just a really really lovely person

in your brain or that you're really really worried about what you were like a few years ago. I don't know. Let me ask you something else about that, though. All right. Because all of this, the encryption stuff, or like reading your mind or reading your phone, I feel like this is all a sideshow in the same way that like the Star Trek video was all like a sideshow to what I thought was the actual point. What do you think about

taking the phone or other digital devices in your life and considering them in a legal sense as an extension of the self? And here I want to say like let's talk about this in the context of American law where like you are not obligated to incriminate yourself. And so in some sense, like that is legal protection for the state of your brain. What do you think about establishing some kind of legal precedent to say, like we are going to decide that a person's phone is like an off-board brain and this is legally protected as part of the self in the same way that we protect people's brains as part of the self? Interesting. I think my first instinct is no, because everything going into your phone is still

a document, like paperwork, like every photo. And just because we're becoming a lot more prolific with our creation of the paperwork doesn't mean that it's not paperwork. So my first instinct is, no, these are all still documents that can be treated as separate from who we are. Whether or not that means it's open season on people seeing them is another question. But it's also questionable about the paper I have in my cupboard. Not everyone can look at that either. Right. But we're talking about it like in a legal context here, right? That we can just say like,

you are falsely accused of a crime, but nonetheless, like there is a, and you somehow live in America, but nonetheless, there is a warrant to seize all of your documents, right? And then the question I think is like, does that include all of the documents on your phone, or is it just limited to the documents on your phone or is it just limited to the documents in your house like how how far can that go i guess the phone could start becoming quite a handy refuge of the criminal couldn't it because phones are so powerful now and can hold so much that you just do everything with your phone and put everything in your phone comfortable in the knowledge that it could never be scrutinized no matter what you do so but you can do that with your own brain now right like you know i'm sure criminals in the

past they have the option of not committing things to paper yeah i don't think criminals could use a thing it to me is always one of like the worst arguments ever right like we have tools and criminals can use tools right but? But tools are still good. We don't ban tools of any kind. It's true. I'm only asking because I think this is the part of the video. But we also don't ban the police from then fingerprinting those tools or checking the bloodstains on them after a crime is committed. Right, right. And I think that's where this balance comes in, right? Of how much power do we grant to authorities? Where do we set the boundaries of personal liberty?

Like, where is that edge? The reason I think this is so important is to go back to the mind reading ever so slightly. I don't think that we live in a world where it is unreasonable to expect that at some point, we really will be able to build essentially mind reading machines, right? Or close enough. And then I think like, boy, the American legal system has a really interesting question there of if we legally protect your right to not say anything, does that, but do we legally protect your right to not be in a brain scanner? That's an interesting question. And my gut reaction

is that protection against self-incrimination should extend to the mind just in general, so that in a future scenario where we do have a brain reading machine, you should not be able to compel someone to go in a brain reading machine. I think that counts as self-incrimination. Yeah. Then it was the most hesitant yes in the world. Do you think so or do you not think so? Are we assuming a completely flawless brain reading machine? Let's assume that it actually works, right?

It works as well as someone reading a piece of paperwork. these systems, this legal systems main goal is to establish truth and then execute justice or to protect people from getting themselves in trouble. And if you've got an absolutely perfect, perfect, 100% platonic brain-reading machine, well, that's the end of courts, isn't it? Like, did you kill her? Well, let's find out. Perfect brain machine. Yes, I did kill her. Here's the circumstances. What are you going to do about it? What's justice? And the only reason to sort of protect the rights

of the people from self-incriminating is flaws in the legal system. But you've given me a flawless machine to find out what happened. I don't actually agree that a perfect mind reading machine would be the end of the legal system. Are you also talking about false memories? Yeah, because people can be wrong about the state of their own mind. Well, okay. I was sort of, my platonic machine had gotten around that problem. Right, right. But now you're just talking about a magic machine, right? Because people are often wrong about the state of their own mind, right?

Which starts to get you into such strange things. And it's one of these cases where when high profile crimes occur, it is not unusual for police to get tons of just confessions from people. It's just like, oh, I did this crime. Oh, no, no, you didn't. You're just crazy, right? You're a lunatic. You think you did this, but you didn't do this. So the machine isn't magic, but it is a perfect brain reading machine. And that's a different thing. I mean, would a perfect legal justice system create a situation where people didn't remain

silent? Everyone just calmly, without pressure, told what they think their version of the story is. And then people came to decisions? I mean, this current situation where people can just keep shtump and not incriminate themselves is there to protect them from all of the pressures that are there and all the flaws in the legal system. So would a more idealised legal system not have people remaining silent? They would tell their version of events and then this amazing judge

would hear everyone's version of events told calmly and rationally and fairly and weigh them and look at the evidence. It feels like people's right to remain silent, which I am in favour of, is there because we have a flawed system. And now you're, you're sort of playing fantasy legal systems and removing all the flaws. And I think if we have all these flaws being removed, this right to remain silent, I don't see the need for it anymore. Yeah. See, I don't think I'm playing fantasy legal system though. My concern is that you'd have a legal system which is still like today.

You know, it's made of people and you have trials and you have lawyers and you have like all these conflicting interests. But you just happen to have a piece of technology that allows you to read the thoughts and contents of a person's mind. With the flawed system, it's just one new piece of technology. Obviously, I think people should still have the right to remain silent. Okay. Okay. Okay. system and just one new piece of technology obviously i think people should still have the right to remain silent okay okay that's yeah okay so i was sorry i was taking fantasy legal system to extremes there yeah i mean i agree with you in a perfect world we have no problems yes i i agree with i agree with that point but i'm just still thinking like an actual an actual progression of today's technology like that there i was reading around and some people were telling me like there's some super interesting stuff about just how the,

the resolution of brain scanning technology is increasing over time. And that there are some extremely rudimentary examples of trying to pull things like color thoughts out of a person's brain. Like if someone's thinking of color, like you can identify what color they're thinking by brain scan, like just some, just some really weird stuff like that. And it's like's like okay well i can see where this is going like it's not in principle impossible to do so it seems like i think it's inevitable we'll end up with something

that can at least be some kind of brain scanner at some point and that's why i i genuinely i genuinely worry about this stuff but the but the related thing is this idea about like where does if if as you do you agree that that presuming we don't have a perfect legal system there is still room and still reason for the protection against self-incrimination then i also think we are going to very rapidly get into a world where you have to start wondering, what are the boundaries of the self? Where do we draw that line about what counts as self-incrimination? And I thought it was just by coincidence, but a bunch of people sent me that the day that video went up, there was a news story about someone who had a computer chip implanted in their brain that allowed them, they were an amputee, but that allowed them to control an arm, like just with their thoughts.

And people were pointing out like, well, this is actually a super interesting case. Like, could you have a warrant for the information recorded on that computer chip in that person's brain? Obviously, right now, it's not storing or recording a lot of information, but it's an interesting legal question. Could you write a warrant to say, please turn over the information on that computer chip in that person's brain? Hmm. And like, my gut feeling is, no, like that, that chip is part of the self of that person's brain. And like my gut feeling is no, like that chip is part of the self of that person. It is not a separate entity. It is not the equivalent of a piece of paper lying on someone's desk. I think that's different. And I also feel like we use our phones and our digital devices so much now as off-board brains that I really

do think the amount that we use them inches them into this category of legal protection for the self. And I think it's important to set this precedent for the future. I really do think this is going to be a legal question in some court in some country in the nearest future about trying to subpoena information for a piece of technology that is like in a person it's going to happen it's going to happen i mean i i can't speak to the chip in chip in the person that is the thing is if i was accused of a crime 15 years ago, police could have gone through a few letters and gone through a few photo albums with solid printed photos stuck in them. And they wouldn't have found out a lot to help them.

And now they could go through my phone and find a million photos I've taken every day and look at a million emails I've sent and look at all my movements and know a lot more. So obviously, what's in my phone is a lot more incriminating than what existed 10 years ago. The question is, at what point between that scratchy old photo album and the letters and my shiny phone with all the information, at what point was the threshold crossed where it became part of me the phone became part of me i've i've it's impossible to draw that line to say okay once it got over a thousand photos it's now me it's no longer a photo album it's me once you've got over two thousand messages it's no longer documents it's now now me. It's part of me. I don't know where, at what point my phone became me. This is the classic, like, where is the boundary problem that you run into

a whole lot of stuff. There is no good way to answer that question. And I think you can make that question way more difficult by imagining a theoretical person who makes a physical copy of every single file that is on their phone, right? That they are just a tremendous paper hoarder living in a gigantic mansion filled with reams and reams of paper of their GPS coordinates for every second and all of the messages and all of the photos and all of the emails and like, you know, and how many pages of paper you would need to print out to be the equivalent of like 4K, 60 frames per second video

they've taken but like you can imagine in theory a person living in this mansion with all of this stuff all of this crap and then my feeling is like oh but those papers aren't them right that's my initial feeling even though all of the information would theoretically be the same that's somehow like oh but that seems different yeah does that make? No, that doesn't make any sense at all. But my emotional reaction is that it's somehow different when it is all contained on a device that is never far away that is with you all the time, that that is different somehow. But I'm also willing to accept that we may in a future state, look back on this and say, oh no, the dividing line is when the devices started going in our bodies, right? That, oh,

an iPhone, obviously the iPhone isn't really an extension of the self. That was just ridiculous hyperbole. But this, right, this chip in my head, which is connected to the internet with which I can store memories and download new thoughts, like that chip in my head obviously is part of myself in the way that a phone isn't. Like maybe that's a more natural boundary. That does seem like crossing the threshold into kind of sacred ground, doesn't it? Once it's physically touching you at every second. Maybe that helps. Maybe that will help draw a line. Yeah.

But what if you tape an iPhone to your head? Checkmate.