Hello Internet - H.I. #63: One in Five Thousand

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

Grey & Brady discuss: clapping, cheer pressure revisited, Boaty McBoatface / David Attenborough, famous explorers you should know, self-incrimination and being compelled to give testimony, impending Uber tipping, AVs/RVs/SUVs, The Leicester City Foxes fairy tale, the UK/EU referendum (Brexit), and is San Francisco the most valuable city in the world and can maybe London be second. Brought to You By Squarespace: Use code HELLO for 10% off your website Hover: The best way to buy and manage domain names. Use coupon code 'CheerPressure' for 10% off Harry's: Quality Men's Shaving Products. Promocode HI for $5 off your first purchase Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes Discuss this episode on the reddit Muse: Starlight State of the Union: Just the claps The Clappy Clap Show A start at defining cheer pressure Boaty McBoatface beaten by Sir David Attenborough in UK science ship naming David Attenborough The Brian Cox Robert Falcon Scott Neil Armstrong Edmund Hillary Tenzing Norgay Keeing Shtump You should probably tip your Uber driver from now on The Leicester City Foxes Leicester City win Premier League United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 San Francisco Rents

I don't feel, no, none of this needs to happen now, really. Okay. They can go into that list of things we say. We'll do it next time. That has grown to about 5,000 things. What's this one in the show notes? He had dinosaurs. Will they go extinct or not?

This friend of mine's boyfriend, of all the things I know about him and all the skills and things he exhibits about himself, his ability to clap loudly is perhaps his greatest skill. Like it's noticeable. Like if you're in a group of people and everyone claps, people will look at him and think, wow, you are an amazing clapper. It's like his gift from God. I'm trying to think about how to interpret the thing that you have just said, as in the best thing that he does is clap.

He does nothing in his life better than his clapping. Yeah, which you could read that two ways, that there's not much else to him or he's an amazing clapper. And I think we should go with the amazing clapper and give him the benefit of the doubt. He's just an uncommonly good clapper. Basically, the story in summary is I know a guy who's really good at clapping. That's the story. But I almost think if you stand out in a crowd with your clapping, I think you're bad at

clapping. I don't know about that. If you're drawing attention to yourself as clapping in an exceptionally unusual, notable way, you are drawing attention from whatever is supposed to be being clapped at to yourself. And then you're a bad clapper. Imagine that being in like a stadium and someone does a song and everyone starts clapping. And then this person starts clapping so well that everyone like turns away from the stage and starts clapping the clapper.

Yeah, this is what I mean. Then you are a bad clapper. You're bad at doing this. I mean, maybe you're right. I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe he's too good a clapper. Maybe his strength is in fact his weakness.

Right. This is like a reverse Marilyn flag, right? He's so good at clapping. He's now bad at clapping. Yeah. I don't know about you, but I find the clapping is sometimes burdensome in performances. Like, why do I have to clap all the time at this performance? Aren't I just watching a thing?

Lots of times I just sort of don't clap, but I try to shift my position to hide it. I don't want to clap. Plenty of people in this room are clapping. Why do I have to clap? Why do we have to clap every five minutes? If you're going to the trouble of shifting your position and putting in all that effort, would it not have just been easier to have just clapped? With the clapping, you're hitting your hands against each other. You know, you can make the delicate skin raw if you're clapping at a long performance.

I don't know. I feel like clapping is just a lot of burden. My Achilles heel of clapping is a song by the band Muse called Starlight, which all the audience love to clap along with because it's got quite an unusual beat. And I cannot clap in time with the beat. And everyone around me, because I've seen Muse lots of times in concert, everyone around me is doing this intricate clap. And it looks amazing. All the crowd are doing it in sync and it sounds amazing and and i'm like oh i want to be part of this amazing thing and i'm just there like some some monkey that can't quite do it right and i'm like

and like and then i think everyone's looking at me and i just put my hands by my side and then i think oh no but everyone around me's clapping and i'm not and that song is my ah frustrates me such a good song but i can't clap to it so there's some kind of rhythm that you're supposed to reproduce here is that what you're saying you you fail at this yeah it's got some weird music can you demonstrate it for me now brady no i can't go and listen to the song starlight by music it's got this weird you know three two three one three pattern or. It's got this weird, you know, 3-2-3-1-3 pattern or something. It's got this unusual pattern that you clap to. And like, when I break it down and like think about it, I can sort of get it for one or two, like for 10 seconds or 20 seconds. And then I lose it again. And it's really embarrassing. It's like, it's a big joke between me and my wife, my inability to

clap to this song. That is adorable and charming in its own way not being able to clap it's always a big moment when they play they're playing at glastonbury this year so hopefully i'll be there for that and it and when they play that song it's always a big moment and i feel the pressure and fail again maybe you should practice ahead of time brady i know maybe i should get this awesome clapper mate of mine to come along and yeah take all the attention yeah i don't know what his timing's like. He just gets incredible volume. Right. Too much volume. It's no good. If you ever watch a political broadcast, like the State of the Union Address in America is the perfect thing for this.

If you watch the audience, as opposed to watching the actual speech that's going on, when they pan over to people doing the claps, you'll see sometimes people pull this trick where they're on camera, right? They're on TV. So, it has to look like they're clapping. They can't like me just, you know, try to hide it or just not do it. So, you will see people put one hand in the other and just shake their joined fists up and down, right? So, it's like from afar, it will look like they're clapping. But if the camera ever goes too close on some people, you can see like, oh, they're doing this fake clap, right? They're not actually clapping. They're tired. They don't want to do it. And I have a lot of sympathy for those people.

There's a show on the BBC that I'm sure you don't watch. It's on, I think, once a week called Question Time. And they have four or five famous people, normally three or four politicians, and then maybe one or two other high profile people. And people from the audience ask, it's quite a small audience, about maybe 100 people, will ask questions about the news of the week. And then they each sort of, some of them will then have a stab at answering it. And my friends actually call this the clappy clap show because basically what happens is the people just will say something to try and get the audience to clap them. And they're always such obvious platitudes. Like someone will say, I think racism is wrong

and we should all stand together and fight it. And then the audience will all clap together and then the next person will say, you know. And they're always such hollow sentiments to get a clap. And I always think the worst thing in the world for someone must be sometimes you see people make a speech where they're so obviously going for the clappy clap moment where they say something they think is going to rouse a big clap and then it's met by utter stone cold silence.

And you've really got to be doing something wrong to get cold silence on the clappy clap show. So I always feel really sorry for those people. I tell you who are people under pressure. You know, when politicians do speeches, particularly during elections, and the big thing these days is to have people behind you rather than American flags and stuff. If you're the president, you have American flags behind you.

But if you're running for office, you have like a crowd of people behind you. That's always so weird. And they have to look so happy and they have to look so emotional. But they often don't. Like whenever you see someone giving a speech and there's people standing behind them or beside them, I find my attention is totally drawn to the bystanders. Like, are you going to blink? Are you going to look aside at the wrong moment? Are any one of you going to sneeze inopportunely? How comfortable are you just standing there for maybe half an hour or an hour? I just find it so weird and distracting to have people around. Like, I guess it's supposed to send a message of solidarity to the viewer or something,

but I just find it weird. Like, can we just have a background? Can we just be in front of a green screen or something? I'd much prefer that. I mean, it's obviously been researched and focus grouped to death. So obviously, and they all do it. so obviously they have to do it i completely agree like i'm sure that it is effective and that's precisely why they do it it's like oh guess what groups of people like to see groups of people right yeah uh that that's that's why it happens

but i i just find it distracting if i ever see a speech and there's people standing around them it's weird super weird i always podcast with a group of 50 people standing behind me do you not do that oh god no uh call up the video you'll see them now i just i just make i just tell them to make sure they're quiet thank you they're off camera before we start so i don't see them i really appreciate that i uh i tell them to clap whenever i say something they like and they never do oh poor brady yeah if we ever do a live podcast, I hope people clap you. Oh, yeah, that'd be brilliant. I would just completely cave to cheer pressure and I'd talk about how great SpaceX is and all this sort of stuff.

And I'd just play for the clappy claps. Once the crowd's there, you've got to play for your audience. Speaking of cheer pressure, last episode when we were discussing it, we were stumbling around attempting to try to come up with a definition of sorts for this word, which I quite like. And I just want to say someone in the Reddit as part of follow up here put in a definition that I thought I thought was a pretty good working definition. And so they said cheer pressure, the act of urging. I'm going to I'm going to change this slightly here because they said a public figure, but I think you clarified something and you were right. It's figures in public, like anybody saying something in public.

So, the act of urging a figure in public to only emphasize the positive aspects of an issue when they discuss it, caused by fear of any potential repercussions from the dispersal of unbalanced or negative information. And I quite like this. I think it's a good place to start. You don't like it? I think it's actually, I mean, the problem a lot of people had with cheer pressure was they thought it was peer pressure. They couldn't tell the difference between cheer pressure and peer pressure. And i think the difference is obvious uh but like peer pressure is a very all-encompassing term yeah it's like cheer pressure is a like a on the venn diagram like cheer pressure is a circle inside of peer pressure it's a subset of peer pressure exactly but but what i think this person has defined is perhaps another subset of cheer pressure.

Because I think it's not necessarily just caused by a fear of any potential repercussions. Like I think it's a big subset. I think that's often the reason people apply cheer pressure is because they're like, don't say something bad about SpaceX because, I don't know, space exploration will stop. So some people do fear that. But I think there are other reasons for cheer pressure too. I think it can, sometimes it can just be, you know, bullying

or it can just be, you know, just sheer enthusiasm and a refusal to believe that other people aren't enthusiastic. So I don't think it's always caused by a fear of potential repercussions. I think they've gone too far with their definition. people aren't enthusiastic. So, I don't think it's always caused by a fear of potential repercussions. I think they've gone too far with their definition. So, this is really like the third definition down on a dictionary definition and you think there should be some bullet points above it? Yeah, I don't know. I think they've come up with a definition for a new word that needs a name. No, no, don't start doing this, Brady. Don't start doing this.

They're more like, it's got to involve suppression somehow, doesn't it? Cheer suppression? No, I don't know. No. I don't know. No. This is testing even my ability to make up words, so I'm going to let that one go. But I think I admire the definition and I enjoy the conversation, but I think they've

gone too far by attaching a very specific motive to the cheer pressure. Yeah. Well, while you may find yourself here limited by your ability to come up with a new word, I have to absolutely commend your unintentional prediction abilities from our last show when- Unintentional? Unintentional? Yes, unintentional. You threw something out there and you got lucky. What did you throw out, Brady?

I threw two things out there and they were both on the mark, my friend. This is obviously referring to Boaty McBoatface. And in our last episode, I said that perhaps a better decision would be to name a small vessel on the ship Boaty McBoatface. And I also said they'll probably go for a name of, you know, something more safe and prestigious. And I did mention it could be named after David Attenborough, the science TV presenter. And days after our podcast was released, you know what happened. They named it after David Attenborough and they called the little mini submarine that's going to do the swimming around off the ship, Boaty McBoatface.

So, the name lives on on a small sub vessel. It's such an incredible coincidence that I can only assume that it's not a coincidence. And just like the New Zealand flag referendum, the Hello Internet podcast was actually the driving force behind what occurred here. I think someone on the committee heard what you said on the podcast and went, oh, the David Attenborough. Yeah, that's great. That's perfect. So I'm going to say that the Hello Internet podcast is responsible for this.

Oh, I'm sure David Attenborough was kicking around in lots of places well before I mentioned it. But I will say this, and I'm going to be controversial and I'm going to risk cheer pressure. Uh-oh. I don't like that they've named it after David Attenborough. Yeah. And I know that's a controversial thing to say, but I said it. Why is it controversial, Brady?

Obviously, everyone loves David Attenborough. Not just in Britain, probably around the world as a science presenter. And I think naming the ship after him is basically the old establishment equivalent of boaty mcboatface it's like just the like it's just what you would expect just like you expect the internet to come up with a funny name if you let them do a poll right you expect the politicians to name the ship after not like a great scientist right but a famous science person and i know a lot about david attenborough i know his background in science uh so you don't need to all message me and tell me about his qualifications and what he did i know i know quite a bit about him and he's not like a great scientist

he's a great great science communicator and he's been a magnificent ambassador for science right but but i think he gets enough public recognition like you can't i mean you can't he's turning 90 this year and there's tv shows about him all the time and he's got a million honors and and they're all deserved and i'm really happy for him and i think he's fantastic but this was a chance to a i don't think they should have named the ship after a person myself, because I quite like vessels to be named things like Discovery or Terra Nova, which incidentally are both the very famous polar exploration vessels, which could have been used for the name for this. But I like things like that. Or they could have named it after like someone who did amazing science in

the polar regions. Not someone who, you know, has gone and presented nice shows about penguins. But they didn't. They did something that they knew would be really popular, really safe, and no one will criticise it except me because you're not allowed to say anything negative about David Attenborough because he's so marvellous. Why do you hate David Attenborough, Brady? Why do you hate him so much? I don't understand. He's everybody's grandpa, I know. And he's like, but I just think it was a... Do you think it was pandering? Like, it sounds like you think it's pandering in a way.

Well, it was playing it safe and it was pandering a bit. I don't know. It was just like if you were going to go, if you went up to someone who knew nothing about science and only watched TV shows and said, oh, we've got to name a ship, what are we going to name it? We're going to name a science ship. What are we going to call it? They're going to call it the David Attenborough or the Brian Cox, aren't they?

Right. Because they're the only two science things people can think of. And I think that's a shame. They could have named it after someone who, I'm struggling to come up with a name because I don't know much about polar research. Well, this is where we're going with this, right? It's like, you want authenticity and obscurity here, right? That's what you're looking for.

No, no. You're looking for the vessel to have some name that nobody outside of the Arctic research community will ever know about or ever hear. Oh, well, okay. I could say call it the Scott then, the Robert Scott. But that's probably a bit cliche, too, because, you know, he's the most famous British polar explorer. Oh, is he? But, yeah, you know, Scott of the Antarctic. When you say you name it the Scott, like I draw a total blank on that.

Like, oh, okay. Do you mean like after Scotland, like the Scottish people? What is Brady talking about? I have no idea. I think you vastly overestimate the name recognition of explorers. I think, I think, I mean, I know you're a really smart guy and you know lots of stuff, but Scott of the Antarctic is famous. Like, uh, not a lot of people probably don't know. Okay. But let me ask you, like, like I know you say famous, right? But again,

I will remind you that you are a science communicator who works almost exclusively with people in the science world. Like how how many people do you think you need to pull aside on a high street before you get one person who knows the name Robert Scott? Okay. I'm going to say like a thousand people. I'm going to say a thousand people. Oh, no. If you go a bit older than you, I think a lot of people.

All I'm saying is you're standing on the high street and you're pulling aside people at random. I think one in a thousand will know who Robert Scott is. Okay. That's my guess. I think it would be better than that. But I think... I'm not saying he's like a household name. Sounds like we have a Hello Internet Tim research project for someone to do.

I don't necessarily think even our uh our audience is a is the best sample for this but but what i mean is some dedicated tim could go on the high street and ask people who's do you know who robert scott is he you know he famously was in this race to the south pole in the in 1912 i believe it was it was okay you know when it was a munson and shackleton and all these people these are the the big names of um antarctic antarctica it's like shackleton's a name i recognize okay well shackleton and scott were contemporaries they did they did some research together as well so scott was the less famous and scott scott

famously his second mission to antar. I sound particularly knowledgeable on this because I actually did make a video about Scott yesterday. But I did know Scott of the Antarctic before that. He's famous because he had this really, really ill-fated mission on the Terranova and they got stuck there and they all starved. And he actually did make it to the South Pole, but he got there just after the others had gotten there. Then I think it was the Norwegians just beat him.

Ah, so he was second place? Yeah. Second place, first loser. He died on the trip back. And so it was, you know, it's a really famous story, really tragic famous story from history. Certainly most British people would know it. Scott of the Antarctic, older British people,

young people don't know anything. But most older British people would know it from school and stuff like that. But he's so famous, they don't teach him to young people anymore. Like, well, like, what is your proposition here? Look, as I say, I'm not saying he's- okay, well, go ahead. Let's call it David Attenborough because he's on TV and people have heard of him. I'm saying Scott is like a great story. He's really, really pegged to Antarctica. He's the most famous person I could think of

who's really pegged to Antarctica. Yeah, no, listen, just to be clear here, I'm not arguing that Scott isn't a better name. I'm just trying to get you to acknowledge the total obscurity that that name would be to the vast majority of the population. I'm not giving you total obscurity. I'm giving you, it's a name a lot of people won't know. But if we're going to say Scott of the Antarctic is total obscurity, then we may as well give up. We may as well call it Boaty McBoatface. You have such high expectations for the general level of knowledge in like the average member of the population, Brady. I think it's always charming to me that you have such faith.

You have such faith. No, I don't. And I know, hey, you're talking to someone who has, for his job, has spent many years pulling strangers off the street and interviewing them. I'm well aware how little people know. And I don't think many people would know who Robert Scott is. And they certainly wouldn't know his name was Robert. They would just know Scott. Everyone just knows him as Scott. But I do think he's like, what's the word if not everyone knows you, so you can't call it famous, but he's highly noteworthy. He meets the Wikipedia notability guidelines. Oh, yeah.

Like apparently the Hello Internet podcast does not. And I think way more people know about the hello internet podcast than know about robert scott that is not true that is not true gray i'm looking at robert scott's wikipedia page now and it's yeah how many edits does it have i don't know how to find that out but it's massive it's big look all i all i want though all i want since you're saying this is what the old guard wanted this is what the old guard wanted, this is what they've done, like a popular science communicator with them. All I want, I'll be able to die happy if when the current crop of people listening to Hello

Internet, when they become the old guard, if there is some science vessel of any sort, some science spaceship, perhaps, to be named, I want you to name it the Brady-McHeron face. Scott of the Antarctic. You should know who he is. Why should? You use this word should in such a funny way. What do you mean by should? I should know who he is.

I think a knowledgeable person should know who he is. Okay. Who was the first man to set foot on the moon? Neil Armstrong. Who was the first person to the top of Mount Everest? I don't know. Well, you know it was Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing, Tenzing Norgay. You know Edmund Hillary, presumably.

Well, now that you say the name Edmund Hillary, I'll take your word that he was the first person to step on top of Everest. But, like, I don't know. You're right. You're right. I do overestimate what people know then. If CGP Grey does not know the name of the first person on top of Mount Everest, then I am out of touch with reality. I think you are. I really think you are. You want to keep going?

Like, I'm not messing with you here. No, no, no, you're not. I genuinely don't. You can ask questions and I will try to answer them. I was going to make an amazing point, but you ruined it by not knowing who the first person on top of Mount Everest was. You ruined my finely crafted argument. So I'll just give up. Because then I was going to say, I think it's a tragedy that everyone knows the first person on the moon, the first person at Mount Everest, but they don't know, for example, the first person to the South Pole. You're right. Let's just name everything after TV presenters.

If you want things that are well known, that's what you got to do. That's what you got to do. If you don't want things that are well known, who cares? Hello, Internet. You know who's a famous explorer that everyone should know about? That's Kermit Roosevelt, who, as you know, Tim, was part of the first team to fully explore the river of doubt in deepest, darkest Brazil. It's a famous story involving fortune, former presidents, daring, death, risk, reward. Now, if you, as so many young people are, are huge Kermit Roosevelt fans, you might want to build some sort of fan tribute website to spread his story even farther and wider than it already is. And you know what you should use if you want to make a Kermit

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your first purchase. Once again, we'd like to thank Squarespace for supporting this show, Kermit Roosevelt for pushing the boundaries of human exploration, and you for listening to the end of this ad. I have another piece of follow-up here that I thought was interesting from our last episode. So we were discussing last time a bunch of stuff about the law, right, and warrants and all of this. And there was a moment where we were both a little bit uncertain because you were asking a question about, can in trials, can you be compelled to give testimony? Yeah. And we're both a little bit confused because we were saying like, oh, is it part of the

pre-trial system where this is happening? And then of course, like, but we see on television, like, it seems like people are compelled to give testimony. And we actually had an American lawyer leave some feedback on the reddit which i thought was really interesting and and brought up a little distinction that i was unaware of that in the united states system you cannot be compelled to incriminate yourself yeah but it stops there and and i think i in my mind had this muddled this idea was kind of muddled up with this idea of like taking the fifth, like, oh, you don't have to talk, but you can be compelled to testify if you are giving testimony against someone else. And that's probably what we're thinking of, what we were sort of confused on with that matter last time. Well, this is why I was confused a bit as well, because this is obviously a big deal for

journalists who have to protect sources. And I actually know a journalist in Adelaide, where I'm from, who went to jail because he would not reveal a source. Like he was, the court ordered him and he wouldn't do it. And he had to go and do some time. This is where the confusion came from. But obviously this has been, if this person is right, this clarifies it all you can only keep stump if it's yourself who's going to get in trouble when you talk and if you're doing it to protect others well that's not good enough i thought that was an interesting point i just wanted to bring that up here and you've once again used the phrase that i meant to ask you last time keep stump what is this phrase i don't know

how you spell stump so i don't know how to look it up but it just means it just means stay quiet like if everyone's you should know what that means because you're a big one for keeping stump if we're in a group of people and everyone's speaking their mind you're quite often the one who just keep stump and not say anything sometimes i don't have anything to say i'm not i'm not good in groups oh hang on it looks like the the the proper word here is stum not stomp okay so this is just a brady word that you keep stomp well i was close i think an educated person should know how to say stum it's an australianism to add a p we like adding p's to the end oh is it i think you're just i

think you're trying to pull your butt out of the fire on this one. Oh, yeah, in Australia, we add P's to the end of everything. It's Australia-p. Stum is an adjective. It's an informal adjective. It means silent, non-communicative. Speaking of sayings, by the way, I've been meaning to say this for a while because I think I've mentioned it before,

but I think a lot of people don't realize that the term black stump, by the way, is a very famous Australian term. I don't know if you know this term. Look at you with your liberal use of the word famous. No, this is famous. Okay. There is an Australianism called beyond the black stump. It's a saying. And it means anything that's far away, like out in the bush. So if something's beyond the black stump, I think it means it's like far away. Let me check it out. It's even got a Wikipedia page. Oh, no, that's a book.

No, that's a book called... It's a book called Beyond the Black Stump. Are we on the disambiguation page again? You know how I feel about that. You've already lost if you need a disambiguation page. An Australian expression, black stump is a name for an imaginary point beyond which the country is considered remote or uncivilised. So, if you go beyond the black stump, it means you've gone out into the bush and there's no Wi-Fi. So, obviously, when they built this sort of monolithic black building in Adelaide, that's why it got called the black stump, because they they were riffing off this famous Australian saying. And I just thought that was worth putting out there. Okay. Setting the record straight.

I just thought it was interesting. I think some people probably think it was really strange that this building I always talk about is called the Black Stump. And I thought it was worth adding a little bit more context to where that name came from. A little bit more clarity, huh? Yeah. And it means we've talked about the Black Stump in yet another episode of Hello Internet. How did those t-shirt sales go? Do you know what?

They did okay. They did okay. I've got mine. That's all that really matters. And I am going to Adelaide later this year and don't think I'm not going to be taking that t-shirt and taking a photo outside the Prenthill Centre. I look forward to seeing it on Twitter. I wonder what the people who like work in the Black Stump will think if I just like

turn up at reception wearing that t-shirt and just say, do you like my t-shirt? Well, again, given the way you've drawn the Black Stump and given the way it actually looks, they won't recognize it. They won't know what you're talking about. Why are you asking us about your T-shirt, sir? This makes no sense. We love working here, but why have you got a picture of the Sears Tower on your T-shirt? I still want to know if anybody who works in that building listens to the podcast.

I feel like there has to be one now. Like our numbers are big enough. There's got to be one dude who works in the Black Stump who listens to the podcast. If they are listening and stubbornly refusing to identify themselves, then they're doing a disservice to everyone. Come on, Tim, fess up.

Break your silence. Reveal yourself. Or conversely, if you're an Adelaide Tim, why not get a job at the Black Stump? I have some incredibly dire news, Brady. Yeah. I got this article which says Uber is going to, it's a little bit, it's a little bit ambiguously worded, but allow, stroke, encourage tipping of their drivers through the app or with cash it looks like with cash like with actual dirty cash that i never carry anyway yeah like

given given to a driver this is this is this is not this is not a good development this is not a good development it looks like it's the result of some dumb lawsuit in california about like employee rights or whatever but like for the like the end result for me is like somehow this translates into uber i don't even know if it's everywhere if it's just in california if it's just some places but like there may be situations now where I have to worry about like, I'm going to get into an Uber and the dude on the other end is going to be expecting or waiting for a tip. And then we have this like mutual blackmail for each other that if I don't tip him, he's going to give me a bad star rating. I think this is a terrible development for all of human civilization.

I'm not, I just don't feel like caving to that. Just like you won't cave to the instructions regarding towels or clapping. I'm just going to be like, I'll just say, I don't carry money on me. I don't carry money on me. That's why I'm getting an Uber. That is my gut feeling as well. Like, this article has actually been on my mind a surprising amount since someone sent it to me like a week ago. Like it keeps getting turned over and over in my brain. I have come to the same conclusion as you that I'm just going to stonewall this. I'll just take that one star rating from an Uber driver who doesn't like it.

I think I'm going to refuse to tip Uber drivers just on principle. Like this is not going to happen, man. It's not even dishonest either, because I think I'm just sort of thinking it through in my head. And I think it might be true that the last five countries I've been to, I have not touched any currency of that country. Like I've not taken cash out. I was in Paris a few days ago and I didn't touch any euros.

I don't think I got any money out when I was in India or in Bhutan. I had some US dollars on me from previous trips that I was able to use to tip my guides and things. But I just don't bother getting money anymore. So if I arrive in some country and jump in an Uber from the airport and go into town, I've got nothing to tip them with anyway. I was thinking the same thing. And I was running over some of my trips. Like I recently went to the continent.

Like I've been out of the UK and I've realized two things. One is that I haven't touched a physical euro in I can't remember how long. Like I haven't just gotten any out. And it is because, like, wow, our futuristic cashless society has gotten to the point where it's good enough that I can just assume that I will never have to touch physical cash. The only time I will touch physical cash going somewhere is going to the United States because their people will chase you down the street if you don't give them their blackmail tips. And also because of the legal things that we've mentioned

before that you do have to tip in America for some reasons. Like, you know, we don't have to go, we don't have to revisit that whole thing again. But like in America, yes, I will intentionally try to carry cash. But I also realized a couple months ago in the UK that partially because of actually having Apple Pay on my watch, like I use Apple Pay for just about every single store that I go to now. And I've actually changed some of my routines to avoid stores that don't accept contactless payments. And like, no contactless payment. I don't even want to have to touch your little buttons on the pin pad when I'm buying something. Forget it. Like, I'm going to walk to the store next door to not have to handle even just the card transaction.

But anyway, I realized like I use cash so infrequently that I ended up buying one of these little micro wallets that is only big enough to hold a couple of my credit cards. And these a couple little key cards that I use for entry into my office and nothing else. There isn't even space in it. Like I couldn't have small denominations of cash if I even wanted to. And I got this a few months ago thinking like, oh, maybe I'm going to regret this. And the answer is nope. I've never regretted it since. Like I put in one 50 pound note in my wallet for emergencies and that 50 pound note has remained

there forever, unbroken. I've never had to use it. I know I'm Mr. Old Fashioned, but I have to say contactless payment has really won me over. It's the best. Yeah, I really like it. So, you know, I'm on board with you. I think it's a real shame if Uber are going to pressure tipping. I imagine maybe it's going to be introduced into the app, which will take away one of the things I like about Uber. I know Lyft does have tipping. It's just a mess. I don't care if I have to tip. I just don't want to have the interaction. Put it in the bloody app and I'll do it. Just put it in the app and shut up. I'm with you most of the way here. And again, like to clarify for people, we are again, this is not an issue about being cheap.

It's just an issue about having to think about it. Like the mental burden of this, like the little bit of an interaction. But even I originally thought like, oh, in the app will be better. And it is better. But I've been using, I don't know if you've used any of these,

but these services now that like, they can go to restaurants for you and pick up food. So there's a whole bunch of companies that do this now in the UK. There's like Deliveroo and QuickUp and there's like a ton of these. This is one of these businesses that it seems like it's exploded all of a sudden. And there are these like guys on bikes riding all over the city, picking up stuff from restaurants and stores and delivering it to you. Right. And so I found one of these like, this is the greatest thing ever. Like I'm sitting at home and I want a burger and I can't make a burger, but I can press some buttons on my phone and like a man will bring a burger to me from the other side of the city. This is fantastic.

So I love these things, but they do have tipping in the app and it still has that same kind of little bit of annoying frustration. And I think that this is perhaps like almost the minimum amount of interaction I can possibly have with a human where they still seem to require a tip. Because like, so here's what happens from my perspective. I press some buttons on my phone. 20 minutes later, a man knocks on the door and very often without saying a single word, just hands me a bag of my food and walks away. Right.

And then the app pops up a little feedback button and it says, please rate this person one to five stars. And how much of a tip do you want to give them? And it annoys me every time because it feels like, how is this even possible to be a tipping interaction? Like, what is the range of outcomes that can be here? Like, as far as I'm concerned, there should be just one button, which is like, did the person get the order correct? Yes or no? Like, that seems like it should be the only feedback here. How amazing could this experience possibly be that I would

feel like, yes, I want to give the person as the app gives me the option to an other, like a hundred pounds worth of tip. Like when is this ever going to happen? What could the person possibly have done? I don't understand. And I find it frustrating. Well, you don't, you know, you don't talking to people. So, I don't know, you sound a bit like you want your cake and eat it too. I mean, but let's break this down. I mean, did they get there quickly? Were they clean? Was the thing handed to you in a nice, clean, fresh looking bag? Or they'd screwed it up and had it on the back of a motorbike? I mean, I guess there are scales of how well they could have done it. As someone who has ordered probably a hundred burgers now through this system, I am going to tell you that the range of delivery, like the difference in experience

is functionally zero. Like from my perspective, it is exactly the same every time. I mean, I don't mind tipping people who deliver things to me because I just keep a big pot of money in the house, like of coins. And I just, every time the door rings with the delivery, I just grab a, you know, a couple of pound coins. And again, the thing that I don't like is the thinking about it every single time. If Uber is going to put it in the app or if any of these delivery services have tipping in the app, I just wish they would let me just set a default amount. Let me just pick two pounds or three pounds or whatever, and just do that every time and never ask me again.

Or just, I don't want to ever have to think about this. But really, I would prefer that they paid their employees enough. Like, I hope these people don't like depend on the tips. That's what I don't want. Yeah. If they did it in the app, I wouldn't mind. Because I don't do the star rating on Uber until the next day or next time I turn my phone on. So I wouldn't mind when I did

that pressing a one, two or three dollar button. That wouldn't bother me if that's how it's going to work. But just don't make it something that I have to think about on the drive and how this is going to go with the driver. I don't want to be thinking about that. I love, you know, sometimes I have great conversations with my Uber driver. I had an Uber driver yesterday and we talked about cricket and Formula One all the way across London. And we had a great conversation. Sometimes I don't talk to my Uber driver one word and I just jump out when I get to the end. I always say thank you, you know, but then I jump out.

But I don't want to be spending that drive thinking about, oh, what money have I got? What hand should I be holding in? How am I going to hand it to them? I just don't want to be thinking about that. I really like that about Uber that, you know that it's just what I want it to be. And it'd be a real shame if that tipping thing creeps in. But I don't mind giving an extra dollar or two on top. I'll just factor it into that's what an Uber costs in my head. That's fine. But just let me do it in my app in my own time. When I'm sitting down after I've done my work and I check my messages and I'm like, oh, I've got to give my Uber driver his

five stars. And oh yeah, he was nice. That guy, I'll also chuck him two bucks. That's okay. I'll deal with that. But don't put it in our faces. I completely agree. It should be low stress environment. Obviously, most of the time, I don't prefer human interaction if I can possibly avoid it. I will pay extra to not have human interaction if I possibly can. But I do find with Ubers that because I have an idea of how long is this interaction going to be, there's constraints around this environment that sometimes I've, this could sound bad, but like I practice being social with the Uber drivers. It's like, let's have a casual conversation with a stranger. Like, let's see how this goes. And I also know that it's a great time to practice because this person is in a sense

being paid to be amenable to me. So it can't go terribly wrong. And if I know like, okay, well, this can only last 10 possible minutes. Sometimes I will like intentionally talk with the Uber drivers to just like, this is how to talk to strangers, but don't worry, it won't last too long and it can't go terribly wrong either. So it's practice socialization. That's another benefit of Uber. Maybe you should be tipping.

I spent some time with a friend of mine the other day who is a real expert in the area of driverless cars. Oh, yes? Yeah, he is. And does a lot of work in the UK to do with the traffic flow and the phasing in of driverless cars. Anyway, we were talking about it quite a lot. So, I did say to him, what are they going to be called when they're out there? And, I mean, he didn't know, obviously. And I said, well, what do you call them in your discussions?

You know, you talk about them every day. You must have a name for them. That's a good question. That's a good question. Yeah. How do you differentiate them? And he said, they do often call them driverless cars, but more often they will call them autonomous vehicles. And therefore they more often call them AVs. So when they're talking amongst themselves, they usually will call them AVs. So when they're talking amongst themselves, they usually will call them AVs. And I think that's a pretty cool name because, you know, SUV is a pretty cool term that most people seem comfortable with, an RV. And maybe AVs is not a bad name for them. So I just thought I'd throw that out there for you. I know you still like autos, but maybe we're going to end up calling them AVs. This is why you're so good at your job.

Like, you think of these interesting questions, and it seems obvious in retrospect that, like, yeah, someone working on this stuff, they must, in their lingo, have a way to shorten the phrase driverless cars. Like, that phrase is just crazy long for a thing that you're going to say 200 times a day. Yeah. crazy long for a thing that you're going to say 200 times a day yeah and normally i don't like the the breaking things down to a series of letters but i think you're right like av it it fits in a pre-existing framework yeah of suv and rv yeah it does have the problem of you know audio visual of

course and av is a very much a big term of its own. But I think, yeah, like a lot of businesses will have like an AV department or an AV room, which is the audio-visual room. So it is a thing. But, well, you're probably demonstrating by not being familiar with the term yourself that I also think it's separate enough from the automotive industry that I think it could exist on its own. I think AV is a strong candidate. I actually think it's a better candidate than autos myself.

But anyway, just putting it in the mix for you. Oh, yeah. Don't worry. Like, I'm always having fun futilely pushing autos uphill there, right? Like, I know. I have fun with that. My genuine prediction is still what I said, you know, when the video first came out, that we're just going to call them cars. That this is the same kind of transition like smartphone.

That I feel like we're pretty much on the other side of the smartphone transition, where it's just back to people calling them phones. That there's no real need to have this distinction anymore between smartphones and phones, because you can just assume that everybody's phone is smart. And I think that the cars are going to go through that exact same thing. We're going to have a little bit of a phase where they're called autonomous or whatever, and then it's just going to slide right back to cars. And it's like, when were cars not self-driving? People won't even remember. How long do you think that phase will be, that time where we will even need a differentiator? How long is the period going to be when human-driven cars and AVs are sharing the road? be that we're sharing, you know, mainstream driving is shared between human driven cars and autonomous vehicles? Is it going to be like two years? Is it going to be 30 years? Like, you know, what would you imagine? This kind of thing is very hard to say,

but I'd say, you know, way closer to two years than 30 years. Yeah. I know it's not quite the same, the analogy that I'm going to make here, but I think it's a good frame of reference, which is, again, going back to smartphones. I think smartphones took over so fast because they had such incredible economic utility for people. And, you know, if you like rewind back to 2005, lots of people didn't feel like they needed a smartphone. And like I talked to, I talked to just about everybody about autonomous cars. Like, I think it's a really interesting topic. And I'm also always really interested to see how people react to the topic. Like, you know, what do they think about this? Like, and how do they react to the very idea? And like, okay, so I've had this theory, which I think is kind of borne out by some of the very early autonomous car stuff, where I think most people will approach

autonomous cars as like, oh, this is, maybe it's like not something I need, or maybe it's not something that's realistic, or maybe it's not something that's possible. And then as soon as someone is able to like sit in an autonomous car, even a limited autonomous car, it becomes two things straight away. Boring. It becomes very boring. This is a report from almost everybody who's done any kind of riding in autonomous cars. They remark on how immediately you get used to it. And it just seems totally normal.

And then the second thing, which i think is a very human factor is people then immediately start focusing on all of the limitations right it was like five minutes ago you were doubtful about this thing and now you're wondering well why can't it just drive anywhere i ever want more i want more right yeah like i want this to do so much more i think that's the transition that happens in people's mind from doubtful to boring to why can't it do absolutely everything. I really think there's going to be just like a tremendous pull. And even if they're not workable under all scenarios, I think the transition will actually be quite quick. And especially when you combine this with a few other ideas that, again, like the autonomous car thing really breaks down by age with

people that I find super interesting of like, the older a person is, they're always framing it in the idea of like, oh, I don't want to buy an autonomous car, right? Like that tends to be the feeling of it. Like I like driving, I don't want to buy an autonomous car. But then the younger the person is, the thought tends to flip much more of this idea of like renting an autonomous car. Right. Being able to have access to an autonomous car. Right. Having it show up to them whenever whenever they need it. So I also think that kind of thing will make a transition much, much faster than we might expect because unlike iPhones or Android phones where you have to manufacture one for every single person on the face of the earth to personally own,

the manufacturing capabilities for cars is obviously much lower and much slower than it is for smartphones. But I think the difference is a company like Uber, for example, can service a lot of people with a smaller number of autonomous cars. So I expect once these things are really on the road, that it's going to be a relatively fast transition period, you know, and it'll be limited entirely by manufacturing capability, that it'll just be a huge economic demand. And it's just a question of like, how fast can people

get them on the roads? I think that's what it's going to be. Another thing my friend told me, I've not actually seen this yet. I've just, while you were talking, I was just looking for a picture or a video of it and I haven't been able to find one, but apparently it's happening and I thought even you would find it quite charming. They are trialling a few autonomous, small autonomous cars or pods in a few places around the UK and I think it might be a city called Milton Keynes where they're trialling it at the moment. And what's happening at the moment, he was telling me because he went

and saw it and found it very amusing, was these things obviously at the moment are going incredibly slowly and they're having to explain to people what they are. And how it's working at the moment is there is literally someone who walks in front of it and tells people this is an autonomous car, you know, get out the way and things like that. And he was saying it's like when cars were first coming out and people would walk in front of them or with a light and things like that.

Be careful, horseless carriage is coming. Apparently, it looks just like that. It's really, really old fashioned. You've got this super high tech car with a human walking in front of it, clearing people out the way so they don't all jump in front of the pod. That's fantastic. That's absolutely fantastic. I've not seen it yet.

If anyone's got a picture or a video of that happening, do share it because I want to see it. I might even go to Milton Keynes just to see that. Yeah, where's Milton Keynes? I might make a trip. It's not far. It's not far, Milton Keynes. It's not far from you. It's not in London though, so I don't know if you'll get there or not. Today's episode has been brought to you by Hover. And you know what that means? It means a mildly amusing in-joke offer code. But before we get to that, a reminder of what Hover is.

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and it's got an uppercase C and an uppercase P as it was sent to me. I don't know how important that is, but I just thought I'd tell you. Hover.com, cheer pressure, and our thanks to Hover for supporting Hello Internet. Grey, I want to talk about football. This is soccer football, but I'm just gonna, I'll try and say football because that's what it is to me now. Oh, okay. Do you know what happened in England this season? I mean, is this going to be another conversation, Brady, where I need to humor you for a while? Because I don't know what happened. I didn't know there's a season. I don't

know anything about this. I feel like we can't do, like, we can't both live in England and talk about stuff happening in the world and not talk about the most remarkable sporting story that has happened in a very, very long time. But there's always something. Like, didn't your cricket thing, wasn't your cricket thing, like, a remarkable story last time? I know, but I'm just going to say one thing about it. The upper echelon of football, soccer in the UK is this thing called the Premier League. Okay. And it's this incredibly huge industry.

I mean, even you must know it's popular around the world. You go to Africa and everyone's wearing, you know, Manchester United and Arsenal shirts. People like their soccer. I know that. So much money has poured into the top few clubs that winning this thing, actually winning the league, has become a real monopoly. And there are only sort of a few teams, a handful of teams that have a chance of winning it. Okay. So, let me just pause you there for a second, just to clarify something. Yeah. The way the teams work, this is not like the NFL in America, which is unintentionally kind of

socialist, where they're redistributing the money all of the time and trying to keep the teams even no so this is much more like um like the national uh the national baseball league it is more like that it's more like major league baseball ticket sales are funding the teams so you can get a snowball effect kind of thing i mean it is i mean the nfl the football in america has a draft so that choosing the players is shared around and weaker teams get preferential draft picks so they can strengthen their team and stronger teams get inferior draft picks so they can't pick as good players. It's like Settlers of Catan. It has an inbuilt hobble the leader effect. But you're saying that the soccer games do not have that.

Soccer does not have that. They try to introduce a few things to make things fairer, but it doesn't work. So the money is shared. The television money is shared among the clubs. But if your club is owned by a Russian billionaire like Chelsea, then you have a lot more money. You can buy better players. You can buy the cream of the crop from all around the world, assemble this incredible squad of players, and pretty much guarantee you're going to be near the top of the league. So every year the same few teams win the Premier League and the other teams fight it out for the middle places

and the bottom places. Okay. The other thing that's worth noting about the way soccer works that's different from American sport is the bottom, in the case of the Premiership, the bottom three teams every season, if you finish in the bottom three, you get kicked out of the league and you go down to a lower league. So there's some churn. Got it. There's a city in England called Leicester and their team is Leicester City. And I'm quite familiar with Leicester because I used to live right near it.

I've been to Leicester millions of times. I used to work there for the BBC. They just got up to the premiership, the top league a few seasons ago. And actually last year, as the season was drawing to an end, they were in bottom place and they were certain to be relegated down to the lower league. So their time with the big boys was nearly over. And amazingly, they had a strong finish to the season and they just stayed up. Miraculously, they got out of that bottom three and they managed to stay in the premiership for another year. This season, when the bookmakers were doing the odds, the odds of Leicester City winning the premiership, like winning it all, was literally 5,000 to one. If you walked into

a bookmaker and gave them a pound you would get five thousand pounds if they won the league and and bookmakers were happily taking the bets if anyone was stupid enough to do it well what happened was Leicester City did win the premiership this season in one of the most remarkable like just all year they just plodded along and they kept winning and drawing and having a good season and they were right near the top and everyone was saying oh they've done so well soon they'll drop away but they've done really well and they just never dropped away and all the big teams that always win everything most of them just had sort of mediocre seasons and it was just the stars aligned and these

underdogs with this really cheap squad of players that cost a fraction of what all the other teams cost just kept plodding away kept winning and they won the whole league and it was the most remarkable fairy tale story and like everyone in the country pretty much started supporting them and getting behind them but the thing that i found quite interesting as well was the way that betting on football works now has changed in recent years and i don't know if you know about this but they've got this cash out option so if you bet on something and that thing looks like it's becoming increasingly likely bookmakers give you this chance to cash out your bet at like lower odds so as lester season

as lester season was continuing okay yeah these like diehard stupid fans that put like 10 pounds on lester to win the league, just throwing their money away. Suddenly they were sitting on like this incredible lottery ticket that was going to win them a whole stack of money. So the bookmakers start saying, well, if you cash out now, we'll cash that bet out at 100 to 1 or 200 to 1. And then you're left with this dilemma. So a lot of these Leicester fans halfway through the season

started cashing out these bets. And then there's obviously there's these stories of these diehard fans that waited all the way to the end and now get this incredible payday. It has been a fantastic story, Gray. And it's one of the times that I'm sad you're not into sport. My takeaway from that is mostly I'm circling around, well, this cashing out early thing, that really works in the bet maker favor there like they're not they're not doing you any favors for you with like who you can cash out now right because if a team gets halfway through the season with incredibly unlikely odds the odds of them winning are not incredibly unlikely anymore right like it's changed and so, of course, the bookies will do anything to get you to reassess your

bet and cashing you out from their perspective is the winning play every time. It's so cynical in some ways. It's an interesting dilemma. It's become a really big part of sport now, even like in individual games. Like if you bet on Manchester United to win 5-0, which is an unlikely score, and 70 minutes into a 90-minute game, they're 4-0 up, you can cash out in the middle of the game. Like you can press a button on your app and say, I'm going to cash out and take a portion of my winnings because I don't think they're going to score that final goal in the

next 20 minutes, but I want to have a big win. So, it's become this whole, and obviously, it's all very mathematical. So, and you're right that, you know, the bookmakers are trying to incentivize you and there's a lot of dynamics going on there. You should do a number file video on this. But I feel like my, you know, and of course, what I'm about to say here, I'm about to have a gut reaction, which if mathematics has taught us anything, is that humans are terrible at statistical gut reactions right yeah yeah but my gut reaction is there can't ever be or how to phrase this that over the long run there's no winning strategy which involves cashing out early

right that it seems to me like that should always be the statistically wrong thing to do, to cash out early. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's a scenario under which that's not the case. I'd be curious to know. Well, the scenario would have been if things went to as they should have been and Leicester City started losing football games, because Leicester City just aren't supposed to win that many football games. So if halfway through the season- Yeah, but you're looking backwards in time now. I don't mean, is there a scenario under which if you had known the future, you could have bet better? I'm saying that halfway through any kind of sporting season or sporting game, if you're given the option by a bookie to cash out, I feel like that has to be definitionally

the incorrect strategic play to make. Yeah, I see what you're saying. And obviously, the bookmakers are constantly changing and adjusting odds to ensure the best outcome for themselves. I heard some bookmakers being interviewed about it, actually, and they did say something interesting, because obviously, they took this tremendous hit on all these Leicester City fans. Even if they bet just a few pounds, they were winning tens of thousands of pounds because of this bet. And they were saying to the bookmakers, oh, you must be just, you must be devastated because you're taking such a big hit on this, on this unlikely outcome. And they said, that's true. We've taken a big hit today because of this, but all season Leicester City have been winning games no one expected them to win.

And we've been taking money on all those games. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's a case of people not understanding how bookmaking works. Exactly. If you think like, oh, these poor bookmakers having to pay out these big wins, it's like, but where do you think that money came from? It comes from people on the other side of the fence. And the other thing that people are forgetting about this is it's almost become the defining attribute of this Leicester City win has been that they were 5,000 to one. It's become the thing all the media has picked up on. Like they were showing what odds you could get on them finding the Loch Ness Monster or Elvis

being alive. And the odds were always better. Like this was so unlikely that the other things were more likely. And it's been such a story and documentaries about this are already being made and they're calling it, you know, 5,000 to one against the odds. And this has become, it's almost like the defining thing about this has become all around gambling and odds. And I just think it's just publicity that the bookmaking industry can't buy. Like it's almost become this message that's going out there is you should place bets because sometimes miracles happen and you and and you'll win a whole stack of money and it's like

it's a really negative message actually to be putting out that you know they're really glorifying gambling this whole thing so the book make the bookmakers are loving it so i have to ask you then i mean like you're saying oh it's this is me it's this amazing story, right? Yeah. My question, though, is did Leicester City have some kind of money ball strategy? Or was this just the case of, well, a thing that has 5,000 to 1 odds, you should still expect that it happens every 5,000 times. Yeah. Right? So, which of these things was the outcome? Like, did they have something that was opaque to the bookies?

Or is this just like, look, stuff happens sometimes. Good teams play worse than you expect, and bad teams play better than you expect just through random chance. Yeah, I mean, the thing that's different is this happens over 38 games over a season. And normally that stuff, anyone can win on any day, but normally over 38 games, these things do traditionally even out. But in answer to your question, I don't know the answer to your question because- Oh, how disappointing. You're trying to wind me up with an amazing story. It's like, oh, okay. A thing happened. Everyone has a theory. Everyone has different theories

on why. It's like- Okay. But so, at the very least, the coach isn't coming out and saying, oh, we had some incredible strategy that nobody's ever thought of. The coach is part of the story, actually. The coach is this Italian guy called Claudio Ranieri, and this was his first season as coach. He is probably getting the lion's share of the credit for having brought these disparate group of men together and man-managed them. They were classic kind of bad news bears, rejects. And he's been credited with forming them into this sort of

band of brothers that would die for each other and uh and sort of turn them into this unit on the on the field so it's made the season really wonderful and so many people on twitter and social media said oh you've got to talk to grey about leicester city and i was sort of racking my brains thinking what can i say to you about it and And I did think the gambling was probably, cashing out bets was probably the only thing you'd find interesting. That was by far and away your best point of entry, especially because you don't have for me an example like, oh, the Oakland A's won 20 games in a row

because they were using this interesting technology to do it. It's like, oh, maybe a thing just happened by random. No, I mean, like you ask, you know, you ask different people and they'll all have their theory. Sport is very polarizing like that. Some people will bring it down to tactics and other people will say it's because of, other people will say it's because they were drinking beetroot juice and eating alfalfa sprouts. But yeah, everybody has their own theory because most people don't know anything. Like, you know, again, it's like the statistics of it though, show you a lot about how these games work.

Like you can make statistical predictions about games. I think the thing about a statistical prediction like one in 5,000 is again, people don't understand that it doesn't mean that it's impossible. Like it's a thing that should happen, but incredibly rarely, like maybe one in 5,000 times.

If a one in 5,000 event never occurred, that would be weird, right? That would mean something was wrong with your predictions over the long run. But it shouldn't have happened in my lifetime, should it? Because the chance of my 60, 70, 80 years on earth falling in that 5,000 years were pretty unlikely. But see, now this is exactly why it's a special and exciting game for you, Brady. Exactly. Because for your lifetime, this statistically rare thing has occurred.

And isn't that exciting for you? So, our successors, when you and I appoint our successors to take over Hello Internet into the next generation. What? Like, they're not going to get to talk about this. It's just us. Successors? Yeah. And when we retire, aren't we going to hand over the reins to like a young, two other, you know, younger people, two young dudes talking to take over at some point?

Isn't that like, wouldn't that happen? Like how TV shows, you know, new presenters come on and stuff. Eventually we're going to have to hand over the reins. No. It's ours or we burn it to the ground. That's how it is, Brady. Gambling, for me, is this funny topic where my interest in gambling is shockingly high. I find it a very, very interesting, very engaging subject. But my participation in it is basically zero. I have essentially never actually put down money on anything. I just have no interest in doing it. But it's like, once again, like I'm going to be going to Las Vegas probably this summer. It's like I am going to be hypnotized

by all of the gambling that takes place. I'm going to be super interested in the casinos and like all of the sports betting and all of that kind of stuff. Like I totally love it, but I also just have zero interest in actually participating. You say that like I should be surprised, whereas that's like the most predictable thing in the world because A, you're like, you know, you're interested in sort of mathematics and economics and things like, and probabilities. But B, I mean, if you looked up risk averse in the dictionary, I reckon there would be a photo of you. That's how risk averse you are. I totally disagree.

You are the most risk averse person I know by some margin. No, you don't understand. I have internal calculations about what risks I am and I'm not willing to take, but like, I don't think leaving a teaching career for YouTube was risk averse by definition. It was a calculated risk. It was not. You did not quit your job as a teacher until you were very successful on YouTube. You are like a monkey that will not let go of one vine until he's got his hand on the other vine. Well, yeah, yeah. But it's still taking a risk. So don't tell me like, you know, you took some crazy risk and quit your job and then said,

all right, what now? Okay, I'll try YouTube. You were like, you were already- No, because that would be stupid. That would just be dumb. So don't tell me you took a risk. You did not take a risk. I don't think you-

You can't argue that YouTubing is a more secure career than teaching. If I was purely risk averse, I wouldn't be doing YouTube now. I don't think you can be purely risk averse. You are highly risk averse. I mean, you can't, like, you have an aversion to it, but like, you know, everything is a risk. So, but I think it was a very low risk option you took. Yeah, that's exactly it.

I want to make everything as low risk as possible. That's not risk aversion. I think it is risk aversion. I think always taking low risk options and never taking high risk options is what risk aversion means. I don't know. Like when you take risks, you want the downside to possibly be low, right? Like doing the podcast in some sense was like a risky thing. It could have gone badly, but you know, the downside would have been relatively low

if it hadn't worked out. So that's the kind of gamble I like to take. Well, that's not risk. What were you risking by starting a podcast? Professional embarrassment. That's the kind of thing you're risking. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah, that's exactly it. I want the downside to be super low. What am I putting on the table here? I'm putting some time. I'm putting professional embarrassment. And what's the potential upside? Like, oh, two years later, still doing a podcast because it's working out now.

Getting to talk to Brady once a fortnight. That's like ultimate reward. Yes, that is the ultimate reward. That's what I was gambling for. If only I could talk to someone more. So I wonder if a bookmaker came up to you and said gray here's like a suitcase of cash if you you can take this right now but you can never do another hello internet you're gonna cash out it depends on how big the suitcase of cash is

like i can but i can do i can do like the the rich like i would do the estimated income for like the next 10 years on the podcast versus how much money is sitting in front of me now and then like what's the probability that the podcast lasts for more than 10 years like it's not 100 that it's going to last so like there's some pile of money which is walk away from hello internet pile of money that's that's how you make decisions so you you do put a dollar figure on leaving me out in the cold what do you what do you on leaving me out in the cold. What do you mean leaving you out in the cold? Aren't you getting some of this money? Or is this just for me? Oh, no, that's good.

I thought, yeah, I didn't think of that. Yeah, that might work out well, actually. Yes. Oh, did you think I'm just taking this money for me? Well, maybe. Burning you professionally would have some kind of cost. And that suitcase has to cover that cost, right? I'm like, here, let me spend this on Brady to keep him happy.

Got to pay off Brady. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, I forgot to pay off Brady. He says as his house burns down. That's why. They don't want to incur that kind of risk. How do you make decisions? You just look in the sky and think about stuff for a second.

A butterfly passes by and then you just run with your gut on it. Is that how you decide things? No, I don't think I'm a massive risk taker, but I will get in a plane to Lookla Airstrip to see Mount Everest aware that those planes crash a lot because I think, all right, I might die, but I want to see Mount Everest. So, I'm going to get on that plane. I think I take probably slightly more risks, but I'm not a big risk taker either. I mean, nothing's a risk when you're as hard as nails because you're bulletproof anyway. Yes. Here we go.

Here we go. Right. Of course. Plane crashes. You're just going to white knuckle your way through it, aren't you, buddy? I'm going to be like, what plane crash? I was like, oh, that was a rough landing. Anyway, where's my bags?

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all at a fantastic price. To give Harry's a try and to let them know that you came from Hello Internet, go to harrys.com and use the promo code HI to save $5 off your first purchase. Thanks to Harrys for supporting the show. Speaking of news, because I know what a newshound you are. I will tell you how much of a newshound I am, and that I just had the entertaining experience of talking on Skype with my parents the other day. Yeah. And my dad asked me, he goes,

so what do you think about this election for the mayor of London? And I said, what are you talking about? I found out on the day of the London election for mayor that there was an election for mayor from my father living in North Carolina. That's how much of a newshound I am. You didn't vote for your new mayor then, presumably? I was busy that day. For a person who makes videos about elections, I have rarely voted.

But there is a big national election coming up soon. This is the election for the UK to decide whether or not it's going to stay as a member of the European Union, part of the big conglomerate of European nations together, or it's going to go freestyle and break off on its own and be totally independent. Brexit, they call it, don't they? You have to have a catchy name for these things. And what do they call staying? They just call it staying don't they? You have to have a catchy name for these things. And what do they call staying? They just call it staying, do they? Brexin? I think they call it Brexin. It's getting quite passionate. The US president was over here recently and he put his oar in the water quite significantly, which got people all riled up. Yeah. That kind of stuff, I'm never sure if that is helpful or hurtful. If a foreign leader comes to your country and tells you what to do, I'm not sure that that helps your side, right?

I think that people have a naturally contradictory reaction to that. Don't you tell me what to do. So, for people who don't know, the Prime Minister, David cameron he wants us to stay in the european union so when barack obama came to town he sort of did a favor for his mate barack obama came out and made some public statements saying that it would be in britain's best interests to stay in he was almost a bit threatening about it too he sort of said if you if you leave the european union you're going to go to sort of the bottom of the list for trade negotiations with the US. That really polarised people.

It really energised the Brexit people, in my opinion. It's all going on. But I mean, the thing, I mean, forget Barack Obama. The thing that people really want to know is what does CGP Grey think Britain should do? Yes, I'm sure that's what the people want to know. Yeah. Yeah. So, I almost don't want to even discuss this topic, but I put myself on the hook for it

like a fool several podcast episodes ago when I made the casual offhand remark about like, oh yeah, I'm probably going to do a video on the UK EU referendum. Almost as soon as that episode was live, I seriously regretted having ever even said that because people have been asking me for when's that video coming up? Like, we want to know, like, there's going to be a vote soon. And I did a bunch of research on the topic, you know, right after we recorded that episode and before it went up. And I came to this strange conclusion that there is no video to be done on this topic. I don't know if you ever come across this when you're making videos.

I mean, you're more like editing things that other people are saying. So you have, there's like a topic that already exists. But even though I'm going to assume that this has been in the news quite a lot from what you're saying, like I haven't been following any of those details. When I sat down and thought like, okay, I'm going to make a video talking about this. It just kept feeling like trying to get a handle on a cloud. Like there's almost nothing to be discussed here. you know what i mean like um um i kind i kind of do i mean i i don't agree that there's nothing to be discussed but it's so big and so complicated and so convoluted that when you said you were considering a video i i looked forward to it and i hoped you would make

it but i did wonder how you were going to get to the bottom of some of these things because it's such a bloody mess, the relationship between Britain and the European Union. It's so complicated and you just don't know what's true and what's not true. And you hear such contradictory information that I wouldn't know where one would start or where you would have started. So, if you're about to say you're not making it, which it sounds like you are, I'm not surprised at all because I think it was too difficult. Okay. So, let me give you an example of what I mean. For the kind of video that I like to make, I feel like there was nothing here to discuss. And so crystal clear example, when I did the, I think it was in my Can Texas Leave America video, I think this is where I mentioned this, you can, because of the

relationship that the United States federal government has with the state governments, you can pretty cleanly draw up a list of which states pay more to the federal government and which states pay less to the federal government, like which states are economic net contributors to the union and which states are economic net debtors to the union. And so I tried to kind of look for this for something with the UK and the EU. There's no real answer here. And as far as I can tell, everybody who's trying to come up with an answer of, because like, you know, the news loves this kind of stuff where it's like, every citizen of the United Kingdom pays 30 pounds a year as a result of our being in the EU, right? Like people love statements like that, right? It seems like every election always gets turned into a,

how much money is X person going to gain or do they pay from being part of a group? That seems to be what the elections always turn into. The economic relationship between the member countries and the European Union, I think nobody knows the answer to this. You immediately start having to get into these questions which have answers, but that I think

nobody knows. How much extra business does the United Kingdom do with the European Union as a result of being a member of the European Union? There's a number. It's not like it's unanswerable. There is a number that you could measure in pounds to that question, but I don't think any human can calculate that number. And when I was digging around, like as far as I could tell all of the groups that were claiming to come up with numbers,

it's like, yeah, but when I'm looking at your assumptions, like you just have a lot of assumptions that are kind of being taken on faith. If we assume this, and if we assume that, it's like, well, all I have to do is modify my starting assumptions and then I can kind of come up with any number that I want. Yeah. And the other problems are, not only are these things really complicated, like, but there's also so much intangible stuff that is impossible to value. And there's also so many what ifs and don't knows as well like like if we leave will we still be allowed to do this will we be no longer allowed to do this could we renegotiate that there's like so much negotiating to be done afterwards that is clouded in mystery it's probably

unsurprising that a lot of the discussions i've been having in regard to this have been with scientists and concentrate just on the science side of being in the European Union. Even that one small niche is completely baffling and complicated. Obviously, Britain pays in lots of subscriptions to be parts of lots of collaborations and puts lots of money into pots for grants, which are then redistributed around Europe. And a whole bunch of that flows back into Britain. Are there any net contributors or net losers from that? But then there's all these complicated collaborations. There's things that you're allowed to be involved in because you're part of the European Union, like you're allowed to use like, you know,

ESO and ESA, you know, telescopes and space things. Will Britain still be part of that? Will we get kicked out of that? Will we have to renegotiate our way into that? Are we, you know, there's all these things that are really, that are really unknown. And it's a, and I wish I could know more of the answers before I voted, but no one seems to have them. This is a little bit like the Scottish national referendum on larger scale. Yeah. And when we discussed that referendum,

we touched on the same thing that so much of it is a, but what happens after, right? Like that, that's what you want to know. And that's what you can't know. So for me, when I was initially trying to research and write this video,

this particular point is the thing that killed the video dead for me, when I was initially trying to research and write this video, this particular point is the thing that killed the video dead for me when I was thinking through about like, what can I do? What video is there to make here? But it was realizing like, okay, let's imagine in the future that the Brexit happens, that the people vote to leave and the United Kingdom government then, because this is a non-binding resolution, by the way, right? Like the UK government could in theory go like, we're not going to leave, right? It's not actually binding, but let's

assume that the government then makes motions to leave. Looking through people's arguments and what people are discussing about the election, it's all based on assumptions of what the United Kingdom will or won't do after leaving. And I think that the clearest example for this, the biggest hot button issue in this election has to do with migration, largely, right? And about people moving into the United Kingdom. Like there's this whole big thing, short version for people outside of the European Union is that if you become a citizen of any European Union state, you can live anywhere within the European Union. And that includes the United Kingdom.

And the hot button issue is that it means that countries that are more lax with their immigration, the United Kingdom might disagree with who they're letting in, but like the United Kingdom can't tell Germany who is going to come in as an immigrant, for example. And so it's like, okay, the countries can disagree on immigration in this way where it's like Germany's immigration policies can affect the United Kingdom. And so, right, that's like one of the big issues here.

And so it's like, okay, well, if I was going to try to write something about that, you realize like, oh, okay, if that's like a big issue for you, if it's important to you to limit immigration, well, the EU referendum thing doesn't actually address your problem in any way. Because if the UK leaves, and then in a few years, for some reason, there's a government changeover in the UK, like the party switch or somebody else gets elected, the UK could just change the laws again, right? The UK could decide in 10 years, oh, we're just going to have an open door immigration policy, right? Like, the thing- Yeah, but Gray, the argument against that is at least it's the uk deciding okay it's a different party and it might be a different decision but the

people who are saying you know sovereign sovereign uk sovereign saying that doesn't matter gray what matters is that it's the uk government deciding and sure we can change our mind but that should be our decision not the people in brussels i am not disagreeing with that point i'm just simply saying that like i kept finding this weird thing like, the issues that people seem to be interested and focused on are almost unrelated to the actual referendum that's occurring. Right? Where it's like, okay, what's going to happen with... don't agree with you gray i i i think i do agree with you on like probably i probably do agree with you on the underlying things but the the argument here is you're right it's the people don't care about um you know a lot of the fine details of how the european union works no essentially nobody cares right like to a first approximation no one what this argument boils down to though is the is the argument being used by the brexit people is it should be our decision right like whatever the whatever your whatever your the b in your bonnet is whether it's

immigration whether it's whether it's uh farming whether it's tariffs whether it's whatever whatever whether it's the price of carrots it doesn't matter their argument is if it's in britain it should be britain's decision and we're sick of a whole bunch of people from other countries making decisions about our laws that and they use this big sovereignty argument they say we're sick to death of people who aren't british who aren't living in britain deciding the rules in brit. And that's the drum they're beating. And whatever their motives are, and some people will say, a lot of people will say it's racially motivated.

Other people will say it's a deep abiding belief in sovereignty that is in their core. And other people, whatever argument you want to make, that's what it's about. It's not about, so yes, immigration might be driving it or tariffs might be driving it or trade or business or science or whatever's driving it. But the argument that's being used is who makes the decisions. I completely agree with what you're saying there. And when I was trying to think about this,

I realized because of this idea that, okay, countries can change laws to be whatever they want. Like if the UK leaves, it can do whatever the heck it wants. Or there's this question of being in the European Union and being, to some extent, constrained think, in voters' minds is this whole election is really just a question of, do you trust the European Union or do you not trust the European Union? I think in people's minds, that is what's occurring. I am convinced that in elections, people like to think of themselves as looking at the issues and making some kind of decision. But I don't think that's really what happens. I think in all kinds of elections, people are reacting on an emotional level to some kind of fundamental thing. And in this election, I think that thing is an idea about trust of the European Union or not.

Now, of course, I think, like everybody does, I feel like I'm some kind of exception to this. Because I don't feel, when I think about this election, I don't think that I'm thinking of it in this trust level. But of course, everybody imagines they're an exception to the rule and like still in aggregate this thing occurs. But so that's partly why when I was sitting down and trying to write out something about a video on this, I realized like, okay, well, there's kind of nothing to talk about here. Because if I'm trying to make a video that's like cutting down the middle, if the core of this election is a question about trusting the EU or trusting the UK over the EU. There's no numbers that I can draw upon that I think are meaningful in terms of what is the actual financial benefit or return on investment. And then there's kind of nothing to talk about

because if I want to talk about why the European Union is bad,, let's say I want to talk about all of the stuff about the undemocratic nature of the European Union. It's like, well, that's really a question about, do you trust that the European Union will be able to reform itself to be more democratic in the future or not? Or do you trust that an independent United Kingdom will be able to make all of the best decisions for itself and will be able to manage itself on the world stage without the backing of the European Union? Like, who do you trust more?

Like, there's, do you know what I mean? Like, there's nothing concrete here. This video is dead in the ground and buried. I'm not going to do it. We're talking about it here because otherwise people will nag me forever. But that's kind of my feeling about this. I mean, I don't know what this video would look like. The video I would like to have seen from you would have been what the current state of play is. This is how the deal works. Britain can do

this. They can't do that. They've got this trade deal. They negotiate with these people in this way and these people in this way these people in that way i would like to have seen a video the video i would like to have seen is not about you know trust and politics and that it would have been about what does it actually mean to be in the eu and what does it mean to be out of the eu things like you know at the moment our negotiations with the united states are done through the EU. You know, it's an EU trade agreement that hasn't actually been negotiated yet. It's been in negotiation for years, but they say it's nearly finished.

If Britain leaves the EU, we're not part of that deal anymore. And we've got to do our own deal with the United States on trade. Things like that, I think, would be helpful to see explained because I think a lot of people don't realize that. But also, there's this idea about like, does the UK have a veto mean to be in the European Union now? Like, what are some of the mechanics of this? But I think that that kind of video is not really relevant for the vast majority of people. Like, most people just don't care. Like I said, people over-imagine themselves as informed voters when I don't think they are. But also like when I was trying to write out some of that stuff, it just, it felt weird because I couldn't talk about what it would be like to be outside the European Union

because that is the like endless series of what ifs. What will it be like for the United Kingdom to negotiate its own trade agreements? Who knows? Is it a big what if, Gray? There are plenty of countries that are not in the European Union. Could you not just look to them? How does China negotiate with other people? How does India work?

How does Australia? You know, there are lots of countries that are not in the EU you could look to as examples. And how do they get by in the world? Because that's something that a lot of people say, oh, Britain should stay in the EU because, you know, there's safety and power in numbers. And then a lot of other people say, well,

Australia does what we're doing quite nicely and they're not part of the EU and they negotiate with America and they have trade agreements in place and they do this and they do that. They don't have people in Brussels telling them what their law should be. I'm not saying that's the best, I'm not saying, you know, that's what Britain should do. But lots of countries exist that aren't in the EU. So, it's not this massive unknown from Mars that no one could possibly predict. There are lots of countries that do it. So, couldn't you have looked to them? Yes, there are lots of places that negotiate with the United States that do these kind of

trade agreements. But even looking at some of that stuff, it quickly becomes a question of cherry picking. When you're assembling a video like this, it's easy to fall into a trap of picking examples that you like. I just think it's dangerous to try to pick some particular country and say like, the UK will end up like X. It'll end up like Australia. Will it? I don't know. Like that depends a lot on how the UK wants to negotiate trade agreements. It depends on so many things that I don't think it's an easy, not even an easy question. I don't think it's a really knowable question to answer. Like,

will the United States and the UK still do trade agreements? Like, sure, I'm sure they will. But I don't know if there's any way to say, would that be better or worse than with the EU? Like, I think it just, it still just comes down to this speculation in fog of picking examples that then end up just betraying what you're trying to push behind a video instead of doing a video as like here's a neutral take on a thing i found it just a very kind of frustrating thing to to try to do and and that's partly why like it's it's it's not going to happen

uh even though like i think it's it's obviously it's an important vote that people are going to do like it's a big deal uh it'll be a big deal if the United Kingdom leaves. It'll be really interesting if the United Kingdom votes to stay. Looking at it right now, the opinion polls are actually quite close about staying or about leaving with a pretty decent number of undecideds. There's also a strong feeling, though, that in opinion polls, you know, that's just a random sampling. But the Brexit people are the people who are more energized and actually are likely to go out and vote in a voluntary vote, whereas the stay people

might be more apathetic. So, the opinion polls might be a bit skewed in that way, and Brexit might be doing better than it looks. looks yeah that's kind of my gut feeling as well is is that the brexit side is almost by definition the more energetic side and they're also therefore also the more likely to go out and vote side whereas team status quo is also much more likely to not vote uh you know i don't know um what do you think gray do you have a position do you mean which way am i going to vote is that what you mean yeah or have you got a vote and if so yeah what way are you going to vote are you stay or go well what about you brady you you move first in this chess game if i if the election was today i would would vote to stay. Why would you vote to stay?

Of all the interactions in my life and all the things that happen for me, professionally and personally, I feel like I benefit more from being in the EU. I travel in Europe a lot. I do work in Europe. So I also think being part of a bigger community is better. I have a real, you know, interest in science and an allegiance to science and research. And I think science is better served by being in the EU as well.

And certainly the scientists I've spoken to think that as well. I don't know whether science is as divided on the issue as the rest of the community, but I haven't got that feeling. I don't know. And also just like the people who, the people in positions of authority or with opinions who I value, more of them seem to want to stay and of the people who i think are a bit fringe and a bit bonkers they they they seem to be the people who most passionately advocate leaving and that's that's not a entirely good reason uh you know that's not entirely good basis to make a decision

on but it does contribute you know you can only you know you've got people in in public life who you respect and people who you respect less and if all the people you respect are saying one thing and all the people you respect less are saying the other that's that's a clue at least so you're saying that the uh the pro-brexit people there's an uncommon number of hat wearers in that group. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, there's a lot of top hats. But do let me say, I do sometimes hear Brexit people speak and they make some good points. Some of them are persuasive and it's not election day yet and maybe something will be said or

something will happen that will change my mind. I don't feel like i'm nailed on but when it was first announced i was stay and nothing has moved me out of that yet and and i i imagine it won't but i i am open to it what about you it's um what i'll say is is yeah when it first came up, I was on the stay side, right? Stay in the European Union. Yeah. And so I did a bunch of research. And one of the things that I always try to do with this stuff, you know, like we've mentioned before, it's very easy to, like you, most of the people I know in my life, people whose opinions I respect,

are pro-staying. And the side effect of that is that you very often hear the opposing opinions filtered through the person who thinks that those opinions are dumb. And so it's easy to end up with this, again, like this infuriating totem, this imaginary idea of what the other side is saying. So I spent a while trying to find people arguing for Brexit in their own words, unmodified, like giving speeches or reading articles from people who were pro-Brexit. Like, let me see this firsthand as opposed to hearing it filtered through someone else. And as always with these cases,

it's like, I don't necessarily agree with these people, but I have almost never had a case yet of looking at someone who I think or I hear is crazy, reading their stuff or hearing their stuff firsthand and thinking, they're kind of crazy, maybe, or I don't agree with them, but they're way less crazy than they're portrayed as. And in some ways with the Brexit stuff, I had this interesting feeling of like, okay, these arguments are not as crazy as I thought they were. I still don't necessarily agree with them, but I do think like some of the ideas about, sort of like what you were saying before,

the ideas about national sovereignty, about making your own decisions, right? Like there is some amount of resonance with that the this idea of of the sovereignty of a nation right like okay that's why they keep bringing it up because it's such a it's such a smart you know that's a smart move because that's what that does chime with everyone doesn't it yeah being master of your own destiny yeah who likes the idea of somebody else telling you what to do nobody right nobody's pro somebody else tell me what to do. Nobody, right? Nobody's pro somebody else tell me what to do. They don't like that. So, I was reading through a bunch of stuff. The end result is like,

I will still vote to stay in the European Union. I still think that that's the correct choice. But I feel somewhat softer in that opinion than I was before like i i have i have not moved i have not changed my opinion but but the strength of my opinion has slightly softened from that and it's also just the side effect of like man is the european union like such a beast you know like i have this huge pile of notes on how the european union government actually works and it's like oh my god you know the the sort of the joke that the european union could not be a member of the european union because it is not democratic enough and it's like there is a lot of truth to that like if there was a tiny country that ran a government the way the european union does

you could see the european union objecting that like your government is not very democratic but like you like you have this weird weird situation so that's that's that's sort of my end result like i i still feel like i would i would vote to stay my position has been softened slightly but i'm also in the weird position that like so you are you are voting for staying out of the self-interest of the science, like science and the science community and the benefits that are aggregated from that. And I, because like, I'm not British, right? Like, I'm just a person living here. You know, that's me too, remember?

Like, in some ways, this idea about like British sovereignty is like a theoretical game to play. Like, okay, whatever. Like I'm not British. You know, it's not my business in some ways. But what I do have this feeling of is like I live in London and I have this selfish feeling about how cities work and how – this is sort of awful, but big cities drain useful, talented, intelligent people from as big of a catchment area as they possibly can. This is what cities do. And this is what we were talking about before with guns, germs, and steel.

When you mentioned this thing about how like density matters, like getting a bunch of people in an area it really matters and then you add on top of that like cities end up specializing right where cities become known for a particular thing and i feel like well for for humanity as a whole i think it is always good to be able to feed megacities more than feed them less. And so my kind of thought is like, great, if London can act as this incredible center of gravity that people in the rest of Europe want to move to the biggest city in the European Union and people can get there and they can work with others and there's like this human density and things can arrive out of it. I am very much in favor of that. I want it to be easy for as many people as possible to move to London because humanity as a whole benefits from this kind of talent density. That is my probably wildly unpopular political platform for why the United Kingdom should stay in the European Union. That is not compelling to me, Greg. Especially with London, having spent most

of the last week in London, I think London has gone past the Maryland point of benefiting from more people coming into it. I think London could do with hitting the brakes for a while. It's just London has passed critical mass now. What do you mean? Now it's just a mess. I don't think London's still on that nice curve of things getting better as smarter people come in. Now London's just become a place where a lot of people are pretty miserable

and it's too big and too congested. And I think London's too big. Property prices say you're wrong. You cannot use property prices in London for anything. There are way too many billionaires and London is an exception to everything when it comes to that kind of comparison. But I don't agree with you there. I don't agree with you there i don't agree with you that like okay london london does have this particular this particular problem of people buying big properties as like investment properties as a way to move to move money out of their countries and like to just put it in some property in the safe stable country right yeah that does totally happen but that's not taking up seven million units of housing. That is such a small, small number of

the housing units. My comparison here is San Francisco, right? Where San Francisco, I find it absolutely fascinating. I always read about the San Francisco property problem because I find it just really interesting. San Francisco has the most expensive real estate in the world now. They have surpassed Japan, which has been long, surpassed Tokyo, which has long been the record holder here. That is clearly a side effect of it is incredibly valuable to be located in San Francisco because of some of these density side effects, right? If you are a technology company or if you are a startup, you want to go to San Francisco and the property prices there are crazy, like outrageously crazy property prices, you know, even worse than a place like London. But people still want to go there

and they pay those prices because on aggregate, like it's still worth it to do that. Like that's what property prices show you is people want to live in an area. It's the reason all of the mega cities are expensive is because there's huge value to people to live there. I think people sometimes need to frame city property prices in a different way where they go, oh my God, it's so expensive per square foot. It's like, yes, but part of what you're paying for is access to all of these other things,

including jobs. Like it's not just the square footage of your place. It's what do you have access to? And access to other people and jobs is valuable. We're getting into want and need and weed again here. I don't know if people want to live there. I think people have to live there. And they're taking a big hit in their happiness for the sake of their wallet.

And maybe if we could do something to help them, if humans could intervene somehow. And I don't know, last episode we spoke about just letting economic forces take their route or whether we should intervene or something. And I think this is a really good example of where it would be so handy if we could sort of intervene and stop people feeling like they have to be in certain places. You know, my Uber driver, who I talked about football and Formula One and stuff with, had just moved to London and he was absolutely miserable and he was hating life in London, but he just felt like he had to move there.

You know, he wasn't earning enough money where he was in Italy and now he's living in a crappy place. He wasn't earning enough money where he was in Italy and now he's living in a crappy place and he's just got enough money to sort of get by working two jobs. But he felt like he had no choice. I felt sorry for him. I wish we had a society where he had another choice. And I'm not, you know, fair enough. He felt like he had to do it. It was a voluntary decision and property prices continue to go up in London because everyone feels they've got to be there. But I felt sorry for him. And I was thinking, is there something we could do? Is there some way we could create

a situation where people didn't feel they had to move to London just because they couldn't get a job anywhere else? But that's what's happened. And it seems like that doesn't seem like what's going to happen. Is London just going to turn into this huge, giant black hole that's going to suck all the money out of the world, but also all the happiness out of the world? I mean, how do we get around this? I mean, I know there are billionaires and people living in London very happily and really lovely places, but there seem to be a lot more people who are just scraping by on the fringes, you know, cleaning the toilets and driving the Ubers. We're quickly getting into the Brady and Gray discuss how to solve all the world's problems

portion of this podcast, because this immediately becomes connected into absolutely everything. And I will just briefly point out that it sounds like he may have been just scraping by in London, but he wasn't able to just scrape by wherever he was in Italy. From your description, it sounds like he was worse off wherever he came from. Yeah, yeah, of course. And like I said, he moved to London voluntarily because it was better for him. But I think it's because of the attitude that you displayed a little bit earlier saying, hey, the bigger we can make London, the better, the more brains we can get here, the more stuff we can funnel into this megacity, the better it is for everyone. love got spread a bit more you know that guy wouldn't be forced to live in some dingy little tiny apartment and work 23 hours a day to eat and he could live somewhere nice in italy and go and work for one of those companies and i know i know this is supply and demand and i know the cities

kind of form themselves and there's no arch enemy living in a volcano that's making all of this happen but like i said i think london's gone too far. It's like, it's got too big. I think it's past some point. It's gone past some optimal point now and it's become suboptimal. I just want to point out a small clarification here, because I said that it was better for humanity. I didn't say it was better for everyone. So like, this is a subtle but important point. I am not saying that everybody who moves to a city is better off and i will always and forever think of la and new york as the cities that are crushers of human dreams people move there and they have their dreams

of fame and fortune crushed in various ways but la nonetheless has become this specialization for the entertainment industry. And I think that humanity as a whole has a better entertainment industry with it being centralized to a large portion in one place. Like more things can happen because of the density of the people there. And so like humanity for a whole benefits because L.A. is this dense, centralized, focused place. I'm not saying everybody who moves to L.A. like, oh, boy, what a great time they have. It's like, no, it crushes your dreams and spits you out. Right. So those are very different things. And so I am making the like for the betterment of humanity argument, not necessarily anybody in particular argument of I want an even bigger, denser London

than currently exists. And I think that leaving the European Union decreases the probability of that happening in the future. But it's like, I want every smart, ambitious person in Romania to move to London. Like, I think that is better for humanity as a whole than having people be trapped in their small countries. Like, I'm generally for freedom of movement and freedom of movement increases density, which I think is better for humanity. I'm not an expert on the subject and I am also in favour of freedom of movement. But I will say that I don't know if it's better for humanity to have a good software industry in San Francisco and better movies coming out of LA and lots and lots and lots and lots of miserable people. I think maybe what would be better for humanity

would be to have more happy humans. I think that is exactly the kind of comment that you make when you're not actually arguing the point. It's like, yes, I too, Brady, I too want there to be more happy people. Nobody's going to argue that point, right? But I think one of the ways that we get more happy people is by pushing civilization forward. It's by getting penicillin. It's by having better entertainment options. It's by increasing technology. I think these are all the ways that we get better, happier people.

Like, this is the way we have a better, happier society. And as far as I can tell, clustering people in cities is one of the most effective ways to get this kind of thing. I'm not saying we should abolish cities. I don't think you're saying abolish cities. You've got this kind of be all and end all of we've just got to keep we've got to push forward. We've got to keep developing thing. You know, when you talked about although when you talk about penicillin and all these great developments, I don't hear you talking about nuclear bombs and AK-47s and landmines and

like this relentless push to make everything better and more efficient and, you know, its absolute maximum strength comes with a cost as well. Yeah, but the benefit outweighs the cost. The benefit outweighs the cost, of course. I'm saying, should there be a balance? Should we be saying, hang on a second, we've gone too far on this one. Let's pull back. I don't think London has gone too far. I think London has not gone far enough.

Okay. And I don't think that you're arguing for abolishing cities, just to be clear. I don't think that's the argument that you're making. Yeah. But I think you're making an argument that's a lot closer to, let's encourage people to move to non-London cities, maybe? Well, it's just really common. When something becomes, you know, a centre of excellence, like an LA or a San Francisco, another natural thing to happen is for people to go, well, this is getting really difficult to manage now, or it's getting really expensive and that.

Let's create a second centre of excellence somewhere else. Somewhere, maybe somewhere cheaper, somewhere where it was just a bit more feasible for sort of normal for humans. And that sometimes happens too. I 100% agree with that. And along with my obsession with the San Francisco property price stories, which I have no personal connection to, but find interesting, I also find very interesting this endless push that many countries have to have a second Silicon Valley. And I actually think that London has a pretty decent shot at being able to do this. I think the very fact that London is a big English speaking city that is able to draw on talent from a wide variety of sources, I think that it might have a chance of being another good

software technology hub as far as these things go. So to get around the problem of property prices in San Francisco, you set it up in London where there's also a huge problem with property prices. No, no. I don't care about, don't get me wrong, I don't care at all about the property prices. I think the property prices are a measure of how valuable a place is, right? And in some private conversations I've had with people, I've long held this theory that San Francisco is like the most important city on the face of the earth right now because of what is taking place in terms of technology and companies there. And the fact that it's now the most expensive place to live is interesting to me and seems to back this up. It seems to back up this idea. And I think then London,

you're starting from a place that is already quite valuable. And I think that like, it worries me that San Francisco sits on top of a huge fault line. And so I think from a species level perspective, it would be fantastic if we had another super technology hub somewhere else that maybe wasn't on a fault line. And so this is also why like I would I would love to promote London even further down this path of like, yes, let let us try to gather up all of the most talented people in the European Union and get them to move to this location. And that's why I don't like the idea of making it harder for people to move to London. I like the idea of making it easier for people to move to London. And what about the all the eggs in one

basket type thing? I mean, you talked about an earthquake in San Francisco. I mean, what about a dirty bomb in London? Yeah, but what about a dirty bomb in London yeah but what about a dirty bomb in San Francisco like yeah exactly but that's what I'm saying but you're saying let's have one or two hubs why not why not have everything a bit more spread out so we haven't got just two or three soft targets everything we know about humans indicates that the density matters yeah and I think if you spread it out too much then you lose almost all of the benefits that you're gaining in the first place. Yeah.

Right? But I mean, that's changing with the technology letting, making sort of the world shrink a bit. Like you used to, you know, I mean, you know yourself, your assistance in America and all that, you know, we don't all need to be in the same place anymore the way we used to. Oh, yeah. I totally agree. Like technology is helping with this, but I don't think it's enough. And particularly, it's not enough if you're interested in being

the best and working with the best people. Like, I find it fascinating, you know, how other recurring character on the podcast, but Elon Musk started in South Africa. And from what I've read about him, he knew in his early life that he wanted to get to San Francisco as soon as possible because he wanted to be exactly what he has become. And sure, like, let's say immigration policies were different and it was really hard. Could Elon Musk have become the best businessman in South Africa? Yes, quite possibly. Could he have literally ended up

running South Africa? Yes, quite possibly. But I don't doubt that part of his incredible success and the things that he's able to do now is the fact of like he was able to get to San Francisco and like work with other interesting people to get things off the ground. And so that's why I think the density matters. And so if San Francisco is sitting on a fault line, it's like, okay, well, maybe we can get one other place that's like sort of kind of a backup. But even then, I still fundamentally believe that once you get a place that's super specialized the best people are always going to want to go there and so i merely think that london could be like the second most important city in the world

if it is collecting up all of the smartest ambitious ambitious people in the European Union who can easily move there and try to get things started. So that's kind of my position there. And what about London's creaking transport system and its airport crisis? I mean, things like that, you know, that stuff will work itself out, I guess. I never think those are deal breakers and and i have to say i mean the underground as far as public transport systems go it's fantastic compared to almost everywhere else i have ever been so i think londoners love to complain about it but as far as public transport goes it's pretty great like what what places are you going to hold up like i will

hold up hong kong as a better uh transport system like their transport system was pretty good um but i think it's hard to beat the london one in terms of comprehensiveness yeah like it's a huge region that's covered by public transport you are the ultimate london cheerleader gray i'll give you that i'm not a london cheerleader i am a city cheerleader i am a city cheerleader no my friend you are a l a London cheerleader. You so are. I am a city cheerleader. I am a city cheerleader. No, my friend, you are a London cheerleader. You don't understand. You are a London cheerleader. Trust me.

If I moved out of the UK and I moved back to America, I would probably move to San Francisco because even though there are many things about San Francisco on a hugely long list that I could put out that I don't like. Yeah. I think it's an interesting place because of people going there. Like it feeds on itself of like some of the most interesting people I know and follow live in that broader area.

Right. And so like that is what makes it attractive. And so like I am living in London and I really london but it is like it is the biggest city in the european union and i and i think like that is a unique kind of benefit so i am a city cheerleader and i really like london yeah you're a london cheerleader you've always been you've always been very much a London cheerleader. But that's okay. Everyone who lives in London is quite of that mind. Yeah, because it's the center of everything. Yeah.

So I guess I'm telling people, vote for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union. To feed London. To feed the beast. Yeah. So that we can feed the megacity. It will eat many of you and chew you up and spit you out. To feed London, to feed the beast. Yeah, so that we can feed the megacity. It will eat many of you and chew you up and spit you out. But the ultimate return on investment from a few incredibly successful people will probably be worth it.

Vote stay. you you you you lester city well done the foxes i'm sure it was very exciting for you i'm happy you got to see a rare event in your life it was a fairy tale in real life it was the it was the it doesn't even make any sense that's a contradictory statement does it well it's a fairy tale in real life it's a fairy tale come true like it's it's the sort of story that could only be made up in a fairy tale and yet it then happened in reality how could it only be made up in a fairy tale like we already have examples of incredibly rare things happening in sports. This was pretty amazing. They didn't ride in a pumpkin carriage to the Premier League final game.

Like, what are you talking about? How do you know? I could tell you they did. You wouldn't know any better. You're right. You totally fooled me, Brady. You got me there, buddy. Say what you want.

It was a fairy tale.