Hello Internet - H.I. #66: A Classic Episode

Episode Date: July 18, 2016

Brady and Grey discuss: Snapchat again, emoji flags, Tesla, Brady's papercuts, plane crash corner, and health corner. And also Brexit, long after the discussion could possibly be relevant. Brought to You By Fracture: Photos printed in vivid color directly on glass. Igloo: An intranet you'll actually like Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes Discuss this episode on the reddit Grey & Brady discuss Getting Things Done The photo in Brady's mystery package Grey on Snapchat Brady on Snapchat Destin on Snapchat Destin annoys Grey by putting him on Snapchat Snapchat introduces memories Emoji flags for The Home Nations Vatican City Flag emoji Flag of England Flag of Scotland Flag of Wales Union Jack with Welsh dragon Marco Arment wrote an article about the Tesla Autopilot after we recorded this episode. Tesla fatal accident Liberia vs China Boeing 787 Dreamliner windows 31 years later we found the flight recorder Water Boiling at Everest The Summit The Cheeseboard Brexit Brady & Grey discuss Brexit pre-Brexit Ben Goldacre on Brexit

So, Gray, looking through our projected notes here, I think potentially we have a classic Hello Internet episode. All the major food groups are represented here. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Reading between the lines, it means it's an episode you're going to dread. When I think of what Brady imagines to be a classic episode of Hello Internet, all I can think of is many, many Brady segments. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. After my success last week for the second episode in a row, I'm going to try to open up with a

listener message, a listener interaction, because you know I love them and I know you hate them. I know. No, I'm not going to let you get away with that. I don't hate them. I only include them if they're interesting. That's the difference. I, too, enjoy the interesting ones. That's why I leave them in. Okay. Well, let's see how this one fares.

I went to what I sometimes refer to as the Hello Internet postbox the other day. Okay. Essentially, this is my postbox. So if there's something you want to send to Gray, do not send it to this post box because I will bin it. I will not give it to Gray because I cannot set that precedent. You mean your PO box? That's what you're talking about? The one we used for the election? That's the hello internet post box? Yes, exactly. Okay. So I went along. I went along for a check, hoping there might be a few new postcards. There was a package. Oh, there were

several packages actually. Oh my, that sounds like something I would hand over to the police. Well, yes. Anyway, I opened this package. It is a book. Now for background, people might remember my thoughts on the book, Getting Things Done by David Allen. This is a book that Gray, I think, holds in quite high regard. And I did not enjoy this book so much to the extent where I got a refund on my audio book because I didn't want it. And my hard copy, we auctioned for charity. I wanted this book out of my life. This book was not for me. I will put the show where we discussed it, one of my favorites, in the show notes. Again, I think you misrepresent me here. I'm not exactly sure that it was an unambiguous

hold in high regard on my part, but I will let the listeners decide if that was a fair characterization. Okay. Anyway, like a bad penny, someone has sent me a copy of this book. That's got another copy. I'm thinking, ah, what what's all this about so i open it up and on the inside cover the front inside cover whoever has sent this has inscribed a small flaggy flag so immediately alarm bells start ringing this is obviously a mischief maker rebel scum right they're up to no good obviously and. And then on the next page, inserted between the pages, is a beer coaster, like a beer mat, with a web address on it. And I'm thinking, oh no, what's going on here? This is dodgy. And it's an Imgur or Imgur or

however I'm supposed to pronounce that address. So they want me to look at some photo. But then before I look at the photo, I turn the next page. I love how you keep going into this. Who knows what's coming, but Brady's going to find out, right? Okay. It's an adventure. Now on the next page, which is kind of like the title page, is an inscription. Okay. What does that say it says to brady harron give it another go and i'm gonna guess is that like david allen's signature on the bottom it is david allen's signature because if you go to the imgur link which i'm sending you now

we have someone who i don't know who this is they're obviously a mischievous tim holding a copy of the book, standing with David Allen at a book signing. So he has obviously taken his book up to David Allen and asked him to sign it to me, asking me to give it another go. That is fantastic. A few things come into my mind when I see this. The first is, I have to say, David Allen has gone up a few pegs in my standing. Oh, has he? Yeah.

But secondly, how did that interaction work? What did he say to Dave Allen when he was asking him to sign the book and say, can you please say, you know, to Brady, give it another go? He must have had to explain, oh, there's this podcast and there's this guy and he really slagged off your book and he said it was really boring and he like got rid of his copies. You should listen to the episode. It's really entertaining. Graves put it in the show notes. Right.

How do you think that unfolded, that interaction? I mean, again, here is the thing. The way you imagine stuff, Brady, is that someone goes into all of the details. But I would suspect that this magnificent Tim who has pulled this off would simply just say, oh, I have a friend who tried the book and didn't like it. Could you give them a suggestion to give it another try? I think that's the fastest way in a book signing line to get the basic gist of it across. I don't know, Greg, maybe I'm reading too much into the picture, but if you zoom in on David Allen's face in that picture I sent you, he doesn't look happy. He does look a little bit like he's been cornered into doing something he didn't want to do. Or am I just reading too much

into that? Because on the cover, he looks all smarmy and tanned and happy and Californian. And in this picture, he looks a bit like, just get me out of here man get me out of this photo looking at that picture i can see why you think that it also looks like maybe he is suppressing a bit of a smile like maybe he thinks this is some kind of funny situation his expression is hard to read but you're right maybe he just got cornered and he wants to get out of there. And someone has just told him an overly long, overly detailed story in order to get them to sign this book. I do like the term magnificent Tim. of a book where your own face is on the cover, where everyone is constantly handing you a book with a picture of you smiling at you to then sign. If I was an author, I wouldn't want my face on the cover of the book. I would find that a weird situation, signing books with my own face on it. I think if you've signed off on having your face on the cover, you're the sort of person who

would probably quite enjoy signing a book with your face on the cover. You might have a point there. I might not be thinking this through all the way. This is an excellent, excellent listener interaction. I don't see any way that I can possibly cut this from the show, which makes you two for two in your gambling of openings here. All right. Very well done, Brady. And thank you, Magnificent Tim, whoever you are. If you do hear this, tell us about this interaction with David Allen.

We want to hear every detail every nuance every every tick every every little bit of body language on a full briefing yes brady wants to hear that all that full briefing it might not make it into the next show you owe me 100 brady well after i made that bet with you, and for those who've forgotten, Gray went to VidCon and I made a bet that he would get dragged up to do like a panel or talk or something like that. And he bet me a hundred dollars he wouldn't. And on the face of it, I thought that was a good bet. And very quickly after making it, I realized it was a mistake. And it wasn't a mistake for the reason that you think it's a mistake. Okay.

It wasn't a mistake because Grey is like a recluse or shy or doesn't like attention. That those things are true. But Grey is also like, you know, you do public things now. And you've started to do more of it. And also you are like a nice guy and someone who likes to please his friends and his colleagues. Okay. It's interesting. I think it's true.

You will help your friends if they ask you. And I imagined a scenario where someone was going to say to you, Grey, come up and do this panel or help us out with this Q&A. Because, you know, everyone loves Grey. It'd be a nice surprise. And I thought, put in that that situation you would agree to it the thing that i didn't take into account is how unlikely it was that would happen because people don't like giving up their stage and what and what person doing a q a or a panel is going to want to give

up their limelight to someone else you You know, these are like, you know, YouTube celebrities who love the limelight. So it suddenly occurred to me, hang on, Grey probably won't even get asked to do this. So he'll never have to refuse. So come on, did you get asked? I, when interacting with people, essentially pre-shut down any discussion of joining any panels by always saying, like, oh, I'm just here as a civilian. I'm just here as a tourist. I'm not doing anything. I'm just here as a normal guy, just a normal person with a VidCon pass.

That's what I was trying to pitch myself to in every single interaction. And so remarkably, no, I did not get asked to do anything. But I also agree with you that like my interesting experience of VidCon was over and over realizing like, oh, this is obviously where all of the extroverts go. These are all of the people who love to be on stage, who love to be in front of huge audiences. Like by definition, if you are a huge YouTube star, you are probably that kind of person. You're probably not a huge introvert. Like there are exceptions to that, but for the most case, that's the way it's going to

work. And so you are definitely right that there may have been an element of who wants to invite an additional person up on their panel? Nobody. Nobody wants to do that. Everybody wants the panel to be as much about them as they can possibly have it be. So, I mean, that's it. I was right.

I mean, I was wrong, but I was right in why I was wrong. As soon as I made the bet, I realized my mistake was not Grey's introversion. It was everyone else's extroversion. It was their unwillingness to share the limelight. So, I owe you $100. You owe me a hundred dollars and because of brexit which we may discuss later i need to do a bit of uh horse trading about what the best way to give you that money will be as the pound plummets i don't know how i'm going to do this but i'll try and find a way to do it that won't bankrupt me right one hundred $100 or 5,000 pounds, right? Your choice.

So I lost the bet. So while I was at VidCon, we had just recorded that morning and we had had our big discussion about the Snapchat. How does it work and why? And for the entirety of VidCon, our friend Destin of Smarter Every Day just kept pushing me to join Snapchat. That dude, that dude. He was like a Snapchat drug pusher, every conversation. I think he must have stock in the Snapchat. Honest to God, that was what I was thinking too. It's like, you are so pushing this. I'm just going to assume that you're a secret co-founder

of Snapchat. Nothing else makes any sense here. And it was one of those things where the more someone talked, the less and less I was convinced every second, right? So like we had had this whole conversation where you tried to explain it to me. And then I had Destin showing me all of the amazing things that you could do on Snapchat, including a moment which I totally loved where we were just having, as you do, IHOP for dinner in America. And Destin whips out his phone. He's like, look, look at this thing that you can do. I can just film you and your hands eating your dinner. Isn't this great?

This is going to go up on Snapchat immediately and people can look at it. I was like, I want nothing to do with this Snapchat. The more you're trying to convince me, the less convincing this absolutely is. He was super excited about that video. He asked me the other day if I want like the original footage. I think he thinks it's the Zapruder film or the moon landing or something. Grey's hands on the Snapchat. Like it was, you know, your Snapchat debut or something. Maybe there's something about that video I've missed but I sort of watched it and thought it's just a dude filming another dude's hands eating food and the dude sounds unimpressed about being filmed yeah and the thing that I

didn't even understand is it seems like Snapchat just like Twitter has a character limit Snapchat has some kind of time limit for what it's recording yeah and so when he was trying to explain it to me it just cuts off in the middle I was like yeah great you're totally selling this thing you want to film a thing we're talking about it me, it just cuts off in the middle. I was like, yeah, great. You're totally selling this thing. You want to film a thing. We're talking about it. And then it just cuts off in the middle anyway. This is awful. This is dumb.

This is terrible. But nonetheless, while I mentioned in the last show that I made a little note for my assistant to make me a Snapchat, just like someone totally out of touch would do. After the show, I forgot to delete that little instruction. And so I have actually ended up with a Snapchat. And I thought, okay, just for completeness's sake, I'm going to install it on my phone and just see what it looks like. And maybe I'll do one thing and then I'll just never do it again. And I just want to reiterate a thousandfold your described experience of even installing

and using Snapchat at all is a completely baffling experience. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I did have a lot of people saying it wasn't just you, Brady, but having it come from you is vindication because you're, you know know you're pretty up with the tech i thought you might be exaggerating or just it's like totally out of touch but like trying to get that thing installed and looking at the instructions like okay i have to put this in okay get this thing take a picture of this and then when it loads up there's no labels on any buttons the buttons seem intentionally

obscure and somehow throughout the entirety of everybody describing it to me and everybody showing it to me i somehow missed that it was purely video that there was literally nothing you could do aside from video and as soon as i figured that out i was like oh the hell with this and i just deleted it off my phone you can't take stills oh okay well i didn't get that far you just you just tap that video button instead of holding it down. Oh, okay. It's completely baffling, Greg. It's like that scene in movies when people get into the alien spacecraft

and there's like all different symbols on the dashboard and yet somehow they still manage to fly the spaceship. I feel like that's what the whole world is like with Snapchat. We're flying the spaceship with symbols and controls none of us understand. Anyway. I just have to completely agree with you. I feel like I was glad to have the experience of maybe 90 seconds of playing around with Snapchat just to see what it was like. And then realizing, nope, I have no place for this in my life.

It brings me absolutely no utility. No matter how much Destin keeps pushing it, no matter how much he wants to drive up the value of his stocks in Snapchat, I am not going to use this thing. To be fair, it suits Destin because he's such a nice guy and he's really charming and he really likes interacting with as many people as possible. And he lives in this world where his day lasts 90 hours. So he has time to do this. As far as I can tell, he does not sleep. As I said before, I think it's less you.

There has been an interesting development in the world of Snapchat since we spoke. You know how we have this delusion that the world changes and continents move based on things we talk about on Hello Internet? I don't think it is a delusion. I think the more episodes we do, the more confirmation bias we have for this. It always had to be immediate. Like I had to take a picture now and put it on. I couldn't go and get those beautiful pictures from Mount Everest five years ago and brag about that on Snapchat because you can't go and get stuff from the vault. Right. For shame. and I realised the strength of Snapchat was this immediacy. People couldn't Instagram it and make their lives look all amazing. It was unvarnished. It was like this really nice immediate contact. Everything disappears in 24 hours.

You know, the blackboard is constantly being wiped clean. And I realised this was what was good about it. And I embrace that now. And then about a day or two after that, Snapchat announced, they are now allowing people to do the exact thing that I wish they did. And now I wish they wouldn't do, but they are doing. And you can take things from the vault and create this new area of Snapchat, which I haven't looked at yet. And I don't know how it works. I think it's called memories or something like that. So in addition to your sort of immediate day-to-day story, you can now go and get your perfectly crafted photos and Photoshop them and have nice vignettes

and make everything look perfect and pretty and not the sort of crazy unvarnished Snapchat, which I think works better. So it's all change. Well, I trust that now that you have explained to Snapchat the errors of their ways, they will quickly revert this decision. If you've got a phone or a camera or a computer full of photos, why not liberate at least some of them into the real world? Nothing beats having some of your favorite memories hanging on the wall, sitting on the mantelpiece, or maybe perched on your desk. And one of the best ways to do this is with Fracture. Fracture is a great service which prints your photos onto a piece of glass ready made for

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Thank you to Fracture for their support and seriously give them a look. It's a really nifty product. So we have to talk about flags if we're going to have a classic episode. Oh. And we probably have to talk about emojis. Okay. I have an emoji flag story. Oh, do you? A submission has been prepared. And again, I'll try and link to it. I think it's been done by these people from Emojipedia and, you know, people in the emoji world have put in this formal submission to whoever you have to formally submit things to, to have emojis recognized, to have the home nation flags made into official emojis. Because at the moment there is the Union Jack representing the

United Kingdom. But there is no England flag. There is no Wales flag. There is no Scotland flag. And I've actually found that quite frustrating. There have been times, believe it or not, where I've wanted to use those flags and have been unable to. Literally, not more than three hours ago, I wanted to send someone an England Wales emoji flag thing and discovered for the very first time that those home nation flags don't exist. I just assumed that they would be there, but they're not. Yeah. So I know there are sort of thin ends of the wedge and you can open the floodgates and where does this stop? But I think the home nations should be in the emoji sphere.

And I hope that this submission is successful. Well, I mean, if they're going to do the home nation flags, I think they absolutely have to do all 50 state flags. I think there's no way around that. No, this is not the case because... I beg to disagree. And obviously they have to do the Liberian county flags. Yes, of course, right?

Just for funsies, those need to be in there. Yes, I agree. But this home nation thing has been causing significant problems. For example, the European football championships, which are finishing today as we record, the final is actually on shortly. There's no United Kingdom team in that. There's all these international teams and we have Wales competing and we have England.

The same is true of the World Cup of football. Now, Texas and California and Nevada and whatever don't have teams competing at the World Cup. But Scotland and Wales and England, these are countries, these aren't states. It actually causes formatting problems for some people who depend on emojis when all these tournaments take place. And I mean, I know there's more to the world than sport. But I was gonna say, yes, I find your solely because there are sports competing things, not super convincing. Home nations and sports is always such a confusing, weird historical thing that occurs that doesn't necessarily make any sense whatsoever. Especially when you look at the population breakdown

of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, you know, versus other places. So I'm definitely going to say this, that if the home nations get accepted, I think the emoji committee or whoever is in charge of this, I think they have to do the individual state flags. I think there's no argument around this.

I don't find your sports thing convincing. Just seriously for a moment, do you seriously believe that? Yeah, I think they should do the state flags. What about the state flags. I think there's no argument around this. I don't find your sports thing convincing. Just seriously for a moment, do you seriously believe that? Yeah, I think they should do the state flags. What about the state flags of Australia? You know, I mean, let's be honest, who cares? Oh, so America can have its state flags. That's exactly right. Exactly right. Listen, who cares, right? Nobody. How often have you ever wanted to use a state flag for one of the states in Australia? Never, right? How often does someone

from Texas want to use a Texas flag emoji? I bet every day of their life, Texans are sad that they don't have an official Texas emoji to use. I bet they're sad every day. Sad Texans in their hats. Yeah, well, is there not an emoji of like a cowboy hat or something? It's not the same as Texas. And think of all of those states. They could have such a beautiful field of barely distinguishable blue icons with some kind of muddy yellow logo in the center, each of them to pick from. It could be amazing. I can already foresee the day where on the four inch screen of my iPhone SE. I am trying to distinguish the New York State flag by looking for a tiny Excelsior written at the bottom of a banner or a smiling sun face in the middle of a field in the background.

Trying to distinguish that from all of the various other blue flags with a seal in the center. I look forward to that day. Could an emoji possibly contain the spectacular horror that is the Maryland state flag? I wonder how many pixels by how many pixels a standard emoji is. I mean, I know Apple did just make an announcement that they're going to embiggen their emoji by three times. Even still, I can easily imagine that when you have to pick it out in that tiny little keyboard at the bottom, there is simply no way to distinguish the flags.

And the Maryland flag, at least you'll be able to pick it out. But how much detail will it accurately represent of their flag? I bet none. In all seriousness, I do realize there would be a greater demand for American state flags than any other state flags. Of course. But you cannot put the American state flags in at people, as other countries, I think has a higher ranking and should be brought into the fold before we even have the conversation about state flags. Yeah, but like, how many people even live in Wales? I have to look this up now. Like,

100,000 people? Hey, they just made the semi-finals of the Euros. More people live in Wales than Iceland. Maybe. I haven't checked that fact. Yeah, I know. What is it? What have we got here, Wales? How many people do live in Wales? Okay, there are 3 million people in Wales. Oh, well, that's way bigger than Iceland. And Iceland get an emoji. That's true. Iceland do get an emoji. But at least they are a fully sovereign nation.

Like they're on the world stage there. I agree. And that's why they're in. And Wales is not yet. But I think Wales needs to come in before something even less sovereign like Maryland. But does sovereignty matter or does the number of people matter? Hey, you brought it up. I'm just saying like we have to start somewhere, right?

It's like, okay, we're starting with all the sovereign nations. Okay, obviously done. Although actually, do they have all of the flags for the nations? I don't even know. I'm sure there's some nation out there that's really angry. Is there a Vatican City flag? I don't actually know. I wonder.

But after that, I think you have to start looking at populations. And that's why I think you have to go with those state flags. Figure, you know, California, Texas, New York. There's hundreds of millions of people that live in those states. Well, hang on then. Are we going to start having, like like provinces of China before we have Texas then because they've got more people? Yeah, I could get behind that. Ah, go away. We've made it clear that the decision is based on sovereignty. That decision has been

made. Okay. So we did the sovereignty level. And then I think after sovereignty, then you start looking at like, what's the market demand for a California emoji versus a Northern Ireland emoji? Okay, great. I'm with you then. So, are you now saying if all the Texans want a Texas emoji, but some little tiny state, I don't know, what's the smallest state in America? I don't even know. What's the smallest in population? Like Wyoming, of course. Wyoming is going to be the smallest. And say there's not much demand from them. Does that mean they don't get into the emoji, but Texas do? Or because we have one state flag of America, we get all the state flags at once? You have to do them as a collection,

right? We do them as a collection. That's my argument. Okay. You can start with the Chinese provinces, do them all as a collection, and then move on to the American states. There's only so much labor we have in the world to create all of these emoji. Can you hear that, Gray? Can you hear that sound? What? What sound is that? The sound of your argument crashing down around you.

I think it's perfectly solid. We have all the nations, and then let's start going through everything else in the world by population divisions. As sets, though. I think I did notice in the submission and i could be wrong on this in this submission they were going for scotland wales and england but i don't remember seeing northern ireland in the submission see now it's not even consistent if that's true that is

inconsistent maybe it's not true but i did want to quickly ask you because you know we just love talking about flags and this is a classic episode right of course i know how you feel about the union jack you think it's awesome how do you feel about the flags of england scotland and in particular wales oh i love that sigh it just it says to me grey's taking this really seriously. And you so rarely take me seriously that it makes me feel good. It's like you're settling in. I'm not just going to shoot from the hip on that one. This is going to require consideration. Do I shoot from the hip? I don't think I shoot from the hip. I don't think you put a lot of thought into your answers when I ask you questions about, say, the black stump. I think you'll just say anything to shut me up. But when you go,

I can feel your brain warming up as you start thinking about it. How do I feel about those various flags? I mean, the England one makes me kind of sleepy. I think the England one is a little boring. Do you know what I mean, though? I literally get kind of sleepy when I look at it. Yeah. But do you know what? Those really, really boring flags like England, which is for those who don't know, is just white with a red cross on it. Those flags say to me, this country's old, man. This country's seen some stuff. Because the more boring your flag, usually the older you are, because you didn't have to do anything complicated because there weren't that many other flags to compete with so when someone's got a really really boring flag it says to me you got you got to take them seriously man they've seen

stuff you can't even imagine like if you're a new country like america it's like oh let's just chuck some stars on there and some stripe no more stars more stars we're gonna we're gonna bling this baby up, man. We've got to get noticed. Whereas England's like, we don't need to be noticed, man. Like we're England. Just a cross on a white background. That's all we had when we were making flags. Stars hadn't even been invented yet. And also we couldn't dye cloth. so that's why it's white. I mean, yeah, I guess I can try to incorporate that into my thoughts on it,

but it still just kind of makes me sleepy. Okay. Scotland, which is the, what's it called? The Saltire, isn't it? St. Andrew's Cross, isn't that it? It says here on my Google that Saltire is another term for St. Andrew's Cross. Oh, okay. Even though in theory, the Scottish flag is essentially kind of like the same as the English flag because it's just now a white cross on a blue background. I feel like the Scottish flag is so much more exciting.

It doesn't make me sleepy at all looking at it. I definitely give a thumbs up to the Scottish flag without a doubt. Yeah, I have to agree with you. I have to agree. I like the navy blue, the background of it. I just, I think it's, I think it's a very good color. Would you say navy blue? Yeah, maybe navy blue is the background of it. I think it's a very good color. Would you say navy blue? Yeah, maybe navy blue is not right. Navy blue is too dark. I do not have a word in

my vocabulary for the color of blue that the Scottish flag is, but I feel like it is identifiable as this Scotland blue color. I definitely like it. All right. Then what do we have here? I mean, the Wales flag. I'm very curious to hear what you think of it. I mean, you have to talk about the Ulster banner for Northern Ireland. Well, I think in keeping with this submission, maybe we should just pretend it doesn't exist. Okay. Sorry, Northern Ireland. We're going to skip you for today, which actually makes sense thematically for a thing that I'm going to show you and ask about. So Wales, I don't know. I don't know about the Wales flag. I'm never quite sure what to think about it because on one hand they they have a dragon which takes up most of the flag.

And dragons are awesome. It's hard to argue against dragons. But at the same time, I'm not really sure that I like that dragon. I think like with many flag designs can suffer from being overly complicated and yet kind of childish at the same time. I have funny mixed feelings about that dragon. This is probably the best way to summarize my thoughts on the whale's flag. The further away from it I am, the more I like it. But the closer I get to the whale's flag, probably the less I like it. I think the whale's flag is awesome. Mm-hmm. But i realized that i probably

shouldn't and i realize you probably shouldn't i mean certainly no child could draw it because that dragon is incredibly complicated right and you're right it is a weird mixture of sort of childish and complicated but i don't know i just i think it's one of those things that's just been part of my life for so long that i kind of ignore that side of it. I just think it works. It just suits the country. And I don't know if it's because it actually suits the country or they've just been associated for so long in my head that I can't disentangle them. Right. This is, of course, the association problem that all these flags have, where you're wrapping up your feelings of the nation with the flag itself in a way that's impossible to distinguish.

Yeah. And I really like Wales and I really like Welsh people because I'm not English. Most English people don't, but I'm not actually English, of course. I'm Australian. And because Welsh people hate English people and Australians hate English people, I feel like they're my brothers. Wow. Leave your comments on the Reddit. That's some A-plus tribalism right there, Brady. Dude, it all comes down to sport. So a thing I'll ask your opinion on is,

I actually think that the Welsh dragon looks better simply as an outline, which I've seen in a few design motifs. If you just color the whole thing in as red, I think it's interesting. And there is a proposed version of the Union Jack flag, which I would like your opinion on, which combines the Wales flag into it. Because right now,

there is no Wales iconography on the Union Jack as it stands. So I have sent you an image and I'm curious to see what you think of this flag. Okay. No, fail. Fail? Not just because it's too bitty now so i have sent you an image and i'm curious to see what you think of this flag okay no fail fail not just because it's too bitty now and too complicated and the dragon's too small but also what gray has sent me is essentially the union jack with a little tiny dragon right in the middle

and it almost puts too much emphasis on the dragon because everything's pointing at it and it's right in the center and it suddenly makes wales seem like it's the center because everything's pointing at it and it's right in the center and it suddenly makes Wales seem like it's the center of everything. That's a big fail. Big fail, huh? Big fail. What about you? What do you think of that? I think it's interesting, but it's also one of these things like mandatory voting that I can never come to a solid opinion on. Every once in a while, I remember this design of flag with the Wales dragon in the center exists and I I go back and I look at it, and I can never quite make up my mind about whether I like it or whether I don't, just like with mandatory voting. I go back and forth forever for 20 years about whether I think it's a good idea or not, and I feel that exact same way about this flag. You can't mess with the union, Jack Gray. That's like, if you're

going to mess with that, where do you stop? Yeah, don't get me wrong. I would never propose that we actually change to this flag. It's just a question of, do I think this is an interesting design or not? But no, the Union Jack is an amazing flag that will hopefully, but possibly not, live forever. I am keen to talk to you about Tesla

because we didn't talk about it last time but I know you had a ride in a Tesla for the first time you broke your Tesla virginity I want to know what you think about it now you've been in one it's like obviously it's all more real I was wondering if you'd tell me anything about it I haven't asked you on or off the air and I'm really keen to know. Yeah. So our mutual friend, Marco Arment, actually gave me a ride in his Tesla. And that was part of my travels this summer when I went to New York and it just worked out that I happened to be able to possibly meet up with Marco. And then he dangled the idea of being able to ride in a Tesla in front of me. And I was like, sold. Okay. I have to make this happen now. So I went up to meet him and yeah,

we got to drive around in the Tesla for a little while. And I mean, first of all, Teslas are just super cool cars. There's no doubt about that. Like they just look cool from the outside. They're nice looking. Yeah. And I had never actually sat in one on the inside and on the inside as well. Like the Teslas are just cool. Everything about them is super sleek, I think. And one of the things that I wanted to see in the Tesla when we were driving around that is hard to get a sense of from just looking at pictures is how does this big screen work in the center? Because that's such the different thing about the interior of that car versus other cars.

So I kept looking out on the road, like as we're driving around and trying to see, how does this screen work in my peripheral vision? And especially because I am someone who, the older I get, I find I have more and more motion sickness in cars if I look down and look up even briefly to read. So it's kind of curious to see, if I'm looking out the window and then looking down at the screen and looking back up.

And I have to say, because the screen is so huge, I think it really works on the interior. And it was nice to see that they had thought through a bunch of clever design elements about how to control a bunch of things from the steering wheel or sections of the screen that never, ever, ever change. So that like in the bottom corners, you can always have muscle memory for making the car do certain things. I think like temperature controls and some other stuff was down there. So from the inside, I was very, very impressed with the Tesla. I have to say, I quite liked it. So Marco was showing off the super fast acceleration, which I did not like because I don't appreciate the sensation of super fast acceleration,

though it was very impressive. I was like, you can keep showing this off if you don't mind cleaning the interior of your car shortly. That's a game you can play if you want to. But a bunch of the things that the car does as well just seem so natural. Like, for example, that there's no jarring because of gear changing. It just seems like this is the way cars should work.

You don't miss it at all. Like, oh boy, I wish this car was really janky as it accelerated, as it tries to manually shift through gears, right? It doesn't do that at all. So that's fantastic. And then finally, the thing that I was

most interested to see was a lot of the self-driving stuff in person. And I know that I am the wrong person to evaluate this in some ways, because it's a thing that I have a lot of interest in. But I felt again, like the self-driving stuff was all so natural that it was entirely unremarkable. There was no moment of like, wow, I'm in a self-driving car and like watching this thing trying to navigate the highway and stuff. It's like, yeah, this just seems natural. Just like no gear shifts, the self-driving stuff, it seems like, yeah, this is just the way cars should work. This is the way I want these things to work. Does it just plod along in its lane?

Like it doesn't like change lanes and do overtakes, does it? Or does it? Like how much does it do on its own at the moment? Yeah, so this was one of the things that it was a bit of a funny experience because in the discussion of how soon are self-driving cars coming, Marco owning a Tesla and actually using self-driving features thinks that I am being overly optimistic about how soon these things are going to arrive. And part of what he wanted to show me in the demo was situations under which it doesn't work

or it doesn't always do precisely what you would expect it to do. And so he was trying to show me a bunch of this stuff. But my experience of sitting in the car was mostly thinking like, I think the car's doing pretty well. I think this is going great. There was a situation where we were on the highway and he has his hands off of the wheel and the car is driving on the highway. And what it does is it stays in its own lane and it tries to keep an appropriate distance from the car in front of it. But you can tell the Tesla, I would like to turn lanes without actually forcing it to. And so the car makes a decision about whether or not it's going to change lanes. And so Marco was able to essentially put the car in a situation where

he told it to change lanes, but the car wouldn't, even though there was nothing blocking the way, right? Like the Tesla clearly thought that there was some reason it shouldn't change lanes, even though everything was fine. Like a human driver would think it was okay. And I was looking at that and thinking, yeah, like that's a mistake. Like the car should be changing lanes, but it's not. But if the thing is overly cautious, like I can hardly fault it. Yeah. I mean, it's a pretty amazing thing. It's like God has parted the Red Sea and people are complaining that the sand is still a bit damp. Yeah. It's like, oh, my feet are getting wet. Yeah. I mean, I would be remiss, therefore, to not now bring up the fact we did

have our first death in a Tesla. This obviously has crossed your radar. A Tesla had a crash while in this auto drive mode. And lots of people have said, oh, what does Gray say about that? So what does Gray say about that? Well, it had to happen, didn't it? Yeah, that's exactly it. It was absolutely inevitable that somebody would die eventually in a Tesla. And I think the very fact that that is a news story

goes to show you how this is incredibly rare. And I forget what the numbers are, but Tesla came out with the numbers about like how many millions and millions of human miles have been driven in the autopilot system. And now we finally have one person has died. To me, this stuff is always just a question of there's some group of people who think it needs to be perfect before people start using it. And I am not in that group. My only question is, is it better than human drivers? And again, like the Tesla can't drive point to point. There's lots of things it can't do. There's lots of ways it's kind of cheating. So like one of the things Marco showed me that I didn't know is that on local

roads where the Tesla is clearly much more uncertain about turns and speed limits and all the rest of this, it has a kind of cheating mode where it'll follow a car in front of it on local roads in situations where it seems like it couldn't self-drive itself. And I thought, like, oh, that's interesting. This is a case where, yes, on a local road, it is much more limited, and it does way better on a highway. So again, this stuff isn't self-self-driving, but it's like, I really feel like it's going to be better than human drivers very shortly. Yes, people will die, but horrific numbers of people die on the roads right now. So when people sent via Twitter and a whole bunch of other ways, like, oh my gosh, what do I think

about someone dying in a Tesla? It's like, well, I don't really think about it very much. I just do not think it matters. I don't think it's an important news story in any way. I mean, do you disagree with that? fire up the cheer pressure or have, you know, have people pile on. And I know there's all this debate about the incident itself, but if it was caused by the fact that the camera and the computer couldn't tell the difference between the white side of a lorry and the white sky, that is quite a motive. It's quite a good scare story. And if that is the case, I hope they fix it. But I kind of agree. It's a bit cliche, but you know, people die in plane crashes all the time and it doesn't stop us flying and things like that. So I think it's not like a big, big deal. But this move to self-driving cars is less of a technology battle

and more of a battle for hearts and minds. I have to say I've come to your way of thinking. You know, I always thought this was further away in the future than you did. And I now think it's closer. It just seems to be all happening so quickly now. So many trials, so many implementations in sort of real world environments that I thought was a bit further down the road. It's already happening. So I'm sort of thinking Gray was right on this one. I think this is going to happen quick now. A question I have for you, because you are much more plugged into the news than I am, because my only experience of hearing about the story is people individually contacting

me about it. But I'm willing to bet that this story is not gaining a huge amount of traction. It is a news story. And of course, like the news is filled with anomalous events. Like that's basically what the news is, a collection of things that are unusual. But is this gaining lots of traction? Like are people super concerned? Or is this just yet another in the endless stream of news stories that just washes by that nobody really cares about two weeks later? It happened at a good time for Tesla, because there are so many other massive things happening in the world at the moment that in the fight for news time and coverage, it probably didn't get as much as it could have. But it got a fair bit, it got a fair bit, like, you know, and it's still coming up. It's still

being brought up in articles, and I'm still seeing it around the place. So when you say it's a battle for hearts and minds, I'm not even convinced that that's the case. I feel like there has been a real silent shift in people's thoughts on self-driving cars. I have a feeling that much, much more of the population feels like, oh, this is just a thing that's coming. And I don't bet that this is going to be like a big story that causes problems for Tesla in the long run. I have a hard time imagining that's for Tesla in the long run. I have a hard time imagining that's going to be the case. I think you're right. I think the only thing that's going to hurt Tesla and the other people advocating self-driving cars

will be a spate or like some kind of glitch where three or four happen in the same way. So I think you're right. I think the one-off hasn't hurt them really badly and they'll only get hurt if there's some systematic problem. Is there anything you didn't like about the Tesla? Well, it was funny because when I was sitting in the car and we're driving along the road, I'm thinking, wow, everything in this Tesla seems amazing.

Like, I love this future space car. I wish I could have any reason to buy one, right? Like, no reason at all. Wish I could have a reason to buy one. I asked Marco the same question. I said, is there anything about this car that you don't like? And he had a couple of minor dislikes about it, but overall he seemed really, really happy with the car as well. And so I feel like I had nothing in particular to say like, oh, I didn't like this about the car. It struck me as totally wrong.

And the owner of the car had a few complaints, but nothing I can even remember at this later point of being like, oh, wow, that's a really good point. Like that is a really annoying feature that I wouldn't have thought about or wouldn't have realized until I own it. It's just like, nope, everything about this car seems amazing. So two thumbs up for Tesla. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by Igloo. Now, many of you might be working at a big company with an intranet that is just a terrible, terrible piece of software to work with. I mean, actually, is it even really a piece of software? It feels much more like it's a bunch of pipes connected to

old computers held together with duct tape. Most intranets are just awful. I used awful intranets at my school. But Igloo is something different. Igloo is a feeling of levity compared to other intranets because Igloo is an intranet you will actually like. Go to igloosoftware.com slash hello and just take a look at the way igloo looks. They have a nice, clean, modern design that will just be a relief on your sad, tired eyes compared to the intranet that you are currently working with at your company. And igloo is not just a pretty face. Igloo lets you share news, organize your files, coordinate calendars, and manage your projects all in one place. And it's not just files in a bucket either.

Their latest upgrade, Viking, revolves around interacting with documents, how people make changes to them, how you can receive feedback on them. If you're the man in charge, there's an ability to track who has seen what across the internet. So you can have something like read receipts in email where you know if everyone has actually seen and signed off on whatever document they need to. So if your company has a legacy internet that looks like it was built in the 1990s, then you should give Igloo a try. Please sign up for a free trial at igloosoftware.com slash hello to let Igloo know that you came from us. You want to do some corners? I see we have a paper cut corner here.

Oh, yeah. Brady's paper cut. There's a lot of sport going on in the world at the moment gray oh oh boy there always seems to be i know to you isn't there always sports there should always be sport because people love sporting events so there should always be sporting events going on right yeah but we've been there's been a rich vein just lately oh okay anyway. Like always. Yeah. So everyone's saying to me,

oh, tell Gray about Iceland at the Euros or Wales at the Euros or tell him about this or tell him about that. And there's no point doing that. Oh, thank God. I'm not going to do that. Oh, thank God. Yeah. A few nations that have had unexpected success in the Euros does not compare to my mind with the

amazing story that is leicester city just because i brought up that leicester city story i'm not going to bring up every underdog story that happens in sport on the podcast because gray will probably stop being my friend yeah yeah very likely imagine i have just as much patience for this stuff as your wife would some some but not an infinite well okay so all the sport i've been watching lately and the media coverage lately has brought up two things there's two things i've noticed that get my goat that annoy me okay so i thought i'd bring them up one is when commentators and pundits and people telling the story of sport talk about getting revenge or banishing memories. And I think there's a real inequality in it that shows how much they

live in the moment. Let me give you an example. Say two teams play in the World Cup final. Okay. Say Liberia plays China in the World Cup final. Okay. Right. And Liberia win, right? All right. The next time those two countries meet, and it could be in a lesser tournament, and it could be like in the quarterfinals,

and this time China win, commentators always say they got their revenge. They banished the memories of that World Cup loss, and they finally got their revenge on Liberia by beating them. That is not revenge. The only way you can get like total revenge for a sporting loss is to have an equivalent game like another World Cup final and this time win.

That's the only way you can erase the memory or get them back or square the ledger but because sports people always want to hype up the current game they'll always say this game is a chance to get revenge for that previous game it is not revenge if it is not the same tournament at the same level beating someone in a quarterfinal four years after you lost in the final, that's not revenge. That annoys me. I thought you were going to say the only way for China to get revenge in this scenario would be to take over and annex Liberia. Well, let me tell you what revenge is. Revenge is wiping Liberia off the face of the earth, right? Does taking turns winning a game you're playing with each other,

is there any way that that can even remotely count as revenge? No, it cannot, right? No, no. Well, I mean, that would be going the other way. I think the whole premise of even revenge in a sporting event doesn't make any sense. Even if the games are equivalent, it still doesn't make any sense at all. It's like you're playing a game with each other and someone won and then someone else won, as will inevitably happen. Revenge is something that you plot stealthily for for years and like you spring upon your opponent when they have no idea what's going to happen.

As opposed to a thing that takes place within a rigid and ordered system that has rules that we all agree on. I don't think the concept of revenge makes any sense in this whole arena. Well, okay. Maybe you don't like the word revenge, but there is this whole thing about squaring the ledger, you know, getting them back for the defeat and say, you defeat us in this game. now we defeated you, everything's even. I say everything is not even if the game is not of the same importance. But commentators don't seem to realize that. They want to hype up the game they're talking about. No, I'm sure they totally do realize it, but they're doing precisely what you're saying. They're just trying to hype it up.

It's just like the news, Brady, right? They know a lot of the stuff that they're talking about is dumb and won't matter in a week, but they want to hype it up so that it feels like it's really important right now. Don't you agree with that analogy? Yeah, there's a bit of that. Moving right along. And the other thing that's really getting on my nerves at the moment, especially in the world of sport, but I know it pervades all media, is this thing everyone does where they use three words and they punctuate it there's a lot of sport in my twitter feed and say someone scores a goal in a game of sports ball there'll be this tweet from some supposedly reputable organization usually the bbc suddenly writing like some teen

vlogger and they will say what a goal all. All capitalised, which I hate because that's like the internet equivalent of shouting. And there'll be a full stop after every word. What? Full stop. A. Full stop. Goal.

Oh man, that annoys me. It annoys me. Apparently there are forums and things dedicated to people who hate this but this is this is really getting me at the moment do you are you familiar with this it's becoming a bit of a meme-y thing to do isn't it to sort of have these three punctuated words to add emphasis yeah this is just people trying to communicate on the internet with the limited bandwidth that you have for twitter i have not seen this in particular Maybe this is a sporting thing that will eventually bleed over into my internet as well. It happens in politics as well a bit, I think.

Sports and politics, the two things I follow so closely. So, no, I have not seen these on my Twitter timeline. When this episode comes out, I'm going to tweet brand full stop, new full stop episode. Perfect. Hashtag, hello internet. Right. And you know what? Let's see if just like clickbaiting headlines, we get tremendous traffic from that tweet, right?

It gets retweeted all over the place. People will go nuts for it, right? Because that's probably why people are doing this. People like it. All right, everyone. Go ahead. Send me your three word tweets. And I'll block you i tell you what what are we gonna keep classicking on here gray you're gonna let me keep going as

always i feel like the first half three quarters eighty percent of the show is always somehow like out of my control yeah and then i'll let you drone on for 20 minutes at the end while i have a little nap exactly you're like am i gonna let him go on for 20 minutes at the end while I have a little nap. Exactly. You're like, am I going to let it go on? It's like, no, Brady's just throwing out topics. Let's do this. Let's do that.

Like, just, okay, go with this. Maybe we'll cut that. Maybe we won't. Who knows, right? Just go, go, go. You stop with these little moments. You're like, ooh, can I try this? It's like, whatever, man. I know at this stage, you're just going to go with it.

So what do you want to do next in our classic episodes? What do you think is going to happen next? Well, you know what the most requested corner is of all. Even you must know this. Plane crash corner. You said it. All right. Is there a plane crash that you want to talk about? I do want to talk about a plane crash. But first of all, I want to tell you that I flew for the first time by the way i haven't said but i'm in san francisco at the moment and you're back in england so like it's like we're alternating between episodes we essentially passed each other like ships in the

night one going to and one coming from california so yeah we are we did we are now in opposite positions again recording with of course cal, California's fantastic time zone shift, which makes everything super convenient. But I flew in the, and I think it must have been the first time I've flown in one, in the 787, Boeing 787, the Dreamliner. Oh. The Tesla of the skies, maybe. Maybe. And maybe I'm overstating the case a bit there, but it is super high tech. I don't know if you've been on one, but the thing that blew my mind was

the windows in this plane. Are you familiar with the windows in the Dreamliner? I've heard of this plane. I have never been in one. I've never really looked it up. I'm just pulling up some pictures now, but what's up with the windows? Because from the outside, at least they look like normal windows. Yeah, they're a little bit bigger than normal, but also they have in them this electric gel. So there's no shutter that you pull up and down. There's just buttons underneath and you press buttons and it tints the window to different levels depending on your setting. And also it puts this strange hue in the window so if you're flying in the middle of the day i happen to fly in the middle of the day from england to california which can be quite disorienting and not that good for your body but it casts this like bluish hue across

the windows for most of the flight so it kind of looked like night outside like the sun looked like the moon and all the landscape had this bluey look to it like it was nighttime. And it felt like it was night. It was amazing. So you could still look out the window and see like the terrain below. But you felt like you were looking over the US at night. And then if you went and found a window that didn't have this on, it was like broad daylight. So it was really cool.

It was a really nice gimmick. Wait, could individual people turn on and off the blue effect is that something that was under your control as the window seat person i'm not entirely sure but the impression i had was you could control it yourself at certain times and at other times i think they took control of it so that you couldn't have one idiot streaming the cabin with bright light while everyone else was trying to sleep on my flight to america i was the one idiot who had the window open i didn't realize until the flight attendant came over and gave me a harsh talking to like ah sir everybody else in this cabin is asleep why don't you close your window oh sorry i'm trying to do work anyway that's not my plane crash thank

goodness because i was on that plane right right but let me give you a plane crash corner and this is something that made the news a little while ago now and i didn't bring it up because we haven't done a podcast for so long and we talk about lots of other stuff but this caught my attention because also has told me something about myself which i want to ask you about at the end first of all let me tell you the story You'll like this because it's got an obscure pompous name. I want to tell you about Operation Thonipa. Thonipa? I'm sure my pronunciation is incorrect because this is an Incan god of knowledge. And basically, to start from the beginning, there was a flight on January the 1st in 1985. Eastern flight 980.

And this was a flight that was going from Paraguay to Miami, and it was going to stop in a couple of other places on the way. This is in 1985? 1985. Don't trust me. Trust me, Gray. We're getting there. We're getting there. All right. Take my hand and lead me through this journey then. Hold my hand. It will all make sense at the end. Okay. This plane with 29 people on it, I think it was 19 passengers and 10 crew, which is quite a high ratio of crew to passengers actually, suffered what is called a sea fit crash. This is a controlled flight into terrain, which I think is a lovely way of saying it flew into a mountain. Okay. And it flew into this mountain called Mount Ilamani in Bolivia and it hit the mountain at

a height of about 6,000 meters and I think to this day that's the highest ever sea fit crash there's been that's the highest a plane's ever been when it flew into a mountain everyone died so this was obviously quite a hard spot to get to, but they did send investigators. And a little piece of side trivia here, the lead investigator they sent was a guy called Greg Feith or Feith. And anyone who watches Air Crash Investigation, my favourite TV show, will know this guy because this is like the talking head that they bring in to talk about every plane crash.

He's like the dial a quote sort of guy. He's quite a well-known crash investigator because of that. He was called in. They went up the mountain. It it was covered in snow the debris was all over the place it was like a huge crash site everything was smashed to smithereens basically they couldn't find anything particularly useful and they left 1985 they didn't find the flight recorders, right? Okay. Way up this mountain. In 2006, some of the wreckage started revealing itself because snow was melting and there's glaciers and rocks and stuff moving around. And some of the wreckage started revealing itself again. Now, what happened was there were these two guys called Dan and Isaac. I think they're from like Boston or Massachusetts somewhere. And they read about this and they sound like my kind of guys

because they're interested in plane crashes and they're interested in mountains. And they saw that the flight recorders had never been found. And they looked up other crashes where flight recorders haven't been found. And there's quite a few of them. Most of them are deep underwater. But this one obviously isn't. This one's on land. So this year, just recently, they decided to go on like an adventure holiday

to this mountain to try and find the crash site and try and find the flight recorders from this 1985 crash. I can't believe you haven't combined your interests of mountains and plane crashing to do this exact same adventure. Dude, that's why I'm talking about it. I can't believe I didn't think of it. So these dudes are legends. So they've gone to this mountain in Bolivia in a place that sounds like it's not without challenges of various sorts. And I've got a few people to help them. They've gone up this mountain.

They found this crash site and all the rock and the crevasses and everything. And they've started finding bits of metal. And I think they've spent three or four days there. And on the final day, they've turned over a piece of metal, which turns out to be orange on the other side, which is the colour of black boxes, funnily enough, as everyone knows, black boxes are orange, of course. And it's got this cable off it saying CVR, cockpit voice recorder, and they find part of the flight recorder

and they find some magnetic tape as well, which is probably what was in the recorder and some other bits and pieces. And I doubt they're going to get much from it because it happened in 1985, but they've brought this stuff back in the hope of maybe finding out more about what happened to this crash. But I just think it's amazing that these two dudes who are like just dudes have said, man, let's go to where that crash happened up that mountain in Bolivia and see if we can find

the flight recorder that all the investigators didn't find. And they go there and they find it. That is great. I love it when people just do a thing. I still say the intersection of these interests, it's amazing to me that you have not considered doing this before. I think there is a market in going to famous plane crash sites. I mean, I know for a fact of one famous plane crash site also in South America that people do do tours to. This is the one where the plane crash happened from

the film Alive, where the people spent months and months with their wreckage in the mountains, and they ended up eating the dead bodies of people who died in the crash to stay alive. And then they got rescued all this time later. You familiar with this crash? Yeah, I think I saw the movie Alive. Yeah, it's really famous. And people do go on tourist trips to the site where that happened. Really? They do, yeah.

I was looking at it on the internet, looking at the prices. Because it's in the mountains as well. And, you know, I love mountains. So, you know, it's got everything. It's got mountains, it's got everything. It's got mountains. It's got drama. It has everything. I think the dream one to go to for me would be Mount Erebus in Antarctica, where a plane famously crashed.

Because there you're going up a mountain. You've got a plane crash site and it's Antarctica. I don't know. I don't know if you can go there. So what's going to happen here, Brady? I mean, are you trying to tell me slowly and gently that you're going to incorporate a mountaineering stroke plane crash cornering tourist business? Like, is that what your next venture is going to be? Because it sounds like that's what you're

working toward. I'm not working towards it. The thing I wanted to bring up, the reason I found this interesting was when I first heard about up, the reason I found this interesting was when I first heard about this, I had a bit of a reluctance to read about it because they had a blog and stuff like that. And I think they went with a journalist. So there's obviously more stuff to come. But I was initially a little bit reluctant to read about it. And this is a feeling I often have that I want to see if it's just me,

whether other people have this. But I sometimes don't enjoy reading or watching about other people's cool adventures because I think, well, that's their cool adventure and I'm not having that. So why do I want to watch them doing something awesome? I want to do something awesome. And my wife doesn't understand this like quite often. She now understands it because it's what I'm like. But for example, if there's a documentary like Michael Palin goes and does a great travel show through the Himalayas,

she's like, oh, let's watch that. It'll be so inspirational and you'll see so much amazing stuff. And I'm like, oh, I don't want to go and watch Michael Palin have a cool adventure in the Himalayas. Like good for him. You know, that's him having an awesome time. That's not me having an awesome time. So, I really very often don't like watching travel shows because I feel like I don't want to watch someone else doing something cool.

I'd rather spend my time doing something cool myself. Is that weird? I'm not going to say it's weird because I'm talking to you. Like, I think I can understand why you wouldn't want to do that. But I can say that it's abnormal. There's no way that that's not abnormal. Yeah, I guess because those TV shows are so popular. So obviously lots of people are watching. Right, because, yeah, exactly.

Most people want to watch those kinds of things. They want to sit in the comfort of their own home and watch somebody else have an adventure. Isn't that exciting to see somebody else do this thing? Isn't it entertaining to see somebody else go on an adventure? I definitely don't. Unless it's something I can't do, like go to the moon. Right.

That is not my attitude. So when I first heard about this Operation Thonipa with Dan and Isaac, my first instinct was, well, I don't want to see that because they're just having the coolest adventure. And I could have done that. And now I'm going to be thinking, why aren't I doing that? But this was just too cool that I had to look. And these guys are clearly legends for doing this.

So it's a cool story. They've got a blog. Go and read about it. They've done a cool thing. Plane crash, mountains, living the dream. If you did a TV adventure, like some TV station contacts you and they say, oh, we're going to hook you up with a traveling the world, amazing adventure thing, and we're going to film it,

and we're going to make a documentary about it, right? After it was done and over, would you want to watch your own adventure on TV? Yeah. I'd be okay watching that. Because that's like my holiday photos. Okay. Okay.

So that's what it is. So you wouldn't feel like, I don't want to watch me having an adventure. I already had that adventure. I want to go on the next adventure. No, no, no, no, no. It's not that. I did a video when I went to Everest Base Camp where I boiled water at all these different altitudes.

A video of yours I love, by the way. I'm going to put that in the show notes. I think there's something fantastic and beautiful about that video. It's one of my favorite things that you've ever done is that video. Thank you. That's, that's really kind. And, and I don't watch my videos back very often, but that is one of my videos that maybe once every six months or I will watch again and enjoy like just as as watching it but I don't think I would enjoy watching someone else do it well maybe maybe I would enjoy someone else doing that because I've been there but I find it hard to watch other people having really amazing adventures I'm happy for them I don't not want them to have a good time and have those adventures

I think it's brilliant but it's just like watching it just like frustrates me. I'm like, oh, that's something I should be doing. That looks awesome. So for clarity's sake, it's not any kind of envy or you don't envy them their experience. You just feel like you should be having the adventure. I think I kind of do envy it, but I don't begrudge them it. Like I don't, I'm not upset that they're having it. I'm happy that they're having it. But I guess it only applies to things I could conceivably do. Like for example, I don't mind watching

Andy Murray win Wimbledon and lift the trophy. I'm not thinking, damn it, why aren't I winning Wimbledon? Like, cause I get that I can't win Wimbledon. So I'll watch that. Right, this is why I was trying to close in on it. Like what are the edges of this thing? And it's like, fiction doesn't seem to be, like you're fine with watching fiction

because it's not real and you don't feel feel like I should be saving middle earth, right? That's not how you feel about it. No, no. I don't know exactly what it means. That's why I bring it up. I don't completely understand it. Well, obviously it means that you must be having adventures all the time if this is the way you feel about it. No, of course. Yeah. I mean, I should, I'd love to have it. Obviously I'm not. Most of the time I'm sitting around editing videos and eating donuts, but I find it not an enjoyable use of my time watching other people have nice holidays. Are they holidays? Right. Because I wouldn't enjoy watching other people have nice holidays either. That sounds like terribly boring television.

And also it's like a totally different kind of thing. Whereas I'll happily watch somebody have an adventure. I'll happily watch all of those survival shows where people slowly starve to death over the space of a month. Like, great, I'll turn that on for entertainment any day of the week. But someone having a holiday, No, that sounds terribly boring. I mean, I love a good documentary about someone like climbing a mountain, like proper mountaineering, like, you know, something happening on K2 and stuff like that. Wait, how is that different than watching a documentary? Because I can't do that. Because I can't do that. You can't climb K2? Definitely not. Okay.

I don't know if I've ever said before but the summit on netflix about people climbing k2 is the best mountain documentary i've ever watched you should watch that gray it's the best one if i if i can only watch one i should watch that one if you only watch one mountain thing ever watch the summit okay it's on netflix it's really good watch it man watch it you watch it and we'll talk about it. Okay. All right. Note made. I've watched it three or four times. But I'm not watching Michael Palin drinking tea and having a nice time with people as he walks through the Himalayas.

One other thing it feels like we have to do in a classic, classic episode is, well, you call it the bi-weekly weigh-in. Oh, this? This is what you want to do? It's more of a health corner. I don't want to do this, but it's not a classic episode if we don't do, like, Grey's health corner where he smugly tells me how awesome he is now

and how I'm still super unfit. Is that how this works? Is that how this has ever worked? Or is that your own personal resentment? Yeah, maybe it's like watching a documentary. I don't want to watch a documentary about how grey is becoming really healthy. Okay, I love this. You don't want to do it, trying to make me look bad, but you're still going to bring it up as a corner. Okay, so sure, sure. What do you want

to talk about in the Hello Internet semi-random, sometimes we talk about health if Brady's in the mood, or we're doing a classic episode corner? So, the thing I'm wondering, I guess, is, you know, you reached your target weight and everything was good and you did a great job. Like, what have you done since? Have you like kept like the same regime or was your regime able to now change to keep a steady weight or did your weight go up like since you kind of hit your target and everything was good what's been your course of action since i mean it's interesting

because i just came back from spending a month in america right fatland right? Fatland. Yeah. Fatland, USA, population lard, right? It's so difficult here, man. It's, you know, but like everything, everything in America is incredibly delicious and so good. And all I can say is when I go to America, the thing I always think of now is, thank God, at least I'm not in the South, which is like America's America, right? Where everything is just amplified again with deliciousness. So I was like, okay, at least I'm just in California. I only have to deal with that level of how good all of the food is. Before you tell me about what's happened since you came back from America. I mean, I am in California and I'm in Berkeley, which is like, you know, trendy, healthy place too.

But even here, it's difficult. I was in Safeway last night and I just fancied some cookies. So I went to the cookie section and I just wanted a few cookies. And I went to this huge table where they sell all the cookies. I could not find a box of cookies that they were selling that had less than 30 cookies in it. It wasn't an option. I just like, I just want to buy like two or three of those cookies. But you couldn't, you could only buy these huge, huge clear boxes full of cookies. And then I went, there is this pizza place right near where I'm staying called the Cheese Board, which is really famous. It does really nice pizza. And I went there the other night and I was lining up in the queue because there's always a huge queue for the pizza, it was nearly closing time and when I got to order my pizza I did the disciplined thing and I

ordered only half a pizza because they always throw you a few extra pieces beyond what you order anyway it's like a tradition okay that's interesting oh they always do it so I knew I was going to get half a pizza plus two or three slices so So I said, can I have half a pizza, please? And because it was near closing time and they still had lots of pizzas because they only make one flavor pizza and they just churn them out and that's just what you have to have that day. So when I ordered half a pizza, they said, no problems. Gave me a whole pizza in the box, gave it to me.

And then just as I was about to walk away, he winked at me and said, oh, by the way, and he gave me a second whole pizza. So here's another one for it. I tried to do the right thing and order half a pizza and I walked away with two pizzas and I'm on my own. I'm just this, I was this lonely guy walking back to my Airbnb with two whole pizzas. People just shaking their heads, Looking at me. Look at that dude. Look at that dude. Two pizzas, buddy. You should not be eating two pizzas, my friend.

That's when you need to buy several drinks, like a six pack of soda, just so it looks like you're bringing supplies to a party. Instead of just like, oh, here's me with my two pizzas and my one Diet Coke. So it's really clear that I intend to eat all of this by myself. Right? You need camouflage drinks to cover that. Yeah. Just holding your phone to your ear, even though you're not using it, saying, yeah, yeah, I'll be there in a minute, guys.

Yeah, right. Keep the party going. Oh, God. So anyway, you're back from Fatland. Yeah yeah but i'm laughing as well because that's my experience in california i mean like nobody handed me two pizzas with a wink and a smile but i i did have this feeling that like oh it's going to be way easier in california at least to eat healthier because they're a bunch of hippies but it's like you know what it's still so hard and even the healthy stuff comes in enormous portions. And when you're surrounded by everything else, it's like, do I really want to go to like granola barn or do I want to go to IHOP?

It's like, I want to go to IHOP. That's what I want to do. It's just so hard. Okay, so the interesting thing here is we sort of touched upon a while ago that I had been changing some of my morning routines with like Pratt and getting coffee in the mornings and doing a bunch of stuff. And over time, I eventually kind of stumbled upon the realization that breakfast is an optional meal if you're mentally prepared for that, which is an interesting thing to kind of realize in my life, that all of my life I have always thought, oh, if I don't have breakfast, things will be just absolutely terrible. But over the past several months, I have slowly learned that breakfast is optional as long as I'm psychologically prepared for that fact when I get up in the morning, that I know I'm going to skip breakfast.

So don't even try it stomach. And we're going to eat later. We're going to eat at lunch. So this is, this is a piece of information that I kind of discovered about myself over time. And one of the things that I decided when I was going to fat land USA was that I was going to intentionally skip breakfast in the morning for the entire time that I was there because I thought at the very least, this will be some kind of damage minimization process because I am a man who loves his breakfast and America is a land that does breakfast really well. And so I thought, I'm just going to take this out as an option to try to reduce calorie intake.

And much to my surprise, even though I wasn't super great about eating stuff in America, especially during conference time, when you keep meeting up with people and like everywhere you go, you're meeting someone for a meal and you're eating something. Or I just find when I'm like drained from talking with people all the time, like I just really want to eat something to kind of pick up my energy. I was kind of crap with the food, but I think skipping breakfast really worked because

miracle of miracles, I came back from America a single pound heavier after a month, which I felt like was a tremendous, tremendous victory. Nice. Great. You've cracked the nut, mate. I've got to give it to you. You've done it. Yeah. I mean, not to gloat in your face or anything, but I'm still under 200 pounds. I'm 199 again. Like America just nudged me ever so slightly over 200 pounds. I am again back under 199. So that's where we are for the biweekly, not biweekly at all. You're living the Fitatron 5000 dream. Except there's one thing, if we're ever going to bring back the occasional biweekly way and actually talking about Health Corner, which I have let go because as someone once

told me, if you love a biweekly way and you have to let it go, and if it comes back, then it was meant to be. So I'm never going to push anything. But I will say the one place that I have consistently and frustratingly failed is with the running. Like I have still not been able to run a complete 5k without doing a significant portion of it actually walking. And it's weird because I haven't given up the running. I just, I find that I've gone for stretches of not doing it. And so then I'm not in shape to do it. And I kind of have to start over with the program. And so that is a place where I have definitely fallen down on it. So like just throwing it out there. But, you know, we could always do something with the running

because I do feel like being on the public hook, it's helpful. And you seem to be much better at the running than I am. I did bring my running gear with me and I went for a run the other morning and I decided I wanted to get to the bay, to the coast from where I'm staying, which is a bit of a run. So I was running and running and it ended up being further than I expected and took me longer than I expected to get there. So eventually I got to like the waterfront and thought,

oh, this is nice. But I'd gone so far, I was like, oh, now I'm really, really far from home. So I got an Uber home. That's fair. That's totally fair. It does feel a little bit sad when you're in your running gear and you're getting an Uber back to where you started. But I did a fair run. I have to say,

like, even when I'm unfit and I am unfit, I am able to still run. It does remind me of something. I think this is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. And this is something my wife said to me. When we were in Bhutan, we did a couple of long walks up mountains and stuff. And my wife's a really fit person. She goes to the gym all the time and she's in great shape. And we were climbing up these mountains. And sometimes I was doing it as strong as her. Sometimes I'd be walking in front of her and I'm not fit.

And I wouldn't be drinking water and I'd just soldier on up the hill even though I'm struggling. I just keep going. And she did say to me at one point, you just have so much grit. Like, you shouldn't be able to do this, but you're just so stubborn that you just keep going. Like, I guess it's the hardest nails thing. I was going to say, did she turn to you and say, you're hard as nails? No, she would never say that.

But I liked the word grit. She knows I'm not fit, but I've just have like this stubbornness that even though my body shouldn't be able to do it, I'm just like, well, I'm not stopping. That's for wimps. So running's never really a problem. But you're right. Maybe running is the key for me and for you as well. Maybe we'll like, you know, we'll come up with some kind of rivalry. Maybe we'll have a race one day. Yeah. Maybe this is a thing that we can revisit. I'm not going to pressure anything.

I will never mention it. I will, you know, I'm just, I'm letting it go. All right, well, there you go. We've done a bi-weekly weigh-in, health is sometimes occasionally corner. So I think we've ticked most of the boxes for a classic episode. I think we have as well.

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for a risk-free, no credit card required trial. Sign up today and thanks to Backblaze for supporting the show. There is one thing we have to talk about. Do we have to? Do we have to talk about it? I think we kind of do. I kind of don't want to either, but I think we kind of have to. There's been so much happening in the world of elections and politics and stuff, but the big one,

and I'm getting asked about it all the time since arriving in America, is the UK Brexit vote, the referendum about whether or not the UK was going to stay in the European Union or leave the European Union. You were out of the country for this, weren't you? Yeah, I was out of the country. I was at VidCon when the vote actually happened, or when the results came in. Again, because of the confusing timeline, it was late in LA. And suddenly, I started getting messages from people and realizing like, oh, right, everybody is waking up in the UK right now to votes having been counted. So that's where I was when it occurred.

And if you are listening on the planet Mars and don't realize, the UK voted, I think it was 52% voted to leave the European Union. Yeah, it was 52 to voted to leave the European Union. Yeah, it was 52 to 48 to leave the European Union. Quite a high turnout. It was in the 70s, I think, percentage turnout. So quite a strong turnout. Yeah, I saw some comparisons. It is like the highest voter turnout in decades for anything.

Not only is just like the number of voters high, but it's the percentage of the possible electorate was also unusually high for the election. So tons of people turned out. So there you go. Supposedly the UK is now going to leave the European Union. Yeah. I mean, this is so many people want us to talk about it, but it's one of those things as well. Like I haven't been following the details super closely. Like when it was first announced and when I was in LA, I did kind of follow the news for a while, but it was, it was mainly because I was supposed to be at some party

and I was being a curmudgeon. I'm like, this party is really loud. I don't want to be here. It's hard to talk to people. And then suddenly when news starts rolling in, it's like, wow, news seems like a much more attractive option. So I just like left and sat down on Twitter for a while trying to read through news stories and see like what's going on with Brexit, like as the results were actually coming in, because at first it was, oh, it looks like this is the way it's going to happen. And then it really did become official. So I kind of followed it right at the start. And then I have only heard some of the major beats of this that

have occurred in the past two weeks. But as you might expect with anything like I haven't been following it super, super close every day. I mean, since it happened, the British politics has like, just like exploded. Like it's been crazy. But I don't think that's particularly what most people would like to hear about, because that's probably of more interest to to british people but it's like it has been like house of cards since because obviously the prime minister resigned and then there's been all sorts of machiavellian machinations going on and like stuff you couldn't make up and everyone's resigning and stabbing everyone in the back and you couldn't make it up. But I guess that's kind of the fallout. The result itself, I mean, were you surprised? Were you pleased?

Is it what you expected? Are you disappointed? Do you have any feelings about what happened? I mean, well, if you go back and listen to our episode where we talk about this before it occurred, I feel like I probably have a lot of the same feelings. Like I made it pretty clear in that episode that my position is that it would be better for the UK to stay in. And that was your position as well. And also the thing that we talked about at that time was it's a very hard thing to discuss

in any meaningful way. And part of the reason that I haven't followed the politics super closely this time around is because I feel it's the same thing again. Like when I look into what's going on with Brexit, it's like, OK, we did this vote. People voted. There is a clear outcome from the vote. That is not in any amount of uncertainty. But what happens next?

It seems like it's the same problem again. Who knows? There's no details. There's no procedure. There's no plan. There's no prime minister to enact anything. And all the people who fought for it have all left the ship. It's like people set fire to the house and then walked away.

Yeah, what you're describing there is it's like the leader of UKIP resigned and there's been a whole bunch of other things about like people who were prominent Brexit cheerleaders that kind of want nothing to do with it after it actually happens, which I don't think is any kind of like real surprise in some ways. But it does mean that at the time of recording, we are in this position where it is just a total shrugging shoulders, hands up in the air emoji

about what is actually going to occur. Like what's going to happen, it is unknown. I mean, what do you think? What do you think? Well, obviously I have trepidation about speaking about politics in a public forum because people feel so strongly about it. And most people are pretty entrenched in their positions. Yeah. And you could say I'm entrenched in my position.

So, like, it's not like you're going to persuade anyone of anything. You're either just going to have people agree with you or get angry at you. It's not really a discussion. But I'll talk about it because, you know, people who follow me on Twitter probably know what I think about it. Because after we spoke about it on the podcast, probably in the last week or two before the vote itself, I started to feel more strongly about it. And I really hoped that we would stay as part of Europe. And I started following the debate a lot more closely. And a lot of things happened in the last week or two before the vote, which, you know, we don't need to go into all the

details, but I hoped we would stay. Now, all the people I'm friends with think the same as me on Facebook and a lot of my Twitter feed and like that. So, I was surrounded by a lot of reinforcing comments where everyone was saying, we have to stay, we're going to stay, it's all great. So if you were to look at my Facebook feed, it would be inconceivable to you that the vote would go the way it did. Yeah. And this is a total phenomenon that everybody experiences politically. It doesn't matter what election for what event, just the way people naturally sort themselves, you are almost certainly going to find yourself in a situation where the vast majority of people you know and or follow online agree with you. And so results seem surprising. But I was not totally surprised. I was a little bit surprised, but not totally surprised because luckily for me, I have a diverse enough range of friends that I have a few friends from different

parts of England to me who felt the opposite. And I would occasionally see posts from them and I'd be like, really? You really think that? And I would sometimes go clicking off down those rabbit holes into their worlds of friends. And suddenly I was seeing whole different feeds and whole different worlds where it was overwhelmingly the other way. And my way of thinking wasn't represented at all. So it was kind of a wake-up call for me that,

hang on a second, this may well go the other way. And of course it did go the other way. And I'm really disappointed by it. And I feel a bit like a parent. It's almost like I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. But I am also a little bit angry about it. But I kind of feel a bit helpless about it and I have cooled down quite a lot

since the week or two after the debate but I just think it was such a wrong-headed decision by so many people and it's almost like I'm just like I feel a bit cringy that I'm surrounded by so many people that think in a certain way that I don't think and you know, I respect their right and they won the vote. So, good for them. Although, funnily enough,

all those people who I'm friends with who were like, yeah, let's leave, let's leave, have gone very quiet since. Because I do think it's true that a lot of them perhaps didn't think they'd win or it would be different. And I think a lot of people are a bit shocked. And I've spoken to some of them. I've got a few relatives, actually, young relatives who I spoke to. And I said, Alfred says, oh, you voted to leave, did you? Like, why? And they're kind of like, I don't know, I kind of regret it now. Like, I am saying a lot of that. And there is this sort of pervasive media story that's coming across that everyone regrets their vote. I don't actually think that's true. I think it's probably more all the people like me

kind of still in our bubbles telling ourselves that everyone regrets how they voted. They probably don't. Yeah, I completely agree. I've seen a few of those stories and I think that they are, frankly, horrifically unfair anecdotal evidence. Yes, I agree.

And also wishful thinking almost certainly on the part of the people reporting them. Yes, I think there And also wishful thinking almost certainly on the part of the people reporting them. Yes, I think there was a lot of wishful thinking going on in the fallout from the people who lost. And, you know, then they lost. But what's going to happen now kind of baffles me. I mean, as I've said before, I think personally, it's probably not that bad for me. I do a lot of my work in America. So, sort of the plunging pound and the pound has immediately plunged. Yeah. And the economy has immediately started tanking. Like everyone said that wouldn't happen. And it was scaremongering. Like everyone thought these countless professionals that were saying would be really bad for the economy,

which is scaremongering. And within sort of an hour the economy plunged but you know that's not terrible for me i hope i actually think the people who are going to be hurt the most are probably a lot of the people who voted to leave funnily enough but you know the world will keep turning and everything will work out i don't think leaving the european union is going to look like what the people who want to leave the european union thinks it will look like basically i think we will leave the european union but all of the concessions and compromises and things that have to be done are going to result in a situation where everyone is unhappy because we have to stay in the common market and then they're not going to let us stay in the common market of europe without the free movement

of people and it's the free movement of people that i think a lot of the leavers were against but the free movement of people wasn't part of the referendum question the referendum question was just should we leave the european union so i think we're going to leave this governmental body but all of the compromises that are going to be necessary to preserve the uk's economy are going to result in all the levers being unhappy anyway. But who knows? I could be wrong. I have no idea now. I've just kind of, I've just got to go along for the ride. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm actually kind of okay talking about Brexit now, because it does feel like this is a moment after all of the passions have passed. So this morning, when I knew we were going to record the podcast and

we were inevitably going to talk about this topic, I was sitting down and trying to prepare for it and thinking like, what are my thoughts on this? Like now that time has passed, let me try to think about this. And the only way that I could come up with how do I want to think about this is to be a bookmaker on the odds of what is actually going to occur. There was no other way that I could kind of think about this in a sensible way. And what you have listed is one of what I see as like three options for what can occur. Would you have described where the UK leaves the European Union, but on like a technicality, but stays in something like the EEA,

like the European Economic Area or something similar like that. I think of that as the non-exit Brexit. Yeah. Which is we're Brexiting, but on a total technicality that the end result of what is going to happen is that the UK just gives up a bunch of rights. It keeps free movement of people.

It keeps paying into the European Union. And like from a normal citizen on the street perspective, all seems the same. Like people who live in Europe can come move to the UK. People in the UK can go move to Europe. And as we discussed on the last podcast, like immigration was a huge issue. I give the non-exit Brexit, in my mind, a 55% chance of happening. I think that that is the majority likelihood that this is what's going to occur. And just as you were saying, when I was writing up my notes, this to me strikes me as the most pure of a compromise, right? Because in a compromise, everyone's unhappy in some manner,

right? Like that's what a compromise is. And it's like, okay, great. The pro-European people are going to be unhappy because now the UK has no say in how the European Union is governed, has absolutely no levers to pull to try to institute any reforms in the European Union. And then the people who wanted to Brexit, they're going to be unhappy because this situation almost certainly addresses literally nothing that they cared about in their voting, right? At least trying to imagine and looking at the things that Brexiters were complaining about. It's like this addresses nothing. So I really think that that's like the 55% chance non-exit Brexit is the thing that occurs. Everybody is unhappy to some extent.

But it means that a lot of the economic concerns that we currently see happening with businesses and with the strength of the pound and investment and construction and all of this stuff in the UK, all of that stuff doesn't care. Like it'll just keep trucking along as per normal with a non-exit Brexit.

And it allows some of the pro-Brexit people, whether they're leaders or voters, to sort of save a bit of face. That's exactly it. It's a face-saving maneuver. Perhaps it is the worst, most self-harm-inflicting face-saving maneuver that has ever occurred. I agree. But it allows them to say, we have achieved victory in exiting the European Union. What

have you accomplished? Oh, we gave up all of our voting rights in the EU and nothing else. That's not a good thing. That's terrible. There's one group that will claim that as a victory, right? And they're the people who talk about sovereignty. And I could have a lot to say about those people, but anyway, I won't. And they will say, yes, but we're now the masters of our own destiny. And not only is that like a little bit deluded yeah but it was really beautifully put by an article that ben goldacre wrote right before the vote saying that a lot of these terms that were used in the campaigning like let's be masters of our own destiny uh hollow meaningless statements that you see on the cover of self-help books at

like airports and like what does that even mean now we control our own destiny like what like let's let's take control like what believe in yourself britain yeah exactly yeah like it's like there are a small number of people that if we go down this path will claim yes but now we're in control of our own destiny well no you're not and in fact you're probably less in control because you're still at the whims of market forces like everyone in the world, except now there's one less lever you have access to. Exactly. Just the European lever.

It's a totally 1984 style. Less say is more control, right? That's what that result ends up practically being. The other kind of marking it out thing is, I put that my next most probable event is at 35%. I think that literally nothing changes, that the government takes the hard line, short term option of just totally ignoring the non-binding referendum of saying, we're just not going to do this. And I think that option has some really, really terrible consequences, but I don't see it as an impossibility. I mean, to be clear here,

just to get this on record, while I am on the side that lost in this argument, there is no doubt that there was huge voter turnout and people voted to leave. Yeah. And simply choosing to do something like ignore the referendum, like even though it was non-binding, like it was not sold to people as non-binding. You're not going to be able to stand up and explain that this thing had the legal power of an opinion poll and get a happy result from people who were like, oh, okay, well, then, you know, whatever, no harm, no foul on this one. Unless it's true that everyone regrets their vote, which I don't think it is. But if that was true, everyone might just quietly put their tail between their legs

and let's just pretend that never happened. But there are a few cases in recent years across a whole bunch of European countries where they have had votes of the people in relation to things to do with Europe, where the will of the people has then subsequently been ignored or circumvented. Like it's becoming an increasingly long list,

but nothing quite so dramatic as a vote to leave the union altogether and i think you're right ignoring it would be a big deal but for people who don't know to leave the european union a vote has to be conducted by the parliament all the mps in the parliament the majority of whom don't want to leave the european union are required to put up their hand or vote through the right lobby to say, yes, we're going to leave. So they're going to have to vote against their own will and follow the will of this referendum. And funnily enough, the referendum was all about protecting the sovereignty of the UK parliament. So all of a sudden, the parliament, which we fought so hard to protect the sovereignty of, where our representatives are there deciding

the future of the country, are then going to have to vote against what they want to vote because of a huge poll. It's an interesting dilemma, but it would be a very hard case for any MP to say, well, I didn't vote for it, even though there was this result of this referendum. So it's a real pickle. Yeah, but it's not even like, oh, it's just a real pickle. There's no way that the parliament just ignoring the referendum is anything other than anti-democratic. There's no way that that's not true. Like the people voted to leave. And then if parliament says, ah, forget it, we're just going to ignore this. But the people also voted all of those MPs to represent them in the parliament.

The people democratically elected them to do that. Right. And that's actually where the true sovereignty of the UK lies, in the parliament and in the MPs who were elected by the people. So they also have a democratic job to do, to vote for things on behalf of their constituency. And I mean, we haven't got demographics for each constituency, so we don't know, they don't know what their particular people want necessarily.

So, there is a clash between the two forms of democracy here. And I know it's sort of, you know, splitting hairs and it's a way for the losers to get out. But it is also a really legitimate concern about how this form of democracy works. Well, it is an interesting question about the nature of representative democracy. Let's assume that the majority of MPs do not think it is a good idea for their constituents if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. Let's just use it as a starting point for a conversation.

But at the same time, you have direct democracy where the people themselves have voted to leave what is the correct decision for a moral member of parliament if they disagree with the democracy of what to do i think there's no good way out of that there would have been a good way out of it i don't know if this is possible i imagine imagine it is. But what the parliament could have done was passed a law that the result of the referendum was binding before the referendum happened. But they didn't do that. And I almost think they deliberately didn't do that. This is kind of my theory about why do I think there's a 35% chance that literally nothing happens or a 55% chance of a non-exit Brexit, which leaves like an 85% chance that essentially, from the average citizen's perspective, nothing changes.

Is that, was that 90%? I don't know if I'm adding these numbers up right in my head. I have a feel for the proportions. Yeah, that's exactly it. Like, listen, you know, these numbers, they're number-ish. Maybe I mean a 45% non-exit break, but whatever. 80, 90% chance nothing happens. Just like when I try to think about the future and I'm thinking about, you know, how soon are electric cars going to come or, you know, something else that's on the horizon. Like how soon is genetic manipulation

technology? Like when I try to think about like what changes in the world, I think you always have to try to look at it from the perspective of things like economic demand, which I always place a lot of value on. And you have to look at the trend lines of where things are going to occur. And you also have to look at like, what does the current institution in power think of this and how much power do they have to accelerate or prevent this thing? And I look at the whole Brexit situation and I can't help but think that, I mean, one, I think that a lot of the stuff that occurred in that election was politicians probably pandering to the leave voters for their votes,

partly because of the way that the UK government kind of does the first-past-the-post vote-splitting thing. I think a lot of the kind of prominent people who make a career on being anti-the European Union, there are a lot of people who might quite enjoy the position of being against a thing. And so, of course, they want the thing to continue to exist and in their heart of hearts might recognize that it's actually better.

But there's like a political niche of being the opposition. And so, for example, like I think with newspapers and stuff or even with the UK government in particular, they always love to blame the EU for everything because it means there's always someone to pass the buck onto, right?

Like, oh, it's never actually our fault. It's always somebody else's fault. At a political level, there's always someone to pass the buck onto, right? Like, oh, it's never actually our fault. It's always somebody else's fault. At a political level, there's that. And at a personal level, there's blaming immigrants or people from other countries for your problems. I think that happens at a few levels. At one level, you blame the bureaucrats. There's one group of people who just hate those bureaucrats in Brussels.

And then there's another group of people that want to blame immigrants because they're not happy with their lot in life. And they think maybe people are taking their jobs or they're changing their culture for the worse. So there's a few different levels going on. Yeah, there's definitely a few different levels. So what I want to be clear here is, I don't think that the people who voted for Brexit were insincere. But I can say that I doubt the suspicions of a lot of the political leaders who were promoting Brexit. Like I doubt in their heart of hearts, like what did they actually really want? And what I think that they might have wanted was a close loss, right? But so that they can say,

oh, you know, we fight for you, Brexit, you skeptics, we fight for you, like vote for us. I think that that's their ideal outcome. And then when you add on top of that, what I think of as looking at the economic situation, and we now have definite evidence that like the global market and the local economy does not like Brexit, right? This is thumbs down on Brexit, at least in the short run, for what does the world economy think about this situation? And so I look at it and I say, okay, one, the people who are in power, who are in the position to actually change things, I think most of them don't want anything to change. And secondly, I think there's huge economic pressure to not change. So when I look

at those two things, that's why I only put like a 10-15% chance on Brexit in the way people who voted for Brexit think of it actually occurring. The complete withdrawal, the build a wall. Exactly. Yeah. Right. I think there's very little chance of that happening because the people holding the levers of power don't want it to occur. Kind of like the embodied corporations out there don't want it to occur. in the government, there is a room in which politicians and prominent party backers and companies and banks are all in a room leaning a tremendous amount of pressure on some poor sod to be the scapegoat for this whole thing. You know, we just want someone to take the fall for why Brexit isn't going to occur because all of the interests in this room don't want it to occur.

And who can that be, Gray? But who can, like, how does that manifest itself? Well, I'm not a details man. I'm just an idea guy, right? I don't know what that looks like. It could only be like a prime minister that refuses to do it, but then they'll have to fall on their sword. And then the pressure will be on the next prime minister to do it, which is kind of what's happened. Also, there's the possibility of having an early election in the UK, which is more difficult to do, but is still possible to do. I just think that the various powers that be do not want this to occur.

And in a situation like this, if I have to put my money down on who is going to win this fight, the powers that be that I speculate do not want this to occur, or the people who voted in a referendum who, again, to be clear, democratically won that it should occur. I don't put my money on the people in that scenario. I put my money on the establishment in that scenario getting what it wants. What does Super Rational Gray think about that? Do you think that's good? Do you think that's like, wrong? Like, because at a base level, it feels wrong, doesn't it? Like, you know, the people, democracy, the will of the people should be. But like, a super rational dude like you might think, actually, that's probably a good outcome that the people, the people don't actually gave some serious thought to this. And my conclusion is that it is wrong. It is wrong for the government in this scenario to ignore the will of the people. I don't think there is any argument against that.

But I am on the other side. Like, I don't think Brexit is a good idea. And so this is a case where a thing might occur for the wrong reasons that in the long run is better, but that still doesn't really justify the like, oh, democracy, we're just going to throw it out the window right now. So the way I look at this is like, there are no good directions to take. Like I think in the long run, it's probably better for the UK to stay part of the EU. But to do that requires the government

to kind of subvert its own process. And it's like, well, all we have is the process though. Like if you start walking down this road of, oh, laws, like, you know, we use them when we like them, but we don't use them when we don't. It's like, but what's happened now? Like, this is all we have to keep the world together. I mean, the legitimate way around that, I guess, it sounds stupid even saying it, would be like a re-vote, like a, are you sure vote? Like, and then see if you get the same result.

I know how crazy that sounds, but that would not subvert the process, at least. It would be like, it could be, we want a bit more, and the questions could be a bit more detailed this time. And that could be used as a mechanism to withdraw the decision. If the people want to withdraw the decision, which maybe they don't. Legally and technically, that would possibly be one of the cleanest solutions that, like you said before, the UK says, look, we're going to have another referendum and this one is immediately legally binding. Or they say, we're going to keep having referendums until you vote for what we want. But that's exactly the problem though. But I, like you, suspect that the original referendum was written to be non-binding. And again, all of the parties, including UKIP and

the conservatives agreed on the fact that it wasn't non-binding, which leads suspicions to me like, well, they don't want it to go the wrong way. And so that to me just says like, well, maybe you can have another one that's legally binding, but it's just, there's no way it doesn't look awful to do that. It's like, you know, we're just going to keep voting until we get what we want. It's like, well, that's a terrible democracy. It's a terrible way to do things. I just find it very interesting that there is no good outcome. I don't know.

There's a thing that almost feels like Bayesian statistics about this to me, which is as you add additional pieces of information about a problem, like certain unlikely probabilities seem more likely. And the reason I bring that up is because when I think about Brexit occurring, like if the UK actually leaves, I think it is very likely, like 97% likely, that Scotland leaves the UK if that occurs. I find it very hard to imagine

that that does not occur. Because for people who don't know or haven't been following the story, the Scottish people overwhelmingly voted to stay in the European Union. But of course, they're just part of the whole conglomerate of the UK and all their votes were lumped in with the overwhelming majority of English people and Welsh people. So if you were just taking the votes cast in Scotland alone, they did want to stay. And obviously the Scottish independence people are using that as leverage and they're concerned, they've already voted to stay, so they just will stay if the UK actually leaves. We don't even need to hold another referendum. We as a nation already had a huge margin that says we're going to stay. Then they're going to definitely get their own emoji. Then they will, because they'll be top-level sovereignty.

It's very clear. That could be the deciding factor. Scotland, you have your own emoji. Then Scotland's going to be wishing that the UK leaves so they can get their emoji. That's how people make decisions in these things. But so when I think about that, I really do think that it's almost impossible to imagine a scenario where Scotland doesn't leave the UK if the UK leaves the EU. And then if that occurs, I also think like it starts getting into the realm of like not crazy unlikely that Northern Ireland, which also voted to stay, might leave the UK, because then like Northern Ireland would be making a decision in the perspective of,

do you want to leave the European Union with England and Wales alone? Right. Like that's a very different question all of a sudden. Then we're really looking at Brexit might lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom Brexit, I think that really changes the idea of what are you voting for? Are you voting for possibly just Wales and England to leave the EU? That sounds like a terrible idea. Like, I don't think very many people would vote for that if it was on the referendum, but it may very well be the logical consequence of the referendum. Yeah, I think you're right, Gray. There's a few other things that, a few other thoughts that I had. One thing that I think is important to say, because it's a really important thing and what's going on in politics

in a few things, is that I don't think most of the people who voted to leave are idiots, right? Like, I think they made a poor decision for whatever reasons they made it, but I don't think they're idiots. But I think that has been the pervasive message. If you vote to leave, you're an idiot. And that was kind of the intellectual highbrow sort of attitude that was coming across in the build-up to the election. And I think that was really, really counterproductive. And I think

it makes people who are 50-50, but leaning, or maybe people who have a slight leaning towards leave, I just think it entrenches their position. Telling people they're idiots is bad. And I think it became a really big part of this election, that people who maybe have a lower income or come from a part of England that is poorer, felt like they were being told they were idiots for having their doubts about Europe. And I think that caused a real backlash. And fair enough, too. You shouldn't tell people they're idiots. I totally agree. I mean, this goes back to my whole feeling about how, you know, groups just talk with themselves and they end up creating these imaginary versions of the other group that they just rail against. How does that change anybody's mind? I think that just is the same thing. Like it further makes people feel resentful and trenched into their positions.

Like it's not a mind changing thing to describe someone as like, as a idiot. I mean, like, so you should change your mind and vote for me. It's not a good argument. It's not a good way to change someone's actual mind. Tell you what else I've done, Gray. What?

I've started the process of applying for my Irish passport. Have you really? Yeah. So I can stay at the European Union still. Are you able to get an Irish passport? I am. I am. So I've got an Australian one and I've got a UK one, but I am eligible for an Irish one. So I could end up with three passports. I always forget that you have the UK passport. I don't know why I can't remember that. I was thinking like, oh, but, but buddy, if you get the Irish passport, just like me, you can stay in the UK anyway, right? Like you don't have to go travel to the European Union,

but right, you want to keep the option of being able to live and work anywhere in the EU. I think it's a stupid thing. And like, you know, I don't really need to do it, but it just, it was just something I did on impulse, but I'm not the lone ranger. Like the Irish authorities have actually issued a plea to the people of britain to stop applying for irish passports because they're being absolutely overwhelmed at the moment oh my god i'm not surprised i'm not the least bit surprised that that ireland must be getting swamped with passport applications so uh there you go i'm currently gathering all the necessary birth certificates and things like that.

Well, I wish you all the best of luck in your Irish endeavors. It could be a long wait by the sounds of it.