Hello Internet - H.I. #73: Unofficial Official

Episode Date: November 22, 2016

Grey and Brady discuss: garbage collection, watermark follow-up, emoji, Brady's election night, and, inevitably, the electoral college. Brought to You By Fracture: Photos printed in vivid color directly on glass. Harry's: Quality Men's Shaving Products. FREE SHIPPING + Promocode HI for $5 off your first purchase Squarespace: Use code HI for 10% off your website Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes Discuss this episode on the reddit Brady's Garbage Video Australian News Wolf Emoji iOS 10 Wolf Face 2016 World Series Brady and Lady Brady Grey's original electoral college videos Re: The Electoral College United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011

I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but as we're recording right now, like right now at night, it is the supermoon night. It's a supermoon. I'm looking out my window. No, no, no, great. Don't. Don't look. That's what I wanted to tell you not to do. I'm terribly sorry.

Because during a supermoon, not only is the moon a little bit closer than usual, but because it's a full moon, it appears brighter than usual. And this is the biggest the moon will have appeared for like 70 odd years. And just looking at it, if you are to believe the media could burn out your retinas or the tidal forces from the supermoon could rip your head from your body. So whatever you do, don't look at the supermoon. Don't even get near it, man. This is massive. Is that what journalists think a supermoon is? You'd think so. You'd think it's going to like take up half the sky the way they're carrying on and i've also seen actual depictions of what it will look like compared to what it normally looks like and it's like eight percent or something not even that it's like crazy like how little the difference is

but it's supermoon supermoon everything's moon. Facebook's even saying, look at the super moon tonight. Well, I'm looking out the window. No, Greg! I see nothing. Yeah. All right. I hope you were wearing sunglasses and had your special title vest on when you did it. I'm woefully underprepared for the super moon.

But you're feeling all right for the podcast. You're in the zone. You're feeling happy. Can the podcast you're in the zone you're feeling happy can i cheer you up somehow no you can't cheer me up brady because i am absolutely furious about a thing it's going to take a while to explain but i have to get this off my chest right at the start uh i already know what it is what is it brady your starbucks is unstopped to the hot stoppers oh no no it's not, it's not that. It's not that. No, I have what I guess could be classified as like a political problem, I guess. Let me explain this thing.

This makes me absolutely furious. All right. So I live in a city. Now, there are lots of people in a city. And one of the things you need when there are lots of people is an effective system to take the garbage away and dump it wherever, right? Wherever it goes, not here. Yeah. So in the little area that I live, there are supposed to be four garbage pickups, each one on a parallel street. There are four

parallel streets. There's a garbage can at each end of the street, opposite ends. So it's nice and convenient, nice and close for everybody. Now, where I happen to live is one of those areas of London that clearly a long time ago, a bunch of rich people lived in this area in single enormous homes, and has since been converted into apartments in which there are maybe 10, 15 families. Like there's a lot of people here and a lot more people over time. And one of the problems that happens is that the garbage cans overflow. Now, let me ask you, Brady, if you had a problem where there were garbage cans overflowing, what do you think would be the solutions if you wanted to alleviate this problem of overflowing garbage cans? Well, two things spring to mind. Okay. One would be more regular pickups and the other would be bigger garbage bins. Yes. Congratulations. You get a gold star. But no, you know what my local council thinks

is the appropriate solution to overflowing garbage bins, it is to take away street by street the actual garbage pickups and to replace the space where the garbage cans used to be a passive-aggressive sign telling people, we have removed the garbage cans and please don't dump any garbage here. And so now, in like a four block radius of where I am, there is four garbage cans in one location for what I mentally am calculating is something like probably a thousand or fifteen hundred people who need to use these garbage cans. And, as a nice bonus, everybody is now way further away from a garbage can. And I feel like this is one of these things that, like, if you ever go to Disney, Disney in America has this just nailed down.

You know how they solve the garbage problem in Disney? Garbage cans everywhere, right? You can't swing a child in Disney without hitting a garbage can, right? Like, they're all over the place because you know what they want? They want nice, happy, clean streets. And so if there's garbage cans immediately visible, people throw stuff away. But now, where I live, people are just dumping garbage on the streets. It's gone from people who were for a little while, they were trying like, oh, we'll just pile up the garbage where the garbage cans used to be. Here,

let me send you a photo of what this looks like. Gray, wouldn't the street look ugly if you had garbage cans everywhere? Don't you want your London streets to look pretty and look like they looked in like the 1700s and stuff? Okay, yes, in theory you would. But here's one of these things, like we have this in life where there have to be trade-offs. And I think once you reach a certain density of population, the trade-off has to be there are garbage cans in regular locations for people to dump their garbage. Now, where I live, like there are so many people, there's already garbage pickup three times a week. You can leave garbage in front of your house once a week and they have all of these garbage cans and it still wasn't enough for all

of the people. I don't understand how they think the solution is we're just going to remove all of the garbage cans and then tell people not to dump their garbage there. And now there is garbage absolutely everywhere. I have sent you a photo of where the garbage cans used to be, but like all the streets just look like this. And you know what? You know what really bothers me? I feel like I try to be a good person, at least when it's easy. And now I'm having to just like dump garbage places as well, because like there's nowhere to put it. If I walk the three blocks necessary to the actual garbage can with the garbage that I take out, it's a mountain of trash, right? Like it's an Everest of trash. And if I throw my garbage on the top of it, it just rolls down into the street. And so I figure, f*** it. Like I might as well

just leave the garbage in the street along with all of these other bags of garbage in the street. This is just like, I don't understand, Brady. I don't understand how people think the opposite solution is the solution. I mean, that picture is pretty horrendous. I'll give you that. You're going to have to back up for me here. Has the steam stopped coming out of your ears? And can I just get a little bit of context here? I'm like literally sweating with anger, but yes, go ahead. Just so I understand, before this debacle, how did the system work? Were there like communal garbage cans that were permanently in the street 24-7?

Or like do you have like a hidden garbage area? Like I don't understand what the situation was before. For example, I have a big wheelie bin that is in a little shed in my front yard and we fill up our own bin and then one day a week we roll it out onto the footpath and the people will come and empty it and then we'll roll it back onto our property. You obviously don't have that. How does it work normally? Yes, you have the nice suburban solution to garbage, which is that you have your own bins. And since property is bigger in suburbia, you have an actual place to store

the bins. This is the problem of being in a very dense area. Like that is just not a practical solution. Because again, most people's flats are very small. Like even if my wife and I wanted to, we couldn't actually store very much garbage in the flat. So you have to end up taking it out all the time. Yeah. And so the solution here is that on each of the streets, they have tried to find a relatively out of the way spot where they would just leave two garbage cans and a recycling bin. This is on public land and always visible. This is on public land and always visible. And as far as it can go, like it's fine. I don't think it's too much of an eyesore. And the trade off of you have a place to put garbage

is perfectly acceptable. And there used to be garbage pickup three times a week. And on top of that, one or two days a week, I can never quite remember, you're allowed to leave garbage outside your house at night and a truck comes by first thing in the morning to pick it up. They're trying to take away garbage all the time. But that seems extravagant to me, Gray. That's like garbage paradise,

having someone pick up the rubbish every day. Well, you have a place to put it every day and someone comes to pick it up twice a week from your house and three times a week from the bins. I think you've been spoiled for too long. No, but this is just a fundamental sanitation problem. Like this is what government is supposed to do. It's supposed to keep pestilence out of the streets.

This is like the basics. It's garbage collection, right? Like you have to take it away. If you don't take it away, we will have cholera. This is not a good thing. So it's like, yes, I understand that there is a lot of garbage pickup. But the reason that there is a lot of garbage pickup is because in this area, there must be four or five, six times as many people living here as there were 20 years ago. At the most, it's become a very dense area, even

though if you just like looked at a street, you might not think that there's a ton of people here. But it's like every building has 10, 12 apartments in it. And there's a gigantic apartment complex that's hidden around the corner. There's just a ton of people here. And they generate a lot of garbage and they have nowhere to store it. And my council thinks the appropriate solution is reduce garbage service because too many people were leaving garbage on the street. I can't deal with it. I think you should be able to hold onto your garbage for a bit longer. You should be able to hold onto your garbage for a week and have it picked up once a week and just put all out on

the path on that one night. I don't think you understand. I've lived in city apartments many times. I know you live in a, in a palatial mansion far up North, wherever it is. Brighton, Binghamton. I always forget. You have no idea. You have a seven story, wherever it is. North. Brighton, Binghamton. I always forget. You have no idea. You have a seven-story, eight-story building. It's entirely yours. My wife and I, it's but a cardboard box.

And we have not room to store but a single fish skeleton after we've eaten our meagre dinners. There's nowhere to put anything. It has to go somewhere and it's going on the streets. Where do the servants take it? Exactly. Exactly, Brady. I'll tell you what, Gray. I mean, in all seriousness, you know you've got a friend in me when it comes to complaining about garbage.

You're talking to the man who has made a YouTube video that he has used on multiple occasions to shame his council when they do a bad job with the garbage collection. That's your ringing of the bell one that I don't understand, right? Yeah. It's based on a very famous scene in Game of Thrones, but I filmed it out in my street. I've watched it. The reference goes by me,

but it does feel like this is an ominous, passive, aggressive thing. Like that's what he's doing. Have a look in the show notes, people, and you can watch the video that I tweet every time my council takes too long to pick up the recycling. Oh, too long. I like that. Too long to pick up the recycling. The first time I made this, the recycling had been out in the street for over a week. So the video got made.

Let me ask you, has it been effective? They know about it. It was effective, actually. They started contacting me asking for my details. But as soon as they started asking me for like personal details, I'm like, go away. Just pick up the rubbish. This sounds like a no. What I'm hearing ultimately is no, your video has not been effective. No, I would go so far as to say it has been effective.

Oh, okay. Maybe I need to make a passive aggressive viral video about my garbage. Do it. I'm not entirely convinced, but I think you're in the right. Wait, what is there not to be convinced by? I haven't heard both sides of the story. Oh, okay. I'll be sure to phone up my local councilman and let him know. Basically, what I think is happening is you guys have had it too good for too long. And as soon as they tried to change anything, you're all like, oh, I'm not changing my habits. I'm just going to chuck everything in the street.

What habits? There's nowhere to store the stuff. I don't even understand what it is you want me to do. You don't just throw it out the minute you've got it. You throw it out on garbage day. So it's not the sitting there all week. You don't just, oh, I finished with that. I'll throw it out the window. There's probably a garbage collector out there right now. They come 19 times a day.

No, they don't come 19 times a day. Like we have a garbage can. It gets full. It gets really stinky. And when you live in a very small apartment, all on one level, you can't keep stinky garbage in your house for a week. We physically don't have enough space to store all of our garbage unless we're just like leaving garbage bags in the main room. There should be some garbage communal area then in the basement or something. It shouldn't just all go straight to the street the minute you finish

with it. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, like, and again, if witches were horses, we'd all be eating steak, but there is no communal area in the house to put garbage. There's no space because it's all been turned into apartments. Apartments full of people generating garbage. Yeah, because you're a bunch of greedy Londoners. Wait, wait, greedy Londoners? Who's the greedy Londoner here?

I don't understand. Like, am I the landlord in this scenario? No, I am the tenant. I do not have the adequate infrastructure where I am living. I don't understand what you want, Brady. Well, that's not the council's fault. It doesn't mean you should be allowed to throw everything out in the street. I know it doesn't mean that I should be allowed to throw everything out in the street. I don't want to throw everything out into the street. Do you understand, Brady? I want the opposite of that. I want a place to put the garbage. You want like thousands of your personal garbage cans out on the footpath. That

should be public property where people like me get to walk. No, I would like an adequate amount of garbage pickup in an adequate number of places so that people don't leave garbage on the street. That's all I want. I don't think this is crazy. I think this is totally reasonable. All right. Are you going to give this to me?

No, no? Not yet. Not yet. Clearly that picture you sent me is an eyesore and that cannot be tolerated, but I'm yet to decide whether that is the fault of the council or the fault of the tenants. That's the least of it though. That thing that I sent you is where the garbage cans used to be.

It's not just the garbage that's on the street. People are just giving up. This is a perfect example of there's like this dichotomy between how should people behave and how do people behave? And the truth is like when people start leaving garbage on the street, people are more likely to just leave garbage on the street because then everybody thinks why bother and now we have a tragedy of the common situation here it's like no this is why you just have to have it convenient for people to do the right thing and just simply sitting around and wishing that everybody was

better or wishing that one of the people in the building just disappeared and we turn their entire apartment into just the place where we dump all of the garbage and it festers in the building. I mean, like, yes, we could wish for these things, but it can't change like that. I just want garbage pickup. That's all I want. I think it's very reasonable. One little piece of garbage related follow up, by the way, and I wanted to keep this quick,

but enough people contacted me that I feel like I have to mention it. Okay. In the last show, I mentioned that I was throwing away two huge garbage bags full of my old clothes. Congratulations. Thank you. I use the term throwing away very loosely. I did not, in fact, put it in the bin or throw it in a London street, as Greg probably would have.

What I, in fact, did, and I have to point this out because so many people have admonished me, I did give the clothing to a local charity. I did not throw it into like landfill. Whatever of it was considered good enough, hopefully will be sold and is raising money for St. Peter's Hospice in Bristol. So please stop contacting me and telling me I'm bad for throwing away lots and lots of clothes. I did give it to charity.

Did the charity shop want it? Did they take it? Well, they didn't really have much of a choice because I had to like double park when I gave it to them. So I just went in and said, I've got some clothes for you. And they said, that's great. And then I went and ran to my car and came back with two massive garbage bags. There was some good stuff in there amongst the dross. Some good stuff. Let me rate my internal mental meter for how much do I trust Brady's statement that there was some good stuff right

in the bag of garbage that he's bringing to the charity shop. There was good stuff. I give it a one out of 10. No, I promise you there was good stuff if you happen to be a little bit thinner than me. I'm just suspicious because my local charity shop has a big sign about all the things that they please don't want you to give them. And I'm pretty sure clothing is at the top of that list. Oh no, this is a clothing shop. Oh, okay. oh okay okay yeah i did feel a little bit weird because i'm worried that like i might start seeing people walking around the streets wearing my clothes are they that recognizable i don't know i did give them a smarter everyday t-shirt yeah i was gonna say like an alabama elephant yeah that's what you're gonna see seeing someone walking around the streets of bradford with destin gave me two smarter everyday t-shirts and i did keep one of

them destined just in case you're listening. I didn't give them both away. But one, the color just didn't suit me. So I gave it to the charity store. I think there's two Smarter Every Day t-shirts in that charity store. No, I've kept the other one. I'm going to be keeping my eye out for it on objectivity, Brady. That's what I'm going to be looking for. I want to see an objectivity video with your shirt on sometime.

I'll take a picture of me wearing it with tomorrow's newspaper. Totally photoshopped, I can tell by the pixels. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by Fracture. Fracture is a photo company that turns your digital images into thoughtful gifts or keepsakes by printing them directly onto glass. Shipped complete with a backing wall and anchor or stand, they're ready to display right out of the box. Just upload your digital photo and pick your size. It's that simple. And with holidays right around the corner, now is a great time to check a bunch of names off your list with a personalized gift they'll treasure. I know the holidays sneak up on all of us and fractures really are fantastic gifts to give. I've given fractures as gifts and

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They're a fantastic gift. They look great. You should get your orders in for the holidays right now. For more information and 10% off your first order, visit fractureme.com slash podcast. Don't forget to mention Hello Internet in their survey question to let Fracture know that you came from this show to that URL. Once again, that's fractureme.com slash podcast and select Hello Internet. Thank you to Fracture for supporting the show. Now, another thing I wanted to follow up on was, you know how you have your Siri thing where you're

angry where Siri says, hang on, I'll tell you when I'm ready, all right? Yeah. I realized that I have one of those as well. Oh, do you? Yeah. I didn't realise how much it had annoyed me. And then a day or two afterwards, it happened to me again. And I thought, this is making me feel how grey felt. It's not quite as overtly hostile, but I'll tell you what it is. And you may not recognise it because you are like an email ninja who gets around these problems in other ways. But quite often I find myself on mailing lists I don't want to be on and sometimes I click that button that says unsubscribe me from this list and you always get met with a response that I find wholly inappropriate

and that is your request is being processed. And that bothers me in two ways. I've been put on your mail list that I didn't want to be on, which I consider a hostile act already. And then you have the audacity to treat my demand to have my privacy back as a mere request. Oh, your request. Oh, let me consider your request. This is not a request. This is a demand to be removed from your list. And then also being processed like, oh, it could take us a few weeks and we've got to talk to Bill from accounting. No, no, no, no, no.

Take me off the list that I've been wrongly put on immediately and stop sending me spam. Your request is being processed is unsatisfactory to me. I have in the past, I have seen that it may take up to 24 to 48 hours to remove you from this list. I feel like I don't believe you. I don't believe that that's actually true. I think you want to get in one or two more mailings while you still can. I think this is part of your automated system that you want to try to catch me before I go. And you're like, oh, it might take two days. Even if it is true that it takes one or two days for some silly reason, just keep that to yourself. Like just say, sorry about that,

you're off the list. Is that what you want is the unsubscribe message? Sorry about that, you're off the list. Your request is being processed. Of course, I'm now mortally scared that that is the message people get when they unsubscribe from my mail list. I must check that. I have no idea. Let me pull up one of Brady's things. Oh, look, it takes up to 72 hours to process your request. Wow. What a jerk. Yeah. Your plea has been considered.

I do have to say, I'm a little bit pleased by the fact that you noticed this thing and you are now annoyed by it. Because my only consolidation to my Siri rant from last time was hearing from a number of people who I had implanted this mind virus into that are now aware of their rude, supposedly, but not actually subservient digital devices in one form or another. So I feel like, great, like my annoyance, allow it to spread outward, like from my mind to your mind. So I've got another little bit of follow up, Gray.

You may remember in, I think it was the previous episode, we talked about in Australia, the channel, Channel 7, had this obscene watermark on their news coverage. Whenever they have exclusive footage of something that they want to have to themselves on the news, like the fire or a car crash, they were putting this watermark that covered half the screen saying Channel 7 News. It was ridiculous. So since then, someone has shown me sort of a promotional advertisement that was made by Channel 9. And before I get you to watch it, Gray, just so

you've got the context in your head, Channel 7 and Channel 9, when it comes to news coverage and their nightly news programs, are mortal enemies. Oh, mortal enemies. And it is highly, highly competitive. I've not known a TV news market as competitive. And Channel 9 and Channel 7, who are the two top dogs, are just always at each other's throat. They always want the exclusive and that. So Channel 9 made a video that they thought needed to be shown to the world. And I would like you to watch this video now.

It takes about 30 seconds. Okay. See what you think. I'm imagining that whatever I'm going to see, it's going to have a watermark that's like, from Channel 9 News, screw you, Channel 7 News. This is way more meta than that. Channel 9 would like to apologize to all viewers

who find the watermark we put in the middle of the screen annoying and distracting. Unfortunately, who find the watermark we put in the middle of the screen annoying and distracting. Unfortunately, even a big watermark like this isn't enough to stop Channel 7 from stealing our footage. They even have the audacity to call it an exclusive. I was a little bit amazed by it. I've never seen a more petty, juvenile... It's like kids fighting in the backseat of a car. Even I wouldn't do that.

And I'm petty sometimes. You are incredibly petty sometimes, but that is amazing. Do you want to explain to the people what you just watched? Okay. Of course, it's in the show notes for the people to look at as well. I love this. It channel nine news they're like we're sorry for some viewers finding our gigantic watermark annoying but even our gigantic watermark didn't stop those jerks at channel seven news from airing our footage as an exclusive which they then show they then show look what channel seven did look what Channel 7 did. Look how they blurred out

our watermark and claimed it was their own footage. They're basically telling tales, aren't they? I'm having flashbacks to kids tattling on each other at school and me just not caring at all what happened between the two of them. They've couched it as like a public service message. It starts off all apologetic and explanatory. And then it goes, but look what channel seven did. Look what they did. I can just hear myself like, listen, Susie, listen, Cindy, I don't care what happened. Like, just sit down, just sit down and be quiet. I don't care.

Basically, it's like a YouTube war. Yeah. Except it's like grown up TV channels that should know better. Like it's the sort of juvenile thing that vloggers do when they're just not mature. They're just bitching about each other. I feel like if we ever return to the topic of the news and why you think I should watch it because people are very professional

and it's how you're informed about the world, I'm just going to remember this moment. This is going to come into my head of like, oh yes, those news channels. I never met Australian news. Right, those savages don't know what they're doing. Is that what you're saying, Brady? I'll tell you what, it's competitive down there. Oh, it's competitive. Well done, guys. Nobody cares.

They're out. So I'm just back from a couple of weeks at the spiritual home. And I've been doing a lot of Ubering. Yes. I guess, not surprisingly, spending a lot of time in Ubers always makes me think more and more about Uber. And I've had two thoughts I wanted to share. One is, I know we've kind of discussed this before and it's not like a new discovery, but it was kind of like a real discovery for me because I spent a lot more time talking to the drivers and understanding things. And it made me realise why I would probably find driving Ubers quite

addictive. And it's how successfully they like have gamified the experience. What do you mean? Like being an Uber driver to me is like playing a video game. It's like you've got like a screen, like an interface, and you never know where your next adventure is going to come from and where it's going to be to and who it's going to be with and it suddenly pops up and you do it you collect rewards for doing it and the more you do it the more rewards you get and you're following a map to find the person and they've got to follow a map to take them to their place and if you do that you get the treasure and also uber have lots of like incentives that they build into it that i'm

a bit ignorant of like if you do 50 rides before Monday you get an extra $190 and if you do 20 of these before 2pm tomorrow there's a there's always like bonuses and things coming up all the time for the drivers and they're always really aware of these things and they'll work the extra two hours because they're four rides short of their $200 bonus but will my next one take me far enough to, you know, what will I get next? And it's all very gamified. I found it really appealing talking to them about it. And I can imagine how much fun that would be. The first time I came across this was actually talking about this with an Uber driver in San

Francisco. I forget exactly what it was, but he had some kind of incentive to stay in the center of the city. Like, and he could specify that on his app he like if he hit a certain number of short haul drives they would pay him enough to make up for the fact that he was doing like a very large number of very short drives i learned so much great it's so complicated too because i was saying what if you want to go somewhere and like uber is taking you somewhere else but you can tell uber i want to get to this place and it will give you rides to get you there but you can only do two of them a day and also they don't count towards your bonuses so if you're trying to collect 50 bonuses your

destination choices don't count if you're within like a two mile radius of the airport you go into a special airport queue but if you're just dropping someone off straight away you can potentially jump that queue and go to the front because they want to encourage people to take people to the airport. Oh, interesting. It's so complicated. There's so many cool little rules and complications. It's amazing. Do you want to be an Uber driver? Do you know what I do want to do? No, no. I want to work on a train. Okay. That's a bit out of left field. Yeah. I must tell you about it sometime. I just

think working on the train line would be so much fun. I feel like trains are the opposite of Uber, but okay. Yes. I was buying a sandwich on the train the other day and I just said to the guy, I said, do you like working on the train? And he said, oh, I love it. I get up in the morning and I'm in London in the afternoon for my lunch break and then I'm back home.

And I think working on the trains would be great. So the other thing though that happened was, and funnily enough, it was the guy who told me the most about how Uber works because he drove me to the airport, so we had a really long drive. But when we got near the airport, and I must point out, I get Ubers to and from San Francisco airport quite a lot because I'm quite familiar with how it all works. And he was driving me there and he says,

I can't drop you at the international terminal. And I've been dropped at the international terminal many times, and I get picked up from the international terminal. And I know there's a place at the international terminal, it's at the departures section where the Ubers go, because whenever I arrive, I have to go up to departures to get my Uber because the Ubers aren't allowed down at arrivals. I know this.

So he's saying, I can't drop you there. I've got to drop you at domestic. And then you've got to walk along a bridge or catch a train or something. Oh, no, no, not acceptable. And I was like, this is crazy. Like I get dropped there all the time. You're wrong. And he's like, I can get a hundred dollar fine and I can lose my permit. And he was very insistent. And I'm like, I just didn't believe it. I said, you're wrong. This is incorrect. You can do it. And then I said, how long have you been an Uber driver for? And he said, oh, I've been an Uber driver for about

two months. And I hadn't been to San Francisco in the last two months. So I was thinking, has some new rule come in in the last two months, stopping them dropping people off? Right. Oh no. Here's this grain of doubt in your mind. He was very sure of himself and I was Googling it and I couldn't find anything about it and I was mad and I knew it was wrong and then he so he drops me at the domestic terminal and by this time the dark cloud has come over me and I said you are wrong about this. I refuse to believe in the city of San Francisco. You human beings can't be dropped by an Uber at the international terminal. I know some cities have rules but I just didn't believe this. I'm just thinking of this poor guy picks up this affable Australian,

but little does he know that the dark cloud is coming on this ride. I was still like civil and he dropped me off and I said, I believe you're wrong. And he said, oh, you're going to walk up there and go there or whatever. I said, have a nice day. Thank you very much. Thank you. Goodbye. And he drove away.

And then I gave him one star because he has two jobs to pick me up and to drop me where I want to go. He did the first part well, but he completely failed to do the second part. But I did not give him one star until I went inside and said to the woman at the information desk, can Ubers drop me at the international terminal? And she said, yes, yes, they can, but they can only drop you at departures. They can't drop you at arrivals. And I said, thank you. Okay, good. That's what I wanted to check. No, I did ask, but then I tried to contact him. Like I wanted to send him a message or like phone

him or something just so he knew for next time. And if I had been able to do that, I probably would have upped his star rating. I even Googled how do I change the rating I gave him because I felt so guilty. But I couldn't contact him. I couldn't just send him like a text message like to say, hey, man, just so you know, you've misunderstood the rule. Because he says, sorry, I always have to do this. He even told me he always drops people at the domestic terminal when they're flying international.

So he's doing this all the time to people. I had to then like go up two escalators and catch a train and all sorts of things to get where I wanted to go. You're just trying to be a hero for the next guy who steps in this guy's Uber, huh? I wanted to help him, but I still feel guilty about it. I don't know what to tell you. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to do? Give him five stars for dropping me so far away I had to catch a train to my destination? You can't give someone five stars for that. No, you can't give someone five stars for that. I'm going to back you on this one, Brady. Thank you.

You seem surprisingly relieved by that. Oh, I am. I am. I didn't realize my verdict on whether or not the one star rating was okay. What was really weighing on you here? I felt like I had no other tools in my tool belt. What else could I do? Did you leave a comment when you left the one star review? No, it didn't give me the option to. Normally it does. It says, you know, why one star? Because that's all I wanted to do. I wanted to get the information to the guy.

Right. So the reason I put one star was because I know if I put three or higher, I don't get to leave a comment. So I pressed one knowing it would say, why? What's your comment? And then the comment thing didn't come up. These are the tragedies in our modern world. Poor guy. Anyway. One star from Brady. I'll tell you what though, you want tragedies, you're ready for the next topic. Okay. You always have this way of starting a topic that sets me on edge. Every time,

almost every topic. I don't always leave it in the show because sometimes I'm just so thrown out of sorts. Like the most innocuous topics, somehow you always put me on edge. And then every once in a while, there is a real reason to be on edge. Like Apple feedback last time. So I always feel like we're rolling this dice every time Brady brings up a topic in this way. I thought you were about to praise me then for my good segues because almost every segment so far has segued into the one before. And I thought that was a brilliant segue. And I thought, oh, Gray's taking the time to just give me a pat on the back. No, I'm not taking the time to give you a pat on the back. In fact, I'm always annoyed by your segues because they make it harder for me to edit the show later. I always feel like, oh,

Brady did a segue here. He couldn't just start the topic. Now I have to cut around this because I'm chopping out the boring bits. I already thought about that. And I thought that segue, you could put one there because I said, you wait to the next subject and then you can go, doobly-doop. And everyone's like going, oh, I can't wait to find out what the next subject is. It's going to be awesome. That's where I'm supposed to put the cut. Okay. I didn't realize that. It's different every time. Okay. My anxiety is ramping up here. What is the thing that you want to talk about? Well, I want to talk about what could be Apple's greatest blunder. Okay. Now I'm not talking about the watch. Okay. Because I can avoid the watch.

I don't have to wear the Apple watch. So even though I think it's not their greatest moment, whatever. And it'll get you eventually. It's just a matter of time. It'll get me eventually, maybe. Whenever you bring that up and you're like, oh, it's Apple Watch. I always feel like I'm just going to sit back, right? Maybe it's a year, maybe it's five years, but it's as inevitable as a smartphone. So yeah. Okay, Brady, you're avoiding the Apple Watch. I'm not sure. I'm secretly thinking one day Gray's going to go, you know what? I think I'm just going to get a classy mechanical watch. Yeah. You know what? We need one of those websites that allows you to place bets like five, 10 years out. I would happily take that bet of which is going to happen first. Does Gray switch to a mechanical watch or does Brady switch to an Apple watch? I will

happily take that bet. You think I'm going to bin like either my Amiga or my Rolex for an Apple watch? I think it will eventually happen because the value add of a computer on your wrist will eventually beat the value of your nice watch. I'm not saying soon, right? I'm not saying next year or two years. My love for those two watches is high. I know it's very high, Brady.

I feel like this is almost certainly like the smartphone version of this. Like eventually it'll lose. But anyway. There is a chance. But I also think there's a chance that there's some sophistication switch will turn and you'll suddenly just mature ever so slightly and become like a little bit classier. Right. That's always what it's about. I'm just unsophisticated, unclassy and immature. Yeah. Because I don't decorate my house like it's from the 1910s. I understand that. My love of a modern sleek aesthetic is just so childish. It's obviously a thing all children are born with and real men grow out of and will just wait. Not childish. Of course not. Just less sophisticated. Yes. I will grant you that there is a non-zero chance that I would switch

to a mechanical watch, but it is very close to zero. I would happily take that bet. Yeah. So what is Apple's greatest blunder? Well, it's not even the massive, massive blunder that they've made with this new MacBook Pro, which for the first time, I'm seriously, seriously in danger of being knocked off using Apple. Really? Because this new MacBook Pro is bordering on unusable for me with the lack of ports. It's crazy. Okay. So I was going to ask what it is because I'm not really in the market for a laptop. I didn't follow this very closely at all. I know people have been complaining about it, but I haven't followed it or figured out why. Well, it has these new USB ports, whatever

they're called. Is this the USB-C? Yeah. Okay. And it's just got two of them and nothing else. And this is the pro. I can't put my SD cards into it with all my video footage. I can't put all my drawers and drawers full of hard drives that have all my rushes and things that I edit with. Anyway, that's not, I don't even want to talk about that at the moment. Oh, okay. That's not the disaster.

I'm sorry. No, no. Man, I can't imagine what the true disaster is that in the upcoming update to the ios emojis the wolf face which i have been using for lulu and audrey for quite some time now has been changed to a crappy gray wolf and it's no longer the Audrey Lulu lookalike. My favorite emoji has been retired. I should have known it was going to be some bull****. It's not like I'm going to talk about serious stuff. I feel like I just walked right into that. Like I'm waiting for some serious conversation. I'm thinking, oh, wow, is Brady really going to switch computing systems?

What could it possibly be? I'm trying to run through my mental Rolodex. Of course, it's emoji related. I should have known. Should have known. We can have a boring talk about changing computer systems another day. Let's talk about emoji and wolf face. Okay.

But so just to be clear, they're making the wolf face actually look like a wolf instead of looking like a chihuahua. That's what you're upset about? Yes. Most other, you know, applications and operating systems have made the wolf face sort of a gray looking wolf. Right. Like a wolf. Yeah. And Apple had this glitch where for some reason they were using this kind of doggy type yellowy foxy thing that looked just like Lulu and Audrey. So that was what I used. And everyone knows that was my favorite emoji. Even this is like when you say it looked just like Lulu and Audrey, I think that is quite a stretch to say it looks just like them, but it looked more like them. It was certainly a suitable replacement for them in like text messages and stuff like that. So you're already way walking that back, right? We started

with looks just like them and now we've gone to suitable replacement for the mini emoji form. I would say if you were going to design quite a simple emoji to look like Audrey and Lulu, that's pretty much what you'd do. It's got a yellow head. It's got a little bit of white on the face, a little bit of white on the neck, just like those dogs. In fact, I will walk back that walk back and say it does look just like them. We'll let the people decide. Okay. There'll be links in the show notes and I'm sure furious arguments in the Reddit. We'll let the people decide on this one.

So anyway, I've sent you a picture of what the current Lulu, Audrey look alike and the new wolf looks like. New wolf is better, but it looks kind of like a squirrel. Does that bother you that I think it looks better? Yes. But it does look like a squirrel. It has a very squirrely eye. I always feel like you're really loyal to Audrey and Lulu.

And I thought you'd kind of go into bat for them a bit. Wait, hold on a second. Loyal to your dogs in emoji form? I think you're misunderstanding that I like your dogs. I have an incredible indifference to emoji faces. Well, I'll tell you what, the only person who's showing less sensitivity than you is my contact at Emojipedia, who I contacted just before the show

to ask for confirmation of what was happening. And he says, bad news, Brady, I'm sorry to break this to you. And he said the new one that looks nothing like Audrey or Lulu. But then he had the audacity in my wounded emotional state. He said to me,

this is a great win for cross-platform consistency, but perhaps a loss for you. A new fox face emoji exists, which some could see as a replacement for the old image. So he's kicked me while I'm down and said that basically the emoji community is celebrating this. As they should. Yeah, well, okay.

I'm with him on that one. As if that's not bad enough he then says because you know how last time we talked about this we caused this huge surge in emojipedia searches on this thing right and like there was a graph that showed a like spiked and that so it's like a thank you he has this fundraising thing where you can adopt an emoji and he made audrey the like the adopter of that emoji. He then has the audacity to say to me in this email where he's just kicked me. He's put, P.S. Audrey's one year complimentary adoption of this emoji has just expired too. Was this not the respect that you deserve, Brady?

Is that what I'm hearing here? I said to him, how can you not give Audrey like lifetime adoption as tribute, especially now that it's been retired? Let me ask you something. How can you demand lifetime adoption on the way the person makes their living off of the Emojipedia? I don't think it's how he makes his living. Even if he doesn't make his living, like it's clearly like a for-profit organization,

I presume, I guess, like they're making money on the Emojipedia. And here you are wanting to lock down forever a little piece of real estate. He was quite happy to put Audrey's name on it without my permission to start with. That was a generous gift for a limited period of time. I think he was trading off Audrey's fame. Oh, is that what you think? Okay. Well, then you were the sucker for talking about it this much. He said to me when I said that he said i'm sorry 2016 continues to disappoint i said oh well you can kiss another promotion of emojipedia goodbye but he's got one right yeah and yet here we are here we are oh you're not gonna like this okay well i. Well, I was thinking, you know how, like, the Jamaican rice rat

and the reunion swamp hen are, like, extinct? Oh, yeah. And you know how, like, the Black Stump was once a tallest building and is not anymore? Right. I think there seems to be a theme of our official things being, like, things that have kind of failed or no longer exist. Right.

So I was wondering if the yellow version of the wolf emoji could be the official emoji of Hello Internet. No, no, of course not. Why not? I don't know why you do this, Brady. Because you know what? I feel like I've already lost before any of these conversations even start. Because you have this ability to rally the people around these unofficial official things for Hello Internet. It's like quicksand, right? The more I resist, the more people are like, oh, what a great idea that is, right? So... I have to ask you, Greg, because the reason I want to know your thoughts

on it is because when I make the t-shirt, I want to know if it has to say official or unofficial emoji of Hello Internet. I think all the Brady things have to be the unofficial whatever. So it's the unofficial emoji of Hello Internet. I will concede on unofficial official emoji of Hello Internet, right? Does that make you happy? So I can put unofficial official. Yeah, I think that's the compromise that we're reaching here. I think that's an upgrade from just unofficial.

Take it however you want, as long as the unofficial is first. Does that mean we have to decide on an official emoji at some point? No, we're not doing this. We're not doing this. We don't need an official emoji. But if we were going to have an official emoji, what would it be? We don't need like an official rice hen, like any of these things we don't need. I don't understand them. I know you love them and I'm very happy for you, but I don't know what the official emoji would be. I don't even know what all the emojis are. Well, we know what the unofficial official one is.

It's the yellow version of the wolf that will be phased out on iOS 10.2. Right. So yeah, our official emoji is the extinct one from 10.1 and earlier. Yeah. It's like retro, man. It's cool.

I bet you it'll come back in again sometime. Apple will be like, why is everyone wearing these t-shirts with their old wolf emoji on it? I'm sure that that is exactly what Apple will be thinking. why is everyone wearing these t-shirts with our old wolf emoji on it? I'm sure that that is exactly what Apple will be thinking. Why is this happening? This episode of the podcast has been brought to you by our favorite razor company, Harry's. Regular listeners will be familiar with Harry's by now.

Great shaving kits and products, inexpensive but high quality blades, all delivered to your door without fuss. But you don't have to just be buying for yourself. Harry's kits also make great gifts. They're classy enough to feel like a special present but also useful enough to not end up thrown in the drawer and forgotten. I've bought quite a few presents in my time that have ended up in that drawer. Now Harry's have some special offers at the moment to make it even more enticing. This includes a limited edition set with a midnight blue coloured razor handle. It's really nice looking, makes me feel a little bit inadequate with my own traditional silver handled Harry's. This handle's called the Winter Winston.

And you can also have the handle engraved with yours or someone else's initials for that personal touch. I can just imagine one with a nice little CGP on the handle wrapped up and popped under the Christmas tree. I think we know what I'm going to get grey this year, don't we? Now in a gift set, you'll get one of these handles, three five blade cartridges and shave gel, all for $30. And it comes in a really nicely designed gift box. Harry's are top notch when it comes to their packaging. And of course, Hello Internet listeners are also eligible for $5 off their order by going to harrys.com slash hello internet and using the code HI when they check out. Up until 8th of December 2016, Harry's are doing free shipping. So that address again, harrys, H-A-R-R-Y-S.com slash hello internet and remember that code hi there's all sorts of other good stuff

on their website they've got a really good website actually really well designed good pictures they're things like razor stands travel bags various lotions and potions so go check them out and thanks to harry's for supporting our podcast i bumped into someone in berkeley wearing a reunion swamp pen t-shirt. Oh yeah? It was the first time I've ever seen someone wearing something Hello Internet who didn't know they were going to meet me.

Oh really? Okay, he just walked up to me and said, oh wow, Brady, what are you doing here? And then I looked and he was wearing the Reunion Swamp Pen t-shirt. It was brilliant. That is kind of brilliant. Yeah.

I had a similar experience, but ever so slightly different. And that I got on an elevator with someone who I saw was listening to the Hello Internet podcast. No. On the elevator. Yeah. Did you say something? Of course not.

I stayed behind him and kept quiet. That is a crime that you did not announce yourself. That is not a crime. Oh. No, that is not a crime. That is a totally reasonable response. That would have been the most awesome thing ever. No, it would not be the most awesome thing ever. Because this guy is in a building that I'm in a whole bunch, then he would know who I am. And then forever,

we might have to say hello if we see each other. No, there's no way this is going to happen. Does he work in your building? Yeah, he works in my building. So that's not going to happen. Not once, not ever. Now everyone in London who listens to Hello Internet is thinking, does Grey work in my building? The answer is no, people. No, I work in none of your buildings. Except you, Tim. Oh, I still think it's a little bit criminal that you didn't. Like, that was just such a perfect moment. I can't believe you would even think that I would say something. It's like you don't even know me. Of course, I'm not surprised you didn't do it because you're a bit of a weirdo,

but that would have been an awesome opportunity. That's like the kind of dream moment that like some people wait their whole life for to be able to just say, just tap him on the shoulder. Oh, you could have had so much fun. I would not have had fun. That would not have been fun. That's why I didn't do it. I swear, Gray, I know most Hello Internet listeners have a real appreciation for your mindset and many of them are like you, but there must be Hello Internet listeners out there right now who are like screaming at your missed opportunity. It's not a missed opportunity. It was an opportunity taken, an opportunity to have normal elevator rides for the rest of my time at that building. All right. It was super opportunity taken. An opportunity to have normal elevator rides for the rest of my time at that building.

All right. It was super weird though. It would have been pretty cool. Just to tap him on the shoulder and just winked and then got out. And he'd be like, what? Yeah, that's A plus way to handle that situation. Just tap a strange man on the shoulder, wink and say nothing. Perfect. Yeah, that's exactly what I do. Because obviously the shoulder, wink and say nothing. Perfect. Yeah,

that's exactly what I do. Because obviously he probably doesn't know what you look like. So I know you wouldn't do it and you didn't do it. And I get that. But if you were going to do it and try and like make it a cool moment, what could you have said that would have made him like go, it's CGP Grey. Are you enjoying the show? I think that's what I would say. That would have worked. It would have worked, but it's not going to work. Not now, not ever. It would have been cool.

So, Gray, I did mention that I am just back from America. I was there for two weeks. And obviously it's been a big two weeks in the United States. And I have to say how glad I am that I got to be there. Oh, yeah? Because seriously, like, super historic, one of the great contests of all time. And I know not everybody is happy with how it finished and it wasn't won by who everyone wanted to win. But Game 7 of the World Series was absolutely incredible.

Did you follow at all, Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians? It was amazing. No, I don't? Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians. It was amazing. No, I don't even know what you're talking about. You know what the World Series is? Baseball, right? Yeah. It's like the final of the baseball. Okay.

It's the Super Bowl of baseball. Yeah. And it was between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs. Okay. But the two teams that had been the longest time since they won it, I think Cleveland was like 60 or 70 years. And the Chicago Cubs hadn't won two teams that had been the longest time since they won it, I think Cleveland was like 60 or 70 years. And the Chicago Cubs hadn't won it for over a hundred years. And there's lots of backstories to it. And this is great curse that was stopping them winning it. They looked like

they'd blown this one as well. They were 3-1 down in the series. They came back to make it 3-0. So it went to game seven. And then they went up in game seven and had it absolutely in the bag and somehow they managed to completely blow it and completely lost their lead. So it went to extra innings and then they finally won it in extra innings in the 10th innings. Like this game seven of the World Series, I think was a great advertisement for baseball. Like if you didn't enjoy that game, then you are incapable of enjoying baseball because it was such a great game. It was so thrilling. It had had stories within stories there was so much going on i loved it seriously i was on such a high at the end of that game and i felt so good about the world and like i had the biggest

smile on my face watching it at the end and were you in the actual stadium for the super bowl not the super bowl sorry the world cup no oh god no i was not serious i was not great it was okay it Super Bowl? Not the Super Bowl. Sorry, the World Cup? No. Oh, God. No, I was not. The World Series. I'm sorry. I was not, Greg. It was in Cleveland. I was in California. You were describing it as though you were there. Well, I felt like I was there. But like, you're saying you were so glad that you were in America. I guess I mentally presume that you were at this place, but you were watching it on TV. So you could have just

as well been in the UK. Yeah, but it's different when you're watching it in America. Is it different? It's a bit different. It's a bit different. Well, I was in America for the election and that felt different too. And I could have been watching that from anywhere. And I did mention to you in the last episode, I didn't know what I was going to do for the election day and the election night. So I thought I'd share a bit of my election experience with you. Yeah. What is it like? I have no idea. Well, can I just make a couple of observations about election time in America?

Please go ahead. You have the floor. I was in Berkeley. I was in California the whole time. So I know it's different everywhere you go. But there's a couple of things that struck me as strange. One of them was obviously concurrent with all the elections that are going on for president and senate and all this sort of stuff they have these propositions you know changes to local laws in the state and stuff like that you know prop 53 or prop 28 you know we're gonna legalize mowing your lawn on a thursday or whatever it is but the thing is obviously they have at some point and obviously it's on the ballots i presume but the way it's advertised on tv and there's like saturation advertising for or against these propositions, the ads never tell you what the propositions are.

And you get these really emotive ads saying, vote yes to Prop 43, otherwise all your kids are going to die and the world's going to be terrible. Or vote no to Prop 33, because everyone who's right thinking would, you know. And they really hammer you hard on voting yes or no to these propositions. And they tell you the numbers. And they never tell you what they are. So if you weren't like really into politics or into the news, or you're a visitor like me,

you'd have no idea what they're telling you to do. And I found it a really confusing experience. This is one of these moments where I find you very charming, Brady, because I feel like you're coming at this from the angle that the purpose of these things is to inform you, as opposed to their real purpose, which is simply to just plant an association in your mind. I would almost guarantee that an advertisement that doesn't tell you the details of the proposition, it just simply tells you vote yes or vote no, is more effective than an advertisement that explains to you what the proposition is and then why you should vote

yes or vote no. I feel like I'd be shocked if that isn't true, if they're just like, vote no on 47. I bet that's hugely effective. And whoever is funding the campaigns behind the propositions wants to win. I feel like I wouldn't remember whether it was good or bad, though, because I have no context. I'd walk into the booth and I'd be, oh, 47. I've seen lots of ads about that. Is that the one I'm supposed to vote yes to or no? I don't even know. Is that the good one or the bad one? And I wouldn't recognize it from the ads because I don't associate the ads with the content of the

proposition because I don't know what the proposition says. Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to vote against the medicine one, or I'm supposed to vote for the death penalty. I get that. But just calling them by their numbers is just baffling. But have you ever seen the way these things are actually worded? Like people sometimes post images of the propositions, and they're almost always these crazy triple negative sentences, right? Like, even if you're trying to read it, and again, I don't think it's an accident. You can write a clear sentence, but these things are written in intentionally opaque and difficult to understand ways. And then I think combine that with an enormous amount of advertising, usually on one side.

And it's like, great. Most people, if they try to read it, they're confused and then they don't vote. And enough people just have like an association of like, oh, this is bad. It's written in an ambiguous way so that however they read it, they feel like, oh yes, the bad outcome is the one that I don't want. And then they just vote yes or no, because they were told to do that. And then the thing passes. All right. That's American democracy. Another thing that I found very strange about Election Day in the US, I can't remember what the proper name for it is in the UK, but on Election Day in the UK,

the media is not allowed to talk about the election pretty much. There are really strict rules. All they're allowed to say is that the election is happening and they're allowed to show footage of the leaders of the party casting their vote. But there's not allowed to show footage of the leaders of the party casting their vote but there's not allowed to be political coverage to the point where it's strange like you'll watch the news or listen to the radio in the uk on election day and it's like the most boring news day of all time and then as soon as the polls close across the country the gloves are

off and the exit polls come out and it's like the usual wall-to-wall blanket coverage. But this is not the case in the US, which in itself is strange. But the thing that makes it doubly strange is if you're in California, the polls have closed across the East Coast and we're already seeing results. Like I was watching CNN and I was starting to see results coming through and then I went off walking somewhere, which I'll talk about in a second. And I was walking past polling booths in California where people were walking in and casting their votes. I was watching them vote. And yet they, like me, must have been knowing half the results were coming out. It was already clear which way things were starting to lean. I know in the case of California, it doesn't make a big difference

because of the nature of politics in California. But still, I still find it strange that I can be listening and watching people basically saying this is looking like who's going to win. And there are other people who's still walking into the booth to cast their votes. It was like, again, it seemed crazy to me. Just because I'm not used to it, I guess.

This is the point at which I will remind you about the existence of Hawaii. Poor Hawaii, way out there in the Pacific Ocean, in the middle of nowhere. Not many electoral votes to begin with, but also because of this time zone thing, it's like, well, I mean, like, obviously there are not a huge number of people living in Hawaii compared to the rest of America. So statistically, the election should essentially be decided by the time Hawaii rolls around. And also Hawaii votes in a particular way almost all the time. So like, I understand conceptually why this would happen. But I'm, I think this whole system is crazy. Like, I really feel like there's this weird rush, like people want the news right now. And since America is so big, you can have the news

start to roll out over time. Like if I was emperor here, I would make it the rule like, hey, no reporting until the polls close in Hawaii. I don't care. You got to keep a lid on it, people. Yeah, good luck with that. Like if it's a weird news day, I think that's a small price to pay for everybody feeling more like their vote matters. Right. Yeah. But I found that strange. So I ended up, because I didn't want to just sit in and watch CNN all night, because I thought that would be a bit sad. And I thought, I'm in America, I'm, you know, for an election, it might never happen again. Let's make something other.

A lot of Tim's actually invited me to parties. Oh, yeah? Sorry if I didn't reply, people. I was a bit busy. But I appreciated the invites. But what I did do was I did accept an invitation from a friend to go to like an election watching party at a local theatre in Berkeley. It's like, you know, an amateur theatre company. They had MSNBC on a big screen and where people normally sit to watch the play everyone was

just sitting watching and they was like selling drinks and pizza and stuff like that and it was like a big get together and it was actually quite a nice thing oh that's interesting yeah and i was told it would be quite nice and it had been nice in other years i guess the only problem is i don't want to get all political but obviously an amateur theater group in in Berkeley is going to be quite left-leaning, quite Democrat-supporting. It seems very unlikely to me. And obviously, as it became clear that the Republican candidate was going to be the one to win, there was actually quite a lot of emotion and there were lots of crying people.

It actually got a bit messy at one point. So I kind of left people. It actually got a bit messy at one point. So I kind of left eventually. I like the idea of you slowly walking to the door as the evening progresses. It was a bit of a mess. But amongst all the sadness there, amongst all the supporters of the Democrat candidate, there was one funny moment. And that was I was nearly out of phone charge. So I borrowed someone's charger and i went out to the foyer of the theater and found a plug and i plugged in and next to me was another powerpoint with a phone charger already there and this guy walked up to her and said oh does anyone

mind here if i use this charger and one of the people in the lobby said oh i think you can i think that's brady's and i'm like no no i'm here with this one and then i realized they were talking about another brady and i said is there another brady here and they said yeah yeah and i said where where and they said oh she's just over there it was a lady brady a lady brady a lady brady they said oh it's that woman over there in the jacket and she came over and i said is is your name Brady? She said, yes. Huh. Took pictures with her and everything.

It was great. I so rarely meet other people called Brady. And I've definitely never met a Lady Brady before. Wow. So it was brilliant. I feel like she has to always be called Lady Brady. Like, that's fantastic. Yeah.

A Lady Brady. I tweeted a picture with her. I think I missed it. I didn't expect you to say, oh, yeah, the alert came up. Like, I get all my alerts when you send a tweet, Brady. I tweeted a picture with her. I think I missed it. I didn't expect you to say, oh yeah, the alert came up. Like I get all my alerts when you send a tweet, Brady. I've got notifications on all my devices for your tweets. Yeah. And I certainly don't go through the equivalent of manic depressive phases on Twitter.

It's like desert, incredible overabundance, desert. There's a picture of me with a swamp pen guy, but I think I'd already sent you that. Here's Lady Brady. Hang on. Look at that a lady brady and in trademark brady style you're pointing at her of course i am there you go how do you feel about there being a lady brady i think it's brilliant yeah i loved it it made my night I think this has the possibility to catch on. I think any Tims out there expecting a girl, you know, put Brady on the list. Or a boy.

Yes, or a boy. I'm sorry. I'm cool with both. Didn't mean to raise your hackles there. I don't mind that it's like both, but I don't want it to become just a woman's name. I'd like it to remain both. You know, this is how goes, though, right? There's actual demographic information on this.

So this woman is the tipping point. If not the tipping point, she's the tip of the iceberg, I guess. Maybe that's the thing. She's like the progenitor. Yeah. I've read in a couple places that there's real demographic data to support this. This is a really common phenomenon that essentially the names only ever go one way that like a male name will become a gender ambiguous name like leslie right and then it transitions over time to end up being

an almost exclusively female name famously like jane well and it will never come back it will never come back to the man side yeah that essentially this is a one way street only for whatever reason, right? Oh, great. Yeah. Lady Brady somehow seems a little bit more sinister now. This is why I was asking, right? It's like, you're going to be in the retirement home and people are going to be, they'll be like, oh, a man Brady. I mentioned Leslie because one of the places where I grew up, we had a neighbor who was an old guy called Leslie. And I was just always aware like, oh, he was on the end of that demographic shift. That Leslie Nielsen.

Like, yeah, it seemed totally fine to have an older guy with the name Leslie, but it would seem very strange to have like a little kid with the name Leslie. And so this is where you're going to be, Brady, in the retirement home. Oh, yes. Look at this charming man from another time with the name Brady. That's you. That's your future. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. That's changed everything. She seems a little bit evil now. Name stealer. No. If that's what happens, that's what happens.

You can't control it, Brady. It's going to happen. I never liked my name anyway, so I have no great attachment to it. I told you I always wanted to change my name when I was growing up. Do you want to tell the people what you wanted to change your name to? Yeah, I want it to be called Jason. Jason. I always said when I'm old enough, I'm going to change my name to Jason because I thought it was such a cool name. But by the time I turned 18, it was like on my driver's license and stuff. So I thought, well, I'll stick with Brady. Bunch of paperwork, bunch of hassle. Who wants to do that? And I hate to say it, but like, you seem like Brady to me. I can't imagine you as Jason.

I will always say it. If you ever want to change your name to Jason or Leslie or whatever, I will support you 100% of the time. And I will call you Jason Leslie from now on. But you seem like Brady to me. Yeah, I think that's pretty much who I am now I think I've imprinted on the name so I quite enjoyed that aspect of the night but then that was it that was my election night this podcast is brought to you in part by Squarespace the simplest way to

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What did you do for the election? Did you sleep through it or did you wake up to the news? How did your election night play out? I just went to bed right you seem surprised no i don't like to stay up late i'm not going to stay up for new year's if i can possibly avoid it but sometimes social engagements require me to stay up to new years sorry looking at you so no i just i just went to bed and then i usually have offline mornings like i try very hard never to go on the internet until, you know, at least lunchtime, which is very effective for me. But I figured like, oh, when I wake up in the morning, this will just be perfect. Because every time I've woken up in the morning, when there's an American election in the UK, it's like, oh, great, it's all done. I just

went to bed, there was nothing to even look at, there was no news, I wake up and now I just get to find out the answer. And so that was my experience this time around. All right. Now, since the election, anyone who follows you on Twitter can't help but have noticed, and I certainly noticed, that you've been a right grumpy ass. You haven't been yourself. Do you want to talk about this? What's been up, man? But see, I think I have been entirely myself. I think this behavior is not surprising. No, it's such an emotional reaction to an issue. Like too much emotion to be typical.

Okay, so I guess the thing that I found just incredibly unbelievable as the morning went on is like I woke up and I was like, okay, that's the news. But then it became clear that the thing that I thought would never happen again in my lifetime was going to happen, which was that the winner of the popular vote was going to lose the electoral college. And I just thought, I cannot, I cannot believe that this is going to happen again in my lifetime. If you look at the actual dates, it's like a couple of times in the 1800s. And then 2000. And the 2000 case is even like a complicated case where the Supreme Court gets involved, like, you know, it's not like a standard case. And so I thought, like, oh,

I'll live the rest of my life where whoever wins the popular vote almost certainly will win the presidency as well. Like we won't end up in this bizarro situation that the electoral college can bring about. But no, here we are again. By my count, it's the fourth time this has happened. And I was just like, I could not deal with that. I just, the thing is Brady, it's like, I don't know if you're aware, but I have a thing about elections. I know you do like them. I know you're interested in them. Okay, but again, I don't find elections interesting. I don't find election campaigns interesting for the most part.

I don't find the particulars of politics even get the most basic parts right-ish, I feel like I don't even understand what we're all talking about here. And so this was just a case of like I cannot believe I am facing another one of these situations in the Electoral College of my life. So that threw me quite off kilter as I was like a crazy person refreshing the votes on the New York Times page for watching the count for the popular vote come in. Like, I'm totally fine with understanding like the way the elections run, like, and people run because the electoral college is set up the way it is. Like, I understand all of this. I'm totally fine with this, but it's just like, oh my God, here we go again.

I can't believe it's happening. So I remember your original electoral college video. I haven't watched it for a long time, but I remember you made one. I haven't watched it for a long time. It's five years ago. I did watch your, your new one that you made. My catharsis video. I have watched it. It was all right. It was all right. I mean, here's the thing. Like people should understand, like, I did not think that that was necessarily a good video. That was just one of these things of like this thing is on my mind and i will go totally insane if i don't just write something and produce it and animate it and put it up right it's like i will go crazy if i don't do this so great all of that aside though i do want to just get a little bit of electoral college views from you here and i know i'm kind of the

guy who's brought a knife to a gunfight here because you are quite knowledgeable on the issue of the electoral college i would say i am not but i kind of know how it works and i am yet to be persuaded that it's the worst thing in the world i would say that I am persuadable both ways, because I do not believe at the moment that it is necessarily the case that the person who wins the popular vote, who is voted for by the most people, should necessarily win the presidency. Okay, so lay out your reasoning for that. Okay. It's going to come out a bit muddled. Okay. It's going to come out a bit muddled. Okay. And it may involve analogy. It may not. It may involve things that are wrong. It may not. And it may involve ignorance

or it may not. But can I start with an analogy? Please go right ahead. Let's go back to the World Series of Baseball. Okay. Which is a best of seven competition. Now, you can win the World Series by winning four games of baseball by one run to zero. Right. And the other three games, you could lose 100 runs to zero. So overall, you could concede 300 runs and score four and still be the legitimate winner of the World Series. And some people might say, gosh, if you conceded 300 runs in three games of baseball, you're probably not a very good

baseball team. But I can make the argument that in fact, that could be quite a legitimate thing. And if you're good enough to win four games and the other team was only good enough to win three games, there could have been different conditions that favoured the other team. It could have been home games and away games. I can make an argument, although I've used such an exaggerated case. You can win the World Series quite legitimately and by far and away not score the most runs and I'd be very comfortable with who won. I think the same could be true of elections.

I think if you have decided for whatever reasons, and we can get into federal stuff and state stuff if you want, but if for whatever reasons you have apportioned waiting to different people's votes, I can think of quite legitimate reasons to apportion more votes to certain groups than others. You could also argue against it, and I could be persuaded otherwise. But I could say, you know, the president is not just the president

of, like, people. They're also president of vast tracts of land, and they're responsible for animals and mountains and rivers and small villages and things like that. And you could say, well, hang on, maybe we need to do something to protect certain groups or empower certain groups more and not give all the power to the dense, huge cities full of people. I can come up with good arguments for it. So I can easily envisage a system whereby you're apportioning waiting to votes.

In fact, I saw a lot of people make an argument during Brexit, and I'm not saying I necessarily support this argument, but I saw the argument made that how come someone who's 90 years old and about to die had their Brexit vote count for the same amount as someone who was 18 and has to live with the repercussions for 60 years? You can argue that both ways, but still there is an argument for apportioning weight. And it feels to me like for whatever reasons, the Electoral College has apportioned weight to votes. And we can have a discussion about whether or not they should have done that or not. But at the moment, they have done it. And if that's the system that everyone has got, I'm cool with it. It just works that way. The system doesn't give every one person to vote the same power as the others. And just like in the World Series, some runs count for more than others.

Those one runs scored in those 1-0 victories counted for a lot more than all that feast of runs that were scored in the three games you lost. So I can kind of be persuaded of it. The other argument you made about the Electoral College in your most recent video was to do with the actual voters and faithless voters and things like that. That's a kind of another argument. I think that's a bit of a red herring myself. That never has been an issue, even in the four cases where things have gone against the popular vote. The faithless voters has never been a problem. And I can't

imagine the country ever letting it be a problem. I think it would get slapped down if someone changed the result of the election by being a faithless voter in the electoral college. And they should probably fix the rule because it's just a bit messy and antiquated. But I think it's a red herring in the debate about yes or no to the electoral college. I think the real discussion to be had is whether everyone's vote should count the same. That's where I'm coming from. Okay. Are you sitting down, Brady? Yep.

I agree with everything that you've said. I even think that's a perfectly good analogy. The thing about the Electoral College that is very hard to convey, even in the longer, older videos that I've done, is, like, I will agree that the electoral college in isolation is not necessarily a problem. The thing that I originally was planning to do this year for the election, instead of doing the rules for rulers video, which took it over, was I kind of wanted to do a here are all of the particular problems in American democracy video, because my feeling is really like none of them on their own are really deal breakers. But it's everything put together ends up becoming a real problem. example of an interesting different thing that the united states does that's a layer on top of all of these other layers that exist and that i think ends up making things worse like i mean

it's almost like you could have a very parliamentary system where everybody elects their local representatives and then the members of parliament elect the prime minister stroke president right and like that's a very different kind of system and the idea of the electoral college is almost that that people are sending electors to go represent them and elect who the leader of the executive is going to be. Like, it's actually not that far off of a parliamentary system, sort of, right? But I don't necessarily have problems with parliamentary systems. But I think it's a question of the way all of these various things interlock with each other, which is part of what always makes it a very difficult thing to talk about. I think you're going down the red herring route again, though, Gray, when you start talking

like that. Like this antiquated extra layer of abstraction where these faceless people have to like rubber stamp who the people chose, I admit is weird and unnecessary. But like saying how like, you know, this is almost like a parliament. Maybe it was once like that, but that's clearly not what it has been for a very long time. I think when you start couching it like that again, I think you're like stirring up the wrong debate. You know, this is just some anachronism, some weird system that they use to transfer what happens in the election to some kind of formal process for the president being appointed, which is stupid. But when you rile people up with it, I think it's a red herring. Yeah. So again, I agree. I'm not actually saying that it's like a parliamentary system. I'm just saying like the structure is vaguely like this same idea,

right? And there's nothing necessarily wrong with a parliamentary system. So there could be a version of the electoral college that's just totally fine and unremarkable and boring. But I'm just saying like some of the particulars of it are frustrating. And I mean, I guess the thing that we should get out of the way like very clearly is, you know, it's so funny, like you make a video and it's always interesting to see how people react to the things that you say. And like part of my frustration, which I thought I made really clear, was actually with some friends I had some personal conversations with who were wanting me to make a video about how the election result can be overturned with faithless electors. You know, I ended up getting a kind of inundation from a lot of people that I know personally about this. I kind of feel you did make that video great. I feel that there was a very strong element of, I won't say scaremongering,

but sowing the seed into people's brain that legitimate elections could be overturned by renegades. And you sort of said that should never happen. But I think you definitely sowed a seed that it was a possibility. But maybe I watched it through the wrong prism. And I know you made other points in the video, but I came away from that video thinking that you were sowing that seed. What I was trying to say there is like,

the Electoral College has the option of this totally crazy function. Now, I agree with you that it is incredibly unlikely that it is going to occur. There's also, believe it or not, there is a whole other extra crazy layer on top of this, which is that just to walk through the shockingly unlikely scenario. Electoral college vote happens in December. Let's say faithless electors swing it and they choose a different candidate. When that happens, in January, there is also an official part of the process where Congress actually certifies and counts the ballots from the Electoral College. But during that stage, any senator or representative is

allowed to object to the result. And if that occurs, it starts getting really foggy here because it hasn't happened before. And there's a little bit of like, what exactly is the process? But the probable outcome is that the newly incoming Congress then votes and decides on who the president is going to be, right? But all of this, I completely agree, is very unlikely to happen. There's two things here. Like, this to me seems like an obvious thing, right? You shouldn't have systems where there's even a small probability of a ridiculous thing happening. And I think if you can't close these loopholes, you are intentionally just waiting for trouble. And I think this election is a perfect storm of potential trouble. If anything crazy is ever going to happen, it's this election. You perfect storm of potential trouble. Like if anything crazy is ever

going to happen, it's this election. You're saying because like such an unusual candidate won it, that if any people are ever going to try to invoke some of these weird loopholes, it might be this one. Exactly. This is the time if there's any chance, it's this time. Now, as every single day that goes on, I think that chance decreases. I would say like, it's the highest it's ever been in American history. And I feel like I'm so against this idea. I'm against this even being a thing that's possible. And I find it furious that people seem to be okay with systems where it's like, ah, there's a crazy thing that can happen, but it'll never happen, right? But if you wait long enough, crazy things do happen. And so you should try to simplify and clarify the system. And so, like, I was just seeing a lot of people like calling for

faithless electors. And it's like, yes, this is technically within the rules. It's kind of like in the Brexit video where I said, like, you know, if the government doesn't do Brexit, it's kind of going against the idea of democracy. Like, I was trying to say this, a similar thing in this video of, like, this has never happened and it totally shouldn't happen. And I think my exact words were then, like, but it's crazy to leave in place for future elections a system that benefits nobody, right? Something like that. Okay, Gray, I'm with you. This is kind of a possible way that that could have been perceived,

though. And maybe I perceive it, depending on what you tell me later on, is using this doomsday scenario, the red herring, as I call it, but you know, something that is possible. I feel like maybe some people think you're using this doomsday scenario to change the other aspect of the electoral college it's like using that as the back door to change the other component that gives certain states more influence than other states it's like you're saying i can't win that argument so let me scare the bejesus out of people with this other argument of faithless electors and results being overturned. And then once everyone says, oh, you're right, the electoral college is terrible, then you'll change the other stuff. And that's what I want to talk to you about. Like the million dollar question, silver bullet thing that I want to know from you is, do you think everyone's vote should count the

same for president? Let's get to that in just one second. But I do just want to address your previous point, because in a sense, you're right. Because, so here's the thing. The Electoral College has this function where the person who wins the popular vote can lose the election. Yeah. And now, when that happens, it ends up being the case that the people whose candidate has just won are like, the Electoral College is amazing. Yeah. I think this ends up becoming like a moderate reading of the actual rules. And I feel like if rules mean anything, you have to have a kind of fundamentalist reading

of the rules. And so if the rules say that faithless electors can overturn the results, if you're A-OK with the first half of the list of rules that forms what the Electoral College is, you have to be A-OK with the second half of what the Electoral College says is possible. And so I think each of those two halves end up creating a hole that is theoretically objectionable to everybody. And that's why I'm trying to discuss it. Some people will be on the side of the popular winner should win the election. And some people will say the election should never be overturned by these electors. It's like, okay, but that's

what it is. And the relative arguments about how likely one or the other are to occur. I feel like all those are is discussions of what happens to be the current political system. They're not discussions of the system in general, in the abstract. How does it actually work when you don't have a team to be rooting for? That's the question that's like, it's so impossible to separate in people's minds. Think about how this system works in general. If you didn't have a side, would you be okay with a system that allows the person who gets fewer votes to win?

And there are totally scenarios where that would be acceptable. But are you also okay with a system that allows an unknown council of people to overturn that result? Like, I just don't think anybody can agree to both halves of those. All right. I just think you're sort of doing the same thing over and over again. There are two things going on here. And I don't think the two are particularly related, other than being able to say, there are two things that might be wrong with it. I think the faithless electors and the nature of the strangers forming the college and that is a whole separate argument and

is muddying the waters. And the more you clarify it, the more I feel like you're muddying it. I hear you. I understand what you said, but... I just don't understand how it's arguing though, because then it just seems to me like you're picking the parts that you like and ignoring the parts that you don't. And so then all I hear is, I like the system when it works in my favor. I don't like the system when it couldn't possibly work in my favor. And then it's like, oh, okay, well now we're not discussing what a fair system is. Now we're just discussing how you personally benefit this time around. And like, that is actually the reason that I was so infuriated because I felt like a man alone in the world on Wednesday.

You keep saying, oh, this time around, who's benefiting this time around? No one has ever benefited from faithless electors. People have benefited from the confusion between winning the electoral college and winning the popular vote. Like, that is an elephant in the room that needs to be discussed. But this possibility of faithless electors, yes, it's an issue. Yes, it's there. But it's not the core of the argument. It's like a plane is crashing because the engines have stopped working. And you're also saying there's a little crack in the tip of the wing that could also make the plane

crash. I'm saying, let's deal with the fact the engines aren't working. Can we land this thing with or without engines? Is there a way around this? What kind of engines do we need? How do we save the plane? And you're here saying, oh, yes, but also there's a crack in the end of the wing. Okay, once the engine situation is dealt with, let's have a look at the crack in the wing, because that's also a problem. But at the moment, we should be talking about the engines. And I feel like the disparity between the electoral college numbers and the popular vote is the engines of the plane. And you're spending way too much time on the little crack in the wing. I mean, we're going to have to disagree on this point. I just think it really does matter. And that otherwise, you are only wanting to accept the rules when they work in your favor

and you don't want to accept the rules when they don't work in your favor. And that's why I was really frustrated with everybody on Wednesday or whenever it was that the election results came out because I felt like everybody just wanted things to go their way and nobody cared about the rules, right? If you were happy that the candidate won, you were totally happy with the way the rules worked. If you didn't like the candidate who won, then you were calling for faithless electors to overthrow the result. That's why I was so upset.

I felt like I was just alone in the world and like, nobody cares if this is fair in the abstract. Everybody only cares that they win, that their team wins. And that's the thing that I hate the most about politics, is it becomes sports, right? And everybody's just pulling for their team and they want to win no matter what it is. I see the problem now. What's the problem? I think you are overhearing the people calling for faithless electors. There's a call for

everything out there, but I think the people complaining about the disparity between the popular vote is way more the argument and the thing people are talking about than the faithless voters. And if you think both things like have equal weighting and the people who lost trying to use the faithless voters as the backdoor, I think you've got that wrong. But you understand, I'm trying to tell the winning team they have a reason to be concerned too, even though it benefited them this time. I think you're trying to trick the winning team there. Again, I think you're trying to use it as a backdoor to get a wider issue. We'll have to agree to disagree on this point. Look, I agree with you that both things are flawed, right? I

agree. Well, not flawed. I agree with you that both need discussing. But I think one is more important than the other. And I think you're placing undue importance on the faithless voters problem when the thing that American society needs to decide is whether or not they're happy with the situation of popular vote winners not becoming president that's what america really needs to decide and i wonder what you think about that okay so i'm going to try to describe the situation in a little bit of the abstract so we don't get caught up in the details of the electoral college because who cares really right right doesn't. It doesn't matter. So here is my view on it. You have the competing needs of two different entities. On one hand, you have the competing needs of citizens. And on the other hand, you have the competing needs of the states. These are the

two players in this game. And it really is like a question of kind of governing preference, which way you want those things to lead. Like, do you care more about the sovereignty of the states or do you care more about like the citizens as a whole? And like, I really don't think there's a correct answer to that. I really think that's a bit of like a preference argument. Now, the problem is, here's what I think happens. It's almost like an optical illusion that occurs in people's minds when we're discussing this.

So there is the very legitimate, very real complaint that if you're just going by popular vote, because America is so enormous, you end up with just the cities controlling things. And I don't think that's an illegitimate complaint. And you also end up with just this weird and real disparity, especially in a country as big as America, that it's like, you have like this ocean of the rural and poking up in random locations is an urban archipelago, right? And like, the cities have much more in common with each other than they necessarily do with their own states. And the rural areas often have much more in common

than they do with the state that's, you know, an hour's drive away. And so there's this weird geographic fragmentation. And I think it's totally legit for people who are not in the cities to say like, look at all of this land, like look at all of this land like look at all of this space this has to have some kind of weighting and balance against the cities like i can understand that argument okay yeah and so here's where i think the reasoning then starts to turn a little bit because what happens is the minority group which which in this case is, you know, it's very close, but let's just say it's rural citizens are in the minority or, you know, will essentially be soon. And they say, you know, we should have more votes or our votes should be weighted more

in order to balance out the cities. And that right there is the moment that I think there's a problem, because there is actually a simpler, fairer solution, which is you have to require a supermajority. You don't just require 50.0001% of the votes. If you want to say like, look, we need to have an elected leader who is going to be representing a lot of our people, what you want to do then is say, instead of giving this weighting differently, which I think has a real unfair feeling and leads to strange results sometimes, I think it's easier to say, look, the candidate has to win 60% of the ballots cast. That's what you actually want. Because otherwise you end up with these weird situations where you end up with minority rule. And people are always like, oh, minority rule is awesome when it's me.

And it's like, no, you're doing this the wrong way. If you want to protect a minority group in a voting block, what you require is more consensus, not less consensus. So that's my feeling on this. Does that create a situation where, because as I understand it, Gray, the electoral college weightings are tweaked from time to time as demographics change. Yeah, it's every 10 years with the census. Yeah. So with your suggestion here of this super majority instead, instead of like weighting the votes, just requiring the winner to get more votes.

Right, right. A higher percentage of the votes. Yeah. Are you just creating a new number to be tweaked? And as more and more people move to the cities and the rural areas get less and less dense, you're going to have to say, oh, we need to move this up to 61 or 62 now, because at 60, the cities still just have complete control. And oh, now we've got to move it up to 64, because more and more people have moved into the cities. It just feels like you're tweaking the numbers in a different way to how the electoral college does it.

This is totally what setting up a voting system is. It's a question of which number are you going to tweak? And I get driven kind of crazy when people want, like people want two things. They want the system exactly as it is right now, or they want the perfect alternative. And it's like, okay, well, you're never going to have a perfect alternative because fundamentally what governance is, is compromise, right? And it's just a question of how are we going to do this, right? But some people are always going to be unhappy. And so, yes, if you are, you're looking at like a voting block and there's a bunch of

people, you want to have a super majority for certain kinds of decisions. And I think it's, it's a fair system to say, and you know, especially with like a presidential election, even changing that number by like the candidate needs 55%, not 50%, I think would wildly change the kind of candidates that you would end up getting, right? Because you just need like a different kind of person to actually win that. Like you need someone who actually appeals to a broad base of the population as opposed to people like say the electoral college forces presidents to appeal to a broad, wide range of the population. But I think it is pretty clear in practice like that doesn't actually happen. Whereas even if you required a 55% supermajority in order to win, I think that would

have to change the way candidates run. But yes, I totally concede that that means in the future, you are signing up to adjusting this one number. But I think that's a clearer, fairer thing to adjust. How much consensus do we require among the population to elect a president versus how much more should people's votes in Wyoming count than someone in Texas, right? Like, I think that's a fundamentally divisive and unfair argument to be having. This magic number, this super majority number, which would be tweaked from time to time as the country changes, how is that calculated? Like in simple terms, how do you even arrive at that number? I don't know how the number would be arrived at. This is where the debate would begin. But I think the simplest starting point

would be to try to go around and say like, okay, what is the number of people who live in metro areas, right, in large metro areas, and we're going to require the supermajority number to be larger than just these populations, right, whatever it is. I expect in America that would be something like 55%, right? It's not even like a huge gap, just like more than our current system. So that's my viewpoint. I just think it's kind of crazy when the argument starts out as, we can't get everybody to agree and we need to protect the rights of the minority. And it's like, okay, yes, agree. We're all on the same page so far, so good. And the way we do that is by making it so that the minority can elect someone who rules us all. And

it's like, no, no, this is worse. Like, this is worse. I know you're concerned about rule of the majority, but I don't see how rule of the minority is an appropriate solution. I think rule of the supermajority is the appropriate solution for protecting minority rights. But Gray, the minority only has that power when the majority split, don't they? Like you make it sound like some little state decides the whole election, but that's only become the case because the Californians chose a Democrat and the Texans chose a Republican. And if those majorities got behind one candidate, then the little state wouldn't even have a chance of having a say of who the president is. So you've just changed arguments here because now you're talking about states. I'm simply talking about people voting and requiring a super majority of people voting. And under this scenario,

everybody's vote is worth the same. So someone in Hawaii, their vote is worth just as much as someone in Utah. Everybody's votes are the same. And we're just requiring a higher threshold to actually be the victor. That's a different thing from talking about a system where we're going to require states to win, right? Like it's a totally different thing. I thought you were talking about the minority state choosing someone, right? Yeah, sorry. No, I'm talking about the minority rural population, right? Presuming that they are the minority population. But this holds true for any electoral system. Like, and I think it's a thing that you can see in almost any country, is this question of, we need to decide how many people need to agree. And lots of our political systems, I personally think are intentionally designed so you can end You know, this is a whole thing, but I find it interesting when citizens themselves are arguing for this minority rule, but they only ever argue for it when like they are the minority group that is going to end up ruling. And it's like, this is not how we run

a civilization. We need super majority consensus. What are you thinking there, Brady? It's politics, isn't it? It's like broken. And the problem is you only get one chance to start these systems because it's pretty hard to change the midstream because it becomes all political the minute you start the system. So it's this age-old problem, isn't it? It's one of the ways why I am so dead set in my videos to not talk about particular candidates or particular parties, because this is the lesson that I learned in the very old now UK referendum on the alternative vote,

that if I could talk to people about the system in general, almost everybody could agree on what was a fairer system. But the moment people started thinking about their particular political party, it was like, it was amazing to see how people would suddenly change their position entirely and be like, no, you know what? This system that I agreed moments ago was terribly unfair. Actually, I think it's the best system because I win under it. I find that so frustrating and so myopic. Is that a mistake you're making?

Is that your downfall though? Because I feel a little bit like you're in a battle for hearts and minds here and you'd like people to see the right path. And if they're watching some utopian CGP Gray video where politics doesn't exist and everything's perfect and idealized, like you can win that argument, you know, because you're a smart arguer. But the minute your argument falls into the real world where the argument actually does have to be won, you say that it gets, you know, it all gets drowned out by the shouting and the idiots. Don't you need to find a way to take this argument into the real world and persuade people? It's not that it gets drowned out. It's that people are likely to revert to their previous position when they realize the thing that they agreed on was the fairer system will disadvantage them in particular.

Yeah. And I totally agree that this is a thing that people do. And, you know, at least right now, I'm still relatively riled up about that. Although just to be clear, like, at the time of this recording, there are some reports that the popular vote win might switch, because it is incredibly close. Like, you know, there's absentee ballots being counted, and there's a whole bunch of stuff. And if that happens, I will, honest to God, I will be relieved, right? That like, the president won with the popular vote and the electoral college vote. Like, I don't care what your particular politics are. That's better for everyone. But it's like, yes, I am in a bit of an argument for hearts and minds on this. And while I am still relatively riled up about this and, you know,

like putting out not great videos because I'm just like, I got to get it out of my head. I am aware that thinking strategically, there may come a time when I have to be more particular about this. And I do have some thoughts rolling around in my head about like, basically doing like some back of the envelope calculations of like, how many subscribers do I have in what states like with the YouTube demographics, and it's like, I was thinking about some things, I got some plans, like maybe four years isn't good, but maybe eight years is perfect. Like I am totally aware of what you're saying, that if it comes to an actual fight in the mud, you have to be more specific and that day may come. You're running for president,

aren't you, Greg? Is that why you said, how many years do you have to live in America to be eligible? Because you have to move back to do that. Oh, yeah. You have to live a certain number of years in a row in America. You've got to be over 35, don't you? But you've also got to have lived in the country for... Yes, that's right. It's over 35 natural born citizen and some number of years.

I forget exactly how many years. But I am giving no details of the vague ideas in my mind but i've like i've been thinking about it all right i've been thinking about some things all right well that's something to look forward to in eight years when we're still doing hello internet you can tell me all about it oh yeah is that a promise we're still gonna be doing eight years brady i think this episode's going to go eight years if we don't stop soon so the elections have essentially ruined our black mirror discussion but for people who haven't done their homework it's good because you know how like when you haven't done your homework and then there's like a fire alarm or something and it means the teacher doesn't catch you

basically this has been a fire alarm for people who haven't done your homework and then there's like a fire alarm or something and it means the teacher doesn't catch you basically this has been a fire alarm for people who haven't done their homework because yeah we have run out of time for black mirror we started early because we knew that this might run long uh but we have run longer than we even planned for and we are frankly out of time so if you haven't done your homework it's going to be collected next time which will be a discussion about black mirror go watch it if you haven't we'll talk about it then if you have done your homework you're probably really pissed off at us right now but sorry yeah but you know blame cgp grumpy