This Past Weekend - E446 Malcolm Gladwell

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Malcolm Gladwell is an author, journalist, and public speaker. He has written 5 New York Times Best-Selling books including “The Tipping Point”, “Blink”, “Outliers” and more. He is also th...e host of the podcast “Revisionist History”, produced by his company Pushkin Industries. Malcolm Gladwell joins Theo Von in New York City for this episode of This Past Weekend. They chat about their first meeting years ago, the power of unique hair, and what he’s learned from his vast research on humanity. They also talk about the sudden rise of AI, what we get wrong about policing in America, why job interviews might actually be pointless, and more. Malcolm Gladwell: https://www.instagram.com/malcolmgladwell/ Special thanks to AdHoc collective and the Carriage House in NYC for providing the location for this episode. AdHoc Collective: https://www.instagram.com/adhoccollective/ ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Morgan & Morgan: If you’re ever injured, visit https://forthepeople.com/thispastweekend or dial Pound LAW (#529). Their fee is free unless they win. Raising Cane’s: Satisfy your Cane’s fix fast by ordering through their app, online at https://raisingcanes.com, or stop by your local restaurant. Caldera + Lab: Get 20% OFF with our code THEO at http://calderalab.com/THEO to unlock your youthful glow and be ready for summer with Caldera + Lab! #ad #calderalabpod Füm: Head to http://tryfum.com/THEO to save an additional 10% off your order today. BlueCube: Learn more at https://bluecubebaths.com/ DraftKings: Join the NBA Finals action with Draftkings Sportsbook. New customers can place a $5 bet and get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code THEO. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. In Massachusetts, call (800) 327-5050 or visit gambling help line m a dot org, In New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369). In Kansas, call 1-800-522-4700. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). 21+ in most eligible states but age varies by jurisdiction. Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings dot com slash sportsbook for details and state specific responsible gambling resources. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Opt-in and 10+ leg req. for 100% boost. Eligibility, wagering, and deposit restrictions apply. Terms at sportsbook dot draftkings dot com slash basketball terms. ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek&ab_channel=BishopGunn ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I want you to join the NBA Finals action with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. New customers can place a $5 bet and score $200 in bonus bets instantly. Plus, all customers can take a shot at bigger payouts with DraftKings stepped up same game parlays. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app and use code Theo. New customers can place a $5 bet and score $200 in bonus bets instantly. That's code THEO only at draft King sportsbook. I want to chime in about a new tour date.
Starting point is 00:00:39 We have in Austin. We have added another show there Sunday June 11 11th at 7pm at the bass, concert hall. And we will be there. I'll also be in Edmonds in Alberta, July 14th, Gille Ferd, New Hampshire, Gille Ford, July 20th, Windsor, Ontario, August 18th Falls Niagara, I don't want to say that. I don't want to upset any people. August 20th and Toronto Ontario Toronto. Sorry. August 27th. Get all your tickets at theovon.com slash T O U R. We've got some new merch items to tell you
Starting point is 00:01:26 about the be good to yourself crew neck and teal. It's frosty. And we got the new hoodie and better suite. Plus we've got the root beer t-shirts from the root beer cartoon. All that and more at theonStore.com. Hey guys, I'm in the West Village of New York City today. And I am at my friend Keat. She is a entrepreneur. She has a beautiful coffee shop and flowery or floral shop called Rose Cranes. And she let us use this vintage carriage house today
Starting point is 00:02:10 to record in. So very grateful to her. If you wanna support her or some of her businesses in the village in New York City, you can check her out at ad hoc collective. And we are very grateful for this beautiful space that we get to record in today. Today's guest is a journalist. He's a public speaker. He's a New York Times best-selling author who creates works that often deal with what makes us human. How stories and facts overlap.
Starting point is 00:02:48 stories and facts overlap. He has his own podcast, Revisionist History, which goes down some really unique rabbit holes. You'll hear a little bit about that today. Grateful to have in one of the most unique minds of our time and to get to spend some time with him. Today's guest is Malcolm Gladwell. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it.
Starting point is 00:03:31 I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it.
Starting point is 00:03:39 I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it was called top of Montana maybe. Or some, there was a coffee shop on Montana Avenue over in like, yeah in Brentwood.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Yeah, and I remember seeing you there and I was like, and I wanted to ask you about, I mean, I was just thinking like, man, it would be crazy if one day I got to talk with Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah, so. I used to hang out at a cafe Lux in the Brentwood Country Mart.
Starting point is 00:04:07 Oh yeah, that was nice. Oh, it wasn't there though. No, it wasn't there. I made a rare, oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, it's changed names. I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, it's good there in the morning. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:22 Yeah, it's a fun place. Everyone sits outside. Yeah, everybody sits outside and some people have dogs and stuff And sometimes they even give away dogs there. They'll have like a little one of those candles or like like a candle will come Then like you want these dogs. Yeah, yeah, used to be a Coffee works or something. No, then they have some funny name now. Yeah, I like that place a lot. Yeah, it was cool But I remember seeing you man. I was so excited So really awesome to be able to get to chat with you today.
Starting point is 00:04:47 Um, yeah, I was, uh, I was thinking like one thing about you that's unique is your hair. Well, the same could be said of you. Yeah. We are people, you know, so a friend of mine once said, there are only a handful of people in history who are recognizable in profile. Like in, you know, a black and white, simple, you know, Mickey Mouse. You know, this is like a short, very short list.
Starting point is 00:05:18 He was like, you have the potential to be recognizable in profile. That. Yeah. So do you. Do you feel like it does something for you? Like, yeah, it's interesting. I think if I am going to go buy a book, right, especially from a smart guy, right?
Starting point is 00:05:36 I kind of, there's something in me that wants that guy to look smart. Well, you're telling me I look smart? I think to me, it would be my perception. There is, but I don't know if I thought that if I know that you look smart because I've read some of your books, and I think that you're smart, or is it because it's the forehead. It's not the hair. I don't know. There's a whole there's actually just true or not, but maybe someone read somewhere or someone was telling me, people do fall asleep, but nonetheless,
Starting point is 00:06:08 it's a stereotype about people with big foreheads. I have a very high forehead and it slopes back. I've met my mom's forehead. People think that means I have a big brain. I don't think it does. I think I just have a high forehead that slopes back, but I think people, you look at a big forehead and you think, well, there's something in there.
Starting point is 00:06:29 There's something in there. Yeah, like I was got a, I got a hemmy in there, I got a V6. Yeah, yeah, I guess maybe I could see that, but I think there is something you want the guy to look at, so you kind of want the guy to look smart. Yeah, well, the other thing that's going on hair-wise is people with big hair like mine got lucky with Einstein.
Starting point is 00:06:52 Einstein set the template for the big crazy hair being associated with genius, right? Before Einstein, if you had someone to imagine a genius, they would never have imagined someone with a head of frizzy hair. There was no association there. Einstein is like the kind of template for this idea that this, he has a ju-fro, not an afro, but the idea that a fro is somehow symbolic of craziness. Yeah, he does, he's almost got that fact fro. He's like, oh, this froze. He got facts in it.
Starting point is 00:07:27 You know, or he gave you that. That is awesome. You can't I mean, I said is the most brilliantly kind of branded genius of all time. Yeah, but also since we're on a subject, you know, Beethoven also crazy hair. So maybe it goes back a little further, not quite as magnificent as Einstein, but when you picture Beethoven in your mind, you do picture like this shock of hair that sort of symbolizes his intellectual turmoil. Yeah, I think, yeah, well, it seems like, yeah, his hair seems like there's,
Starting point is 00:08:02 there's just like, there's so much going on. It's got to get out of me somehow. Yeah. What do you think your hair symbolizes? Mm. Well, I noticed, for me, I noticed once I grew my hair, I had my hair long when I was young. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:17 And then I tried a little bit more to like assimilate kind of I feel like whenever I moved to Los Angeles. And I had my hair short, I think I was trying to, you know, audition for sitcoms and different things. And then once I grew my hair long again, I just felt like myself. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:34 I felt a lot more human. One time somebody, there was somebody cut the back of my hair off like on purpose. They did it without me knowing a barber, like in like a vindictive way. And I didn't realize it until later. And if I felt like dehumanized even like I felt, I don't know if that's the word, but I felt almost like when Native Americans, when they would take all the persons scalp,
Starting point is 00:09:08 it made me think of that. Like I felt like they, I don't know, I feel like your hair, it really has something to do with you, you know? You're channelling a little Patrick Swayze at the moment. Oh, that's a good point, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Hopefully non-cancerous, you know,
Starting point is 00:09:24 because I think he probably had cat. I think he had, but he smoked a lot, I think. Yeah. I don't know about his. Yeah. So I just, I'm thinking that or you could, you, or like a really fun, you know, metal band from, from 70s. Yeah. That's the other right. Those are good associations, by the way. Yeah. No, it feels good. Yeah. No, I don't feel like it's I feel like it's a warm judgment You know, yeah But yeah, I just thought about that. I was like oh Malcolm has interesting hair his hair makes me believe that he is smart is there Like does his hair mean anything to him does it?
Starting point is 00:09:57 Did he like pick it up from somewhere? Because my hair does make me feel like a lot more comfortable as myself. Yeah. I don't, some people call my hair a mullet haircut. I don't think of it like that. I just think of this as how I feel most comfortable and this feels, and it feels like your hair, it's like a, it's an expression of you kind of. It's like, you know, it almost picks up signals. I think some people, or I don't know if this is true or not,
Starting point is 00:10:25 I might just be saying this and think that it's true, but like some animals have like little hair on them and it makes it picks up information. Mm-hmm. Do you think that's? Well, I've always had, you know, I have my mom's hair, my mom is black, so I have a version of her hair. Historically, my hair is short at the moment.
Starting point is 00:10:50 It's been much longer. When I was a kid, it was much longer. I think I liked it because I grew up in an area that did not have a lot of, was very, very kind of white. There was very little curly hair going on where I grew up in an area that did not have a lot of, was very, very kind of white. Very, there was very little curling hair going on where I grew up. And I think I sort of liked the idea that I stood out a little bit.
Starting point is 00:11:14 Yeah, seemed kind of, I think that was the main attraction of it, was just, it was an element of difference. Yeah, I can relate to that. I grew up in an area that had a lot of clean. There was, well, there were some people that had like real clean hair, like their hair looked like when they slept at, when they were asleep at night, their hair was also asleep. Whereas I've always felt like, like nothing inside of me has ever gotten a moment of rest, really. I've always
Starting point is 00:11:43 felt like even when I'm laying down, like the rest of me is just phonetically trying to just survive in the world. So I think I remember seeing some people in their hair just look so comfortable as I got. Dying, boy, that's nice, you know. Like their hair look like it's state, like, you know, like it just, it had looked like it had a condition or just built into it, you know? Well, I don't do anything to my hair, so I don't comb it. I don't.
Starting point is 00:12:11 Do you want to wash it with, like, shampoo, or you just use water? I just water. I mean, it is the most kind of, I don't even pay any attention to it. It just sort of is. And then, every now and again, I get it cut. And it just kind of exists. Yeah, I was just thinking about that because a lot of your book, I read your book. I read your, or one of the, talking with strangers. Oh yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:38 Talking with strangers. That's the one that I read. And I didn't think I was gonna be able to really read it. And then I, I mean, I knew I would, but it was just like, I didn't know if I'd have the time. And then I just, it was cool. It was enjoyable. It was, it was interesting.
Starting point is 00:12:48 It was easy to read. One thing that I found fascinating in it like, well, how would you kind of summarize like what the book is sort of about? Like just kind of briefly just so people can know. And then I had a couple of kind of things that were interesting. Well, it's a book that tries to figure out why so many of our interactions with strangers
Starting point is 00:13:07 go wrong. And because I was struck when I was writing it by how many of the sort of stories in the news were stories about, you know, Bernie made off the famous Ponzi Schumer. Is a guy that everyone who invested with them they thought they knew who he was and they were all wrong. Yeah. I just tell a story about a spy in that book who everyone thought they were a loyal American and they weren't.
Starting point is 00:13:38 The female right? Yeah, the montes. Yeah. That was unbelievable. Yeah. She's like one of the one of the most damaging spies in American history. And she's just like, she's, you know, she's sitting there doing her job for 10 years and no one has a slightest inkling that she might be working.
Starting point is 00:13:56 She's working for the Cubans all time. Not even her and her sister and her brother. There she had. She had a brother in law who worked for the FBI. No, sorry, her sister worked for the FBI and was oblivious to the fact. Yeah, that blew my mind. Yeah, there. But they were, you know, and I tell stories about Jerry Sandesky, that infamous pedophile at the state. Oh, yeah. pedophile at the state. And you know, he's in that job for 25 years. And like everyone thinks he's just this lovely guy, you know.
Starting point is 00:14:31 So I was really fascinated by that idea that you can meet somebody and you can completely miss so much of, misunderstand so much of what makes them tick. And why would we be that way? You would think as human beings that we would be, that evolution would have favored those who were good at figuring out strangers. But it hasn't. The opposite is true, right?
Starting point is 00:14:58 Here we are at the finest point of our evolution. And we're terrible at this fundamental task. And so that's, that was the kind of puzzle the book tries to unravel. Yeah. Yeah, and it based kind of on the Sandra, what was the Sandra, Sandra, Sandra bland, yeah, Sandra bland.
Starting point is 00:15:14 It was a case where an officer pulled a woman over and then they ended up getting into an altercation, which almost seems like it shouldn't have happened. Yeah. And then they arrest the woman. They end up getting into an altercation, which almost seems like it shouldn't have happened. And then they arrest the woman. She ends up in jail, just kind of like summarizing obviously, and then she takes her own life. Yeah. It was one of the more kind of, remember that string of cases?
Starting point is 00:15:40 Yeah. Right around the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement about African Americans being having these kind of lethal encounters with police officers. And hers was one of the most high profile. And what was crazy about that one was that because the officers he's got a video camera in the entire time, we have, we know exactly what happened between the two of them. And he meets someone, she runs us, she rolls through a stop sign, he pulls her over, and he becomes convinced really early on that she's up to no good, she's got drugs, she's
Starting point is 00:16:19 something, and she's not any of those things. She's just unhappy. And he reads all of her signals of unhappiness as signals of threat and dangerousness. And so he gets her wrong, right? And so the question is, why does it get her wrong? How can, here's a, she's a young woman, she's driven a long way to go for a job interview. Her life has not been going well. She's trying to start over and still town in Texas.
Starting point is 00:16:47 And she's had some mental health issues in the past, but not insurmountable ones, but she's just someone who's going through a lot. And his cop pulls her over and convinces she's a criminal. She's got a gun and maybe drugs and could potentially harm him. And like, there's a big difference between unhappy and being potentially violent, dangerous. And so my question is, how is a police officer who you would think would be good at that, right? At being able to distinguish
Starting point is 00:17:16 threat from unhappiness. Yeah. How did he get, and so I use that case as the way into the book, which is this, let's use this to try and figure out why we're bad at this. Yeah, I loved it. I really, I didn't know, I loved kind of,
Starting point is 00:17:30 like I didn't know about that. I wasn't familiar with that case, right? Obviously I'm familiar with a lot of interactions that you see with police and black people. You know, it's a pretty common kind of occurrence that where there's a lot of fear, there's a lot of uncertainty. there's a lot of uncertainty. It's funny because when I watched the video,
Starting point is 00:17:49 because then it led me then I went and watched the video online. And it felt to me like, yeah, the policeman took some offense to what she did. Yeah. It took some offense to some behavior of hers. I don't know if he felt like she was like dismissive of him or immediately untrusting, which has to kind of also suck for a please officer.
Starting point is 00:18:16 If you are a most trusting guy, you come up and then everybody's always just like, you're untrustworthy. and then everybody's always just like, you're on trustworthy. Well, he's way too quick to jump to a conclusion about her. That's one of the things that... He seemed a little high-strong. And she also seemed high-strong.
Starting point is 00:18:34 Yeah. And so it's interesting, because also we had a police officer on a while back and he was saying the number one caused a death amongst police officers is suicide. Yes, it's incredibly stressful with profession. Unbelievable. It's like, so the whole thing is all, it's just, it's all interesting that what a stressful
Starting point is 00:18:55 job. It's like, and then you have her who's a stretch, who's obviously dealing with a lot of stress and stuff in her own life. And so then you have this meeting of just, I mean, it's a lot to put on the fact that somebody just rolled of stops. You know, it's like something that's not that severe. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:14 I mean, a lot of that has to do. I concluded was, it's about time, you know, the problem is that he's rushing. And if you're, he rushes to a conclusion. He rushes to kind of deal with her. He rushes to find out what she's all about. He jumps to a judgment about her. And you know, those are when you're rushing, the risk of making an error just goes up dramatically. And his, you know, that's one of the lessons I take away from the book, which
Starting point is 00:19:46 is that getting people right requires an enormous amount of patience. And we have to, particularly at job of high-stress, high-stakes job like policing, we have to build patience into these kinds of situations. Teach police officers that you don't have to resolve this in two minutes. You can pull her over, you take some time to get to know
Starting point is 00:20:15 she is before, you're not on the clock. And by the way, many police officers are on the clock. That's part of the problem that they have supervisors who are measuring their productivity and say, you've got to resolve every encounter within, that's an incredible mistake. Doctors are the same way. You go to the doctor, doctors are on the clock. It's one of the reasons why they get things wrong.
Starting point is 00:20:38 They don't listen to you. It's that they've got 10 patients at the door and an expectation they have to get through all 10 and the next, you know, that idea, we confuse, we get so obsessed with productivity in many things that we sacrifice the kind of the accuracy and the meaningfulness of the encounter. Yeah, that's a great way to say it.
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Starting point is 00:24:31 I think it's almost a micro look at a kind of larger things that are going on in our entire society, you know, that there's not enough long-term even a moment doesn't have the long, the longevity that it feels like it used to have. I talk a lot about how I don't even think a moment, like every moment is captured now. So it's like a moment used to have this whimsical value that it was like you can ever replicate it. It's like, it's like a flash of lightning. It's like, and that, it's like a flash of lightning, you know, well, it's like, and that's why there was so much value like in storytelling and things,
Starting point is 00:25:09 because somebody was like, man, you're never going to believe this. Like, this is what happened. And then now we capture every moment, you know, and we watch them so many times that it's the value of something, you something used to never be able to be replicated. And now everything is so replicable. A replicable. I did. This reminds me of I did a podcast, an episode of my podcast revision's history a couple of years back on a, I stumbled on it, totally by accident.
Starting point is 00:25:40 I met this guy who's an investigator, works with police departments to investigate police shootings. And he's, I was at his house for someone office for some other reason. And he showed me this tape. And it's a tape of cops, a guy steals a car, cops follow him at high speed. They finally get him, pull him over, he gets out of his car, and they shoot him all these times, right? And you watch the, you hear about it, and you watch it take the first time, and you think, oh my gosh, another one of these cases where they gun down
Starting point is 00:26:16 as innocent guy who didn't, you know, and then he walked me through, we had the video the whole thing. He sits me down and he walks me through the video, frame by frame by frame by frame. And he proves that actually it's not what you think. This was a guy who had all kinds of mental health problems. And he wanted the police to kill him. It's a well-known phenomenon of death by cop. Where somebody does something and is willing his own. And he's like, you don't catch it the first time you watch this video.
Starting point is 00:26:49 You've got to slow it down, break it down frame by frame, have some context about the case. And then you realize it's a hundred percent the opposite of what I thought. The guy is, as they shoot him, he's going, he's trying to get them to shoot him more when they don't, like, and you watch, he breaks, and he shows you like what's going on. And it was this incredibly, you know, it's a, it's not a, people don't want to hear that interpretation sometimes. But it was, I just remember I was sitting, I drove all the way to hit an office outside of San Antonio, Texas. Middle of nowhere. It's really interesting guy.
Starting point is 00:27:27 Not a guy I would normally ever meet or hang out with. His world is very different from mine. And he just sat me down. I just remember him saying, I gotta show you this video. It was one of my favorite episodes of, I've done of my podcast. I just thought it was like, and the way I told the story was, we started out and you know, I wanted the audience to reach the first, to jump to the conclusion that, oh, this is an innocent guy being shot by the cops. And then slowly you kind of peel
Starting point is 00:27:55 off the layers of the onion, and then you realize, oh my god, I got it wrong. Yeah. Right. It was like a kind of, I always remember that. It was like, it was one of those cases where, I think if you ever had this where, you're trying to tell a story, and you think it's gonna be really complicated, you sit down with one person for 40 minutes and you think, oh my God, that's it,
Starting point is 00:28:17 that's the whole story. Like I don't need to do anything else. I just need to like run this thing as it happened to me, but it was very memorable day. Well, a lot of you're, a lot of that talking with strangers was kind of like what you just kind of described. You know, there was a lot of things where I was like, wow, I'm amazed that that wasn't seen by people.
Starting point is 00:28:35 I'm amazed how like shut, like how people would get a certain moment wrong. How some people would like you talk about like defaulting a truth a lot of times, people want to believe the person. So that's like a natural way that a lot of things like that are bad or kind of wrong or off continue to go because there's just a human nature for us to default to believe or want to believe.
Starting point is 00:29:01 I found a lot of that stuff really, really fascinating about the story. And then I like to, in the end, it just comes back to this case of this officer in this woman, right? And also when I was watching the officer in the woman and that tape, there was something about when the woman started smoking, you know, I wonder if that like a, because I think with police, there's like probably an expectation that things go a certain way, you know, So I wonder if that like offended the officer or something like, you know, you just don't know sometimes Because even though we can have an idea of everything it still comes down also that there's two people who have had their their own unique lives up and to that moment, you know
Starting point is 00:29:43 Yeah, I think he thought that her smoking was kind of, that there was something... Dismissive. Dismissive and also sinister about it. Ah. You know, because he hadn't his head that she might be a potential bad guy, right? Drugs, guns, something.
Starting point is 00:30:02 Do you think that like, or I didn't read all the case. I didn't see that. I mean, I think, you know, he's, he's, he's got a variety of kind of scenarios in his head when he stops her. And one of them is she's running drugs and she's armed. Oh, wow. And I think so.
Starting point is 00:30:19 I think any police officer who, when you stop someone, you always have in your head a scenario where they're a bad person. I see, right. So not just because, not because she was black, just because of any person. Just scared like. You've got to think, I'm stopping them.
Starting point is 00:30:34 I'm, you know, as a police officer, when you approach a car, yeah, you know you are running the risk that they're armed and they might shoot you, right? That's a good point. So they're saying. He's got that in his car. He's got 10 different scenarios in his head.
Starting point is 00:30:49 And one of them is that. One of them is that probably. Yeah, and the fact that she's smoking, I think he kind of, that adds credence to the one of the scenarios that says that she's a kind of a weirdo or something's not right or something. Why would she start smoking? He's not smoking or something. Yeah would she start smoking? I don't know our fan or something.
Starting point is 00:31:06 Yeah, the minute I walk. Min and I get there, she starts smoking. Like, I don't know, he's categorizing her as that there's something off with her or something wrong with her and that adds to that expectation, I think. Yeah, I think I kind of took it as like, this seems like kind of like a white cop kind of guy. So I start to generalize in my head.
Starting point is 00:31:28 They kind of have a, and all police officers I think have a certain way that they kind of expect things to go, like they get an understanding of, this is how things go when you stop someone, you know, you tell them what's going on, they comply really to a certain way, and then everybody goes on about their business, based kind of upon what the cop decides how things should go.
Starting point is 00:31:52 So I think, to me, it seemed like some of the ladies' actions, like yeah, and the smoking kind of conflicted with that. But it was real, just going back into your book and along this kind of same thread, one of the things that really stood out to me was about how judges and machines, like if you put the information, like if you put people before a judge in a court, that the judge who you think would be able to interpret what the, like, a lot more information by seeing the person listening to the case, they got it wrong more than the machine did. Is that right way to say it? So if I simply give you the, so the question is, you're, you've been arrested and the judge
Starting point is 00:32:40 has to decide whether to let you out on parole. Yeah, yeah, I have. And that's, no, I mean, I'm talking hypothetically. Oh, yeah, sorry. But, um, yes. So the judge has to make a prediction about you. And the question is, how good is the prediction, right? And a lot rise in that prediction,
Starting point is 00:32:56 if you go out and commit another crime, the judge looks bad. Yeah, it's why they cut people's hair and shave, I'm gonna put them in a suit. And it's exactly, it's why they cut people's hair and shave them and put them in a suit and exactly. It's about that perception. So the question is, I could just summarize on paper all of the things about you. Will you live, how old you are, in nature of your crime, whether you've been arrested before, but feed them into a computer, an AI system, right?
Starting point is 00:33:22 And have them have the computer make a prediction. Or I can give the same information to the judge and say meet the person. So you're giving the judge more information. You're allowing the judge to look at all the information the computer looks at, plus whatever information they can glean from the face and face encounter. And the question is, is the judge better at making
Starting point is 00:33:42 that prediction because they have access to more information, the information they can get from a face-to-face encounter. And the answer is no, they're worse. In other words, meeting somebody makes you worse at predicting what they're gonna be doing then. So it brings into question all kinds of things. Like, do job interviews, this is another thing, but I've been obsessed with my podcast, for instance, history, we did a show do job interviews, this is another thing, but I've been obsessed with my podcast,
Starting point is 00:34:05 Rich and Sister, we did a show on job interviews. And the truth is that like, there's not a lot of evidence that in a job interview, meeting the person helps. And I did a funny thing where I interviewed, I've been hiring assistants for 20 years. So I went back to all my old assistants and I had them tell the story of how I hired them. And because I don't believe in job interviews,
Starting point is 00:34:30 I hired them in the most kind of random way. I'm like, you know, I don't even bother asking questions. I don't ask them, I make a rule of never asking them where they went to school. The, so it was a funny episode because I was interviewing all of those, and I had forgotten like how totally random my hiring practices are. And by the way, I've never had a mistake.
Starting point is 00:34:52 Only actually, only once I heard someone who didn't work out and they left within two weeks, I'm still in touch with most of them. One of my older sisters is like one of the most trusted employees of my podcast company. Oh, that's awesome. My point is, it's just not, you could pretend that sitting down and talking to somebody for half an hour
Starting point is 00:35:11 will help you make a meaningful judgment about what kind of person they are, but you can't, it's nonsense. So you might as well, my point is, I just roll the dice. What the hell? Like how most people, most people, if they're all I'm interested in is, if they applied for the job, they're clearly interested in working for me.
Starting point is 00:35:30 They showed up on time, so I don't know. They seem reasonably, you know, they're like, I'm actually, I try to be nice to my assistant and if you're nice to people, they usually work hard. So like, I pick people who have got a college education, so I know they've know something about the world. That's all I need. What are you doing else? Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting.
Starting point is 00:35:51 I found my producers for podcasts, and I found them like, like, one of the first guys, just a random dude, just email me, he's like, hey, man, I can do the job. And I was like, this guy sounds wonderful. And he's what, he was a great producer for a long time, and still is. But it's so crazy, sometimes how you find different people, it's like, yeah, it's almost like,
Starting point is 00:36:11 if somebody just breaks through the cracks at a certain moment too, it's almost like this fits right now, this is what's easiest. What's interesting, and this is the thing I explored in that episode was, it makes you realize that the success of someone in a job is less about that person, than it is about the environment you create for that person once they take the job. In other words, a lot of it is about us, the hiring person, not the person we're hiring,
Starting point is 00:36:39 that lots and lots of people can thrive if they're brought into an environment that helps them thrive. Like that's the, you know, it's like, I don't know if you're a big sports fan, but you know, there are certain coaches who can make lots, you know, tons of players go to that, and the coach reliably turns them into excellent basketball players or football players.
Starting point is 00:37:00 And other coaches, it only works with very, very specific people. It makes you realize, oh, it's about with very, very specific people. It makes you realize, oh, it's about the coach, not about the player. I always, you know how they always talk about general managers and sports, and they say, that guy's really great at drafting. Great athletes at a college. I always think, maybe they're not good at drafting. Maybe they're just good at making sure those players succeed once they arrive. That's the magical piece of it. Yeah, I guess that's interesting. Do you think like on a larger level that we do that, that's something that we've lost? I talk a lot about purpose and stuff in our podcast
Starting point is 00:37:40 about like, if you don't have purpose and you're really left up to the elements of how of just the whims of whatever the algorithms of social media and stuff send it to you, you know, and a lot of purpose has been lost over the years by like I kind of romanticized that people had more purpose for their jobs back in the day. Like there was a factory in their town and they made tables there. And there was a pride in the town. This is, you know, we have a table at our house that our father made at the factory in our town. There was a sense of pride.
Starting point is 00:38:14 And that companies were like, yeah, you're gonna move up in the company. And then, so then, you know, there was just more of like, it felt like there were, the company itself was also nurturing and wanted you to succeed. Whereas now it feels like we've gotten to more of a corporate type of vibe
Starting point is 00:38:33 where everything's more about like protecting, like civil laws that make sure everything is like kind of okay and just making sure no one's gonna sue each other but it's not even about anybody building up like an equity in the human being anymore. Does that make any sense? Yeah, you know, a friend of mine once, I remember having a conversation with him. He was a, he was a consultant, management consultant, he was talking about that we're happiest when we have three kinds of kind of validation when we like what we're
Starting point is 00:39:08 doing, when the people around us give us positive feelings about what we're doing. And when the broader world gives us feedback. And it's like, if you look at people who are unhappy, it's because in what they're doing, they're lacking one or more of those three things. So we were talking about police officers right now. There are plenty of police officers who like their job and like the people they work with. But now they're operating in an environment
Starting point is 00:39:39 where the outside world is very skeptical and hostile and suspicious of police officers. It makes it really hard to be happy in your job as a police officer, right? You got two of the three things, and you need all three. I'm a nightmare. It's a nightmare, yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:53 But you couldn't go down the, you know, I was talking with, I had to, did I, we read it on my podcast. I did this wonderful discussion with these two fantastic women who were coaches. They coach youth sports, girls sports. And they were talking about how like, a lot of people are now quitting coaching.
Starting point is 00:40:14 Coaching's become really hard. And I said, well, why is it become hard? Do you still like, is coaching make you feel good? Absolutely, love it. Great as long as I ever did. Do the kids you coach like being coached by you? Totally. I, you know what, I'm friends with them for years later.
Starting point is 00:40:33 It's the most important experiences in my life. I feel like, so why don't, why aren't people quitting coaching? They're like, oh, it's the parents. Parents are driving us crazy. Torturing us, screaming at us, calling us at all hours. So it's like they have the personal thing they love it. They have the immediate feedback and love from the kids are coaching.
Starting point is 00:40:53 But it's the outside world of the parents on the sidelines who are just making them miserable. Yeah. Right? You got two or three and two or three is not enough. So when I hear you what you're talking about, I'm here. That's what you're saying, a version of. You could have a job that you'd like, but you're talking about the second and third level.
Starting point is 00:41:12 It's not there. The company isn't giving you, you know, isn't recognizing what you're doing. And the broader world, you're anonymous to the broader world. There isn't, the whole point about being a craftsman in the 19th century sense of that word was that the world recognizes that you had a certain level of expertise. You made the table and every time someone saw this beautiful table
Starting point is 00:41:34 Ricky go get your table bring it out here Everybody like he did understood they were giving you an understanding they were at our side It was giving you recognition for Something that was done with pride and with skill. Yeah. And that you can't like, it's not enough for just you to appreciate what you're doing as a value.
Starting point is 00:41:55 That's interesting. And I think a lot of people probably don't know that. And so I think a lot of people probably wonder, why am I not feeling some fulfillment? Why am I not feeling this or that? And I think, but yeah, I think that's one of the things that lit, like, that leads people to a lot of unhappiness. We were talking about it with like school shootings,
Starting point is 00:42:12 what leads some of these people to get so caught up. And I think for one, if you don't have any purpose through like a job, through a family, or have like love in your life, like something that gives you purpose every day, and you're really at the whims of like, the social media, or anything that, which are tailored towards,
Starting point is 00:42:33 if you start looking at something bad, it just gives you more bad. It's almost like a paper whereas box in a way. But yeah, we just had been talking a lot about purpose. I think, no, I think with the school shooting thing is interesting because what's going on there is that there is now a kind of, it's funny I'm doing in this season.
Starting point is 00:42:55 My podcast I'm doing a whole thing about gun violence. So I've been thinking a lot about this. And we have an episode where we talk a lot about my shootings. And I think the psychology of that is really going back to the idea of those three layers of that there's a world now, a kind of closed culture online of people who are unhealthily obsessed, pathologically obsessed with this kind of violence. And there is no, they've,
Starting point is 00:43:29 they've been cut off from the third layer. They're not checking their ideas against what the broader world looks like. They're totally enclosed in this sealed online culture where the only feedback they're getting are from people who think exactly like they do and who feed their kind of obsessive fascination and addiction for this kind of weird violence.
Starting point is 00:43:53 Like if you look at people who have been involved in mass shootings, they're immersed in that world. They know, they can talk obsessively for hours about like the kids who did the Columbine shooting. Oh yeah, there's boot like manifestos, there's people getting like, yeah, have you heard this manifest, have you read this kind of like,
Starting point is 00:44:13 it's this own little world, hermetically seen world. And like there's no connection to the kind of broader society. And so they become to think of, they come to think they get, they're getting all their validation from that first layer. Right, that become to think of, they come to think, they get, they're getting all their validation from that first layer, right? That's what sort of, and so, you know, breaking, trying to solve this puzzle of mass shootings requires at some point to getting access to those kids and kind
Starting point is 00:44:38 of breaking them out of that closed universe. Yeah, and the interesting thing about is like with online and living in online societies, now it's like you can find whatever universe you start to create, right? Whether it's good or bad, that there's this other energy from the other side. It's almost like the mirror where you used to look in a mirror and you would get like an earnest reflection yourself. It would be based on sometimes you might not see yourself clearly because of how you thought about yourself or how you felt about yourself. But at least the mirror was going to give you, it was an honest reflection.
Starting point is 00:45:13 There was no ability to change the mirror unless you were in a fun house or something. The mirror was the mirror. But now the mirror has the ability to kind of adjust the way you look at yourself or to give you reflections that make you think the same things over and over again. Like with algorithms and that sort of thing with social media, you know, because now we're not even, the mirrors are just our phone. We're looking in there for so much validation. It's really weird when the mirror now has the pat, it's like, that's frickin' really scary
Starting point is 00:45:45 because if you get somebody in a dark hole who doesn't have a strong connection to our purpose in the world where they feel some one of the senses of value from themselves, from other people, what are the other two? From the internal, you're a media world of people who share your community and then the broader world. And then, yeah, if you're not media world of people who share your community and then the broader world.
Starting point is 00:46:05 And then, yeah, if you're not feeling some of that and you're just in your internal, just in this kind of a closed space or even in a space that the mirror starts to design, that's really, if you get into the dark arts a little bit and it's only shown you dark art and everybody in there's a dark artist and you're like, damn, this is the world. That's real scary, man. What do you think? This may seem like a stretch, but I thought about this a lot.
Starting point is 00:46:29 I'm old enough to remember when television was kind of a mass cultural form. So when I was in my 20s, every single person I knew watched Marrow's Place. Everyone I knew. Oh yeah. I could go and if I saw someone who was 25 years old, anywhere in North America, I could start a conversation about Marrow's Place and they would be able to, even if they didn't watch it,
Starting point is 00:47:05 it was in the air, right? Right. Same thing, I remember, yeah, we watched 90210 just together. No, I don't know too much. So it was like kind of the, a little bit of the younger but sister or brother shit. Yeah, that had the same function.
Starting point is 00:47:15 Right. But there's tons of television shows in that era. I remember walking down a street in Manhattan when the last, the series finale of Seinfeld aired. And it was, the city was as quiet. It was like, the restaurants were empty. Everybody was home watching Seinfeld. That is impossible today.
Starting point is 00:47:37 Would never happen. But was in, so right then, back then, everyone had the shared experience of a certain set of stories. Signed felt, and I don't think I, we did this episode two seasons ago or last time on Will and Grace. I think Will and Grace was the last show that had that kind of shared experience. Share experience.
Starting point is 00:48:03 That's why the show was so powerful in changing attitudes about gay marriage and all kinds of things. And the idea that you've, the only thing that's left now kind of is the Super Bowl, but even that, not really, the Oscars don't have the same shared experience part of what they used to. Reviled, I don't know if it's a vile, it means anything.
Starting point is 00:48:21 Yeah, no, no. So there's nothing, I don't, can you have a societyile, it means anything. Yeah, no, no. So there's nothing, can you have a society that works if there are no broad shared experiences? I don't know. That's the sort of thing that worries me a lot. We're to think of it in terms of, to think of like 90210 is something that brought us all together.
Starting point is 00:48:36 But it makes perfect sense. I can relate to that when you say that. Because it used to be, I mean, you know, like, there was a couple of years ago on Joe Rogan, everybody got it really into when that had, I think it was Sebastian Younger book or something. It was about, Oh, tribe.
Starting point is 00:48:53 Oh yeah, you with that book, what was that book called? I can't remember, I know what you're talking about. I think it was called Zack, you know what it was. Okay. Into the wild, wasn't into the wild. No, this was the one where it was about how in tribes, when we were in smaller groups, it all made sense.
Starting point is 00:49:11 The amount of connectivity we're supposed to have, the checks and balances human wise, and even when you're saying the shared experience, like if a lion came into the village, or if somebody came in selling some new wares, everybody in the village knew about it, that person would leave you could all talk about it, it was a share, like there was some shared experiences, everybody had the same shared experiences,
Starting point is 00:49:33 so you all had this template on what you were kind of connecting about, you know, things to talk about. But I've never thought about that, yeah, there's, there's not that many anymore. So you kind of all wander around in your own little world and it starts to feel that way. Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of scary.
Starting point is 00:49:53 I mean, and also it means, it's also, we were talking about Laugh to Terms. On some level, it's less fun. It was kind of fun when the feeling, it's so much more fun to watch a television show. And people under the age of 30 have no, or maybe 25. They've never felt, it breaks my heart, they've never felt this feeling.
Starting point is 00:50:14 There was that feeling you had. You're watching the show and you understand it. Not only does everyone you know watching that same show, they're watching that same show at the same time. It's amazing. It's like, it felt like it's the same feeling you have when you watch sports. That's part of the power.
Starting point is 00:50:30 You know that everyone's watching it at the same time. But this was the idea that a story, a drama on thing was you were watching it like you're watching sports. Oh, yeah. And you would call, when it was over, you'd call your friends and you'd say, could you believe just what happened to it?
Starting point is 00:50:45 Yes. Dude, I remember there'd be domestic disputes on our street, right? And they would break them up five minutes before in living color came on, or some great TV show, like, look guys, we know you guys need to, we know there's two spouses beating the shit out
Starting point is 00:51:01 of each other. The color is a perfect example of a show like this where you're like, you're I'm gonna watch the segments man. You've had to what you you had to and like everyone I know discovered that show at the same time and it was just like oh my god this is like who is this guy Dave Chappelle? Like suddenly Dave Chappelle you're talking about Dave Chappelle when you like go to the office like or you mean the Chappelle show you mean? No no because he was on and he was on.
Starting point is 00:51:24 What do he wasn't on it? No, I'm telling you, I'm mixing up the, it was the Wyons Brothers. Yeah, yeah. What, the Wyons Brothers guys. Yeah, yeah, the, the Wyons Brothers. Jim Carey was on the, Jim Carey was on that show.
Starting point is 00:51:32 Yeah, the Wyons Brothers and then, bunch of other people were, who was on that show, Zach, you got it? And we'll do the, uh, get Jim Carey, game in Wyons, universe in Wyons,
Starting point is 00:51:43 all the Wyons, brought a good, David Allen Greer. All the wins, bro, they get. David Allen Greer. David Allen Greer, yeah. Yep, David Allen Greer was so good. That's right. Jamie Foxx. Jamie Foxx is on the show.
Starting point is 00:51:52 That's right. Jennifer Lopez was a dancer. She was a dancer on it. That's right. She was one of the fly girls. But dude, I remember there would literally be the cops would be there. There would be a husband and wife fist fighting
Starting point is 00:52:04 in the street outside of our apartment. And they'd be like, look guys. It's perfect. If we got to rack this up, you know what I'm saying? 902-1-0 is gonna be on in five minutes. So either get your last punches in. Let's agree we're not gonna press charges. The cops will take the liquor
Starting point is 00:52:20 and we're gonna, everybody needs to go sit in front of their TVs. I remember getting to the tell, if you got the television before, if you had siblings, you would get there and you would get the front position in front of the TV and you fucking wear the king, right? And I remember rubbing my legs like this as hard as I could.
Starting point is 00:52:36 Like, I almost try to create as much energy on my side of the television for whatever program was gonna be presented right there, you know? And my siblings would try to jockey for position and I was just like, I'm gonna get as much of the information, I'm gonna be, I am right here to be transmitted to, you know. Like this angle a little bit off center of the TV,
Starting point is 00:52:53 you might miss. I remember Bayer back then, because the TV's tiny. Oh yeah, I mean, that thing was 11 or 12 inches, dude. I remember we would draw extra TV on the outside of it, like if they didn't make any sense, they didn't make any sense, they didn't get any transmission. But there was something about that shared experience. We would all go outside then.
Starting point is 00:53:12 You're right. We would impersonate the characters from an in living color. We would act out the different things. There was a lot more shared experience. Morgan and Morgan, they are America's largest injury law firm. I'm more than one hundred officers nationwide in more than 800 lawyers. With over $15 billion recovered for clients, Morgan and Morgan has a proven track record
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Starting point is 00:54:13 That's F-O-R the people.com slash this past weekend or pound law pound five to nine from yourself. This is a paid advertisement. You know I'm a big fan of raising canes, that's right. You know I am. And they're chicken fingers, they do it to me. They do it to me every time. They do it to me, they do it to me.
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Starting point is 00:56:32 And that's why it's one of the things that I love about kind of like the way that you like thinking, writing stuff. It's like, you kind of like have an idea, and this is my summation. This is in the judgment, but you have an idea and then you kind of just meander away. It's just how things connect and it's nice, man. It's a nice look at life. That's what I really thought about reading, thinking, talking with strangers,
Starting point is 00:56:56 was like, oh wow, this is a lot of neat things that I hadn't really thought about before. It goes into some cases that are really like encapsulated and like, yeah, the Jerry Sandoski thing, I didn't know that this had happened in there and that the guy didn't really know exactly what he'd heard. And if he thought he'd heard a child and a man having sex in a shower, why didn't go in there and shut it down? So the whole thing is weird.
Starting point is 00:57:16 All the ways you behave, but don't, and when you look back at your behavior, like that didn't make any sense really now that I'm breaking it down piece by piece. But in the moment it all kind of seemed to flow, you know, even going back to whenever you talked about like the guy in San Antonio when you went back and looked at that footage and at first it all seems one way. But then when you look at it piece by piece you're like, oh, I had this, this is something totally different. As we start to get even further from moments
Starting point is 00:57:47 that we all have together, right? Like in technology gets, I mean, technology's kind of going so fast, when you and I both had experience or we've had kind of life without technology and life with technology. What has been like a surprise to you about some of the things maybe you didn't see coming with technology or I know it's kind of a broad question, but maybe we can just kind of start there. Yeah
Starting point is 00:58:15 Like you romanticize it in the early on did you like I Did understand I? Didn't understand how much it would encroach on my life like if you would ask me 10 years ago, or even five years ago, will I be checking my phone every two minutes? I would have said, you're nuts. I'm not going to be ruled by my phone. I'm totally ruled by my phone.
Starting point is 00:58:41 Yes, I am. So I did not understand how it's sort of ingratiate itself into. I did not, something like Twitter, the idea that I would be, I don't spend a huge amount of time on Twitter, but I do, I scroll through on that, you know, when you're reading two sentences, the idea that I would want to consume so much information in two sentence form seems crazy to me in retrospect. Like,
Starting point is 00:59:12 I was someone who grew up reading books, you know, consuming things in 10,000 sentence form. Yeah, now you're reading like a, it could be a high coup from some crack hits somewhere. You know, and you're taking it for seer, it's like there's a, it could be a high coup from some crack hits somewhere. You're not gonna know. And you're taking it for serious. Like there's a great meme attached to it. And now I form a huge opinion off of it. And then so that all kinds of like, and the weird way, the other thing that's weird about
Starting point is 00:59:35 social media took me a long time, I think I'm, I don't longer, in the beginning it took me a long time to figure out like how easy it is to take it personally. So somebody makes a random comment and you feel it in the beginning you're injured and then you think, why am I injured? Like there's a couple billion people in the world, some random person who I've never met, who I will never meet, who I don't even know who they are, has decided to say something
Starting point is 01:00:04 nasty. I'm going to give you a really dumb example of this. I, all of my cousins who are all car crazy, we used to always, they used to, on Canadian Thanksgiving would have come to my house upstairs. And... Y'all have Thanksgiving? Canada, so we have it in October. How do you guys get it though?
Starting point is 01:00:23 Same way, Americans got it. We, but just because winter starts earlier in Canada, so Thanksgiving's got to be in October. But was it like the Native Americans and everything? Yeah, it was, it was, I don't know whether it's explicit. It was just at time. It's, I think it's, there's an English tradition where you, where you give thanks for the harvest.
Starting point is 01:00:45 I think the Canadian one comes from that. Yeah, so it makes sense you guys a little earlier than because the wind comes from there. Yeah, wind coming. But anyway, they would all descend on our house and we were all carcass crazy. So everyone would bring their sports cars and we would put them out on the front lawn,
Starting point is 01:01:02 take photos and then drive them all and then switch off. It was like an annual tradition we did. And one time I posted a picture on Twitter and I was like, it's the, you know, all the, we're all gathered to drive our muscle cars. And they're not muscle cars. I know what a muscle car is.
Starting point is 01:01:16 They're not really muscle cars. I just have said it, you know. And then all these, there were all these nasty comments about they're not muscle cars. I remember my brother read it, and he was genuinely, he was so hurt. He was like, why are they being so mean to us? We're just driving our cars, we're fine.
Starting point is 01:01:33 It's like, there's a period where you don't understand, it's an impersonal medium, masquerading as a personal medium. That's the thing. And it takes a little while for you to wrap your head around the fact that like, no, this doesn't matter. It's a random, it matters as little as that, you know, in the old world, that person said that same thing, but you didn't hear it. Now you hear it, but it's just as trivial.
Starting point is 01:02:04 It didn't matter. It's like, right, but it's just as trivial. It didn't matter. It's like, right, right? Right, but we can't correlate. It's you're right, we can't correlate that. It's real interesting, because some people probably never recognize that it doesn't matter, right? To some people, that's their life. That's all that matters.
Starting point is 01:02:19 Yeah, because so, I think that, I, some part of me, that's worn off from in and out. Careless. Totally, same. But I think it's interesting because that used to be chatter in the background, like people saying on that's ridiculous, that's crazy, right? Or that's awesome, that's great, what a great idea. But those were things you heard and the,
Starting point is 01:02:39 those were things in the periphery you never heard. You never heard. It was just the chatter and the distance. But now those are things, if you want to just the chatter and the distance. But now those are the, if you want to access the chatter and the distance, instead of just having like somebody that means something to you communicate or getting it, an interpretation of something that has,
Starting point is 01:02:54 from someone that has value, or getting even, like, even negative feedback, but from someone that you respect, you know, you can get those things still, but and those have value, but otherwise, you can also tap into all that other shit that doesn't, but it still hurts the same.
Starting point is 01:03:14 Yeah. That's what's interesting is how much it's still. It does, yeah. It's a reminder, I think one of the things that we've, and I don't think it's new with social media, but it has always been the case that there are a small number of people who, I don't even know whether it's always deliberate, but who express their personal or their confusion or their befuddlement in hostile language. Like I said, a lot of times I don't think they mean to be hostile.
Starting point is 01:03:54 It's just how it comes out. A lot of times people who don't communicate for a living aren't necessarily expert at adequately explaining why they don't like something or the reactions to something. They've always been there. We just never heard their voices. That's sort of what we're getting at. Like, most people, if you, I once conducted an experiment where I responded nicely to people who commented, said nasty things about me on Twitter. And I wanted to see what happened. And what happens when, if they respond again, is they almost invariably back down. And you realize that they didn't actually mean, they didn actually mean harm to you or they weren't actually angry at your hostel.
Starting point is 01:04:47 They just didn't know how to express. They had a comment they wanted to make that was with an issue they have with what you were saying. They just didn't know how to say it in a way that was kind of socially kind of positive. And if you're nice about it and kind of I used to call this love bombing, and I'm still a believer in love bombing. So I would love bombing them, and I would just sort of be nice in a response. And they would always like calm down, and they would say, yeah, you're right, you're
Starting point is 01:05:17 kind of right. I just wondered about this. And you're like, all of a sudden you're having a conversation with them, right? It's very easy to disarm 90% of critics. Yeah. Just by kind of taking them, giving them the opportunity to be nicer about what they're saying. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, I wonder if there's like a thing where your brain just cycles through.
Starting point is 01:05:39 Yeah, it's just so easy. Why is it so easy for people, humans, and animals, we don't even know, animals don't know how to use social media yet, but why is it so easy for humans? I love you, I love you. It's coming. Oh yeah, I wouldn't be shocked.
Starting point is 01:05:57 That's gonna be crazy, dude. When we find out the truth about what some of the animals think, because we've been really, we've had kind of like a lot of set views on animals for a long time. Octopus Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't wait for that.
Starting point is 01:06:11 Yeah, can I get a piano down here? What the fuck do you think I'm doing with all these arms? Why is it so easy for us to say something so mean in a place like social media, you know, or the one or it's really crazy because you wouldn't really do that in person. Yeah, yeah. No, you wouldn't do that in person. And...
Starting point is 01:06:36 Yeah, that is it. I mean, you wouldn't do that in person because you're scared of the risk. Not scared, but you're mindful of the response. You know, the analogy I was thinking about was, I read somewhere, someone was talking about how, how do kids learn, how do they learn about social interactions?
Starting point is 01:07:00 And if you see this, she does especially with boys. I have almost two year old, though, she's a girl, not a boy, but I actually see a little bit with her. So when they touch you, they don't know anything about how to calibrate their touch. So the difference between a tap and a punch isn't there yet.
Starting point is 01:07:21 So my two year old will reach out to me and she'll, you know, you'll, ow, right? And because she's trying to do a playful touch my hair playfully, but she pulls my hair. She's going to, she wants to touch my nose, but she ends up whacking me the nose. And what she's getting when I say ow is feedback and do that enough times and she learns how to calibrate her touch. She learns that if she is legit angry with me, she'll go boom. But if she wants to be playful, she'll go tap. And you see it with kids interacting with animals, right?
Starting point is 01:07:58 They start to learn, oh, there's a difference between pulling a tail and stroking a tail, right? But you only learn that if you have repeated interactions in person, where you get to practice and learn what's acceptable and what's not. When a kid doesn't have access to that kind of practice, then they don't know how to calibrate, right? And there's a whole theory about bullies. The bullies are simply kids who never learn
Starting point is 01:08:27 that same process. So they keep hitting too hard, and the other kids start to ostracize them. And that means they never, they're robbed of that additional learning. It's like a vicious circle. And they don't have any chance to practice again. So they're still, and they're in prison.
Starting point is 01:08:44 So they're in prison, and they're're seven and they're still hitting too hard. And the other kids are like, you know what? I'm not dealing with you at all. Like, you don't know how to behave, right? Yeah. And I think social media is, is a version of the bullying. You're not getting the feedback when you're hitting too hard. Right? You're not, right? There's no, you say the nasty comment and that's it. You're done. No one says ow. Right. Which is one of the reasons why I like to respond to my questions.
Starting point is 01:09:13 When you do get a feedback, it's like, oh, I didn't really mean that. This is what I mean. And then you get to the chat. And then wait a great time. I'd had a tough day. People say stuff like that. I've done that too. Sometimes you want to reply to somebody who says something that's kind of like they didn't think something was fair because you want
Starting point is 01:09:27 to see what's going on. I genuinely sometimes want to make them okay. And so you'll reply back and you write a lot of times it just extremely deescalates. What do you start to feel like, you know, there's a lot of people that talk about AI now. It's like a big thing, right? Everybody's kind of nervous about it. We've had a lot of big things that haven't panned out, you know, like NFTs and... Yeah, what happened with that? It was just pictures of stuff.
Starting point is 01:09:57 It's exactly you and I thought it was, okay. Got really complicated for a while. I was like, I never, it was one of the things, you know how when some new thing bubbles up, you're like your face with this choice. You can devote some degree of time and attention and brain power to figuring out, or you can say, you know what,
Starting point is 01:10:16 I'm gonna blow it off because chances are it's gonna go away. Yeah. And that, I was like, I had to say it. I think you were the same way. With NFTs, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna blow it off because I think it's gonna go away. That was it.
Starting point is 01:10:27 But what? Same with Kenny Rogers Roasters. You remember that fast food restaurant? Yeah. You're like, it's gonna go away. Yeah. We went once and I was like, I love the music, but I'm not. You know, I do.
Starting point is 01:10:38 Yeah, I'm not gonna like, you know, be part of their like frequent, you know, diners, you know. Well, what was a chicken place? Yeah, it was roasted chicken. It was pretty good. They did have like a good corn pudding. Yeah. Kind of thing that they like a side item,
Starting point is 01:10:52 but they just, people just couldn't go from music to food at that time. Why? What, I, Kenny was making enough money on his music. He felt the need to do a brand extension. Somebody probably talked to me and knew it. Who knows he may have fallen in love with a woman who was a chef.
Starting point is 01:11:07 Sometimes you don't know people at that part of money, you know what they do. Can I just say though, as a general rule, every time I hear about a celebrity who squandered their money, it's because they went into the restaurant business. It's 100%. You hear about something,
Starting point is 01:11:22 like you read some story, about some guy and you're like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom some story, you read about some guy and you're like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then by 2016, they were in bankruptcy. And then you're like, okay, so why would they go back, open the restaurant, it's like on the list. It's always. Good point.
Starting point is 01:11:38 So if I was Kenny's financial advisor, I would have said Kenny, no, don't walk away. Anything was silverware. Don't do it, man. That's not. Yeah, really is crazy. People want to, you know, yeah, I just want his music to be his music.
Starting point is 01:11:53 You don't want to hate the chicken or whatever. It gets all confusing. You're not going to listen to the music on the way home either. Yeah, you know, we ain't playing that. Also, they play in the music at the restaurant. Oh, I don't know. Do you remember?
Starting point is 01:12:06 That is it. If they did that, that's a no no. That's a no no. That is a no no. You know, there's some things that happen where there's too much of something good. You know, I notice that if I eat ice cream, at a certain point, I can't taste the ice cream anymore.
Starting point is 01:12:20 All I can do is taste cold sweet, right? Yeah. And I still am happy with the cold sweet, but at this point, my tongue feels like drunk on sugar. I'm not on any, but I'm still just shoveling cold sweet in, right? I have this feeling about the Beatles. This is my most contrarian take.
Starting point is 01:12:39 I heard so much Beatles as a kid. I think it's because of when I grew up, where I grew up, every time I turned on the radio, there was Beatles. I can't listen to the Beatles. You cannot, if you play me, if there's Beatles playing on it, I will leave the room. It's not because I think they're bad. I think the geniuses, it's really music.
Starting point is 01:13:00 I've just had too much Beatles in my life. I hear a little, let it be, and I'm like, oh God, just turn it off. Can I hear something else? Yeah, let it all. It gives me a feeling. Beetles got ruined for me. Oh.
Starting point is 01:13:14 Yeah, I think you do something too much. It just, you get oversaturated. You know, I remember the first time that I found the beetles, I found a cassette tape. I was living in Tucson, Arizona. And I found a cassette top tape and I put it in. It was like, here come old flat top. And it was just fitting with who I was. I just started smoking cigarettes and I was like, I'm a fucking man, boy. And I would drive and just listen to that. And I could time the song when I
Starting point is 01:13:39 would get in and put the cassette tape in. And the song would end exactly when I got home. So it was like a perfect man. I just had these perfect little arcs going into my life. But it was at your first sustained Beatles exposure? 100%. So how old were you? I was probably 16 years old. See, how you got lucky.
Starting point is 01:13:56 I got it too young. I was getting mainline Beatles when I was like eight or nine. Oh my God. Which is too early. Too early. You really want to, there's some theory about the music that you're listening to. when I was like eight or nine. Oh my God. Which is too early. Too early. You really want to, there's some theory about the music that you're listening to.
Starting point is 01:14:10 I forgot. What's the magical age? There's a magical music age. I think it's like 18 or 17. Is music that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Really? You look that up there. I don't know whether it's a,
Starting point is 01:14:21 there's all these sort of studies on it. Some, it's sometime in your late teens, early 20s, and then your music, most people, not all, then your music tastes tends to kind of hardened, but there's a whole core. My problem is the Beatles were outside that window. If I had listened to my first Beatles song at 17, then I'm going on about John Paul and Ringo right now. Yeah. But I think I play my brother. Because he listened to it.
Starting point is 01:14:51 I think he listened too much of it. I think that's who I'll point the finger at. But it doesn't matter what Beatles song it is, I will not listen to it. Yeah, wow. I know it's bad. Well, it's almost, it makes me feel a little sad kind of, not for you really
Starting point is 01:15:05 But just for like any human that's had too much Beatles. That's just blue all their Beatles But like if you're Kenny Rogers if you're Kenny Rogers and you have a fraction of the musical catalog of the Beatles Then you are really risking things by playing it. Yeah, it's like. It's like, I can't even, I can only do two or three songs deep with him. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody can. So at least it was fast food.
Starting point is 01:15:31 So at least the most you probably heard was four songs while you were in there. But even then, if they played his music in there, that was a total hell. Yeah. They took a real hell. You know, this reminds me, this is a total digression. But I once had a conversation with somebody who booked musical
Starting point is 01:15:48 acts for conventions. So as you, you know, the private music scene is private performances are way more lucrative for many artists than the public, right? There's a whole afterlife for these guys. They go around and they do conferences, private events. I was like, who's the highest grossing? Who makes the most money doing private gigs of any rock and roll act of the last 25 years, 30 years? And they're like, there's no question. There's one guy. Now, the clue I'm'm gonna give you is it's a guy. Okay. There's like, there's one guy who makes like twice as much as anyone else and has made twice
Starting point is 01:16:30 as much to anyone else for 20 years. He's the reigning king. And the amount of money this guy makes from private gigs is, I can't remember the number. It's so high, you will blow your mind. Like this guy's a multi, multi, multi millionaire now, flies around in like a massive private jet, but he's the guy, so you're having just to give you context. So you're having, it's a man, yeah.
Starting point is 01:16:56 It's a man, and he has a man, but he's known by his, and so, just by his name, and I'll give you the context. So he would be called, you're having the the national association of building contractors is having their annual Vegas convention. There's 20,000 people coming and on Saturday night they're booking an an act. And so you have to go through the thought process is, which act is most likely to appeal and get these guys who are, you know, they're professionals out on the dance floor, with their wives, right?
Starting point is 01:17:39 This guy, and this guy works also the National Association of Actuaries. Right. Same thing, having their gig in San Diego. And what is an actuary? It's an account. Okay. A version of an account. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:17:53 So this guy, and then we can go in the other direction, we've got like real estate agents in Cleveland, Ohio. Yeah, the Cleveland Real Estate Council. He's the guy you call him. The CRC maybe. And he's getting a he's getting Way north of a million dollars a gig. I want to give you three I'm gonna give you three guesses. Okay, great What when was his music biggest then that would kind of be my question. So
Starting point is 01:18:19 It will so these people at these conventions are in their So these people at these conventions are in there somewhere between 45 and 65. Okay. So there, his music, so this is the music of their 20s and teens. Okay, I'm gonna probably go with Nelly. No, okay, so I'm gonna give you a further bit of, he's white. Okay, Huey Lewis.
Starting point is 01:18:43 Very, very good. It's not Huey Lewis. Very, very good. It's not Huey Lewis, but you are so on the right track. God, you're so good, you go one more guess. One more guess. Okay, then I would say it is, oh wait, I think I, and can it be a big star too? Oh, he was a big star.
Starting point is 01:19:01 Billy Joel. No, he's too big for that. That's what I felt like he's too big star. Billy Joel. No. He's too big for that. That's what I felt like. He's too big because he can make money touring. Yeah, he's too. He would, you couldn't get him for a million. Right. But he would work.
Starting point is 01:19:12 You know what it is? Kenny Loggans. No. Kenny Loggans is the man. Wow. He is. Kenny Loggans is like, Fucking K-Log, baby.
Starting point is 01:19:22 K-Log is like, exactly. He's huge. He's huge. But think about it. There's no one who doesn't like a Kenny K-log, baby. K-log is like exactly, he's huge. He's huge, but think about it. There's no one who doesn't like a Kenny Lodge song. Who doesn't like Kenny Lodge song? Even your mom likes it. Everybody's out there in the dance floor. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:19:33 Footloose, man. Yeah. It's just like, he's the king. Wow. I thought it was love that fact about it. I wanna meet Kenny Lodge, I just have a discussion with him about, he didn't realize that he was so hitting the sweet spot
Starting point is 01:19:45 and was gonna cash that check for like every single year. And he's here. And also it also happened, they said, he turns out to be the nicest guy. That helps. And the most reliable guy is no problems. He shows up. He's kind to everybody and he gets on his Gulf Stream
Starting point is 01:20:04 and flies to the next gig. You need the Algonen. You need the Algonen for work. Go Kenny. I almost like, it makes me like love him so much and I, you know, I almost want to just go home and listen to a lot of Kenny Lologans whenever I do. Um, dude, one time I said next to Eddie money on a, oh my God. And first class, right?
Starting point is 01:20:22 Eddie hold on to me. Oh, dude, it was so crazy, right? So, and we kind of had the same hair. So we started, we start talking and he's like, he, he's to huff gas and I think it shut one of his legs down, you know? And I'm familiar with a lot of that. So we're talking about that, like huff and injuries and stuff like that. And, he started showing me semi-new pictures of his new wife, which was awesome. Pretty awesome, beautiful lady. And I remember I kept, at one point,
Starting point is 01:20:53 he had me hold his phone and looked at all of this, it's crazy how crazy do these get as fast as I swipe, you know. And that was like one of the first like real celebrities I ever met, you know, it's like, did you wait, you, you recognized him right away? Did you?
Starting point is 01:21:10 Somebody who said something to him in the thing, like, oh, I love like some lady was like, you know, we saw you on a boat or whatever, you know, and we saw you on, you know, when we were going to a point of their, Palavarti or whatever, some island or some Mexican cruise, he'd play it on it. And so I was like, oh, who is this guy? I once, my best plan story is,
Starting point is 01:21:33 sat next to Stevie Nicks. Wow. My first question is what on earth is she doing flying commercial? Like something had to have gotten seriously wrong with her life. This is New York, to alley. I'm like, Stevie Nicks, take a second. You can't find someone, but no, but I'm not done.
Starting point is 01:21:50 In front of me was, no, across the aisle was, oh God, that actor who played Spider-Man. It was a double celebrity flight. Oh, you're talking. Tobi McGuire. Tobi McGuire. I had Stevie Nicks in a window seat. I was in aisle, aisle across there. It was Tobi McGuire.
Starting point is 01:22:12 It's like, it's like that best thing. Yeah. Yeah. Did you say anything or no? No, I was too intimidated to say anything. That's all gone. Because all you, I mean, it's Stevie Nicks, man. I know, and it was funny because at the time, she lives in Arizona, I think it's all gone. Because all you, I mean, it's Stevie Nicks, man.
Starting point is 01:22:25 I know, it was funny because at the time, she lives in Arizona, I think, huh? I have no idea. I had just read Nick Fleetwood's autobiography, which is one of the great autobiographies of all time. So I was kind of into the whole, I had a million questions, but I just couldn't bring myself. I just say anything.
Starting point is 01:22:45 I'm sure from you, anybody would appreciate like being able to like split the apple with you. No, I got tuntied. Because there is a YouTube video of her singing backstage. What she's singing right at the height of their popularity. It's one of the greatest YouTube videos. It's just somebody she's rehearsing. It's just somebody, she's rehearsing as she's getting her hair done.
Starting point is 01:23:08 She's just singing. And it's so magical. I must have watched it 100 times. If anyone told me about it once, and whenever I'm feeling blue, I just look it up. She's, I just say, she was a goddess. Yeah. Well, people love her.
Starting point is 01:23:22 I mean, people of all ages love her. She's really fat. I think she's, and she's kind of mysterious too, I think. There's something about being able to keep a level of mystery to you. Even in these days, that makes somebody even more intriguing. You know, I feel like Matt Damon is like a celebrity that does that. There's still this level of like kind to it as a personal life and stuff. What are some things that you worry about looking at technology with the AI and that sort
Starting point is 01:23:50 of thing? Have you looked at any of this stuff yet or what's going on with it? Or you? I don't know. I don't know more than, anyway. I mean, I've sort of like someone told me that, oh, you should be worried because people will, because you know, eventually goes to voice and video. And so someone told me, oh, you need to own your AI Malcolm Gladwell.
Starting point is 01:24:16 Right. But what is that even? I even know that. Right. But I don't think that means either. They told me any tone, my, I don't know what that means. That's, that's so serious to me. But I do, I mean, there's a lot of good things
Starting point is 01:24:29 that can happen in terms of giving people, like imagine here's a scenario, people dwell in the bad scenarios, but there's some good scenarios. You're somebody whose, you know, tax, tax law is, doing your taxes is really complicated. Lots and lots of people pay too many taxes because they can't figure out what they're all there.
Starting point is 01:24:48 And they can't afford a good account. You know, we're really close to, they're being an AI account that you can use for free who could save you a lot of money on your taxes. Or figure out your bills and your lower your credit card, negotiate with you, for you on your behalf with the credit card company to lower your interest rate. There's a bunch of ways in which this could make
Starting point is 01:25:11 a lot of people's lives a lot easier. People who don't have access can't afford it, don't have access to expert services in their life. That's great point. That's the good part. That's what I'm excited about. Yeah, it is really trying I thought about some of that. I think some of my fear with AI is that one day the machine,
Starting point is 01:25:30 right, or the, it starts to realize that humans are the problem. Right. Well, that won't take long. That's what I'm worried about. That's right. You know, it's like, it's like, we're going to have to feed it a lot of Kenny Lockings to calm it down, you know? But I'm worried that the machine is gonna start to just say, you're the problem.
Starting point is 01:25:51 Yeah. And then, like, like there was a story recently, where some AI, like a relationship, a guy had started communicating with an AI and then it had led him to him realizing that he was one of the problems of the climate change and he took his own life, right? Which is, that's an outlier, right? I mean, that's an outlier, like that's not happening every day
Starting point is 01:26:16 yet, or and it may never, but I'm just worried like what about when just the computer just constantly, the only answer every time is like humans are the problem. But the thing, I read to me where someone said, well, you know, one reason not to be scared is that the things that make AI doesn't have emotions, doesn't have testosterone, doesn't get jealous, angry, isn't ambitious, isn't competitive. Those are all the things that make us dangerous
Starting point is 01:26:47 or make us capable of doing extraordinary things. And I just think so a lot of the times when we think about the idea, when we entertain the idea that I may want to take over the world or it doesn't want to take over the world, it's not ambitious. Right, that's a good point. Just wants to solve problems.
Starting point is 01:27:07 So, I mean, I'm maybe being naive when I say that. I think you could also just be right. It's like that could be that it's not as... People of course want to hype it up and make it this. Because you're putting it in a package, you're making it a Christmas present instead of just something that gets passed off around Halloween or something. Like, it may be nothing.
Starting point is 01:27:31 It may just be a fancy, deceptimal system in a way. Yeah. I don't, I mean, I need to use it more. I have one, I have now this thing on my, I downloaded one of those AI apps on my phone, and I use it in place sometimes of like Google and something. I was asked the question, I'm not totally blown away by the answers I get.
Starting point is 01:27:54 I mean, it seems okay, I don't know. But I'm, I'm, I'm, we're early, so I'm sure it's going to get super sophisticated. It does lack some personality though. So when the end, I think it'll, if anything, you're still gonna need somebody with personality with real perspective for things and things like that, you know? But I think it could help you write kind of like a budget
Starting point is 01:28:15 hike or something or, you know, like a, it could help you get general information on things. It may just become Google without all the advertising, which would be nice. Yeah. The one interesting thing someone told me is they were talking about this system where you download all of your texts and you could add emails, whatever you want, into an AI. And then the AI uses that to make predictions or diagnoses about you. So this woman
Starting point is 01:28:48 told me that she had this experience where she went to interview a guy who did this. And he just took stuff that was about her that you could find online. And she sat down and the guy said, I ran, I took the liberty of running what I could find about you through my AI. He says, and the AI has two questions for you. No, two statements about you. One is, you really don't like your job, do you? And two, you're really unhappy in your relationship. She was like, oh my God, what just happened?
Starting point is 01:29:18 Wow. And both were true. And if you add text, text are really what's, so imagine you took five years of techs, you run it through an AI, they have extraordinary insights into, this is what we find it, they can have extraordinary insights
Starting point is 01:29:34 into your state of mind. They're gonna know I'm kind of a little bit of a perv sometimes, but not any illegal, but there are nothing like authentic, just basic per problem. And I just learned this. I set my, I delete my texts after 30 days. Do you do that?
Starting point is 01:29:53 I don't know if I do. When you go through your phone, you had the full history of the texts. Yeah. I think that's, but I can't find anyone to delete their texts like I do. That's the last thing I want. You get rid of the man.
Starting point is 01:30:06 Yeah. You're right, huh? So it's like I'm carrying around this old, just like this big thing of stuff I don't need, but it's in there. How many emails do you have in your inbox? I can't even tell you. Like thousands?
Starting point is 01:30:19 Yeah. I have like, I can tell you right now. 65. And it'll be, it'll be like 25 by the end of the day tomorrow. I don't like anything extra. You got to keep it to a minimum. Do you use something to keep spam out of your email box and stuff then?
Starting point is 01:30:42 I have a spam filter, yay, yay, yay. Because I think I got somebody put filter. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cause I think I get somebody put me on something, I get all of it. Matresses, dog food, cruises, I'm kind of old. A lot of mattresses. Yeah. I'm surprised by that. I feel like I didn't know the mattress industry was as big as it was until I said it
Starting point is 01:30:58 reading my spam. Yeah. I'm like, this is like, this is like, this is as big as general motor. This is like, this is insane. general motorist. This is insane. Sleep on the job. Dude, I saw one, it's like, who needs a chair when you get up a mattress? It's like, whoa, dude.
Starting point is 01:31:11 Who needs a chair? Is that worth? I don't understand. How many mattresses do you buy over the course of your life? I haven't bought a mattress in like 20 years. Why? So how is this industry so big of no one, if you buy a mattress once every 20 years?
Starting point is 01:31:29 Somebody else is bad and realizing all that person is kind of bad But if you get in their mattress you like oh my god, are the people out there who are turning over their mattresses every six months? Yeah, I don't maybe people are just ripping through them. I don't know Maybe maybe people have become so restless because they're vaping Maybe it's nicotine and they're just wearing through one side of the mattress pretty quick. Where was the last time you bought a mattress? I bought one during the big boom and they were mail them and everybody in boxes and stuff. Like this mattress is only this big, you know?
Starting point is 01:31:53 Oh yeah, it was like a gremlin. You put water on it and it's like, that's the one I bought, that when it comes in that little, and then it springs open when you take it out of the box. Oh, it'll knock your mother and law through the wind. That thing was insane, bro. That thing, that of the box. Oh, it'll knock your mother-in-law through the wind. Yeah, that thing was insane. That thing- That is the only one I bought it like.
Starting point is 01:32:08 I bought it because back in the day- And you can't get rid of it. Here's the problem, even if I didn't like it, you can't get it back in the box. I'm like, no, you never can. This thing, I'm just gonna- It's gotta be airlifted out of the house. That thing was the worst because I don't even think I like it.
Starting point is 01:32:22 I think it even has heard my spine. But it's like, it's so big, it never would have fit in. So it was like, I'm just in here. I had the same feeling about, you know that guy who, that right wing guy who does my pillow. Oh, yeah, my pillow. My pillow guy. I've seen him quite so, he clearly really rich.
Starting point is 01:32:39 He's made a fortune selling pillows. Mm-hmm. Again, are people like buying lots of pillows? Is that a big business? I guess it is, I don't know. I have a bottom pillow. Again, I am bottom pillow. I don't think I bought a pillow in this century.
Starting point is 01:32:55 Yeah. I mean, it's been a while. Yeah, who's doing it, I guess? Yeah, you're right. I think I've had one of my pillows is that one that kind of has a little bit of like stains on it, but you just put it in the thing anyway. You know what I'm saying?
Starting point is 01:33:07 You just make sure you buy lots of pillowcases. Yes, but the pillow is just like, it's a constant. So like, who that whole idea behind, I think there's something fishy behind that business model. He's selling something else that we know. I read his book too. What you do? It's on Google who's a crack and, you know,
Starting point is 01:33:23 I've dealt with a lot of drugs. He really was a crack at it. For 30 years. Running this my pillow business, right? It started and they got busier and people came along and tried to take part of the company from and stuff. But he would be going to, and he was funding his business by,
Starting point is 01:33:43 he would fly to Vegas and count cards. He was funding his business by, he would fly to Vegas and count cards. He was funding his business and then he would come back. And it's some about how a addiction kind of made a struggle with this family and stuff. The book is interesting. It's interesting to see his life, you know. I don't know that much about his political views. I know he's pretty right wing guy,
Starting point is 01:34:02 but I found that to manage any decent business, if actually when you're on crack, you don't even sleep, I think. Yeah. So why is he in the pillow business if he's not sleeping? That's what I'm saying. I'm supposed to. The whole thing is mysterious. It's a front.
Starting point is 01:34:17 It's a front. It's a front. It is a front, dude. It is a front, I think. That's hilarious. But yeah, I thought found that that was his life was some of it was pretty interesting. What has it been like being so you're black and white technically then? What has
Starting point is 01:34:35 it been like was that it was that kind of cool during like the BLM movement? Was there like, did you take that in ways that other people probably didn't take it or I don't even know how to ask some of these questions. I'm kind of fascinated by race a lot, right? It's interesting. Yeah. I grew up in a poor black and white area. So it's what city in Louisiana I grew up in like a place called Coveington, Louisiana Yeah, Lee Harvey Oswald went to our middle school. That was like our big thing. Oh wow and role model well Just kidding. Okay. Yeah. I mean, role model. Well, just kidding.
Starting point is 01:35:05 Okay, yeah. I mean, yeah, some people think you did it. Some people don't, but I don't know. Even if he did, he wasn't like a good husband apparently. So I don't know. I think people have views about him around the area, but um, and then who else lived in our town? Oh, Pistol Pete Marridge lived in our town.
Starting point is 01:35:21 Oh, that's why I remember the name of the pistol. Yeah. People loved him. He probably was, did you talk about him and you're the 10,000 hour, that's not the name of the book. No, that was outlier, my book outlier. I didn't talk about him.
Starting point is 01:35:35 I always remember. He would be somebody to kind of, that would probably be that. Yeah, that I remember back, this is sort of a dumb story, but I always remember this one story. I read it in a sports illustrate years ago. Back in the 70s, you wouldn't,
Starting point is 01:35:51 because so few games were televised, you would hear about somebody, but never have, never see them. And there was a story they told about, it was a profile of pistol peed who was, for those of you who don't know him. He was this utterly magical basketball player in the 60s and 70s. He held for many years, I think he held the single game, single season scoring record
Starting point is 01:36:16 in college basketball, but he was could do things with the ball known, could ever. He could, he would throw these insane passes like the length of the court. He was just his magician. And so there was all this lore about him, but most basketball serious, but I'd never seen him play not even on TV, not live. I know this old guy who was like a coach for years and years at basketball, fanatic. And finally, at the end of his life, he goes to a game. I mean, I think when Pete was at LSE or play for, he was playing for the warrants.
Starting point is 01:36:46 The jazz. Yeah, he played for the jazz, too. Yeah. Guy goes to a jazz game. He's from other side of the country. Finally, gets there. And he goes to his first game. He sees pistol Pete and in the middle of the game,
Starting point is 01:36:56 pistol Pete does it like a behind the back, between the legs, full court, bounce pass, perfectly for someone to give a, and this old guy gets up out of his seat and like staggers on to the court and shouts out, between the legs, full court, bounce pass, perfectly for somebody to give a, and this old guy gets up out of his seat and like staggers on the court and shouts out, I see you Pete, I see you. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:37:12 I always loved that. It was like for years, he'd been hearing about it and then he's just, he like witnesses this scene. Oh, pit the pistol was amazing. He was, I mean, it was led, he had two children that lived in our town, his two sons and they played basketball and he had a half-court in his attic.
Starting point is 01:37:29 So his house was kind of interesting looking because it looked kind of like a regular house, a nice home and not an extremely fancy neighborhood, but a decent neighborhood. And then it had kind of had this extra looking, maybe like this pre-fall, this like almost like you described your own for it. Maybe like a little, there was more to it,
Starting point is 01:37:47 or it seemed like there was more to it, you know? But he had this big upstairs, he was like, that's so bizarre, but they remembered that. I just remember the name of his dad. Do you remember? Press. Press.
Starting point is 01:38:00 Am I right? I think it's press marriage. Yeah, his dad was his coach, I think, for a while. His coach, that's right, that's right. And his dad, I think it's press marriage. Yeah, his dad was his coach, I think for a while. His coach, that's right, that's right. And his dad, I think alcohol is a moral of Pete had it too, but yeah, a friend of mine, he has just written a movie about him. Oh, really?
Starting point is 01:38:17 That I think they're trying to get made, but. Should call it a CZP. Yeah. I say it's yeah. But how much value was, there's something about back then when there was a moment, like that was a moment, like the excitement you built up to go see somebody do something that you'd only heard about, you'd only read about, you'd only use your imagination about, you know. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 01:38:39 Yeah, that kind of the legend, but I just love that's when you have, you have legends, you can't really, it's hard to have a legend when everyone has access to photographic video evidence of, where is the legend coming from? The legend comes from when you're talking about something that no one's seen, right? So pistol peat has a legend. That's why he's so special that he's on.
Starting point is 01:39:04 Yeah, he had legend, but now people use legend as a lane. It's like, oh, this dude's a legend, right? And it's just some guy who's like, who, you know, had like 30 slices of cheese at once or whatever. Yeah, yeah, that's like, that dude's not I think he scored like, didn't he score like 50 plus points in a college game? I think he did. Yeah, and this is before they had the three point line for the three point. Yeah, he averaged. I think his average was like 40 points a game before they had. I think he did. Yeah, and this is before they had the three point line. Four three point. Yeah, he averaged. I think his average was like 40 points a game before they had, I think he still holds the highest per game, like the percentage per game points per game.
Starting point is 01:39:36 Yeah. And this before they had the three point line and he would throw it up for more ever. And he kind of had long hair. He was like, his hair was not unlike yours. Yeah, he had like, this was a coming to thing I think I'm really there. He could be. But so that was our town, man. It was just kind of a regular place. It wasn't really redneck, you know, it was a southern town, but it wasn't real redneck. It kind of was like,
Starting point is 01:39:57 all just outside of like a lot of that voodoo realm of of New Orleans were like 45 minutes from New Orleans. Which direction? North. Okay. So we don't get into too much into the fish, like into the, you know, fishing and that sort of thing. It was just kind of a basic black and white town. So I've always, I was always real fascinated about race growing up, you know, and like what went on and what it was like and what it felt like, you know.
Starting point is 01:40:27 Yeah, so that's why I guess I was kind of curious about. Oh, so, uh, well, I don't know, the difference is that my mom is West Indian, it's Jamaican, and which is pretty significant. So it's not, you know, first of all being an immigrant, as opposed to someone born here, and Western culture is very different from African American culture. So you feel it's a mixture of things,
Starting point is 01:40:58 like you feel like more of an immigrant than you feel like a racial minority. Oh, interesting. So my Jamaican cousins who live here will sometimes talk about black people, but they're not talking about themselves, even though they're black. Right, they're talking about African-American.
Starting point is 01:41:16 Talking about African-Americans who they consider to be a separate group. They're not the same. So there was a lot of that. And West Indians have been, in this country, a relatively high status, done very well, lots of professions. Make a lot, you know, as a group,
Starting point is 01:41:36 the group has done, has really succeeded. So we're kind of a little bit on the outside of, now there is, you know, you get treated in some ways, you do, you still see racism and better run of it, but it's a different reaction. It's more like, wait, what just happened? As opposed to, oh my God, that's happening again. Right?
Starting point is 01:41:59 There's a big difference between those two reactions. You're not inheriting this kind of burden. You're encountering this burden for the first time, you're like, that's strange. I'm not used to that. Yeah, because I have friends from Nigerian stuff. Oh yeah, they have the space similar.
Starting point is 01:42:14 Right, and they'll talk about a lot of times how their experience is so different than like a black person from America's experience. But some cross patterns because they are also at black skin. Yeah, what I did, I did one of the episodes of my podcast this season. It's revisionist history.
Starting point is 01:42:33 Revisionist history, I went to this school called Hope College into this place, which for it's a school that's trying to move to a pay it forward system of tuition, where you don't pay anything when you go but you pay what you want to after you've graduated Anyway, my guide for the day was this Nigerian kid who goes to the school whose name was first name was marvelous and His brother who also was there his his name was God's love. Was his... That's a lot of stuff.
Starting point is 01:43:06 When I live up to. No, I know. But Nigerians, if you know, you'd say, they have their choice of names is so fantastic. Like the idea of calling your son marvelous, it's like amazing. But like if you look, there's a Nigerian runner whose first name is blessing, who I really love.
Starting point is 01:43:26 Like, that culture is so wonderfully playful when it comes to naming things and people. And I just, this kid who is his marvelous, if your name is marvelous, you just have to be marvelous. You better. You have no, and he was marvelous. You lived up to his name. But I just like, it made me wanna like,
Starting point is 01:43:45 do what I call it, did it child up my marvelous? But maybe. Yeah, I wonder, well, the name is really interesting. It's really important, you know? Like, like sometimes I'm like, man, yeah. When I was younger, you know, I thought that a lot of like kind of black names, and I'm just, I'm using that term, black names was like, you know,
Starting point is 01:44:04 like we had a black dude that lib us named quincidence, right? Which was crazy, unreal. I was like, this is insane, right? Like that's a, you know, so you'd have some of the craziest names, like, or names that were very crazy compared to like white names, right?
Starting point is 01:44:19 Yeah. But then as I got an older, now it's really interesting that people almost go by handles and unique name. It's like, I mean, black culture has always kind of been what's been used to make things cool in the world. Like, it's always been used to make things cool, or it's where a lot of white, or it's a lot where a lot of the world finds out what's cool kind of. So maybe some of it's that, you know, but yeah, I think like I wonder if given somebody in a marvelous, because if they're not marvelous, people might do you ain't be marvelous. I was thinking, I thought it's felt a lot. That is, that is a serious kick ass name. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:44:56 It's just a fantastic name. Marvelous is good. Because you can call it Marvel, Marvel or Marvel for short, you can, well, you can roll out the full marvelous when you want to. But God is love. Now that when you're gonna end up dealing with a lot of like religious kickback, you're gonna have to, you can just call guilt, maybe go about guilt, for short. You've options, but like I said,
Starting point is 01:45:21 it looks if you think about it, if you think about it written out, G-O-D-I-S-L-O-V-E, it works as a name. God is love. God is love. Yeah, I think, and if you say it fast too, it has almost like a different thing, God is love. You don't even know what it is,
Starting point is 01:45:37 it almost sounds rushing God's love. I just like the impulse, you know, does the world need another Robert? Right. Or David, not really. Yeah, or little Danny? You know Danny's cool. He sounds cool But if he's a painter too, we'd have a dude named little Danny and he would paint and he could barely get the bucket up
Starting point is 01:45:53 The top of the ladder, bro. You watch him fricking Dude, you almost hired him just to see him get it up there And you like we'll do it Danny, but we'll pay you for the day Because that he would have to two hand that paint bucket, you know Or he'd have to only put enough paint in the bucket that he could get to the top. Yeah, he was a he was a pretty decent painter I guess I don't know but he had all ended up having a drug problem a lot of those guys do construction and painting is really a Lot of times get where the drugs
Starting point is 01:46:22 but um Anyway, what else were we gonna talk about? Yeah, I think a lot about what BLM was, the black laws matter, what that movement and all, what it was like for society, and what effects it had on it, and what, I don't know, I think about that sometimes, you know, or if we're still figuring it out, you know? I think about like what my own perceptions were during it,
Starting point is 01:46:53 what was going on. You know, a lot of times I think, I think for one, I didn't know black people were as angry. You know, I think that's something that I think, like, oh, I didn't know that there was so much anger in the black community, you know, about, you know, fear of police and stuff like that, or just overall.
Starting point is 01:47:14 I mean, I could see how there could be, if you look back through history, you know, especially in America. But I think about that sometimes. What else do I think about it? Oh, I think sometimes that I wonder if black people have always viewed society like in America as like white society.
Starting point is 01:47:36 I never thought about that before. Cause to me society, I never thought about it as white society. You know, I've just thought about it. It's like this is the best way of practices, that things work, that keep us all kind of being able to stay alive and move forward. Yeah. I mean, I've been doing a book about policing about the LAPD and among other things. And a lot of it is about what the LAPD was like in the 40s and 50s.
Starting point is 01:48:07 And to your point, it's relationship to the black community, to South Central, to the black community of Los Angeles. And it really helps to put something like the George Floyd incident in perspective, or the central blend is in perspective, which you realize that this has been going on for generations.
Starting point is 01:48:25 So when you see the anger of, you know, African-Americans over the George Floyd killing, what you're seeing is a response not just to George Floyd. It's the culmination of their parents saw something like that happen when they were growing up. And their grandparents saw many things like that happen when it. And they're great. You know, it's been going on for so long that it's fresh. What you're seeing is kind of frustration as well as anger. It's this built up, it's not just, I can't believe this just happened. I can't believe this is still happening.
Starting point is 01:49:12 Right. And that's a very, I can't believe this is still happening. It's a much more rooted, powerful, bitter reaction than I can't believe this just happened. A one-off is something that goes away, you know, wow, right? This isn't about a one-off. Right, the way that that looked, everything about it, yeah, because you're DNA too, I believe this stores pain from past, past lives, past things, right? Like I quit, sometimes like, like I have a lot of black friends that are fast, right? They're physically fast, right? Like I quit. Sometimes like, like I have a lot of black friends that are fast, right? They're physically fast, right? And sometimes I think, well, if you had like grandparents,
Starting point is 01:49:51 if you had four generations of your family that couldn't even run, that couldn't run if they wanted to, right? Like if you told them to run, they couldn't fit their, they couldn't run. The first generation you get that can run is gonna fucking fly, right? Like it's almost, it's like they have four generations of wanting to run. This is a hypothesis in my head, right? That in their DNA, in their cells that have wanted to go and now they get to go, they're gonna be beyond the speed.
Starting point is 01:50:27 Speed that you can't really fathom, right? So I think that we can store things inside of us, right? So that's why I think, yeah, I understand what you're saying when you say that, it's like, yeah, this is just, it was a trigger for like a gunpowder that's kind of been built up in the system for a long time. So I understand that sort of thing. I think it made me think too.
Starting point is 01:50:55 Yeah, I wonder if black people sometimes think that society is not their society. Does that make any sense, you think? Like if they've ever, because like I don't look at society and think like, oh, this is a white society, I think this is just society and this is how it works.
Starting point is 01:51:16 But kind of like how you say in the book and some of the chapters, like that different expressions and things mean different things in different places. Like I think there's like in one of the first few chapters you talk about, they show pictures of men and women in the way that they're facial expressions and how they, in one place, they're in an American society, they're really easy. People get them exactly right.
Starting point is 01:51:39 What these expressions mean, having said, confused. But they show them to like a group of island people and they have no white, they're not bad, but they're not. It's all over the place. And for some of the expressions, they don't even have an answer. I don't know, kind of all over the place. I think I'm just trying to think like how different I guess we can be, you know, and maybe we don't really are like, well, I was just trying, yeah, in that part of the book, I'm trying to explain the kind of how culturally specific a lot of facial expressions or things are, unless you understand those kinds of, unless you understand those kinds of, like for some people, in some cultures,
Starting point is 01:52:35 if someone is looking away and won't look you in the eye when they're talking, that's taken as a sign of that they're lying, whether they're being evasive. In other cultures, looking away, and when you're speaking to you, is a sign of respect, like I'm subservient, I respect, you know, you're a elder, I'm not going to challenge you by looking you in the eye. And like those, those are, that's one very simple example, but, you know, it's part of why that job of understanding a stranger is as hard as it is, because we might bring a set of assumptions about behavior or facial expressions to a conversation, and though they don't work, we're dealing with somebody who has a different set of reference points.
Starting point is 01:53:19 So that's really what I was getting that is that we underestimate the kind of complexity of, of human responses. There's so much of this, like when people say that in a criminal trial, so and so didn't show any remorse. Well, what does remorse look like? Like, I don't know. I don't know what remorse looks like.
Starting point is 01:53:45 I know how I might, I think I know how I might look if I was feeling remorseful, but I'm not even, you can't even see your own face when you have that, unless you're walking around with a mirror in front of you. Yeah. So I don't know what I'm doing. A lot of times when I'm angry, I don't look angry. I keep it in or a lot of times when I'm happy,
Starting point is 01:54:04 I'm not smiling or like you could go on and on. So it's like you realize we make so many mistakes by kind of jumping to conclusions based on people's facial expressions. And that's one of the sources of confusion that I write about in that book. Yeah, it's really interesting, because there's just a lot of things like,
Starting point is 01:54:24 you're like, oh, I never really interesting because there's just a lot of things like, you're like, oh, I never really thought about that. I never really thought about that some cultures too. Especially in America, there's a lot of black and white tension, right? And I don't even know if it's better now. Do you think it's gotten better over your lifetime? Do you feel like? Yeah, I think it is.
Starting point is 01:54:43 Yeah. I mean, I think people, doing this book on 1940s L.A., 19th of July, it's a really good reminder of just how bad things were. I mean, we have a long way to go, but it's not 1948 anymore. Yeah. You know, in, this is the thing I spent a Time on the book but up until the end of the 1940s in Los Angeles in
Starting point is 01:55:10 Over 80% of the city if you were black you Could not could not buy a house in a white neighborhood. Wow like there was it Written in the deed of the house. It said this house cannot be sold to a member of the, you know, African-American, wasn't they news that phrase? Race, right? Like, are you kidding me? That is so much worse.
Starting point is 01:55:34 It's why everyone lived, where they lived in LA. Why did the black people of LA live in South Central? They couldn't live anywhere else. Not that they didn't want to, or not that people would mean to them. Legally couldn't live anywhere else. Not that they didn't want to or not that people would mean to them, legally couldn't live there because the deed of the house, they wanted to buy a house. And if you tried to buy a house,
Starting point is 01:55:51 they would take you to court and you'd have to sell it. Yeah, wow. Like things are better now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, things are better certainly like in the framework, right? And like the roots that we have in society are like the new, like, you know, like the, like laws and like it's definitely
Starting point is 01:56:11 that's better for sure. Oh yeah. I think one thing where we don't like, yeah, I think during like Black Lives Matter, I always felt like we're all kind of on the same page. And then I felt like there was this energy that like Black people wanted their own society almost in a way or they don't feel like, like sometimes it is wonder like,
Starting point is 01:56:33 can cultures really figure it out over time, you know? Or will there always be some things since you're from different races and ethnicities that you just can't really grasp. Like are there some like clues and like communication modes, or am I making any sense kind of? Yeah. Like, I mean, I guess I would be saying, I'm optimistic over the long term about these kinds of things. I think we're all gonna be beige in four generations.
Starting point is 01:57:04 All right, I believe that, right? Like I'm a I think we're all gonna be beige in four generations, all right? I believe that, right? Like I'm a beige power advocate, you know? Like in four generations, it's gonna be crazy to have even that we all think about race, right? But so I just think about it in the time being and what it feels like, you know? Has there ever been a book, like, do you ever start a book and you start to run,
Starting point is 01:57:21 like you get halfway through it or you get partway through it? And then the topic that you would kind of like you get halfway through it or you get partway through it and then The topic that you would kind of like come up with Becomes like part of like the zeitgeist just like of society and then you're like, oh, this isn't oh Even have I started and stopped Well, I mean sometimes when you start a book very rarely is a book and the way you think it was going to end when you started it.
Starting point is 01:57:48 So I'm always switching boats in midstream. So I think that happens all the time. Yeah, you start out writing something you think is going to be unusual and interesting and then events catch up with you. So you just kind of change course a little bit. I think that happens a fair amount. I mean, it happens less with my podcast because of my podcast. There's such a short period of time between
Starting point is 01:58:14 when you dream up an episode. And, you know, I'm writing episodes in for this season in April and they're gonna air in June. Right, so it's like, it's so fast that that's one of the wonderful things about podcasts. But books have a long lead time, so you do it to be mindful. You don't want the book to seem irrelevant.
Starting point is 01:58:36 I'm reading a book right now, which if it was, you know, A.I.s kind of exploded in the last two months, if the guy who wrote the book had known that, he wouldn't have written this book. Like, you read this book and you're like, this so needs a chapter on A.I.s, not there. Like, that's, that's your, that's the way it's worried when you write a book, because that'll happen.
Starting point is 01:58:56 So when I write books, I try to kind of stay or clear of things that, um, seem to, I want, you want to look at universals, right? You want to talk about things that you think people will be talking about 10 years from now or 15 years from now. Did you find it tough, like, because you're obviously a thinker, your guy that has a lot of thoughts and ideas.
Starting point is 01:59:16 And what is like love in your life? Has it been, is that, like, is it, do you think if you think too much, it's hard to be in love? Does that make any sense sometimes? Like sometimes I overthink relationships and stuff for myself, I have some other friends that do the same. What has that been like?
Starting point is 01:59:36 Is it hard to have like more human things happen when your brain works too much? Does that make any sense? Oh, I think my brain doesn't work too much in that realm. I think I'm pretty good of compartmentalizing that approach in, you know, I'm not like, my dad was a mathematician and he was
Starting point is 02:00:01 super logical and rational in all things, but I'm not like that. So the way I make sense of the world in my writing is not, I don't think the way I make sense of my world outside of that. It's just a kind of like, it's off by itself. So I've never felt that too much. Yes, and I was like Neil deGrasse Tyson was on and he's sometimes he thinks so much. It seemed like even when he talked about relationships and love, it was very like scientific, but he's more of a scientist as well.
Starting point is 02:00:36 He's a lot smarter than I am too. Oh, he's way smarter than me. Yeah, so he has that, he has more of a problem with that than the rest of us do. Yeah. Do you worry about the authors of history over time, like especially as history becomes more digitized that we could not even get accurate representations of it? Because whoever owns the mediums to... Like...
Starting point is 02:01:00 Oh, I see. Keep it. No, I mean, well, I'll give you a, you know, not really. I mean, I sort of feel like we have access to, if you just think about a simple thing 100 years ago, think about Abraham Lincoln's famous Getty's Proc address. All we have is the text and,
Starting point is 02:01:30 All we have is the text and people's accounts, like newspaper accounts, people. Now we would have the video. And anyone can look up the video if he was giving us speech today. And you would have, like, it would be online and there'd be a thousand comments about it. And you would be able to compare it to, so like it's so much getting a sense of what happens in a historical event is so much easier now. You know, like in the Ukraine war, Ukraine Russian war, they got video of like every time they destroy a Russian tank, the drone takes a picture and sends it back to, so they know exactly how many tanks they've destroyed and you know, that drone takes a picture and sends it back to, so they know exactly
Starting point is 02:02:05 how many tanks they've destroyed. And, you know, that was not the case in the Vietnam War. You were just guessing, because, or, you know, certainly the second World War. So like, reconstructing what happened accurately has gotten, I think, so much easier now, because we have all these ways of verifying our comments. That's a good point. Yeah, do you think that the past could have been like, do you think we have all these ways of verifying our comments. That's a good point. Yeah, do you think that the past could have been like, do you think we have a pretty accurate view
Starting point is 02:02:30 of the past a lot of times? Based? I don't think we do. You know, I think, yeah, I think we're, I think that's, I mean, that's sort of what's interesting about history. We're left to gas and we have a million interpretations because we just, we don't know
Starting point is 02:02:48 You know to use that getty-spirited dresser You know what was the audience doing when he was speaking? were they could they hear him? were they bored and doing something else were they Talk talking about themselves were they crying? Did they were they rolling their eyes? We don't you know we have a couple of people wrote accounts But what do they know like they were just in their own little corner? So like you know, we have a couple of people who wrote accounts, but what do they know? Like they were just in their own little corner. So like, you know, there's, we know what he said. We know, we think we know why he said what he said.
Starting point is 02:03:13 We know what a couple of people who listen to him thought, but that's it. Yeah, people could have been drinking, people could have been in horseshoes, people could have been doing whatever. What else? Right, you know, so like, people would have been like, this guy's crazy.
Starting point is 02:03:23 This guy's crazy. So context is something that's very difficult to capture in hindsight, but it's easier now because now we have access to so many sources of information. Do you think that it's easier to write these days with so many things that distract our time and occupy our attention?
Starting point is 02:03:48 Have you found that it's been easier as a writer or tougher do you notice one or the other? Well, it's easier to do your research. So it used to be, you know, research. I spend way more time researching than I do writing. Writing is a small part of the problem. So, you know, for my podcasts, I'll do, say I do 10 interviews for a podcast. Each interview is, you know, an hour, hour and a half, but as a guy, I've got to set it up. I've got to find the person. I've got to locate them. I've got to, you know, for one of my episodes this year, I flew to South Carolina because I wanted to shoot a assault rifle with this guy. was gonna show me how to shoot it. Like, you know, you gotta go there,
Starting point is 02:04:29 you gotta find the guy, you gotta go there, you gotta go there, you gotta go there. Writing up that episode took like fraction at the time. You know, so like there's, you know, there's, so to the extent that all this technology makes the reporting part easier, then my job gets easier. I don't know if I can think of anything else to ask.
Starting point is 02:04:51 Oh, do you remember like your first kiss? That'll be my last question. I know that's kind of a strange question, but sometimes I ask it to, I can select pretty tight stuff. Do I remember my first kiss? Or like, you remember the first time you knew we were like had a crush on a girl,
Starting point is 02:05:02 like our like the first like, first crush was a girl named Debbie Wendland. Yeah, Debbie. DW, we called her. Yeah. Sixth grade. Yeah. Well, grade six is the same Canada.
Starting point is 02:05:17 Whatever happened here, I do not know. She was tall with blonde hair. And I was too terrified to talk to her. Oh, yeah, Tara. Oh. That would be that would be number one. Ah, she's number one. Debbie, God, she sounds beautiful, man.
Starting point is 02:05:30 I mean, as an adult when I picture her as an adult, I remember I was so bad at expressing myself to women. There was this girl and I had the biggest crush on her. I saved all the spit in my mouth in class one day and spit it right on her. But it was, but it was like men has like a thing of affection somehow. It's I'm guessing she misinterpreted it.
Starting point is 02:05:55 They did not enjoy it. She did not enjoy it. Yeah, nobody enjoyed it. Yeah, it was looked at porn poorly. But to me, it was like I'm just giving you all I have, you know? So, if I'm evil, even to text correctly with the Girl in Out days, it's been quite a story arc. Malcolm, well, thank you so much for your time, man.
Starting point is 02:06:18 And thanks for just being like a, you know, it's someone that goes out and it's like a seeker in the world and it's a curious person. I think we really need people like that. And it's been fascinating to kind of witness some of your work over the years and see how many of my friends admire you. And it just be able to sit with you today and thank together has been really cool. Thank you so much.
Starting point is 02:06:37 Thank you so much. This is really fun. Thanks. Now I'm just floating on the breeze And I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be Cornerstone Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of mine I found I can't feed it In my bones
Starting point is 02:07:01 But it's gonna take But it's gonna take

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