Two In The Think Tank - 112 - "MASH POTATO SON"

Episode Date: January 2, 2018

Alien Knife, Emotional Tax Return, MPS, Robotic Parent, Apple Pay It Forward, Drug Career Counsellor, And Again  You can support the pod by chipping in to our patreon here (thank you!) Two in the Think Tank is a part of the Planet Broadcasting family  You can find us on twitter at @twointank Andy Matthews: @stupidoldandy Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall: @alasdairtb And you can find us on the Facebook right here Blessings to George Matthews for returning to produce this one Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Dang! Oh! Well, we're those pants. The Debra! Hello and welcome to Touring the Thing Tank. The show where we come up with five sketch ideas. I'm Andy Muffin. Hello and welcome to the Think Tank, the show where we come up with five sketch ideas. I'm Andy Matthews and I'm Alistair George, William Trombley,

Bertual and thank you for listening to the podcast. That is on right now. Assuming this is the podcast that's on right now and it's not something else. We do not want to thank people who aren't listening to the podcast for listening to the podcast So if you're not listening to the podcast that thanks isn't for you Okay, I'm sorry. We do want to think people who are not listening to the podcast, but that thank wasn't for you. No, no I'm obviously people who aren't listening to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. You know, you're probably doing really important things. And also, we need people who aren't listening to the podcast

to keep society running. Yeah. So that we can get new listeners. Right. We need hope. We need there to be people out there who aren't listening to the podcast so that we can grow. Right?

I rule the day that we've got everybody listening. Well, we will weep because there are no more worlds to subscribe to our podcast. Yeah. I guess that's probably when we'll go out into space and find Alien Knife, life, and ask them to listen to our podcast. Alien Knife. Alien Knife. Yes.

Is there Knife on Mars? That is my question to you. Yeah. I do. I just like the idea of like sort of like the gods must be crazy that movie where a cook bottle falls on to some African tribe where they I guess they don't have cook bottles. A knife falls onto the world. Yeah, real big knife. It doesn't even have to be that big. Not that big. You know, you wield it, you could wield it with

one hand. But do we know that it's an alien life, because an alien knife, fuck it. Do we know that it's an alien knife because it is made from an element not found on earth, which I think they use that a lot in movies, but it's no longer valid because we know how the periodic table of the element works. We know that we have identified all the elements that can exist. And that are stable. Well, what if we find this one is one of the, it's a heavy metal. It's beyond the heaviness of the current periodic table. And it's somehow stable again. Or we find a way that they found a way to neutralize.

Yeah, like alloy eyes before it destroys itself. So it's like nitrous, heavy metal, light, or whatever. You know, I'm not exactly what you mean. That's correct. And so now, like they go, because they look at the nucleus of the atoms and they go, holy shit, this thing has 900 protons.

Now, like God's must be crazy, will we find that this alien knife is really useful for things like grinding wheat? And will it cause a, you know, us to fight amongst ourselves over the right to use this useful alien knife? We might find that it's perfect for opening cancer beer or something like that. You know, it's just right for getting underneath the little tab and flicking it. And then everybody wants to use it for that, but there's only one of them. And we're like, the super intelligent alien life forms must be crazy.

Oh yeah, I think that's how it will start. And then obviously one guy wants to use it so he can do research on this knife that's falling from the sky. Yeah, but everybody's gonna wanna do research on the knife that's falling from the sky. Why didn't they give us more than one knife? Well, I don't know yet.

But I think what it will suggest though, is that somewhere there is going to be either some kind of super sun where these kinds of, that is so hot where this kind of, the energy required to fuse all these atoms together to create a 900 proton metal. Yep. Obviously it's gonna have electrons and neutrons.

Sure, and neutrons. And neutrons. Obviously. I think when I was saying that, I thought that protons were neutrons, and that's why I made that mistake. Just, anyway, that was the mistake I was making. The people of the world were gonna know that.

No, and I didn't need to know that. No. But anyway, so, 900 protons, so we're finding out that there's a super sun somewhere. Yeah. Maybe it's a dark sun. And they're using it to make knives, right? Yeah. So it's a dark, it's a dark matter sun. Yeah. That emits dark energy. But they're making light knives. Yeah. And over there, it's being sold by info infomercial on the alien planet the alien sun Yeah, okay alien creatures that can live on the sun. Okay, sure And they still have a shopping channel and they have a shopping channel

Yeah, and they're selling the knives and during a cooking demonstration right in a mall sort of a sun mall. Yeah But everything's made of plasma except for like the core of the sun and these knives. Including the creatures and their brains and it's all just, you know, sort of, you know, the brain. I see you have swarming plasma and connections that are just like that. But during a demonstration, accidentally flung the knife. Oh, the knife gets caught on some super solar wind. Solar wind. Yeah. Flung landed into our earth maybe into some stone. Yep. Sorting the stone, knife in the stone. Alien knife in the stone. Yeah, I like it. I really like an alien knife version of the gods must

be crazy as a sketch. I think seeing us all behave really rationally and strangely wanting to get our hands on the knife and because it's so useful for things, I mean, I feel like people wouldn't need to get the fact that it's a reference to gods must be crazy for the humor of the sketch, but maybe they wouldn't have to. It would still stand alone. I also think it's interesting the idea of an alien. What if the person, sorry, hold that thought, can you hold on to it for a second? The person who first sees the knife is watching the gods must be crazy and it happens out

of his window. You're done. You're in. Great. Nice fight, right? It's alien, aliens with space ships and so on but and you know they can teleport and all that sort of stuff But the only weapon technology they have is knives right so So they're all the like you know

When they're firing on enemy ships and stuff like that. It's all throwing knives Hold on those knives that they hold on their, you know, just on their, on their hilt, on their belt. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? And when they, uh, when they want to attack, uh, a planet, they build a really, really big knife to cut the planet in half. If we already said this on the podcast, it feels like so dumb.

Maybe, I don't know, but I like the idea of like having to go into the vacuum, the vacuum seal area of a spaceship. Right. of like having to go into the vacuum, the vacuum seal area of a spaceship. Hold on onto a handle on the inside and then lean out and throw knives at the other ship. I think I like that already. Is that, do you think that's within the same world? Could be. Alien knife fight. Yeah. Is it that it's a whole, because is this, is this aliens from different planets meeting up and having knife from them? Yeah, I think so. So it's kind of like a whole solar system where maybe they have...

Yeah, it's a Star Wars, but instead of lightsabers, everyone's got knives. Yeah, and instead of battling one-to-one on land, they just battle from ship to ship. You're not going to risk your own life. Not at all. That's crazy. This is what I don't like about all this sword fighting and duels and things like that. You're risking your life to prove a point. I don't know if it's worth it. I mean, what's your point?

Yeah, how good is your point? It has to be a really, really great point. What's your point? Yeah, how good is your point? It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a The guy who I may obviously it looks like a big gesture, but I think we'll find you'll find that if you actually just talk to the woman Yeah, just like she's a person. That's probably not what she's interested in anyway, right? She might not even be interested in you It's just like just as long as she's making choices. Mm-hmm Can we rewrite the movie Troy where Helen of Troy has agency? I think I like that a lot. I mean, I think you could rewrite almost all of these history.

All of history. Where people realize that like, while relationships are good and one that has developed and blossomed is maybe the one of the most valuable things you'll have in your life, you could get that with heaps of people. You could, and like, and there's not really that much point dying for one, because there's like other people in the world. And there's an increasingly, there's more people being made every day. That is definitely true. And I don't know if I could explain this to two guys about to duel. Well, yeah, I wonder if the preponderance of statistical and mathematical

information could be used in order to help people with a broken heart. And maybe the problem, because very often people find cold comfort in those things, you know, if you're in a relationship that's ended and you feel like you're never gonna meet the one again, being told that there's plenty more fish in the sea or there's lots of other people out there and you'll find someone really doesn't seem to meet the one again. Being told that there's plenty more fish in the sea,

or there's lots of other people out there and you'll find someone really doesn't seem to strike home to you, but maybe if somebody told it to you in the form of a really well-constructed infographic. Oh, yeah, that's right. Like, because this is all about communication, in from communicating information, communicating quite, you know,

what can be quite big numbers, which the brain struggles to comprehend, right? If we could put it in a way that's quite communication, communicating quite, you know, what can be quite big numbers, which the brain struggles to comprehend. Yeah. Right. If we could put it in a way that's quite much more manageable and mathematically clear. Mm-hmm. I think that could help people a lot. So let's say you know, like info that kind of tells you like the percentage of people that go through breakups that then later on find somebody else. Yeah. And then the amount of time that you've had in your life, the amount of time that you have still in your life, the number of people that you will encounter throughout your life.

Yeah. The number of things that can or need to be tried in order to, you know, increase the possibility of meeting people. The amount of standards that you need to lower in order to... That possibility of meeting people. The amount of standards that you need to lower in order to... That's also quite useful. I mean, I think the acceptance of flaws and others is a big one, I think, and how much that will help you.

I think, is that a part of the problem with breakups, right? Is that you've already gone to the work of accepting all of this person's flaws, and now you've got to go find somebody else and accept all of their flaws. Like it's, I think that's, you know, far out. It's the hard part. Yeah, I watched it. I've got to come to terms with all this shit now, do I? Yeah, look, I don't know if that is necessarily important. No, okay.

Oh, well, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was worth a try. I always wonder whether the sorrow part of a breakup comes from having your brain expectations. I think I've probably told you this before. I think I've probably told you this before as well. Your brain has simulated a potential future for you. And that now that simulation is incorrect and it takes a lot of processing power to... Remodel future. A future for you.

I look at Alistair, this is what I tell people all the time. And so either I've stolen her off you or you've stolen her off me or we both came up with this or it's just a common thing. This was a future that I came up with many years ago. Really, really? Yeah, it was the past now. Wow.

Yeah. It was actually even the past at the time when I came up with it. Okay. Yeah, I didn't even come up with it in the present moment. When you did? Yeah. I'd already done it. I don't know.

I don't know. Well, I was a frustrating bit of conversation. Yeah. Is there any humor in that at all? Um, I think like well, I I think it is quite it could be quite funny hearing somebody be told all this mathematical information a really persuasive Infographic way and then be like, oh, you know what that is quite comforting or

What about this right? It's a it's a It's probably a scene that has been played out in a sitcom or something, but two people get together and then they just really clinically and mathematically go through all the things that they're prepared to compromise on, all their personal flaws, the ones that they think that they could change, the ones that like,

they'll trade off against the ones in somebody else's personality. Yeah. You know, like, I'm always late to things, but you're really messy, okay? Yeah. And I feel like those cancel out each other out. And the other person's like, yes, that checks with me, they cancel out. Maybe you have an order to there or something like that who's able to help you to weigh these things against each other.

Hmm. Well, I think that's an interesting process, because it's funny because I don't think you could ever present to somebody at the beginning of a relationship all the things that you're going to go through together. Like, if you had the information such as, like, how many times we're both going to be crying, you know, for quite a long period of time, inconsolable,

and it's going to seem like maybe this is the end. Right? If you were told at the beginning that that was going to happen, would you, like you might be like, well, I'm not sure I'm going to go into this. Well, I think that, you know, in a business, in any kind of a business situation, the company is responsible for releasing a prospectus

at the start of every financial year, and they need to give that information. The shareholders so that the information can be in the market, and people can make informed decisions about how they invest. I think it's naive, and I think it's old-fashioned, that kind of information isn't available in relationships as well. It's creating an uncompetitive marketplace marketplace and leading to market inefficiencies. And I think that is a real shame. People need to know what they're investing in before they...

But I think also... Yeah, and I think maybe the problem is that once if a few people start releasing that information, then it's actually going to make other people who haven't released that information look even better. For the time being, because there's a other people who haven't released that information look even better. For the time being, because there's a few people who are being upfront about what the flaws and the difficulty of what the relationship is going to be like. And so then... That's why I think this needs to be a legally mandated thing, so that everybody has to do it. And that way, those people who don't do it, we're more likely to be suspicious of them. I was like, well, you're actually doing something wrong. This isn't likely, you need to be clear

with this about these kinds of things. And then once everybody's out in the open, we can all make better choices. Sure. Is that a sketch? I think so. Yeah, okay. It could even be like a sci-fi future thing, right? Yeah, and I think that maybe that, yeah,

one of the problems that it will fix is I think that there's, sometimes when you go into relationships, and you kind of like, especially these days when you can date way quicker and more people and things like that, you can sort of just get rid of people based on some tiny little flaw. And I think maybe that that can be because you don't know what the average relationship looks like.

Totally. And what the average person and how much flaws are, because I think if you were saying goodbye to somebody based on some tiny flaw, and then you found out that actually everybody has that flaw. And everyone else probably has it worse. That piss of me, it's actually better than average. It's because you're not really comparing it to that much.

So what if, along with your tax return in here, which is your financial orations, your relationship relation, you also need to do like an emotional tax return, where you reconcile your records from the previous year of like all your breakdowns, your irrationalities, your irregularities, that kind of thing, and that goes under some kind of a government database, which is like a government version of a dating register or something like that, where all this information is publicly available. And you can download, like you would download the damage report on an old car.

Exactly. So it's, you're writing down basically how taxing you have been on other people's emotional being and the support that you require and things like that. Is there some kind of a rebate in that sense? Would the government then, so say you've been good and you've been better than average, right? And you've given more than you've got back, does the government rebate you

with a certain amount of heroin that you can then inject into your veins to get the endorphins that you deserve? Yeah. And. I don't see any other way. I guess I suppose they could go with the methadone. I don't know how good that feels,

but it's slightly less addictive, I think. Yeah, well, that's good. Yeah, maybe they could just give us a methadone. And I guess, and for those people who choose to want to go down to the injecting rooms, then they can get extra free endorphins that they are deserved, or they can build them up, and then they can...

Overdose. Overdose at the end of their their life so they can go with dignity. Yeah, that's great. Or they could even resell it if they wanted to. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, we can start a drug market. Yeah. Yeah.

I think this is a good alternative universe. It's good. It's good. I mean nightmare. Good nightmare universe. Yes. Okay, well, look, I think that's definitely a sketch idea. I had had another idea, and that's why I'm kind of just stalling until it came back. Oh, hell.

But it was an outside idea. An outside idea. Yeah. That you were going to bring in? I mean, obviously I was going to ask, but I was going to walk in with this this idea like a cowboy through a saloon door and kind of just slam open the door and I think just based on my confidence you were just going to. I'm going to allow this. I want to say how this plays out. No I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm open to outside ideas. I just didn't want one on the hundred sketch episode. I felt like it was going against everything that we'd worked so hard to achieve.

Yeah, and I don't know exactly what the why we're against the outside ideas, but like, I think part of it is that you want the two disparate, you want things that are currently not ideas, but just pieces of sort of electrical conduct passing through to be forged together and then the idea actually be born in a space between us. In the space between us like that, right? Which, you know, while we're speaking would be like where your brain is currently resting the listener, that is the space between us, which is me and Andy maybe one in each year. I mean obviously we actually just record this mono, I think we don't have one. We don't have one microphone for any year. So that if you only have like a one-year set of earphones, you can only hear like Andy talking. Yeah. Or you know that if we both sort

of whisper contrary ideas, it's like you have a good voice and an evil voice. At some point when we're talking, the sound waves from my mouth pass the sound waves from your mouth in the mid air, don't they? Yeah, I would say so, except that we're not often talking at the same time. Well, sometimes we're talking over each other or or something like that, just for a while. Oh, wow. Yeah. So just then they would pass each other and touch. They're doing it now as well. They're intermingling. They're intermingling. Which is so, you know, quite a nice idea. It's quite nice. I would like to think that they might be

caressing each other. Caressing each other, maybe you're possibly creating their own net waves of their own. Look, that is something. It's not a sketch. No, it's not good to us. I'm sorry that we've allowed ourselves to just come to about three dead ends No, no, that's fine. Like, you know, that thing, remember when Peter Costello said

former Treasurer of Australia, Peter Costello from the Coalition Liberal Member for Higgins? Maybe. Not really in camera. I thought Higgins was in, look, I don't know, I thought it was in Victoria. And I wonder if, he said, when you're having a child, when you're having babies, have one for mum, one for dad and one for Australia. Yeah. And there was something that we were talking about earlier

that I thought. Relationships. No. What was the first thing? Alien nafe in the store, Stan? Definitely not that. Alien nafe fight. It's definitely something we didn't write down

and that I will not be able to recall. That's okay. It's another dead end probably. But that was just an amazing thing that he said, that you could have babies for particular reasons. And people. Yeah, people. Like that one of the children is for the mother,

and one of the children is for the, and one for Australia. It'd be nice if to, like, you know, I've heard, I look at it, it wouldn't actually be nice, but I've heard of like some cultures where if your brother or sister can't have a child, you have one for them, you give them one of your kids. And I think that's a probably hard emotionally on a few people.

Well, I wonder. Really rewarding for, no, well, this is, I mean, in terms of from what I've heard, this, I know, I, I, I, not connected to somebody who has not gone through it, but I know somebody who knows somebody, and I think it was hard on them. Yeah, I wonder if it is. The wonder of giving up a child is a difficult thing. You know, I wonder if you feel anything at all, really.

Did they do it in that culture, you're saying? Yeah, they're doing it in that culture. Really? Also, it's a current practice. It's not like a historical aura. Or it was happening, you know, let's say, not my generation, but maybe our parents' generation. It might still be happening.

It might not be happening anymore. Yeah. So what about a culture where if somebody, you know, if your brother can't have a child, you build them one out of mashed potato. Is that what that'd be? No, I think any has to take it. He has to take it and he has to rise it.

I guess it's kind of like a punishment for not being able to have kids. Here you go. And, and so this is if you can't have, if your brother can't have kids. Not because of infertility, but because he's a loser. Yeah. I mean, for infertility it'd be actually quite, it'd actually be quite insensitive. But if he's a loser, then he has to carry the mashed potato son that you make for him around with him. So that people know he's a loser. Otherwise people might not know and they might get together with him and they might even have a child with him. But if he's carrying

a mashed potato son at all times. Yeah and your mashed potato son has to be a new tender profile. Yeah. Right. And you have to like as it gets moldy and sort of awful. And it will very quickly. and probably within a week yeah within a week especially in the summer yeah you can't keep them in the fridge because he's your son you have to do all the normal things you have to feed him and whatever level of schooling he's at you have to send him to school and go get them. It has to be a son. You can't be a daughter.

You can't be a daughter. Wow. Yeah. And then, but then whatever it changes into, and also anytime, like anything, little things get stuck to it or whatever, you have to just carry that on. And when your mashed potato son is, like like kicked out of university because it's a mashed potato son and doesn't do any work, you have to go in and have a meeting with the dean of the department to explain why your son has worked hard.

That's been more successful. Everybody will treat it as if it's a person that just is being lazy. Badly parented. Yeah, badly parented. And I think that's a kind of a nice idea because I think it gives people an incentive to not be losers. Yeah. Because I think at the moment, you know, it's just there's not there's not that. When you can just be a loser and nobody could know and nobody could go your entire life. Nobody realized that you be a loser and nobody could know. And nobody could go your entire life. Nobody realized that you're a loser.

And there's almost no consequences. You can get away with it. Yeah. And it's just for people who lose. Do you think you're doing it to sketch? I mean, yes, it may be a sketch of an alternative universe, in an alternative universe. sketch of an alternative universe in an alternative universe. Like in an alternative universe where you can have this kind of alternative universe sketch

work, this would work. But who knows if it would work in these universe? I really like it. Yeah, great. I mean, as you may have guessed, at this point in my life, this is exactly the kind of sketch I wanna see. Oh, man. Like, I think maybe I picture it in a kind of like, it could be just a thing that's on,

let's say it's like one of those house hunter TV shows. Yeah. Right? And so these are people that are looking for a house. a thing that's on, let's say it's like one of those House Hunter TV shows. Yeah. Right. And so these are people that are looking for a house. But one of them has a mashed potatoes. Yeah, one of them has a mashed potato son. So it's... That's interesting.

Yeah, and so you're finding out about weird quirks of people like that, but at the same time, like the show still has a forward momentum because they're picking which house would be the nicest pick. Right, right. But the guy, but what it's really about is about the quirks of human quirks. But then he's having to take into account, you know. You're going to need a third bedroom for the mashed potato son. The mashed potato son, and maybe you don't want a third bedroom for the mashed potato son. The mashed potato son,

and maybe you don't wanna have to, like, the mashed potato son up the stairs. Well, I don't think you want it to be on the north side of the house, right? Because it's gonna be, it's gonna get a lot of sun, it's gonna get hot. It's gonna get a lot of sun. And the mashed potato son,

he gets real funky in the heat. Yeah, especially it depends on how much butter or like, some people put cream in their mashed potato, and things like that, so, you don't wanna have a lot of dairy and like that. You can stick it to potato. So it's just possible. You know, people put milk and...

Mmm. If it's pure mashed potato. Yeah. But it's not. It's not. It never is. You want to make it out of a nice mashed potato. Just nice.

Well, you're a loser. You're a loser and you want to do something nice for your brother. Yeah. You have a good quality mashed potato. You don't want to make him a shit son. Well, shit son. Now I'm glad we wrote that down. Yeah, I think that's definitely a sketch. Would you...

Like, when do you introduce somebody to your mashed potato son? Like, you've met somebody. You've got a lot of them there. Yeah. Well, what if it's like via this thing of... Somebody's had a previous relationship. Right, they have kids. Now they're dating again. Right. And you... Very often it's awkward introducing the kids to the new person. Right.

I'm sure it can be. And there's a lot of emotional reasons for that. Right. For the kids, you know, you want to protect them and that sort of thing. And maybe even for the old mother and that's something it's hard to move on in that way. But what if you didn't want to introduce them to your new person because you're embarrassed that they made out of mashed potato? Sure, yeah. Well, I think that one aspect of this would be interesting is that it's kind of... This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now. You're driving, cleaning, and even exercising. But what if you could be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers who save by switching save nearly $750

on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Multitask right now, quote today at progressive.com. Progressive casualty and trans company and affiliates, National Average 12 month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2022 and May 2023 potential savings will vary discounts not available in all safe and situations a beauty in the beast curse so this person has has this because they were

loser yeah but I think if they were to gain certain things in their lives So this person has this because they're a loser. But I think if they were to gain certain things in their lives, maybe even just like a sort of lively direction, possibly a life partner, possibly even just an inner happiness, right? Then they probably wouldn't even consider them a loser. And then the spell would be broken and they would be able to get rid of their mashed potatoes. Right?

And so while this person starts dating this other person, he must make them love them. And then if he can, then, you know, even though he has a mashed potato son, a mildly mashed potato son that he wheels around. Or maybe Carrie's around us in his arms. Yeah, I picture it in like when I was baby Bjorn from Carrie.

I see, I picture the kid as being like, sort of like seven years old. Oh wow, okay, no, I'm seeing a small child. Oh, so you just make a mashed potato, one or two years old. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, depending on how long he's had him, I guess he must have to keep building it up.

Keep adding on, will you feed your child mashed potato, I mean depending on how long he's had him. I guess he must have to keep building it up. Keep adding on what you feed your child mashed potato, I think, and that's how they're able to increase in volume. Yeah, I think you could feed him like, you know, like lamb roast and different things like that if you want to. Be hard to keep the structure though. Yeah, I know. Okay. Parenting is hard. Parenting is hard. Right.

And so... Nobody said it was going to be easy. And so then it makes you work extra hard to become sort of a more desirable person and to find joy in life and like self satisfaction and you know a passion and all that kind of stuff. And so because that's what we're looking for, the incentive, right, to kind of get away from this. Do you think that that's what that what will happen? Well, yeah. Well, that's what that's what we're looking for, the incentive, right, to kind of get away from this. Do you think that that's what that what what will happen? Well, yeah, well, that's what that's what it's all about. I mean, or this person is a loser, right? Already their life is bad, but are we

saying it's not bad enough to spur them on to, yeah, improve things. Yeah, I mean, you can just you can just get on with life and just live a normal life and be okay, right? And just get through your whole life and time will pass and you'll get to the end and it will have been an okay life and then you'll die and it won't matter, right? But we want people to excel in this culture. We want people to be their best selves. And so what do you do? You give them a mashed potato son.

Of course. Yeah. So that they have like incentive. It's like how for so long we would hit kids because we would think that that would be the way to motivate them to start doing bad things. Yeah, you know, you got this small week person who you want to do the right thing. What else are you gonna do do? Yeah, you hit them. You hit them, man. And so in the same way, you could see how a culture, you know, instead of hitting, they give them a mashed potato son, you know, leaving. Well, you can't hit adults.

That's wrong. Of course, that's wrong, Andy. Yeah, but you can burden them with a rotting. Petched walls, you know, John. Obviously, it's not rotting at the time you give it to them. No, of course. I've got a few tangent ideas. Great, right?

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. You know how when you give, at school, sometimes they will give children as part of sex ed classes. They'll give them a robotic baby to look after, like that little baby doll thing that cries and has to be looked after for like a week or something, just so they learn what it's like to have to look after a baby. Is there a version of that that we can do in some other scenario like we do it with adults

and old people, you know, see whether or not they're ready to have an elderly parent, okay? So they have a, an elderly robot that they've got a wheel around. They've got to visit every week or something like that. Yeah, I think it can even start sort of like younger. Like when your parents are younger so like when they're 65 and they and they keep they come over they come into town and they have to stay with you. Of course, right. Yeah, they are. Right. Yeah. Okay. Great. So if you can take care of, you know, this robotic parent

when they're here for three nights and then drive it to the airport. Yeah. Then you'll be ready to, for the responsibility of having your parents stay in the spare bay. Have a good air-boiled parent. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. I've got nothing to add to that. Also, I think that's that's perfect. I mean, and obviously if that there are some people who then try and wrought a lot of money out of that person's superannuation fund or something and those are obviously signs that they're not yet ready to have an elderly parent, right? They can't treat them well. They're still a little there, savings. Absolutely. I didn't hear that one because that was really focused on the

rating. I could tell. Sorry. And here's another thing, right? And it is when you're in court, right? And you've done something like, you've done something really shameful, like you lied to everybody about having a disease so that they would donate money to you and you've just spent all that money on drugs and fast cars, right? And the judge says, well look, this person has already been openly shamed and they've probably suffered more from that than I could actually punish them by sentencing them to jail. You know, that kind of logic that you hear sometimes. If they've already suffered more

than you could sentence them, then surely you owe them something. You owe them money. If justice is to be served, they should be given a certain amount of money. Or a one free crime of a small amount to make up the deficit. Yeah, or they should be amount to make up the deficit.

Yeah, or they should be allowed to shame all of society. Okay, yeah, that's good. They get to do some shamings. Maybe they could say that all of society is pretended to have cancer. And then that gets reported on the front page of a newspaper. I wonder if in the future everyone will have a national, or will have an official shame number. I've like exactly how much shame they are supposed to have. Right, I guess it would just like in a virtual reality

heads up display augmented reality future where we have chips in our eyes and we can see added information on top of everything that we see. Yeah, sure. Well, chips in our eyes, will we also have like, what will one of those pieces of information be

that when you look at somebody, it'll tell you how much shame they experience. We'll have to have far, obviously. Yeah, far. So, you know, when you're fighting them, how much longer you gotta keep fighting them? Yep. And then we have shame bar.

And then we'll be a shame bar, which I guess is how long you can keep abusing them until they'll also, I guess their health bar will go down. Number like, so what will the Shambar benefits or? The Shambar represents how much bad stuff you've been a part of or you know, you are responsible for. Yeah. And actually so in that sense it would probably be good to have it as low as possible right like you want to have minimum shame and you can do good things and then lower your shame bar and you can do bad things and it'll go up the end. Sure yeah

I look I can't figure out how it's funny yet. No, it's not, but you tell me what you write. No, no, but with the thing before, just, I mean, it's not what I wrote down, but with the thing before, you're talking about people who would get compensation for, but what if you didn't commit a crime? Yes.

Or, you know, like the pretending to have cancer and putting up a fake charity, whatever. What about a scenario in which people are, you know, they're bullied at school? Yeah. And so then, I mean, this is just getting compensation for any kind of suffering, right? But that it's, you know, it's all been done with sort of micro transactions these days and it's all automatic Everybody is linked to everybody through their bank accounts and they're a bit coin and things like that So almost what you would have right is like like there are people already who are getting chips in their fingers And they can use Apple pay or pay wave just by waving their hands, right?

It's like that but because it's in your hands every time you say you're getting bullied, every time the bully punches you Yeah, okay, a certain amount of money goes out of their bank account into your bank account Yeah, because it because of your your Apple pay is connected to your nervous system Yeah, which reacts in the amount of suffering that you have and then when they're punching you Damages are automatically transferred into your account. So so every everything is kind of now financial transaction. Everything is a financial transaction. That's really nice. Every time you smile at somebody, you get some money. But if they smile at you, then it cancels out. Yeah, see that's nice. And so then you're smiling back at people just so that you don't lose

money. Yeah. Right. And then sometimes you're smiling back at people just so that you don't lose money. Yeah. Right. And then sometimes you're just, you're not doing very well financially. And so you go out to a bad neighborhood. You smile at a lot of people. Well, that's a good idea. I was just hoping getting mugged or somebody beats you up. You just look for, you go out and stand outside like a bar at 3 a.m. Bad neighborhood, maybe these people don't have a lot of money. Really, you want to get beaten up in a good neighborhood. Sure. Well, instead of bad neighborhood, you go outside of bars at 3 a.m. and you just

hope that somebody really sucker punches you or something like that. And then that huge amount of money could maybe, you know, help your medical expenses. Oh, surely those medical expenses would be covered by... I feel like we'd have to have universal healthcare as well. And maybe like, you know, in these kind of scenarios where you would get like, let's say, chronic back pain, which was an ongoing pain. I guess every time you experience pain that's just money rolling in. Money in the bank. And so people would be like, it's like,

what's happened to Martin? He's got chronic back pain. You go, lucky bastard. Everything is compensated. Yeah. And everything is a transaction. Sure. I like it so much. I don't know. Everything is a trend. Yeah. It feels like it could be possible. Like if technology is integrated with your central nervous system that is able to accurately detect any slight against you, but also it would be able to detect your motivations as well,

I think, which is important. So when you do, you know, bad, good things for bad reasons, I think it would also have to know that, right? Yeah, I think that's good. Or maybe there's things like smiles or like where there's certain things that you actually generate new currency through kind acts. Like there's certain things like that where you're kind of mining crypto currencies.

You know, like there's certain acts where like, should the smiling, if you get smile back, then you don't have to pay the person's money. But let's say somebody's dropped their bag of shopping and you go help them out. Yeah. Right. It's not like they can repay it instantly by picking up your shopping to cancel out

the money coming out of your account. Right. So maybe like, maybe it's a thing from the, in which a kind act like that causes some processing power to generate some aspect of a crypto coin or something. The problem is, then is though, doesn't that then devalue the currency as a whole? Like, you know, on refling the market,

if there's too much kindness, won't we run into rampant inflation? And then all those kind acts will become worthless. Sure, but not worthless. They'll be devalued, so people will have to do more kind acts to get the same level of the thing back. But, and was like, but then some economists would do.

You could help one child across the street for, you know, get 50 bucks. Now you've got to lift an entire nation out of poverty in order to be able to afford a loaf of bread. Yeah, absolutely. But people, like this is an economist talking about this system, he goes, well when we were trailing this obviously we were really worried that people would commit too many contacts and it would completely devalue the currency and things like that, but we found that that was never became a problem.

It wasn't really an issue. Yeah, people, you know, $50 wasn't really wasn't enough money to get people out to help ladies cross the road and things like that. They actually preferred to go out and get beaten up outside of pubs at 3am. Would you do like a nubah thing with like surge pricing? If there's a lot of old ladies needed across the street, suddenly helping old lady across the street and it would come up as a little alert

in your heads up display. Be like helping old ladies across the street just increase to 10 times. And you'd be like, oh, I've got to get out there and help some old ladies across the street. And they never want to be running at these old ladies fighting over them to get the help of dragging them. Ladies who don't even want to cross the street

who are happy on the side of the street, they're all getting dragged across the street. Weird money is exchanging, is being swapped there for different, you know, for different, you know, because of the fighting and things like that. But it would also be good, it would drive us to find new ways to be kind to people as well.

I think, absolutely. I drive research. Kindness creativity. Yeah. It would take that to a new ways to be kind to people as well, I think. I drive research. Kindness, creativity. Yeah. You have to take that to a new level, to the point where maybe I had nothing to say there. The other idea that I had, which this is definitely an outside idea.

Yeah. But it's about becoming a drug counselor. And maybe I have spoken to some aspect of this before, but if you wanna be a drug counselor, right? It really helps if you were very deeply addicted to drugs. A lot of drugs. Yeah.

And the worst your story, probably the more cred you have as a drug counselor. Yeah. And so, because if you don't have any of that experience and you're just telling people drugs are bad, anybody who's addicted to drugs will be like, get out of here square. Whereas if you've been to a worse place than they've been to, then they're going to be like, I'm going to listen to this guy like that. And so I think the idea of somebody going to see a career's counselor and being like, well, I'm just very interested in sort of

drug rehabilitation and drug counseling, things like that. And the sort of the drug counselor being like, well, I got a guy, I know a guy that you can call. I'm like, you can get you to the very bottom, really quickly. Yeah, I mean, he's got the best quality stuff. Yeah. And this will ruin you.

This will absolutely ruin you. And then there's a really clear path back. Yeah. If you're assuming you make it back. Yeah. And then I know another guy who's actually one of my old students who's already gone through this, who you can call. And he'll help you on the way out.

It's like, is that a sketch idea? Yeah, I think it definitely is. I think we talked about careers counseling a couple of episodes ago, but anything where it's that there's a non-traditional path to a career and a career's counselor is trying to counsel you through that path. Then, uh, yeah. I mean, what if you went to a career's counselor and said, I want to be the first man on the moon, right? Wow.

And like, and then he maps out. Yeah. A way that you could do that. Exactly. And so he could probably actually do it by just going, putting you on a moon of like Saturn or something like that. Oh, that's really good, you know, because You want you want a career counselor with a Like a can do attitude. Yeah, I mean like it's the

Mr. Career's counselor like as in he's this it's a kids TV show and this guy who will not He hasn't had a kid who he hasn't been able to have a full-play. I think that's a really, really good. Yeah, I think we should put this in our children's TV show. Yeah, he's found a way. Like some kid wants to be the queen of England, he finds a way. Yep. Um, he, look, I mean, like if it involves time machines if it involves whatever takes you know or Just murder murder or

like body swap He gets this person to do plastic surgery until they look exactly like the queen to get the guess the child Yeah, I guess child to do plastic surgery till they living exactly like the queen. And then the old switcheroo, you put the queen under a hanker chief. Yeah. Right, it's that classic move where you show up to Buckingham Palace. You're doing a magic trick.

You say, I need a queen from the audience. Does anybody have a queen? The queen comes up. All right, you put that, you put that big silk sheet over the top of her and you stuff it all in, then you pull it down, you stuff it all into your left hand, right? It's gone, right? And then you open the box at the back of the stage, the kid who looks exactly like the queen comes out, done. Boom, done, right? I think like, you know, obviously, the stuffing

it into your hand is a bit unlikely, maybe you could fold the queen into a valise. Sure. Yeah. You know, one of those ones that you can wheel off quite easily, double-sided so that you can just release the queen out the other side into a field or something like that. Yeah, and then, yeah, obviously, yeah, release the queen into a field later on. And I mean... That's something if you have an already.

Oh yeah, great. Look, I think we have reached the end. Queen switcher. Was that short? No, no, that's almost 50 minutes. Holy crap. He's really fly. He's really fly.

They're short. All right, well here what we have today is alien knife in the stone. And it's just an alien knife in the stone. And it's just an alien knife that has come to earth. People kind of first start treating it like the coke bottle and the gods must be crazy. But then we find out that it really is an alien knife. Do we have a future path for this knife? I kind of created, I painted the history of the knife, the origin

story of the knife that it came from a super son. Well, I think that we fight over it because it's so useful. Yeah, we fight over it, but then we study it, you know, and at some point, I mean, do you think it's just, at some point, we just decide to get rid of it? Like we try to set it back into space. Yeah, maybe. We throw it back at that son, and then we cut the sun in half. Oh, man. And then we destroyed our civilization. I think we need to, yeah, I guess, I guess we work out. We would have to work out what work goes. Okay, but there's

something enough there. Obviously, something there. Yeah, okay. Then we have Alien Knife Fight and this is just a solar system where all the planets, all the aliens from all those planets, they have incredible technology but no weapons outside of knives. Yeah. It's a throwing knives. We love a good knife sketch or sketch or something. Yeah, I think knives are the funniest weapon outside of reality. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. In reality, a knife is a horrible weapon. In reality, they're probably one of the most horrific. Yeah, I would never want to see anybody get cut with a knife. Oh man, I think about fending myself off from somebody with a knife and getting your hands all cut up. Oh my, I picture my arms, all the tendons being cut, all the time, so I'm trying to blow up.

Oh, lacerating. I'm trying to blow up. I lesser eye. I'm trying to block. I mean, the arm will definitely be the best part that you want to use to protect you, at least your face. Yeah. But, you know, who wants to fucking get stabbed? Stabbed in the face. Yeah, stabbed in the face.

Hopefully, if you do, you like, you open your mouth. Stabbed in the mouth. Yeah, but you block it with your arm. So like the knife just goes in your mouth but never doesn't touch the sides. Wow. And itbed in the mouth. Yeah, but you block it with your arm. So like the knife just goes in your mouth, but never doesn't touch the sides. Wow. Yeah. And it comes back out again. So yeah. And maybe that would still be satisfying for the person doing a stabbing because all they really want to do is get the knife inside you. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. What if we put just put it in my mouth? The other option is that you could spin around and open your anus. Yeah. And accidentally like so it doesn't touch the sides of the wall. Yeah really.

Yeah. Goatsy. Big one. Okay. Yeah. And hopefully this doesn't have anything. Yeah, I don't have this. I'll have my never do. I think you've seen the time magazine cover that looks like it. It was designed based on it. It was kidding. Yeah, it was like a it was like two hands kind of opening up like up the American flag or something like that, but it's exactly that. Is that real? I think so. There's no way that it wasn't based off of that. Yeah. Emotional tax return, just to help everybody with relationships. We've legislated that you have to do an emotional tax return, which is how taxing you have been emotionally on the people of the country.

I think I guess if you've been overseas, you also think you don't have to declare. Declare, taxing things you've done in other countries. Oh man, but they'll be, they'll introduce you and it'll bring something in because we gotta stop that. That's the best step. The world, the world mental health organization. Maybe once we launch that. And that will help people in relationships also be aware of how much emotional tax you should expect.

And maybe we can get a minimum, once people find out, I don't know, I was about to try and do a minimum wage analogy, but I couldn't do it. I was lowest tax bracket or something like that. Yeah, lowest tax bracket and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. We got the, all the mashed potato son for your loser brother.

I think this is probably one of the weirdest episodes we've done. Yeah, I know. Just like the level of strangeness of all of these. I'm starting to really like it a lot. Mashed potatoes for your loser brother. And obviously that's just a way to stop people. It's to motivate people to not be losers. What could be more motivated?

Yeah. And that's if they're not having a kid. Not that you have to have a kid, you know, but I think it's if once you kind of, you know, against, again, this will have to be at least the government will have to be at least a little bit involved. Just to kind of mandate what a minimum amount of loser is so that somebody. Because at the moment there's no incentive to stop people from just having a bad life. Yeah, but here we are. Yeah, exactly. And maybe also the emotional tax return will help people to know that they are having a bad life because a lot of people might have been realized. Yeah, right. Okay. The government, you get your statement back from the government.

What's it, what's it called the reconciliation statement or whatever it is. And it tells you exactly how bad your life is on there. And you're like, oh, I had no idea. Yeah. You're like a huge drain on everybody. And oh my god, that's awful. But anyway. Okay, then we got the, you get a robotic parent to prepare you for getting used to having

so elderly parents stay in your house Once you're an adult and things like that. So you can practice and having them in your house Having conversations, taking them to see things. Yeah, going out to dinner. Yeah, going out to dinner and sort of like Arguing with them over who has to pay the bill. Yeah, exactly having them maybe make sort of subtle, not so subtle suggestions about directions. Maybe you could be taking your life or parenting or anything like that. Explain why you get up on engineering too. Yeah. Then we've got everything as a transaction. This is kind of like an Apple Pay type situation in which you're linked in with your central

nervous system and all kind of bits of suffering and things like that or just turn into financial transactions. That's justice. That's justice, I think that's how, and to set that up, we'll probably be able to get rid of a lot of the justice system. And so it won't be able to have to use it. Oh, that'd be so good.

Yeah. You don't get the death penalty, you just get declared bankrupt. I don't know where you go. You don't get the death penalty. You just get the clear bankrupt. Yeah, I don't know where you go. Wipes you clean. Yeah, the wipes you clean and you're free. Yeah. You don't get the death penalty.

You're just not allowed to be the director of a major corporation for the next seven years. Great. There's that too. The ultimate comment. I guess the problem would be is that if you do commit, I mean, I guess it can be that it's not the perfect system at them at present. And if you do, like, kill somebody and you get wiped clean, then you actually can't afford to eat or live.

And so then in a way, it's a corporal punishment and you sort of wither away and die. Oh, wow, that's interesting. Yeah, the study just lets you start. Unless you start being really nice to people and start doing a lot of good things so that you can... So I mean, that's kind of... That's actually kind of interesting. Yeah, but that like, the real fear is death. I mean, Alistair, we joke.

This feels all too plausible. Yeah. Well, you know, that's why we got to write it up. Write it up. Write it up, make a little story out of it. Write that shit up. That's right. That wouldn't be surprised if I was written that up Somebody was listening to this currently written it up. They've already written up. They've sent it off to them They've already got a

An office a clock award. It might be a Neptune award. Well Then there's the Person who goes see said careers counselor about want to be a drug counselor and then of course there's the, you know, the person who goes sees it, a careers counselor about wanting to be a drug counselor, and then of course there's the careers counselor character who makes- Will make anything happen. Will make anything happen. Yeah.

So that is. Bum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-um-dum-dum-dum Don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget. Thank you so much for listening to Two in the Think Tank. I liked having you here. Yeah, me too. And thank you. We've sort of, this is not important, but we've prerecorded a bunch of these before Christmas. So we're sorry if that there's been

any interactions over social media in which we haven't. We haven't addressed anywhere. We haven't addressed it anyway. If something has come out about us that we're horrible people. Oh wow, yeah. And it's weird that we're not talking about it. We're not talking about it. Well, that's why it's pre-recorded.

We'll probably almost certainly address it in the next episode. Yeah, probably in early Jan. Expect us to address some of that stuff. Yeah. And so have a good Christmas. If this one hasn't, well, you probably already had Christmas. So I hope your life is going good. I hope so have a good Christmas if this one hasn't, I wonder you probably already had Christmas. So I hope your life is going good. I hope you had a good Christmas if you celebrate

Christmas, if you don't celebrate Christmas, still hope you had a good holiday. Yeah. And if you celebrate the war on Christmas, well then I hope that you won whichever side you're on. Yeah. And if you don't have holidays, if you don't take any time off, either due to a compulsion or due to poverty or something like that. I hope work was good. I hope work was good. And if nothing ever happens to you, I hope you enjoy that, like nothing. If you're a child raised in a totally controlled sterile environment as part of an illegal scientific experiment, and all you're allowed to engage with is this podcast.

Yeah, I hope the current drugs that they're injecting into you are pleasant. Yeah. And I hope whatever sort of value system you've been able to create for yourself, this school's on the positive end of that. Great. And so we're also part of the Planet Broadcast Network. And you can listen to all their great podcasts. Do go on a planet.

Weekly planet. Still war. Don't you know who I am?. We plan it. Still award. Don't you know who I am? Don't you know who I am? I'm serious issues. Human ordinary. Human ordinary.

Yeah, I'm doing a podcast. Yeah, I'm doing a podcast. I'm a podcast. Will Anderson one. Yep, tofop. Tofop. And many, many more. Dundam Club should be plugging all the podcasts that are bigger than us.

And let me tell you. Wait, and we're both on Twitter. I'm at Alistair TV, and he's at Stupid Old Andy. We're both at Two in Tank. You can find us on Patreon. And on Patreon, and you can donate money. Let's say you wanted to give us money so that we could both pay George

for doing this podcast. And so that one day we could, I mean, look, we're still pretty far away from even being able to pay George $100 a month. But if you wanted any of your money to be converted And we're still pretty far away from even being able to pay George $100 a month. But if you want any of your money to be converted into food to give to a child, you can donate and we're starting to be able to give rewards or whatever if you're interested at all. This is all very persuasive, Alistair.

I'm going to go and donate right now. Thank you, Andy, very much. And you should also know that we love you. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mites. I mean, if you want, it's up to you. This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now.

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