H.I. No. 71: Trolley Problem

"H.I. #71: Trolley Problem" is the 71st episode of Hello Internet, released on October 28, 2016.
==Official Description==
Brady / Grey discuss: silver play buttons, Apple Watches and knowing nothing about computer security, project revolution pressing, Brady visits Australia-land, the trolley problem and self-driving cars, Brady's papercuts, and BREXIT!
==Show Notes==
Let's make a podcast. Alright Brady, my long, arduous quest is finally over. I'm sure the whole world will be relieved to know that. Do you know what? Do you want me to guess just because of your tone of voice? What you're about to talk about? You're talking in your hot stopper tone of voice. Ha ha boom! You nailed it! Brady, there's just a certain tone of voice. Either that comes out like a mixture of hope and exesparation. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. This is fantastic. I didn't know that I had a hot stopper tone of voice. You say so. You know me well enough to know what stories are coming before you even heard them. Do you know just from the inflections and the tone of voice, I even know the whole story now so we can just crack onto the next item. You're totally right. The summary of the story is, my local Starbucks now has hot stoppers. The Starbucks that started all of my frustrations a year ago or whatever it is. And so now, as far as I am concerned, the entire problem everywhere in the world is totally solves. So it's over. I'm happy. I never have to worry. If this podcast achieves nothing else, it has achieved that. This is the podcast's greatest achievement. We can shut it down now. Yeah. We can shut it down. Good. Well done. Should we even bother finishing this episode or should we just pull the plug now? That's it. Bye everyone. 71 episodes to get hot stoppers in your local Starbucks. Yeah. I have no more complaints with the world. Shut it down. Now Brady, are there any updates on the Hello Internet silver button? Have you got one in your house yet? How does this work? I'm not involved with this. I would like to know. Well, I'm not exactly sure. Well, I did because I did look into this because when I got all my silver buttons, I didn't realise I was eligible for them. So I sort of contacted someone at YouTube and said, hey, I think I'm entitled to six silver buttons. And I got them all in one fell swoop. But I've since discovered when you get a silver button like the civilian way, some kind of alert comes up at some point after you pass the 100,000 subscriber mark in kind of the interface dashboard or whatever it is of your YouTube channel. And as you know, but the teams probably don't know, you are much more responsible for our YouTube channel than I am. So I would have thought you would be the first one to discover that we have the alert or the code or the whatever we need to do to get the silver button. So if you know nothing, I know nothing. Well, what I'm wondering here is if this alert has been disabled by someone who knows that I'm the person running the channel because after our conversation last time, it crossed my mind, hey, wait a second. In theory, I should have two silver buttons because my CGP grade two channel on which I post terrible random videos very infrequently actually crossed 100,000 a while back. And I never heard a peep about it. I vaguely assumed like, okay, whoever at YouTube, they know I'm not really interested in getting a silver play button for a CGP grade two. And I wonder if they just disabled the Hello Internet channel as well. But I think we need to get you that silver play button for Hello Internet Brady. See, I could follow it up with the same people I followed up last time because there are two pending at the moment. It's too pending. See, as I speak, I'm just checking. I wanted to wait to my other two channels that I think will get there, will get there. And objectivity, much to my disappointment is crawling very slowly towards 100,000. But number five, two, the second channel for number five, is as we speak only 60 subscribers away from 100,000. So I'm at least going to wait till that one hits 100,000. Then I'll call up and say, hey, I want three. I like this. You're batching your work together to be more efficient, right? Yeah. And he doesn't batch all of his work, but he batches his silver play button requests. If the bloody Tim's got their act together and got objectivity over the line, I could get four at once, but I'm just not feeling the love, Greg. Go subscribe to Objectivity People. Make Brady happy. All right. Silver button continues. But I think a lot of people, either they didn't listen to the full conversation last time or they missed the sarcasm because a lot of them have contacted me and said, hey, Brady, I was listening to an old episode of Hello Internet. And in that episode, Gray promised that you could have the silver button. And here's the timestamp and the proof. So you make sure you tell Gray that that button's yours. I think they obviously missed the end of the conversation where you just threw your arms in the air and said, I can't even pretend I want it. So I will get it, people. Don't worry. Gray was just teasing. I have learned the hard way over the course of my life that sometimes what I think is crystal clear sarcasm or words said without genuine meaning is not always crystal clear to the listener. But that is why at the end of that, we could not have made it more explicit that I want you to have this Hello Internet Silver Play button. And I'm not really going to steal it from you. I would never steal it from you, Brady. But when I've got it, we will have a moment where we can sort of hold it together and pose for some pictures and things and pictures for what? What are you going to do with this? For a scrapbook. For a Snapchat. For the Hello Internet Museum when it finally opens on the top floor of the black stump. Yes, I guess they will need to have various objects to put in there. And so yes, I guess the Play button will be in the museum along with the photograph of us holding it. I guess the button itself will have to end up in that museum. I will make the pledge now so that future teams can like go back and timestamp this podcast that if we do open a Hello Internet Museum, I will donate the Silver Play button to that museum. I love your grandiosity, Brady. Don't worry people, when you open the museum to me, I will be magnificent enough to donate my objects to it. Sincerely Brady. The question is, I mean, I have lots of things here in my house that could go into a Hello Internet Museum. Do you have anything that could go into a Hello Internet Museum? I guess your microphone that you use. Do you have the microphone you used for the first podcast still? No, that's long gone. Long gone. So you should have kept that for the museum. I didn't realize when we recorded that first episode that I was supposed to be cataloging everything for posterity. I didn't realize that was going to be the case. I think I will have nothing for the museum, but isn't that the most gray-like thing to have for the museum is no objects with me? There'd be like just an empty room, which is like a modern art performance pace, which is the all of Grey's Mementos. It's just a big white room. I would absolutely like that. I like the idea of all the photographs on the wall framed in a strange way is that my face is cut off for people who still want to stay spoiler free. Oh, yeah. Right. It'll be the strangest museum ever. Well, there'll be a whole wing for the postcards, obviously. Of course. I quite like the idea of it now. Oh, no. It's going to get started on, if people. No, no, no. One bad all the time. Right. Yeah, we've already achieved so much. What happened with that check, really? For those who don't remember, I had to send this two-pound check, which I resented sending, so I deliberately packaged it in such a way that it would be difficult to open at the other end with multiple envelopes and packing tape and things like that. Right, of course. And this created a lot of interest, obviously sensible people saying how stupid I was. Right. But also mischief-making teams suggesting things like, oh, you could put glitter in it in all sorts of other ways. I could be difficult. Oh, you can't glitter bomb somebody. That's terrible. That's the worst. For the record, before it was sent, I came to my senses and I unpacked it and took it out and I'm sending it in just a normal envelope, like a decent human being. And the thing that it taught me was what a terrible job I did making it difficult because I was able to get the thing out in seconds. Oh, my God. It wasn't even that hard. Just just ripped it open and got it out intact, so. That makes the story absolutely perfect in my mind. This story could not end better for me. All of this incredible energy spent, not only in what I just thought was a futile gesture, but a futile gesture that wouldn't even have worked. You would have caused a couple of seconds inconvenience to some intern opening envelopes. That's amazing. Now, I'm sorry, people. We're going to have a quick talk about Apple Watches. Have you gotten an Apple Watch, Brady? I have not. Have you finally caved? No, not yet. But I know you have. We'll come to that in a minute. Now, first of all, recently we discussed this photo that was taken in the UK cabinet with the Prime Minister meeting with all of her new ministers and one of the ministers, who I didn't name because I'd forgotten her name, but I do now realize it was just in greening the Secretary for Education, was wearing an Apple Watch at the cabinet table. And I didn't like how it looked. I had a little winjabada. Grey told me I was silly to winjabada. Right. Whatever. We don't need to go there again. There we are. There was one thing I did think that I regret not saying now because it is sort of come to fruition. And I was wondering about the security implications of wearing an Apple Watch at a cabinet meeting because obviously the cabinet meetings are very confidential, secretive places. And since this discussion, there has been a new story and it appears that the wearing of Apple Watches at British cabinet meetings is now being banned because of fears of hackers and people being able to maybe tap in and listen to cabinet meetings. So I thought it was very interesting that I had a little winjabada in Apple Watch at a UK cabinet meeting and now it's been banned. Not for the same reasons I would have banned it, but I would have banned it for style reasons, but it's been banned for security reasons. Exactly. I'm looking at the URL here with this Apple Watch band and cabinet meetings. But it doesn't say for being ugly. And your summary of the story is that it's banned for hacking concerns. So I'm not exactly sure this is a point to Brady for predicting the future here. No, no, no, but at the time I did think are there security concerns? That's what I wish I said. But I didn't start, doesn't matter. I didn't read the article, but I'm presuming that they're using Apple Watch in the title because it gets more attention. Yeah, it is Apple Watches and similar devices. Right. Okay, so here is my question. Apple Watches and similar devices. What about phones and tablets? What's the line here? I don't know where the line is. I find it hard to believe they're banning phones, but maybe they are because certainly I even understand a little bit about how Apple Watch works. So you'd think the phones would have to be banned too, but I don't know. I'm just pulling up the article that you put in the show notes and haven't read. And it does mention that it is Apple Watches and similar devices and also mobile phones. Okay. So what's great thoughts on this is this security gone mad or is it prudent in this time of hacking and things like that? This has actually been something that's on my mind for a while. Now, I don't know if you saw this, but there was a picture of Mark Zuckerberg a while back, just sitting in his office. But it was kind of making the rounds because a few people noticed that on his laptop he had a piece of tape over the camera and he had a piece of tape over the microphone on his personal laptop. And I have long fallen into the category of I have presumed that for essentially most intense and purposes that the devices that we have in our life are pretty secure as far as turning on the camera or recording audio goes. Like I've been operating under that assumption. The thing is like I'm not a security expert. Here's what I've long thought is usually when you hear about hacking and there's been a couple of very high profile stories about things being hacked lately. It is almost always someone's email that has been hacked. This is the story that always comes out. Someone has a big email dump from some organization or you've gotten into somebody's email account by guessing their password or with the security questions are all the rest of this. Like I'm not a computer security expert obviously. But at least I have an understanding of how email works, of how the protocol works behind the scenes and I can kind of mentally configure. I understand how email is very hackable. And I've long thought that what happens in people's minds is they hear this word hacking and it just gets broadly applied to everything. I like oh devices can be hacked. And so I've kind of dismissed for a long time. Like those cameras, those microphones, whatever. It's probably secure. I wouldn't worry about it. Email is relatively easy to hack as far as these things go. That's why these stories are always about email stuff. But hacking the camera on your laptop or hacking the microphone on your Apple Watch seems crazy. But ever since that stupid photo of Zuckerberg, I feel like if anybody has this real like finger on the pulse of what's going on, the fact that Zuckerberg tapes over his microphone and his camera. It put this little grain of sand in my mind, which has slowly been turning into a pearl, which is to be increasingly concerned about, are these things hackable? Like is this crazy? Like I was just reading a book where this was like a central plot point in the story about being able to hack the camera and the audio on somebody's phone. And I really found myself thinking, I don't know how to feel about this fictional story. Like when you watch this dumb CSI shows, right? And they'd like, oh, and hands, right? And they pull up a HD image from the reflection in somebody's eye. And you're watching it. And you're like, okay, well, they might as well have waved a magic wand, right? You just know that that's not possible. But I'm realizing like, I don't know. And I feel like I kind of want to pull the audience here. Like I'm genuinely curious. Like are there any security experts who listen to the show? How realistic is the possibility of hacking the microphones and the cameras on our devices? I just don't know. I thought it was a thing, right? I mean, I don't know how much I'm confusing fiction because you know, you see it TV and movies and how much I'm confusing real stories. But I thought it was a thing. And also they could turn on your camera without the light coming on. Maybe it's like, you know, bedtime scary stories. But I thought it was a thing. I don't know. Like when I was trying to look into this of finding examples, all of the examples I came across had one thing in common, which was physical access to the device. And so there was a story a couple years ago that I think is probably the biggest one of unbelievably a school district issuing laptops to their students and watching the students while they were at home to make sure that they like following school policies. But this is a case of the school had the laptops. So they were able to install software on the laptops that is then able to remotely turn on the cameras and the audio. So I guess to clarify my question, it's more like, what is the possibility of someone turning on a microphone without physical access to the device at any point in time? Like that is more to me than like, clear, interesting question. My gut still says from what I know about the stack upon which these things are built. I feel like the answer to this is still no, it's not possible. This is precaution stuff. But I'm aware that this is deep into the world of my own ignorance. And it's been on my mind to try to find out if this is real or if this is not. So I would really like to hear from anybody in the audience who might have any idea about what is the possibility of this in the Reddit. I just don't know. Yeah, I would have thought it was possible. So I mean, I also would have thought you'd know better than me though. So you've got me wondering too, do you tape over your cameras on your devices? I do not. I like the idea that you think it is possible, but that you don't tape over your devices. If I thought it was possible, I would be taping over everything immediately. But you're relaxed about it. Yeah. I don't want it to happen. I don't imagine I'd be particularly interesting watching me type for hours and edit. It's fascinating watching somebody edit a podcast. Another thing that came up after we spoke about Apple Watchers and politicians and everyone pointed this out like somehow it should change my position. But that is that the Prime Minister of Australia wears an Apple Watch. And everyone pointed this out to me with great glee like because he's the Prime Minister of the country I'm from. I would then be embarrassed or perform some backflip and say, well, okay, it's all right. Yeah, you have to now. You have to. That's how that works, Brady. Yeah. Well, but anyway, I was looking up some photos of him wearing it because I just wanted to see what it looked like and things like that. And one of the photos I came across was like a super, super telephoto lens photo of his Apple Watch on his wrist, on Malcolm Turnbull's wrist. As he's the Prime Minister. And very, very clear on it was his thumbprint like unbelievably clear like his greasy thumbprint. So clear, you could even see all the detail of it. And it put two questions to my head. One is the obvious security question. Does this pose a problem? If someone lifts your thumbprint from a really good photo, does this give them an easier hack into your mobile devices? And the second question is, do you have problems with thumbprints on your watch? Because I can handle thumbprints and greasiness on my phone, but I imagine it would be more infuriating on something like a watch. I do know that the security break of if you have access to a high enough resolution image of a fingerprint, you can get into somebody's phone. There's a demonstration of being able to like essentially 3D print like a fake fingerprint. Put it on somebody's thumb and you can break into the phone. I do know that is at least theoretically possible. Again, of course, that requires physical access. Like you need to get your hands on the person's phone. Okay, so I wondered if even if you haven't got access to the phone, if you could somehow access it remotely, like by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and then have the pattern of the thumbprint, you could digitally do it. But that's not what you've seen done. You have to actually have the phone in your hand. Yeah, so a while back for that encryption video that I did. I actually read through all of Apple's security documentation to see how do they set up their system, which I've always described as the most interesting and boring document I have ever read. It was simultaneously fascinating and really sleep inducing. But it was interesting just to read about the way they set up the security on the phone. It's like if you don't have physical access, if you download the backup that somebody has made of their phone from the cloud, like you're able to guess their password and try to restore a copy of their phone onto a blank. The fingerprint stuff is in essentially like a little isolated computer that exists on each phone that is never backed up that doesn't interact with the rest of the system. And that's why every time you get a new phone, you have to reset up your fingerprints because Apple doesn't back up any of that information. So that's why it's like even if with that telephoto lens, somebody was able to recreate the Prime Minister's thumbprint, they would still need to get their hands on his exact phone in order to exploit that. They wouldn't be able to do it remotely. But if they got an into his phone remotely, like I don't know through Wi-Fi or something, excuse my stupidity, then they wouldn't need to get into that little area anymore. I think you haven't convinced me. This is a different question now when you say like get into the phone. This is precisely what I am kind of curious about going back to the earlier question of remotely accessing somebody's phone, like how possible is that? Because again, I have not come across those sorts of cases. Everything I've found is specific instances where what someone has been able to do is download a backup of somebody's phone by guessing their iCloud password and then using a blank to restore it. That is a very different question from like, can you just get into somebody else's phone? I guess the example I'm thinking of Gray is not like, you know, banging him over the head and taking his phone because people would probably notice that. I am talking about sitting in the public gallery while the parliament is sitting and being on the same Wi-Fi network, perhaps that his phone is on and being able to sneak in that way through the magic wires and through the magic waves and however these things work. Could proximity get you in if you then had his thumbprint scanned? My understanding is no, but again, like I'm not a security person. Again, I just know that like this, you're on a shared Wi-Fi network. Like I use a VPN, like a virtual private network, anytime I'm on a shared Wi-Fi connection. But that is again entirely because of like the structure of how do email requests work? How do grabbing URLs work? Everything I've seen that's like hacking is really about getting a copy of something that somebody is doing. It is not about you're like in their phone. It's much more like, oh, I'm on a shared Wi-Fi network with someone. And if they're not using a VPN, I can see what they're doing. It's not like you're in their computer. But I really want to know if I am just out of date or uninformed on this. Like I'm super curious to find out. Speaking of security breaches, despite me shutting down my office, a little chihuahua has managed to actually open the door and get in. So, it's like Audrey. Say hello, Audrey. Oh, Audrey. Say hello. You're going to stifle? Oh. All right. So, there's Audrey's guest appearance. Now I'm going to put her back outside. Oh, why don't you leave her inside? Oh, because... She's now causing any trouble, Brady. Look into those little Audrey eyes. No, I'm going to put her out because she'll want to go and play with Louis-Lou and the rest of the family. So hang on. Come on you. How's she going? I'll go. Hello, Internet has again been supported by fracture. Now, you should know these guys by now. This is the company that lets you liberate your photos from their digital jails and actually put them on display. See them out there in your home or your office? And fracture does this by printing your photos directly onto glass and adding a laser cut rigid backing. So, they're ready to display. No faffing about when they arrive. Listeners may recall I recently had a couple of images fractured for my dad. One was my recent doctorate diploma and another was a favorite photo of mine tricking on the Coombu glacier near Mount Everest. It's a pretty cool photo and while it may have been a little bit braggie, parents do like that kind of thing. So I was down under just a couple of weeks ago, took the fractures with me and handed them over. Maybe I was a little bit worried dad would sort of politely smile and slip them into a drawer but he was really impressed. And in fact, and I'm not kidding here, I just briefly walked away to get a glass of water and by the time I came back, he already had them hanging on his office wall. The fracture people aren't joking when they say these things are ready to hang right out of the box. They're a really great gift for your family and friends so if you're not getting one done for yourself, you should consider them as a present. You've just got to think of the right image and fracture or do the rest. To check all this out and get 10% of your first order, go to fractureme.com slash podcast. There you end up on a landing page and if you're feeling kind, you can tell the people from fracture, you came from Hello Internet with a little check box that helps support the show. But even if you're not doing that, go and check them out. It's a really cool Florida based company and that address again, fractureme.com and then slash podcast. Thanks to fracture for their support for Hello Internet. One other little thing, Gray, I mentioned that I knew that you have a new Apple Watch. Here is a listener email. Hi, Brady and Gray. I'm a Tim who works for Apple doing picking and packing. I have been rushed off my feet with the new product launches and guess whose order happens to land on my desk. I was very tempted to do something fun like draw flaggy flag on his invoice or put a hot stopper in the box but I thought I'd do the one thing he'd appreciate more than anything. I packed it in the best way I possibly could, no hassles, no drivers. I hope Gray appreciated the fine packing job I did on his beautiful new watch. I can't take photos in the warehouse but if you want to verify my legitimacy, his order number ended in and he gave me the number that your order number ended in. Oh yeah. And I don't think he was like being creepy. He remembered what the number ended in because it related to another number in his life. So it was like, he's like, oh, I can actually remember that number. He wasn't there writing down your order numbers. So there you go. Assuming that number checks out, which we can check later if you want, it turns out your Apple watch was packed at Apple by someone who listens to the podcast. Do you have that order number? Yes, it ended with 479. Holy s***. Jesus s*** Christ. Okay, yeah, okay, that checks out. Check out. Jesus. What were the odds? Picked and packed by a Tim. Super appreciate not finding a personal note in the package. But at this very moment, I find this perhaps one of the most deeply unsettling audience member interactions I have yet had, even though it's not in person. And I have that in the past year, like a few unsettling and weird audience member interactions, but this one is just very strange. I think it's harmless though. I mean, he's just there doing his job and he just says like an unusual name. He remains something to him. Right. And he's just gone, oh, I know that person and then got on with his packing. It's not like he's, you know, licked it or anything. Yeah, first of all, yeah, I hope he's not licked it, but it's just obviously like long time listeners to the show, I think, will understand that I have always had a deeply uncomfortable relationship with any level of internet fame. And this is one of those moments that it's just the law of like large numbers comes into play here. Something like this was obviously inevitable at some point, but it's just super weird. And the Apple watch in particular somehow makes it stranger. Like anyway, this is very strange. I'm not quite sure how to react. Thanks for your email, I guess. I'm what it's super weird from my subjective experience at this moment. Project revolution update. How's it coming along, Brady? I saw some pictures. I saw some video. We have had some interesting developments. First of all, and most importantly, I have received the first batch of vinyl albums of our podcast. They are currently sitting in a warehouse ready to be sent. We're just now finalizing how we're going to package them and how we're going to send them and all those sort of things. It's a very involved process, but they exist. I have some in my house now, and I have to say I was really pleased when I first saw what the album looked like, having seen it in real life now. Yeah. It looks so good. I'm so pleased. I'm super excited about it. But also, as a special favour, the people who were pressing the vinyl sent us a video of the Halewinson app albums being pressed. Those people who support us on Patreon will have seen this video already. They got an exclusive look at it. And Gray has seen it too. Yeah, it's really interesting to see. It's amazing, isn't it? I can't believe it's how they do it. So that was my response as well. You hear a phrase like pressing vinyl, and I think at least in my experience, a phrase like that just sort of exists in your brain. But it never occurred to me that there was an actual machine that was pressing vinyl. I just thought of that as the term. So it was really interesting to see this machine coming down and smushing the record into the appropriate shape with the label on it. And then what I presume is happening is that they're taking the blank vinyl and then putting it on a machine which is etching in the sound. Like I'm guessing that's what that second part is. No, no, I don't think that's what's happening. What do you think that second part is that? That second part is just trimming the edge to make it into a perfect circle. I think the whole audio and all the little ups and downs of the canyons are all put in in that one momentary press. So you think that one presses when all those little ridges are coming in? Yeah, I do. Interesting. When I first saw it, I thought, is it pressing all those little ridges? I don't know. It doesn't seem like it could possibly be fine enough to do it. Yeah. I think what happens though is when they first do the contract because one of the most expensive parts of the production is they make this like original cast. And I think that's what is put in the machine. And for people who haven't seen the video, they then put this like, I would describe it as looking at a lot like an ice hockey puck. It's quite thick and about the size of an ice hockey puck. Of I presume it's warm vinyl. I don't know if it's warm, but they put that in the machine. And then basically it gets squashed and flattened into an album in like seconds. And then taken out and all the grooves are in there. And I think all the audio is already in there. I think that those two pieces of metal that sandwich the puck must have all of the canyons and grooves on there, I could be completely wrong and sound like an idiot. But that was my understanding of what was happening. That is interesting. Like just an interesting video like to see this thing being produced. And it's not small part because our lives are so separate from the actual physical manufacturing of objects. It's like, who knows how vinyl records appear? Like they just are. They just come out of nothing. So it's like it's interesting to see the steps by which how many records in the end? What's the final sales number? That is not finalized as yet. OK. It's not finalized as yet. Yeah. And people wanting to know if they're going to get one final, final, final chance, it looks like you're probably will. I've secretly stashed a few away for people who start pining for it when they see it. Although once they go out and people have heard it and the reviews start coming in, maybe demand will drop. But there might be another opportunity. So keep an eye on Patreon and email lists and Twitter's and things and we'll let you know. And if you want to be part of a listening party, again, I've seen a bunch of people on the our slash Hello Internet subreddit arranging those. So head on over there if you want to try to find a listening party to join up with. I'm a bit reluctant to advocate those. Why? Well, I think it's wonderful and it warms my heart. Yeah. But like if we are publicly saying go to a Hello Internet listening party and some like weird person arranges one and then like fills the room with cyanide gas and takes out a whole bunch of teams and one fell swoop. Will we be responsible for that? No. Is that our problem? Not at all. All right. How would I be responsible for that? Well, because people will say, oh, in episode 71, CGP Gray told me to go to a Hello Internet listening party and then I did and got poisoned. Yeah. So if you want to go, go. You know. But be careful. Like tell your parents where you're going and stuff. Is there an age limit on that? Like if I go to a Hello Internet listening party, do I have to tell my parents where I've gone? It doesn't have to be your parents. But let tell someone you trust. I'm going to this address between these times to meet some stranger to listen to an album. You're so untrusting, Brady. You're so untrusting. People are good. Believe in the people, Brady. So Gray, I have been to Australia. Yeah. I've been to Australia for just under two weeks and million things happened that I'd like to talk about on the podcast. But we've got such a full list of things to talk about that I'm not going to bore you with too much Australian-ness. I wanted to see all your slides from your traveling. That's not going to happen. Don't worry. That will be arranged. But we won't subject the teams to that. That will just be you, strap to a chair with toothpicks holding your eyes open. Look at all my photos of koalas and things. But most importantly, and you have already been subjected to this, I did pay a visit to the Mighty Black Stump. Now did you go inside the Mighty Black Stump? Oh, yes. Oh, wow. Okay. So now this is a real story. I thought you might have just stepped outside and taken a picture. This was my first time back in Adelaide since the Mighty Black Stump has taken on these new proportions of having a t-shirt made of it and things like that. Wildly exaggerated t-shirts. I looked at it through new eyes. And how did it look? Do you know what? What? Magnificent. Like, I don't think I'm being biased here. Oh, God. Okay. Like, I will concede it is not the tallest building in the world. Yeah. Good. Well, it's not even the tallest building in Adelaide anymore. So obviously not the tallest building in the world. All right. We're starting on the same page. I like this. This is like the yes method. Get people to agree several times. But do you know what? I think you would like it. There we are. It's like so sleek and it's so black. It's almost like, you know, there's that Venta black color, which is the blackest color that has ever been made, like it's blacker than black. That's what the Mighty Black Stump is like. It looks uncommonly black. It looks like a void in space. It's really impressive and it's very sleek, even though it's a building from, I don't know, when it was built the 70s, I think. It still looks quite cool, like it doesn't look dated. It's a really impressive building. I have never had any problem with that building. And of course, it's going to be apparently the resting place of all of the items of hours that go into the Hello Internet Museum. So I'm perfectly fine with that. I just always think it is your charming take on the building that I find entertaining. It was special to me as a child and I am a little bit prone to nostalgia as you know. So now I need to know what did you do on the inside? What happened? Well, I walked in. This is like walking into the monolith. Yeah, exactly. I walked in and I thought there was going to be like security and I was going to have to turn on the charm to try and get into the elevators and things like that. Nope. Walk straight into the elevators. I was being all secretive and making sure I got into an elevator on my own so I wasn't asked any questions. But I forgot how friendly everyone in Australia is. It's disconcerting how friendly people are in Australia. There we are. And everyone in the lift was like, hey, how you going? What's up? Where you going? And so I ended up getting into a lift and chatting to someone in the lift as I went up. I went straight for the top floor. I thought there'd be like fobs or keys or codes required to get to all the different offices. But now I went straight to the top floor and it turns out the top floor of the Mighty Black Stump is a sumptuous law firm. It's really well decked out. You can't just go there, by the way. Don't go there. You're not supposed to. But I did. I think you're encouraging a pilgrimage. Intentionally, you're not. That's what's occurring here. I'm not. I made my case to the receptionist and I explained who I was. Which was quite an interesting conversation. Did she give you the respect you deserved? I am Brady Harren. Do you know what? She did. I said, halloween tonight, it's kind of a big deal. I am Brady Harren. I'm kind of a big deal on the internet. She had no idea. But as soon as I said CGP Gray, her face lit up. Of course. Of course. So I said, do you mind if I take a few photos out the window because they had this nice reception area with sofas and stuff for their clients? So I took some photos out the window. I also recorded a little bit of audio for the podcast. So if Gray so chooses, we can insert that here. Hello, testing. Hi, everyone. This is just a quick intermission in the podcast to bring you a recording from Adelaide. And you can probably guess where I am. I am at the top floor of the Mighty Black Stump Building, the Grinfall Centre. And I'm admiring a view of Adelaide on a sunny day. It's actually private offices up here. It's a law firm. So you can't come up here. It's going to give me up here very specially to take a quick photo. Not anyone can come up here. But it's something special. I'll take some pictures and I'll put something on the website so you can admire the view. And here's just a bit of ambient sound from the top of the Mighty Black Stump. It's fascinating stuff there. So also there were lawyers milling around and they saw me taking all these selfies and photos out the window and the receptionist just sort of said to them, I'll explain later. What's this tourist doing in that law firm? She said occasionally kids do come up wanting to see the view and take photos. I actually said, why on earth would they do that? But it's not even the tallest building in Adelaide. And she said apparently the people at the tallest building, the security is a bit higher so they've been come to the Mighty Black Stump as their second preference. Okay. But of course when I was growing up, it was all about the Mighty Black Stump. Of course. And it still is really. I then decided I wanted to get onto the roof. So I said to the woman, how would I do that? And she pointed me to a guy on another floor who was like in charge of the building. So I went down to his floor and I asked to see him and he turned up and another awkward conversation ensued. And then he sort of said for insurance reasons, I can't let you on the roof without my boss's permission. So I had decided at that point I wanted to kind of grease the wheels, but I also wanted to kind of add legitimacy to what I was saying. So at that point I reached into my bag and pulled out the Mighty Black Stump T-shirt and said, have a look, there's even a Mighty Black Stump T-shirt and showed it to him. Thinking that he could then show that to his boss and that'll be so impressed that it would dead. That opened the doors. He just seemed like a lunatic pulling out the shirt. I thought I did it with a great deal of charm. Oh my God. You're lucky you were in friendly Australia for this. I don't think you go anywhere in America that's a building. Hey, I'm a guy who's made a t-shirt of this building. Please let me walk around. I think you're going to have a bad day. Yeah, you're going to have a really bad day. Let me on to the roof of your building. So I left my phone number in email and said, talk to your boss and if I can get up from the roof to take a picture, give me a call. I thought as soon as his boss saw the t-shirt, that'd be it. We'd be in. Yeah. Never heard that. Totally shocked that your t-shirt key card didn't get you through. But you know what? I thought he kind of, because he was talking to me and he was saying, do you know what? I've seen somewhere on the internet that the Mighty Black Stump, well he wasn't calling it the Mighty Black Stump. I'm just getting certain dialogue into his mouth here. I like that. His proper name is the Grenfell Center, although Adelaideans do call it the Black Stump, but not the Mighty Black Stump. The Mighty was added by Gray. But he was saying that he'd been on the internet and he'd been Googling and he'd found some sources that were claiming it was the third tallest building in Adelaide and he was outraged by this and he said it is indeed the second tallest building and he was quite upset by this and I said, don't worry, I'll talk to the Tim's, anywhere where it's described as the third tallest building. They'll fix it on Wikipedia, is that what you're saying? Basically, yeah, I've certainly got history in this department. So I was like, you know, I was starting to say, don't worry, we're on your side, we're going to fix this up, everything's going to be all right. Can I go on the roof? And I would have chased him up. I think if I chased him up, I could have gotten up there because he was a nice guy. But then I got busy with other things in Adelaide, which I might talk about another day. So I never went back. Throughout this entire story in my head for some reason, you're wearing socks and sandals and shorts and like a Hawaiian shirt and a hat, right? A little pouch that you're pulling out, the t-shirt from to try to explain your situation and a big camera around your neck. This is my mental image of Brady visiting the mighty black stomp. Anyway, it was fun and my love for the building has not been diminished. Good. I'm glad you still love it, Brady. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Hover. You can get 10% off your first purchase by going to hover.com and using the code, silver button, all one word. Finding the perfect domain name is ridiculously easy with Hover. 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Use the promo code, silver button at checkout, and save 10% off your first purchase and show your support for Hello Internet. Thanks to Hover for supporting the show and for registering all of my domains. All right, you know we talk about self-driving cars, autos a lot on this show, braiding. We do. We do. Regular topic of conversation. AVs as I like to call them autonomous vehicles. Kind of course. Of course, I forgot about that, AVs. Yeah. There's an idea that is going around that I just want to talk about with autonomous vehicles because everybody keeps bringing it up. And it is autonomous vehicles as they relate to the trolley problem. So Brady, are you familiar with the trolley problem? I am familiar with the trolley problem. Do you think you can describe it for the listeners? I would rather you did it. I know this is a runaway trolley. What Cassandra and Cisco sort of trolley is. And it's rolling down a hill full of people and it's going to hit someone or and you've could have decided whether to let it hit one person or whether to save all the people on the trolley. I just realized that in my mind whenever I hear the trolley problem, my brain was transpiring the word trolley into caboose. I was always thinking like the caboose of a train. Never did I ever imagine this in San Francisco. But yes, the core of the trolley problem is essentially a utilitarian philosophy question. If there's a runaway trolley, you can pull a switch that will change the direction that it's going to go. If you don't pull the switch, it'll crash into five people and kill them. And if you do pull the switch, it'll only crash into one person. Do you pull the switch? That is the fundamental nature of it. Now, where it gets interesting is you can start doing all of these crazy variations on the trolley problem because almost everybody answers the first version of this in the most boring way. Yes, you pull the switch to kill one person versus saving five. The nature of the many outnumber the nature of the few. Yes, exactly. But you can start doing these fun variations like, okay, well, there's no switch, but you can push a fat man in the way of the trolley. So that the fat man, innocent bystander, dies, but the trolley is stopped and then everybody down track like six people are saved. Would you do that? Right. And then suddenly everybody's like, no, no, no, I wouldn't do that at all. This is like the basic idea. There's this question of, oh, everybody, sorry for that fat man for some reason, but anyway, the imaginary fat man. Is he fat because he's more likely to stop the trolley or because it's okay to kill fat people? Why is he fat in the story? He's fat in the story. I mean, like a religion matter, I guess. Just like I never occurred to me, this was in San Francisco, it never occurred to me that maybe fat lives matter less. And that's why he's fat in the story. So is he fat in the story because a fat person is more likely to absorb the momentum of the trolley? That is what I always presume to try. It's not like fat people. We all know their lives are worth less. I don't think that's the way it's supposed to go. But you know, you could have said a fat person who's about to die of some disease. Yes. So they're going to die soon anyway. So maybe I thought that's where you were going with the fat person. No, no, but this is actually perfect. So this is where this goes. You can start building up a whole bunch of different scenarios under when would you intervene or when would you not intervene? Okay. There are interesting moments where you can get what seemed to be like contradictory answers out of people where like the math of it doesn't make sense, but people do or don't feel that it's correct to intervene at one point or another. Yeah. This has been around for a long time in philosophy. It's like a fun thing to think about. Yeah. I don't know who I don't know where I don't know when. But at some point, this idea of a trolley problem got attached to the idea of self-driving cars. It's essential that would happen. Okay. Why do you say it's essential? Well, because self-driving cars are dangerous. They're big, heavy things with lots of momentum and the ability to kill people both inside and outside of the vehicle. And they're being programmed to make decisions. And these are the two things that the trolley problem involve. People being hit by big, heavy objects that can kill them and decision making. So it just seems inevitable to you. Yeah, of course, because you have to program these things to prioritize. So this is what's been making the rounds in the past couple months. Is a bunch of variations on this exact idea of it seems like people are now just accepting the inevitability of self-driving cars. And we've moved on from the arguments that I used to get into all the time with people where they're like, oh, the unions will stop it, right? Or insurance companies will stop it. That is over. It's very interesting to see that this seems to be like the public temperament. Now whenever self-driving cars come up with anybody like this trolley thing comes up all the time. And it drives me crazy because I think this is like a weird, pointless distraction. Okay, so the idea is, well, if we're building a self-driving car, at some point we need to program in trolley problem logic to it to say, how should the car act under various circumstances? And there's a website which is designed to collect this information. So it's like a crowdsourcing program that gives you a bunch of trolley car scenarios and tries to record human answers. Yeah. In order to like build up a database for self-driving car manufacturers to start looking at. And like you were saying before, with why is the fat man fat in this story? I went to the website to just check it out and to see like a look at the scenarios that they give you. And it becomes impossibly hard very fast because they'll be like, okay, you have to pick which crowd of people the self-driving car is going to crash into. But then they list like the moral value of every person. So they're like on the left hand side, you have one 90 year old grandmother who's never committed a crime. Right? One violent murderer and one baby, right? And then like on the right hand side, you just have three totally normal citizens. Like which side do you choose? And I found myself immediately paralyzed by this. Like I can't make any of these to see how do I value these lives? I mean, Greg, just before we discuss it any further and I do, there's a few things I do want to discuss. Can I just make it clear from the outset? To me, this is not an argument for not having self-driving cars. This isn't like, you know, an opportunity to scupper. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To me, this is just something to discuss and should be discussed. What's your answer to this? Because this is what I always thought the dilemma was without going into babies and grandmars and things like that. I always thought the reason this is a problem is if you're in a self-driving car that's going fast and the car in front of you or let's say a big huge truck in front of you suddenly stops and the self-driving car has calculated, I cannot stop quickly enough to prevent this collision. And this collision is going to kill the person in the car. It's going to kill my owner. What do I do? And do I swerve to the left where there are pedestrians on the sidewalk? Or do I just accept the fate of the car and the person in it and plow into the back of the lorry and kill the passenger in the car? Now, if it wasn't a self-driving car, I think a lot of people, whether they like to admit it or not, would have the instinct to swerve the self-preservation and that probably hit the pedestrians. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't, maybe they wouldn't have the presence of mind or, you know, you certainly would have an instinct to try and not hit a lorry. The question of what would a human do in that scenario is a bit different because I think you're going to end up in a kind of reflex situation. You're not actually deciding something. You're just going to have reflexes take over and you're probably just going to slam on the brakes and swerve and maybe kill the pedestrians. But I don't think there's any kind of decision happening under that scenario, right? It's just like, okay, a thing happens and your reflexes take over. You're not making a moral calculation of like, I want to save myself and kill these pedestrians or like, no, I shall be the noble self-sacrifice here and just leave my foot off the brake and imagine my family, right, as I plow into the back of this truck. I don't think that's what actually happens with people. Okay. That's all by the by anyway because that's not the debate now. The debate is self-driving car which can make an informed decision because, you know, everything is so fast for a computer. It can consider this at its leisure. Right. But it can't change the laws of physics. Yeah. So it is still going to have to either hit the pedestrians or hit the truck. Put that way at its simplest, which is kind of the simplest version of the problem. Let's say there's one pedestrian and there's one person in the car. What do you think or two pedestrians are one person in the car, which is when it becomes interesting? Do you have a position and is there a law and what are the car companies doing? Well, we're getting down the rabbit hole, which I do find slightly annoying. Here's the thing. I think this is a discussion that happens because it is interesting, but I don't think it is relevant. So we can come back to the relevant part later and we'll just discuss the interesting thing now, right, which is just what happens with everybody. It's like quicksand, the pulls you in, right, because everyone can have an opinion. Okay. So this to me is almost like a game theory kind of question because my view of it is the car should sacrifice me for a greater number of pedestrians on the side of the road. But I would not buy a car that would. I don't know who it was, but there was some car manufacturer. I think because this conversation is like spiraling out of control and even the president got involved the other day, like he had to render his opinion on the trolley problem with self-driving cars, like rolling my eyes so much. I think it was received, but some car manufacturer stepped up and was like, oh, don't worry, citizens, you can buy our cars because we're going to prioritize our car to save the driver first above pedestrians outside of the car if a trolley problem ever occurs. Okay. So I feel like, thanks. I'm going to buy your car, right? Okay. So I think the game theory, this of it, I would not buy a car that would sacrifice myself for the greater good. Would you, Brady? Well, if there were two options, one that preserved me and one that didn't preserve me, I guess I might have a leaning towards the one that preserves me. We could call them the moral car and the monster car, right? Would you buy the monster car? I don't know. I probably would buy the one that protected me, but I was kind of hoping that this is a decision that would be taken out of the consumer's hands, like there would be a law or something or I don't imagine that different cars are going to be able to use these selling points in different companies and say, hey, ours is the one that's going to save you. I would have thought it would have to be like regulated. It would be an industry standard. It would be decided what cars can do under certain circumstances. Yeah. So like this is the only way out of these kind of game theory sorts of problems is that you have to have something that is a level above that can see the whole playing field and enforce the solution to the prisoner's dilemma, right? Everybody acts selfishly and it's worse for everybody. Everybody wants to live in a world where all the cars are moral, but everybody wants to buy a car that's a monster. So you have to just allow that kind of thing, right? I understand why this all occurs. Do you keep dismissing this way, like? Oh, I hate this discussion. This is so unnecessary. But the time is going to come when a self-driving car is about to go into the back of a lorry and it has to make a decision whether to swerve onto a sidewalk or to keep going. Like this is going to happen. I'm sure it already has happened. So why is this a stupid discussion? The reason this annoys me and before I say anything, I do want to just lay it on the table nice and clear that this is again a case where I may be totally wrong and this may be a case where like a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. So I'm open to my argument being wrong. The reason this bothers me is because I'm starting from the premise of how often is a scenario like this likely to occur. If you take a look at all of the accidents, how many accidents are there where basically a decision could have been made to kill a bunch of different people and save the driver, right? How often does that actually occur? And I think if you think of like most traffic intersections, right, or most highways, most places where accidents occur, I don't think this is actually a very likely scenario in an accident that there's available pedestrians to plow through to save the driver of the car. Like, I am estimating this is like one in 10,000 traffic accidents falls into this category of an action could have been taken. I also think that when you start imagining a world where we're seriously discussing self-driving cars on the road, you're going to get the accident numbers to drive way down way fast anyway, right? So it's like this scenario becomes vanishingly less likely because you're talking about less accidents. Now, of course, I totally grant that it is not zero. There are going to be times when a trolley problem occurs. It just has to happen. Those are just the numbers. Because even if self-driving cars never crash into each other, you can have a scenario where there's sudden falling rocks from a cliff, you know, whatever. There can be things that induce this kind of scenario. But all I keep thinking of is going back to like statistics classes. Basically, there's this question of like false positives that worries me about people getting all high and mighty about the trolley problem, which is if you're actually programming a car to make decisions like this, as opposed to say the basic scenario, which is the car just avoid obstacles like the simplest version of the program. If you want to talk about like someone coming in and enforcing trolley problem thinking on top of the car, you're adding like an additional layer to the program, which is checking for trolley problems. Is there a way to plow passengers on the side of the road because there's more people in the car or whatever? You're adding an additional check. And all I keep thinking of is this thing in statistics when you're looking for something that's really, really rare, the question of false positives becomes interesting. Like as an example, I'm just going to make up some numbers, statisticians, I'm sorry if I get these kinds of things wrong. Okay, say you're developing like a genetic test for some disease that only occurs in every one out of 10,000 people. And the test is can accurately recognize the presence of the disease 95% of the time, but it has a 1% false positive rate so that it will take someone who doesn't have the disease and say that they do. It's really counterintuitive what you end up with, which is like an incredible number of false positives and not actually catching as many of the diseases as you think that you do because what you're looking for is so shockingly rare. So what I feel like I'm concerned about and slightly annoyed about what the whole trolley problem is, if I'm right that trolley problems are incredibly rare and probably will become more incredibly rare, I think simply adding additional lines of programming into the car to be constantly on the lookout for trolley problems, you're inviting more like false positive situations where the car makes an incorrect decision about like, is there, is there not an accident on the horizon? So you're saying when that 1 and a million thing does happen that the car might not swerve to save your life and it should have swerved because they weren't pedestrians, they were pigeons or they were leaves blowing on the sidewalk and stuff. So you're for something that's incredibly rare, you're going to kill more people than you're going to save. Right, like just simple bugs in that algorithm looking for something that's a 1 and a million or 1 in 10,000 that but it's running all the time. Like there's more of an error there. I could be wrong, but I feel like the correct answer for collision avoidance almost all of the time is like break and reduce the kinetic energy in the situation. I'm of course breaking is going to be the way to save it, but the trolley problem in this context is usually about when breaking is no longer an option. Right. And you have to drive into something else. What do you drive into? That's what I'm wondering is like how often does the scenario occur where you're breaking by driving into something else? Is the correct answer. I suspect it's extraordinarily rare and that number is only going to go down. And by planting the seed in the code, you're just going to make the cars drive into the back of lorries all the time when they didn't need to. I just think when you start talking about self-driving cars absolutely everywhere and like all of the miles that are going along, it's like I just worry about this kind of false positive thing like more complexity into a scenario than is necessary. Now again, I may be totally wrong about this, but that's kind of my gut feeling. And I just I feel like everybody loves to talk about this just because it's a fun thing to talk about, but it's not really like a discussion of how should self-driving cars work. I feel like it's just a collective bike shedding. Everybody can talk about the funness of the various moral situations, but it's much harder to talk about how to self-driving cars really work. You've moved me. Oh, have I? Hmm, slightly. You can start having the algorithm looking for ghosts that don't exist and you could have poor decisions being made as a result. And that is actually my concern with the game theory solution to this and why it finally really crossed my irritation threshold when the president started talking about it because like, this is the exact kind of thing like I could see this being a real popular lot of past. We want to require that there's software checking for maximum moral utility in every car. And then this is the kind of thing like, oh, this is actually worse than doing nothing. Yeah. But because you're not thinking about it in the right way. You're not going to like hearing it though because the first time a self-driving car does swerve to protect its occupant and mose down even one pedestrian, you're going to have one heck of a lawsuit. It's not even going to be like a trial or reflexes that we're going to be actually going through the code of what the car did. And that code is going to be directly attributed to the people who created the code. So when it gets to court, we're going to be able to look at exactly why the decision was made, what the prioritizing was that it deliberately drove here and did that. So it's going to be messy. Yeah, but I'm still willing to bet that the simpler crash avoidance code is the better option. The simpler thing of don't try to do complicated things with swerving, just break, and just break way faster than a human ever could. That solves 99.99% of your interactions. And the idea of the car taking avasive action becomes a much more complicated scenario. But hang on, great. This is the whole debate. Of course, there's not ever going to be any controversy where cars are just told to break. The controversy starts when you start telling the car to swerve, break laws to preserve life, to drive on a footpath, to stop a person smashing into the rocks that fell off the mountain. Right. This is where the decision needs to be made. If we just make a blanket decision, just break and hope you don't hit or you don't hit too fast, that's easy. And the only person at risk is then the person in the car. The controversy comes when there's third parties who are just innocent bystanders who are suddenly put at risk because of the way the car was coded. This is where the whole controversy comes in. And who was just there having an ice cream on the side of the road. But because a car swerved to avoid the rocks, they get run over. And the person in the car is still alive and the people who coded the car are well and good. And some person who was not even involved in this whole scenario is now dead. Right. I understand exactly what you're saying. I am saying, though, that the more complicated collision avoidance software, which is the trolley problem kind of stuff, might be more harmful than the simpler collision. Software. You're saying the cars should not be allowed to swerve. They should hit the brakes and see what happens. And if we start putting swerve abilities in onto the sidewalk to do something clever, which you could conceivably do, are you saying don't let the cars do that? Like don't have that as part of the car's programming? I'm not trying to prescribe the scenario of like what should or should not the car be allowed to do. I'm simply saying that like the more you try to imagine, the car making more and more complex decisions, including factoring in the number of people who are around that it's going to plow into, I'm suspecting the higher probability you have of like a false positive, and the car does something unexpected and causes loss of life that wouldn't have otherwise. That's a cop out. I think you're copying out great because deciding to not code the car to make a more complex decision, like swerving up onto the sidewalk is still a decision. You still decided to leave the line of code out. So you still either condemned the person in the car to death by leaving out the line of code or condemned pedestrians to death by putting the line of code in. This to me comes to the core of like what computer code is though. Like the fewer lines of code is a better thing. There's fewer problems that can arise on average, like the less code that you actually have. There's less room for mistake. So again, to come back to my question to help me understand your position then, let's call it the swerve line of code. This is the line of code that gives a car the extra option. That if it thinks the braking won't work, it's still going to hit the boulder. You can activate the swerve option, the swerve line of code. Are you saying don't put the swerve line of code in because that's making it more complicated to use your way of speaking? And therefore is not in keeping with what you're advocating. So you're saying don't put the swerve line of code in. Here's where I am mentally drawing this line. I am okay with adding a collision avoidance mechanism that swerves out of the way of the boulder. Right. What I think crosses into the territory of now you're looking for one in a million type accidents is also then adding an additional layer on top, which is true. So you're trying to calculate, like you can swerve to avoid the boulder, but you also want to be looking for, are there a bunch of other people who are standing in the road for some reason where you wouldn't expect them to be? And then if there are, count up how many people there are there and figure out how many people are in the car and then make a decision about whether or not you're going straight or not. Like I guess where my mental boundary is is I feel like what I say simpler is better, because I mean the car can drive anywhere where there are not things in the way, right? Whatever mechanism it uses for things in the way. Okay. And break and drive where things aren't. And I think like that algorithm covers almost every accident used you could possibly imagine. The thing that irritates me is the additional moral machine of like also be looking at all of the people and making calculations about what is the most moral thing to do. That to me seems to go into crazy land of one and a million kind of accidents that are going to be incredibly rare. Okay. I can see why this is quick sand. Do you do get drawn in pretty quickly to it? But I think I kind of understand what you're coming from. Yeah. That's all I'm saying is like car can drive where objects are not do not distinguish between what objects are. Just leave it at that. Otherwise this is playing in fantasy land of incredibly unlikely accidents and the possibility of error and false positives that causes the car to swear when you wouldn't expect it to are greater than the number of accidents that you're going to prevent or live that you're going to save from adding in trolley problem stuff. I think there you have designed a moral car, not monstic car, because if your car puts the same value on a pedestrian standing somewhere as it does a huge concrete pole, that's just an object and don't hit objects. And I think your car is probably alright. It's going to be hard to upset people. It's only when the car starts having to identify the difference between a brick wall and bill blocks that you start getting into difficult territory. I think then we're in agreement. Fantastic. We haven't done Brady's paper cuts for a while. I have a very fast growing list. I feel like this is the introduction to every Brady's paper cuts. Is you saying we haven't done paper cuts in a while? I'm trying to ease you into it because I don't want you to think it's like taking over the podcast stuff. I keep saying that. It's the idea when you're ahead that it is occasional and you go, okay, I guess it's occasional. I'll let you have one. You're playing mind tricks on me. I know what's occurring here. Your putty at my hands, Gray. You're quite the snake charmer, Brady. And you get into this paper cut corner by saying, oh, can we do a paper cut corner? I have three. So now we're tied into it. Yeah, exactly. Unless you do some very intricate editing, you have to put all three in there. Here's the thing that I want to get on the record, right? Future listeners of the podcast. Brady may at some point say something like, oh, there's two things we want to talk about. If three things we want to talk about, and I made, you know what, I'm just going to leave it in there and then there's only going to be the one thing. I'm just, I'm not even going to try to cut around that anymore because I've just got to push back against your encroachment. And they'll think that like I've been forgetful and they'll be like, oh, Brady, you forgot to mention the second thing. When, in fact, I spoke about it for two hours. Yeah. And out it comes. So let's run through, Brady, you're three paper cuts. The first paper cut, people using speaker phone in public places when they're talking to people on either phone calls or FaceTime. It should be legal to shoot those people. That's as far as I'm concerned. Don't do that. I didn't say that it was legal. No, no, no, no, I'm not saying don't shoot them. I'm saying don't use speaker phone. I am also saying don't shoot them. I'm saying don't go on speaker phone because Gray is right. It is infuriating. This was actually when Apple announced the new iPhone. One of the things I was frowning the hardest at was I like, oh, and we've added an additional speaker. So it can be twice as loud and just like, oh, no, right here we go. Already I can imagine all the people on the bus and everywhere else in public who seem to think that it's okay to be on speaker phone or playing music in public. The playing music thing is infuriating and you shouldn't do that too. Like I don't accept it. And when someone gets on the train listening to music on their phone, really loud, I think that's obnoxious and they should be slapped. But there's something about the personal conversations on speaker phone in public places that's even weirder because you're sort of hearing these personal conversations. It's like you're being like a creepy eavesdropper and you don't even want to be a creepy eavesdropper. It's like, I don't even want to hear this. Don't make me hear you talking about this personal stuff. I'm sorry, Brady. Doesn't matter. My next one and this is something that I could talk for a long time about Australian television and Australian news and the things about it that annoy me after the past few weeks. But I will pick just one. Okay. And the one is the misuse of the word allegedly because I think journalists always think that using the word allegedly gives them this cloak of invincibility. Yeah. Isn't that a get out of jail free card for all accusations? Yeah. And of course, that's not true. But journalists like to do it. They think if they say allegedly, you know, he allegedly murdered someone, that's okay. Fair enough, that's a different discussion. But the thing I don't like is they use it in the wrong way at the wrong time like they will say the person was allegedly found dead in the house. And now Billy Blogg has been accused of murder when there is no doubt the person has been found dead in the house. It's like the fact and it's the murder that is the allegation. So I don't like it when people say allegedly in front of things that are patently facts because they don't know where they're supposed to put the allegedly. If a man is found dead with stab wounds, he's found dead with stab wounds. Now who stabbed him and how it was done? That's all the allegedly stuff. That's what you put the allegedly in front of you. You don't have to say allegedly in front of things that are obviously facts. Okay. So like a reporter is believed allegedly is a word that gets them out of trouble. Yeah. There should always be a bias to say that word sooner and more frequently than appropriate because the downside to using the word allegedly wrong is Brady gets annoyed. Right. But the upside is they feel like they've covered themselves for anything that might be possibly wrong. No, but you start to look stupid. Like if you say a plane was allegedly flown into the World Trade Center. Right. Like you look like an idiot. Because there's no allegation there. There's nothing to be proved or disproved in this. You're a real nutcase. You're actually going to find people who will disagree with you on that one. You're not breaking. Clearly that happened. Now who did it and why they did it and how they did it? That's where all the allegations start because that's where investigation needs to be done. But like the incident happened. The car crash happened and someone died. There's no allegation necessary. I know what you're saying. I think if I was a reporter on TV, I would sprinkle allegedly all over the place. Allegedly, supposedly, you know, every other sentence just... Well, having worked in the media in Australia and in the UK, where the UK where I think they know what they're doing with it, going back to Australia this time after having not seen it for four years, I felt they looked silly. Did it feel like amateur hour? Is that what you're saying here? It felt like they didn't know what they were doing and they were just dropping it in everywhere because they didn't know. And when you see professionals using it properly, fair enough. But this was silly. It paid for cut me, Gray. Brady doesn't want his facts allegedly. He wants them factually. The final one, this is a little bit nation. It really got me during the Olympics. But I just have to mention it because even though the Olympics are over, the BBC are persisting with this program they're running called Get Inspired. Oh my God. That sounds awful. Yeah. It pertains to sport and the thing is they're trying to get people to participate in sport. I guess it's one of these things where they can say we're helping make Britain's healthier by getting them to exercise more. I'd love to see some numbers on that. Yeah. So they're trying to hashtag Get Inspired people all the time. Oh yeah. And usually it was now we're going to the archery where someone from Britain has just won a gold medal in the 20 metre archery shoot. And they'll show you the highlights and afterwards they'll say, you know, by the way, hashtag Get Inspired. Why don't you go to our website and we'll show you where all the archery clubs are in your local area. And it just infiltrated the Olympics something terribly. And I thought, okay, at least it's over now, but they're still doing it. And it's kind of annoying when you're watching sport to then be reminded that, you know, oh, you don't play the sport or you should play the sport or you should get fit. It's like, shut up, man. I just want to watch the sport. You don't have to know, guilt me for sitting on the couch eating chips. I was like, wait a minute. I was like, well, where's Breedy going with this? Like, so always I feel like I'm in this. I was fog of a story and trying to figure like, where are we going to end up with the end result of this is the thing that really bothers you. Is you feel like the TV is judging you for sitting on the couch? That doesn't annoy me, but that's not the part that annoys me. The part that annoys me is the worthiness of it. It's the whole wholesomeness of it. It's not enough just to show a sport and let us watch the Olympics. The BBC has to, and you know, I don't like being a BBC Basha. I worked there for many years and I love the BBC. But the BBC can be a bit guilty of having to make everything worthy and everything wholesome and have a good cause to it. And sometimes you just want to watch the sport and think that was awesome. You don't want to then be told, by the way, let's all get inspired and we'll jump on the happiness bus together and go and get fit. It's not that I feel like they're judging me and making me feel like a slob. It's the goody two shoes and so on of it. It's just laid on a bit thick for me. It's a paper cut. Well, the thing with this hashtag campaign, which you're talking about, like, oh, the BBC knows what they're doing. They certainly don't know what they're doing with picking hashtags because hashtag Get Inspired is so broad. Like, of course, other people are going to be using it. I'm looking through Twitter right now and it seems like hashtag get inspired. It's used for many things. It's not just used for the BBC. So scrolling through here, there are many, many other things that people want to use. Hashtag Get Inspired for. So BBC, you've done a terrible job of picking a hashtag. Of course, somebody else is going to have that. That's no good. And God, are some of these things dumb inspiration is so, so worthless. It is a half life of three minutes. That's what annoys me, Gray. Not that they know that I'm eating chips while I watch the archery. It's the whole poster of an eagle with sore written on it on the office. It's the hashtag equivalent of that. Yeah, it totally is. I cannot imagine if you actually interview elite athletes or anybody who is elite at anything that they actually every day wake up and feel genuinely inspired. I don't think that's how people become professional sports players. If you are relying on inspiration to get you off of your couch, right in the chips out of your mouth and onto the jousting court, like, I don't think that's really going to work in the long run. Like, if you have to be inspired every morning for that to happen, like, that's not how this works. That's not how anything works inspiration, dumb and worthless. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by Squarespace, the simplest way for anyone to create a beautiful landing page website or online store. Start building your website today at squarespace.com and to offer code hello at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase. With Squarespace, you can build a site that looks professionally designed regardless of your skill level, no coding required. They have a wide selection of fantastic templates that you can start from, and it is surprisingly easy to customize it just about any way that you want. Everything is designed around the idea of drag and drop. So if you have no idea what HTML is, it doesn't matter. You can still make a website that competes with the best of them. And when you're using Squarespace, you don't have to worry. Squarespace has state of the art technology to power your site and to ensure security and stability. I've been using them for years now, and the site is always just rock solid no matter the traffic spikes it may receive. It is such a relief to never have to worry about that. But this is just getting started. Squarespace has tons of other awesome features like 24-7 support with live chat and email, teams located around the world to help you at any time you need them. And they have a commerce platform which allows anyone to add a store to their site. All of this and more for just $12 a month. So start a trial with no credit card required and build your website today by going to squarespace.com and use the offer code Hello to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for Hello Internet. Thanks to Squarespace for supporting the show. Do you know what? We're about to talk about Brexit here. Okay. And I find this interesting because you and I spoke about it a bit, probably less on the podcast, but just between each other, we spoke about Brexit quite a bit beforehand, just over at the pub or something, before they're vote to place. And then just before it happened and after it happened, I suddenly got really passionate about it. I got really fired up about it and it really affected me for a while. And now I'm kind of over it and I've moved on. But it feels like only now are you beginning to get really like interested in it? I wouldn't say passionate because you know, there aren't that many things that I would describe you as passionate about. But he even looking here at the show notes. Let's see that list. There's all these bullet points and all these things. And suddenly like it's like the giant has awoken and you've just realized it happened. I know you made a video about it. You were quite aware it was happening. But it's like you're firing up about it now. Is that right? No, that's not right. I'm not fired up about it. This is I think a funny side effect of since in that video you mentioned, I kind of went public on the record with a guess about the future with some probabilities. Yeah. I find myself suddenly much more invested in seeing what happens. Like I really want to know what is going to be the end result of this. Okay. Because I've gone on record saying here's my probable outcomes for you know, what's going to occur with this Brexit thing. So you feel like you're on the hook a bit. Yeah, I feel like I'm on the hook a bit. And it's just like I think like I said when I first did that Brexit video for a while, I just didn't really think about this topic. I didn't find it super engaging. But I find a lot of the post stuff way more interesting because we're in this bizarre no rules land of nobody knows. There's no clear guidance on anything. That makes to me like what actually occurs much more interesting in a way. It's all up in the air. In my view, there's some kind of like power grab going on or like there's stuff happening behind the scenes and like who knows what it's impossible to see the clear path. And so that's why I find this kind of interesting. All right. Let's do it. I'm going to point here that I've been catching your eye in the last couple of weeks. The main thing that I want to talk about is like this timeline that I think is kind of interesting. So when when Brexit occurred, the vote happened a couple of months ago now. And from then until now, it's been all quiet on the Western front. And I've been making some joky tweets between then and now about like having heard anything about this Brexit. It's like everybody put their heads down and for a while, it seemed like they were just trying to pretend that it didn't happen. And I was like, I wonder what's going to happen. But just in the past couple of weeks, it's to me, it seems like the Brexit creature has woken up. And now there are things possibly occurring. Yeah. And it all started with Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, giving a little speech about two weeks ago, saying that Brexit was definitely for sure is what 100% for real going to happen by the end of March, by which they mean they're actually going to invoke Article 50 and start the two year long process by which Brexit will occur by the end of March. Even though obviously people in Europe watch the news, so they know what's coming. This is the official notification to Europe that we're leaving the club. And as soon as you do that, as soon as you give that official notification, you're out of the club in two years, no matter what. So if you haven't got your ducks in a row and all your new treaties and agreements in place by then, you're out on your own. So you've got this two year mad rush to have all your agreements in place before you are out of the club. Right. That's what occurs. And you have to figure out everything in those two years. And I just find myself constantly speculating like, I don't know what's occurring. Welcome to the United Kingdom. None of us do. Yeah, but I mean, like, I keep trying to play this game of sort of like what I was doing in that first video of, I think people, let's just say they overvalue the influence that citizens and their desires have on the actual mechanisms of power. I think that the people in power do things that the citizens want when it is convenient and not when it is inconvenient. And so this is why like the Brexit thing, I find super interesting. And even though like, okay, Theresa May comes out and she says invoke article 50 by the end of March, all I hear is, but not yet. Right. Like we could invoke article 50 right now, but we'll do it later. And to me, this seems like it looks like it's another stalling tactic, but I can't figure out like, I'm trying to like look deep into Theresa May's eyes when she's giving a speech. It's like, what's going on in that head to Theresa May? Like what's the sum of the force diagram of influences upon you? I can tell you what they are. What do you think they are? What do you think they are? They are remain in power for as long as possible and get re-elected. Of course. Yeah. That's what's going on. That's what every politician wants. Stay in power as long as possible. So what I mean though, like what's the influence upon her is, like what is, especially because of the weird way that the UK government works with a prime minister is not elected directly, like I just don't know what it is that she wants. I try to look at actions as opposed to words and even though the government has come out and has sounded pretty Brexit is definitely going to happen. We're going to follow the will of the people, which is so clear from the election. It still looks to me like it's just stalling. I just, I can't help but see continued stalling. I mean, I'm not telling you anything you don't know here, of course, but the reason it's incredibly complicated is because although it's simple to say she wants to stay in power as long as possible and get re-elected, the things that affect that have multiple interests. The people, the majority of people want to leave the EU. That's what they voted for, as unbelievable as that is to me. That's what they voted for. She also has a lot of interests within the party. She has to balance. Of course. But then she also has the business world. She has to balance, which overall doesn't want to come out of the EU, but are responsible for all the money she needs to get re-elected. The thing she needs to do to stay in power is figure out who to placate and how much. That's the difficult thing she has. I don't think she has a particularly firm belief on it. I think her beliefs, like most politicians, are probably quite flexible depending on what's expedient and in their best interests. Unfortunately, all the people she's having to placate to achieve her ends also all have very different interests here. Delaying till March is probably a little bit of giving herself more time. But I imagine March, there's probably a lot of business and bureaucratic reasons for that. You don't want to do something right before Christmas when everyone's leaving. You don't want to do something early in the new year because everyone's on holidays. March is probably just when any business would make a big decision or do some big bureaucratic process, like invoking article 50. So I wouldn't read too much into March as a delaying tactic. I think once it was decided, it wasn't going to be done this year, which it was pretty much decided the day after the election. It was always going to be March. It's interesting to hear you say, I guess my take on it though is still like the thing that occurs is simply the start of a countdown clock. It's not like, if we do it in November, we got to get in all those trade deals before Christmas, right? It's like you're still looking at something that's incredibly far away. I can see what you're saying though. Yeah, but why start the clock now when you're going to have five months of a fellow period where all the bureaucrats are all going on holidays and having Christmas often, January when they can't do deals with anyone and Europe goes to sleep over that period as well. So why waste clock time? Why waste the shot clock on five months that you can't use it? It makes sense to start the shot clock in March so you can hit the ground running. I think that is totally fair. In her speech, I couldn't help but notice that she kept using the phrase like, we will invoke article 50 by the end of March as long as there are no unnecessary delays. It's like, what is an unnecessary delay? Right? Those two words are the thing upon which all of this hinges now doesn't it? Like, what is an unnecessary delay? Who gets to decide what is an unnecessary delay? And the other thing that I think is kind of interesting about this is what looks to me is almost like a little power grab is that Theresa May has essentially declared there's going to be no vote in Parliament to approve this article 50 and vocation at the end of March. This to me is again, I find this kind of amazing because like, there's no procedure, there's no rules for this. It's like whoever got to the microphone first gets to just say like, oh, I'm Theresa May and I'm deciding, no, there's not going to be a vote in Parliament. I just have the power to invoke article 50 like, do you? We don't know. There's no that this thing exists and someone needs to press the button, but it seems like a crazy power grab where someone's able to just say like, no, no, I am the only person who gets to decide when this button is pressed. There can be no overriding from Parliament. I'm the decider in this in the scenario like, I find that just absolutely fascinating. I mean, like, how this is unfolding. It is extraordinary that the Parliament won't vote on it because the referendum was so nebulous in its question. They were so lacking in detail. And now the Parliament itself is not even going to be told any detail either before it starts. I will concede, obviously, to someone who wished that we had remained. The remaining people like me, I guess, secretly thought maybe a vote of the Parliament was our final, like, get off the hook. We go out of it. Of course. Sort of hope. And obviously, that's not going to happen. And Theresa May doesn't want to happen because it will just cause such a mess because the Parliament probably would wiggle out of it if it could. So that will cause so much unhappiness in the community that Theresa May, well, she won't be able to get reelected possibly. So it will just blow up in her face. So I can see why she's doing it. But it is kind of extraordinary that the biggest thing this country ever does will happen without the rubber stamping of the Parliament. I know there was a referendum, but that referendum question, man, that was like super vague as to what it means. So like, you'd hope the rubber stamp would say, okay, we're coming out and this is how we're doing it. We're not even going to have that. The people or the Parliament are never going to have a say on what the nature of our Brexit is. That's amazing. That's how it's played out. But there you go. That's nice. It is absolutely astounding. This declaration that Parliament will not vote on Brexit. I find that an interesting piece of evidence that contradicts my low maximum Brexit prediction because it is being legally challenged, by the way, of course. Yeah, there's always going to be this. Like, if I was Theresa May and I was thinking, like, oh shit, right, like how are we going to back out of this? You would of course say, like, oh, yes, we'll have the Parliament vote on it and we'll go right ahead. But if she's trying to override the Parliament, it leads me to believe like the sum of the forces acting upon her actually do want Brexit to occur, which I just, I find interesting. It's been this weird thing that's been on my mind, which is slightly getting into like conspiracy theory territory. But I can't help but notice how the value of the pound keeps dropping, like every time Theresa May speaks. I feel like I want to note from her speech right, like, when is she ever going to give a speech? And I want to be shorting the pound the day before that occurs. Yeah. I think this fantastically trivial detail, I think is amazing is just how in her first speech where she announced that by the end of March, they were going to invoke Article 50, she made a reference to, oh, Britain is super strong and we're the fifth largest economy in the world. But by the end of this speech, because of the currency exchange rate, it had dropped down to the sixth largest economy in the world. Like, oh, that's not great. But I wonder like when you think about powerful forces in the world, it almost becomes like economically certain to bet against Britain, at least in the short run. I just wonder like, is there some incentive to kind of like be able to make a bunch of money by betting against Britain in the next two years, you know, not doing very well in the short run, even if I've just said for like theoretically, maybe an independent Britain could do very well. I don't know. But it seems like pretty sure that betting against the pound is going to be a profitable thing in the short run. Like, I just, I don't know, I just wonder about that. But what you think it's got a lot further to drop. I think it might, yeah, I could see the pound reaching parity with the dollar when actual Brexit occurs. When you talk to people, they'll say like, oh, the uncertainty about Brexit is already priced into the exchange rate between the dollar and the pound. But people say that at every level, and it doesn't matter, right? Like people said that before the actual Brexit election occurred, and then of course, you get the result and the pound incredibly drops. And then people are like, okay, but don't worry, the uncertainty about the future is built into the exchange rate now. It's like, but not when Theresa May gives a speech like then it drops again and she gives another talk and the pound hit a low against the dollar of like 168 years that the exchange rate had not been so low. It just seems incredible to me. I don't think that the uncertainty about Brexit is priced into the pound even now. I really do think it could keep going lower and lower if the hard maximum Brexit actually occurs. Do you think so? I mean, do you think it's not going to drop any lower? I don't know. I think this is well out of my area of expertise to the point where I can't even let just say a wild podcast speculation. I don't know. Nothing surprises me anymore. Nothing surprises you? No, no. It could drop by 50% or go up by 50% overnight and both scenarios would make me go. I guess that was going to happen. Like I'm just so, I've got no idea now. I wake up every morning just go into a new site thinking, God, what spectacular political monstrosity cock up has happened overnight. Either on this side of the Atlantic or the other and there's always something like, no, no, smooth sailing this past year. Nothing but smooth sailing. No. I have no idea, Gray. I mean, I think the pound dropping is probably good for me, maybe, because I own dollars. But then again, I do travel a lot and like going to Australia was more expensive than it should have been and the price of things in the UK is starting to go up now because of this exchange rate issue as well. So you will have missed it probably, but there's been a few of the news stories over the last few days as all the big American companies are trying to put up the price of just everyday groceries in the supermarkets. So it's starting to kind of hit people's pockets. It happened with the pricing of a couple of Apple products. There was some speculation about that that they were like unusually high price in British pounds. And it's like it's almost certainly Apple trying to factor in the cost of the pound devaluing over time for the future for imports. This also is a kind of funny situation because I feel like since again, most of my money comes from dollars from America. I feel like it's in this strange no-lose situation that allows me to look at it in this like dispassionate way. It's like either a dumb thing that I don't want to have happen doesn't happen, which is Brexit. It's like, oh, okay, great. So we stay in the European Union. Everything is fine. Or if Brexit happened, the pound continues to crash, but it's like, but since I'm paid in dollars, that's not... Good news for the most part. So it seems like it's a win-win situation for me personally with regard to Brexit. So that's why I guess I can think about it without having to feel like I'm super worried one way or the other about the scenario, especially again, because of my own particular situation. I don't have to worry about being kicked out of the UK. Whereas I know I understand like for many people, this is not a fun thing to think about. But I just find myself constantly wondering and speculating about the motives and desires of the people in charge of this whole plava when they are given a kind of open space in which there are no rules about how this whole thing should unfold. I can't remember your video, Gray. I know you put different percentages on the different likelihoods of things like hard exit and soft. What was the one you put the most likelihood on again? Was it soft? The biggest one was the non-Brexit Brexit, which I think looks less and less likely over time. If I was doing that now, I would probably revise that down and split the difference between maximum Brexit and nothing at all occurring. I think it's like my gut feeling right now. I don't know. But what do you think, Brady? I think at the time that your video came out, I remember thinking that your percentages were probably quite reasonable. I now think it's looking like it's going to be a pretty hard Brexit. I think nothing at all is almost impossible. Everyone's painted themselves into some pretty firm corners now. The problem was Theresa May, the Prime Minister, like famously, was quite wishy-washy about what side she was on. She hedged her bets and the Brexit has been the making of her. She became Prime Minister because of it. So she's now had nailed her colours to the mast. So I don't think she could realistically, although deep down I think maybe she was a remainder and publicly she was a mild remainder. Now she can't be there unless there's some massive upheaval. But the people with all the power now are all the Brexitists. It's going to happen. And I think it's going to have to happen hard now. See what happens. Do you think hard Brexit is the most likely option? Yeah. Interesting. Unfortunately, I do. I would say like 50% hard, 40% soft and 10% none. What do you reckon? What would be your numbers on those three? I'm just trying to mentally think like where would I put those numbers now? I'm really not sure. I think I'd have to sit down and find it out. I just said the first numbers that came into my head. It's not how it works. And though it's my part because I'm very bad at something up to 100 off the top of the top. 70% this, 60% that and 40% this. I don't know. I feel like maybe it's much closer to like an evenly divided pie chart in my mind of what's going to occur. And it's also a case of I think it's very hard to kind of separate out your own personal biases of what you want to happen. And how you interpret the news results. Even just in this conversation, like you slightly moved me from my position of, oh, March seems like hilarious stalling to maybe that's not an unreasonable time to do this. If you've already made a decision about not currently in the year, but yeah, I think it's interesting. I do think it is also under the category of not surprising, but also interesting that Scotland is already working on having their second independence referendum. Yeah. That their parliament is busy putting together a bill to put another vote to the Scottish people for what to do. That's a total and utter mess as well. Because imagine if they did have an independence referendum and voted in favor of leaving the UK under this whole premise of wanting to stay in Europe, Europe's not going to keep just Scotland. I don't think that's even an option yet again, we'll be voting on things without knowing what the options are, but how is that going to work? What the EU is going to say, okay, you can stay Scotland even though everyone else is leaving. We'll take little Scotland up the North there. Oh, what a mess. It is a total mess. But I think last time I was somewhat ambivalent on advising Scotland one way or another about how to vote, even though I wanted Scotland to stay, but I feel like man, Scotland, if you get your second independence referendum, you better take that. Right? Even though that advice is detrimental to my own interests in many ways. It's like Scotland, take your independence and run. If Scotland does have a second referendum, I will be shocked if it doesn't pass. I'll be shocked if they don't say Scotland is going independent and we're going to try to stick with the EU. Even if we don't know what the EU is going to do or if the EU is going to accept them, like if I was living in Scotland, I would totally vote for independence. Do you agree? No, I don't actually. Really? No. You think Scotland should vote to stay? I think leaving now would be even more dangerous than it would have been for them before the Brexit vote. Don't get me wrong, I'm a real amateur and don't get upset at me because I don't know what I'm talking about. But now they would be cutting themselves, at least before Brexit, if they cut themselves for drift from the UK, they were still part of Europe. Now they'll be cutting themselves off from everything. They'll be cutting themselves off from Europe in my opinion and they'll be cutting themselves off from the size of the UK. They'll just become a minnow, like they'll be just like an island. I think it'd be really dangerous for them to not be part of Europe or part of the UK. They'll have nothing. And don't get me wrong, they'll have their independence and their freedom and brave heart and all that. But I think those are just words in this day and age and you want to be part of economies and things. And I think they could vote to stay because I think a lot of them will realise that's a pretty dangerous for them too. I always forget I was just looking it up. How many people live in Scotland? Never know. But it is 5.3 million people. So they won't be part of the UK. They won't be part of Europe. They'll just be a nation of 5.3 million people with some oil. Let's put them on the chart of nations. 5.3 million people. This is comparable to... It's actually pretty comparable to Norway. They're just about the same size as Norway. Norway has 5.3 million people. I'm sure Scotland likes to think of themselves as a kind of Norway. It's also comparable to Eritrea, Slovakia and the Central African Republic. That's the kind of ballpark of what Scotland would be. I don't know. I understand what you're saying about them being a drift. But I'm basically imagining the UK at least for the transition time as a bit like a sinking ship. Scotland is a bit like a lifeboat leaving. You know what? If I was Scotland, I'd say take that lifeboat, see if you can attach yourself back to the EU. No, I think they'd be leaving a sinking ship for something potentially worse. At least there's a chance this ship will get bailed out or stay afloat. If Europe said Scotland, you can stay in the EU, then I would say vote for independence, of course. But the EU's not going to say that. Europe's not going to have them on just on their own. I don't know. Maybe they'll do it just to give the middle finger to the UK. That would be genius. That would be pretty funny. If I was in charge of the EU, I would totally do that. I would essentially offer a join the EU free pass to Scotland, Wales and London. That's what I would do if I was in charge of the EU. Yeah. Come on over, guys. That'll teach anybody who wants to become independent.
==Episode List==
==References==
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