H.I. No. 108: Project Cyclops

"H.I. #108: Project Cyclops" is the 108th episode of Hello Internet, released on August 29, 2018.
==Website description==
"Grey and Brady discuss: Brady story time, KSI vs Logan Paul, left vs right & heroes vs villains, why-don't-you-just-ism, Formula One, and Grey is concerned about the attention economy and his own attention span."
Okay, how do I want to start this? It'll start with a cyanode out. I lean back and I think, how do I do this? And then I just cyan to the microphone. You measure it on the gray size, Mometa. Oh, oh. I'm on fire with the dad jokes. I've been cracking out dad jokes all day on my texts and stuff to friends. I'm in a rude dad joke zone at the moment. I'm sorry. My wife sent me a text earlier saying, oh no, there's a hole in my boots. And I went, yeah, that's where you put your feet in. She just replied, dad joke. That's brutal. That's brutal. I have a story to tell. Oh, yeah. You have a story? It's a Brady story time at the beginning of the podcast. At the beginning, because this only just happened last night. And also, I'm quite ashamed about it. Ooh. I like the story already. Yeah. So I had a long drive last night. I was driving from Nottingham back to Bristol. And when I'm driving is normally when I listen to like normal radio. So I was listening to BBC Five Live, which is the radio station I listen to when I go on long drives. Is it like talk show radio? Yeah. I mean, okay. It's talk. It's a mixture of news and sport. It's got quite a heavy sport leaning and things like that. That's just my preferred station, most of the time. Anyway, it just so happened that last night was also the night of. And I'm imagining you must know about this, because you're much more plugged into the YouTube world than me. It was the night of this boxing match between Logan Paul and KSI, the YouTubers. This big grudge match, boxing match. That was happening in Manchester and England and was being streamed around the world. You're familiar with this shortly. Yeah. I don't think anyone can quickly check their analytic stats on YouTube without being inundated with there's going to be a boxing match between these two guys who I don't know any of the details, but I just presume as is the way with YouTube have manufactured a grudge between themselves. Beef, great. It's beef. It's beef. Oh, okay. A beef. They've manufactured a beef between each other to both of their tremendous profit and benefit. That's what I presume it is. Yeah. Anyway, it's this thing. I actually was very late to realize it was happening. I only found out about it like a couple of days before. But anyway, I don't even know KSI. Obviously, I've heard of this Logan Paul character because it's controversy. But everyone has heard of Logan Paul because of his great work on YouTube. Yeah. But I'm in the same position where I am aware of Logan Paul. I feel like I have some sense of him. KSI is a totally undone person to me. Anyway, my interest in it was very low. Anyway, I was driving back in the middle of the night and it coincided with this boxing match. And someone at Five Live had decided that BBC was going to give this like big coverage. I think someone there probably decided this is what the young people are into. It's sight, guys, dear now. Let's give this proper coverage and treat it like a big event. This seems real recent. We better cover it. Exactly. So they had one of their younger hip reporters there like ringside covering at life. And back in the studio, was the old guy that normally presents this late night slot who's a bit more your old school old-fashioned radio presenter who you don't imagine would be too into Logan Paul or KSI. He does happen to be quite into boxing, I believe. So anyway, they started doing all these live reports and live crosses to this thing. And this young guy was there in the stadium going and now they're coming out and now the fight's starting. And this guy was taking it seriously. He was treating it for what it was. You know, he was realizing this was like a YouTube big corporate event sort of thing. But he was giving it fair coverage, right? He was treating it like a big event. Right. And it probably was quite a big event. You know, 17,000 people in the stadium and all these people watching. And the BBC guy back in the studio, like the main presenter. Sort of bit his tongue for a while. And then eventually, he just lost the plot. And he absolutely went on a rant. And he was saying, I cannot believe we're covering this on the BBC. This was his show. He was talking over and bullying the guy back in the stadium going, this isn't boxing, this is stupid. This shouldn't be on the BBC. And he absolutely just went on this hour-long tirade that was coinciding with the coverage of the event. It was this really bizarre scenario where he was the host of the show saying that he was absolutely embarrassed by the stupidity of this. And he was trying to rile people up, obviously. That's what Radio presenters do. Was he mad as hell and not going to take it anymore? Exactly. He was like that. So he opened the phones because it's like a phoenix show. Right. And lots of people were phoning and saying, I absolutely agree with you. This is rubbish. This is stupid. I can't believe we're giving these people all this extra exposure. And then some people, usually younger people, were phoning in and saying, this is a big deal to me. I'm really interested in it. You know, this deserves some coverage. And he was like, he was acknowledging, hey, I'm an older guy. And this is a young person's thing, but I still think it's ridiculous. And I got so riled up gray, but in so many different ways, I was like, I've had enough. Like, how are you riled up about this? What are the breeding dimensions of a riled upitude? I can't even begin to tell you, I was having so many different thoughts. And eventually I was like, I can't take it anymore. And I pulled over on the side of the road. I got my phone out. And I phoned into the show. No, no. I phoned in, right? I pulled over in this quiet lane and I phoned in. Oh, no, Brady, don't phoned in. I know. It's the worst thing to do, right? You're the man with the hat in the audience right now. Don't phoned into a radio show. The producer answered, right? These producers are like the first line of the defence to figure out whether or not you should be allowed on the show. And I was a gift because I'm like an older guy, you know? But I'm also like a successful YouTuber with millions of subscribers and hundreds of millions of views. And someone who's worked in the news business? Like, yeah, I would imagine from a producer's perspective, you are a diamond in the rough. Calling into the show. I was a gift from God. So I phoned in and said, I want to go on, I want to talk. I'm this successful YouTuber. I don't agree with what he's been saying. I've got things to say. And the producer who I think was a bit of a flunky said, let me talk to the control desk, like the producers of the show for a second. They put me on a hold. And then she came back and said, they definitely want you. But they have to go to the news now. You'll have to wait for like 10 minutes. Can you please wait? But you're definitely going to go on. They're going to slot you in exact time and everything. You're okay. And like, I had the dogs in the car and I was nearly home and I'd been driving for a long time. I had this moment of Zen. Maybe I looked down at what would CTP great T-shirt do. Like, you know, what would grade do? And I said, so I'm going to have to wait 10 minutes. And then I just said, no, I'm going to pass. Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God, Brady. So then I got back in the car and I kept driving home. And then I started listening to the show again. And I got all rolled up again. So when I got home, I pulled up at home and I rang the desk again and someone different answered, I said, oh, it's that YouTube guy again. I'm home now. I've got things to say. And they were like, oh, okay. Yeah, okay. Can we put your own like, and I'll talk to the producers again. And then they came back and said, yeah, they'd like to speak to you. They can't do it right now because they were talking about something else. Can they call you back in about 15 minutes? Right. Yeah. Like, I can't deal with the emotional roller coaster of this. Like, I, oh god, okay. They said, can I call you back in 15 minutes? I looked down and I get up my what would CTP great do T-shirt. And I went, I said, no, forget it. I don't want to do it. And then I stopped listening to the radio show. And I just went and sat down on the sofa and calmed down. And then the obvious realization came over me that if you're not listening to it, it doesn't exist anymore. And you don't care. I'm like, why did notice change the station? That was the solution. The solution wasn't to phone in and try and get on air. And I also, this great relief came over me because I know if I got on, I've done a lot of live radio actually on the BBC, but I've done it as like a guest twice. Once I phoned in and it went really well. And another time I went into like talk as a civilian person about sport. And it went really, really badly. And I kind of, I lost control of the situation. And it was a lesson to me. And I realized if I'd gone on, 95% sure I would have lost the situation. The presenter would have taken it somewhere. I didn't want it to go. I would have looked stupid. I wouldn't have said what I wanted to say and then he would have hung up on me. So I didn't get on thank goodness. The guard I was so rattled up. I phoned in twice. Can you believe that? What an idiot. Oh man. Can you imagine any circumstance under which you would phone into a radio show? No, never. Not in a million years. But I can imagine where I a slightly different person being in that position. Yeah. I have so many conflicted feelings about this story of yours. One, I'm very glad that I was able to help you remotely with hashtag what would CTP Gray do. Yeah. I'm glad you were able to think of that in your moment of need. I'm glad to spread the good word. But I can totally understand that feeling of it's not just in furiating. It's a thing that's in furiating that is hitting your not only knowledge but professional working world. I felt like I knew so much more than him. Like you got no idea. Like it was hitting my professional world in every possible way. Because it was about YouTube and YouTubers. It was about the BBC and news. Right. Every journalist. It was also about sport. It was a lot of talk about is this a sport? Is this not a sport? It was hitting every possible interest and passion of mine. And I was like I couldn't take it. I couldn't handle the wrongness. I can see the perfect storm there. And well I say if I was slightly different I could imagine doing it because I agree that I would never call into the radio show because of that. That thing that you say there that you are you are now playing in someone else's arena. Yeah. And you are not on your home turf. That is bad news. This is why like Brady when we record the podcast together we're on our home turf here. Right. There's a reason the show doesn't go out live. But someone who's the radio presenter they don't have your best interest at heart. Right. They want something interesting to happen or like they want to control it. And so that is super bad news. I can say that I can't I wish I could think of a particular example right now. But the closest I have come is that I have at times started to produce a video out of something that just happens to be a perfect storm for me of like of things that really anger me. Yeah. And it's that same thing of like I'm like I'm so mad right now. And then I wake up the next morning and like I'm still pretty mad. But 99% of the time although there is one notable exception. Yeah I was going to say do I like that stick biggest video last night? Oh my goodness I did. That was your phone in of the radio show that video. Yeah. With one notable exception where it was a perfect storm of hashtag regrets. Most of the time my slow production cycle saves me and I can do the same thing of you where it's like why am I even thinking about doing this? Because if they'd thrown me on live stride away it would have happened. But that would have said if they said yep you're on it would have been a very public dethroning of the radio times radio on podcast champion. Yes it would have been. Oh I know I can think of the most recent one was it was one of the recent changes to YouTube subscription model where it came out that like the details don't matter. It happened to hit me at like just the wrong moment. And so I had written most of this script about how YouTube should run their online businesses and like don't trust it. Like I'd written this this whole thing about like you can't trust YouTube as far as you can throw them and I was like I'm going to turn this into a video like doop doop doop doop like I'm getting to work. And then the next day it's like wait a minute let's do a return on investment analysis of this idea. Right. This idea is a terrible idea. Thank goodness that there is time to think it over because sometimes there isn't time to think it over when you make a thing really fast and before Brady gets downstairs it's already uploaded. Besides the stick figures one which I obviously went live. Have you ever got any further down the path than writing a script over you've ever started animating one and thought hang on. Yeah. Stop. Okay I for various reasons I will not talk about what this was. But some people listening will probably know but there is a video yes that I'm now remembering I was at one minute to midnight on the nuclear clock because I had written animated uploaded tagged and monetized a video that was essentially a video made out of anger and frustration on a particular topic. Wow. And all I had to do was press the publish button and I remember like staying my hand over the big red button on this one and then I decided you know what let's not do this and so I didn't and to this day I am very glad that I didn't I still think all of my grievances were legitimate. But it wouldn't have helped anything had I uploaded that video so yes I'm thinking it over yeah there was one time when I had but to press a button and I think it wouldn't have been better it would have been worse. I tell you what if we get to a hundred million dollars on the Patreon we'll publish it on the Palo Internet YouTube channel. No. A hundred million dollars. Oh that is a lot of money. I mean a hundred million between us or a hundred million for each of us. Of course I'm going to say each. No no no just all for you Gray. I'm not making any promises but that would be quite compelling. Have you still got it like in a file to somewhere? Yeah yeah I still have it. I still have it. Is it still on your YouTube channel as private or have you done these? No no no I took it down because having it up on the channel is a bit like if you're writing an angry email to someone. Yeah. You don't want to put the address in the two-field or there's a thing that I see other people do which makes me super nervous when someone is writing say an important text message and they're writing it in the text fields to the person. It's that same feeling of like hey you're playing with the loaded gun here. Like especially with the text message like your fingers are inches away from the button that just sends it. I know so easy so easy to send a text by mistake. The moment I have a text that goes past a sentence or two and that text is even just like a little bit important that I get the wording right. I always will say write it in notes and then paste it into the text message and then send it. I have been on a campaign with some people I know to be like hey maybe you should write these really long important text messages somewhere else first but I have been unsuccessful in that campaign. But yeah so no I've taken it down from the YouTube channel because it feels a bit too like I don't need to fall on my mouse the wrong way one day and then publish it and also miss out on the hello internet patreon bounty that may come in the future for the reward. It's also such a lottery depending on what messaging system you're using on like Facebook or your iOS or Twitter or whatever as to what pressing return will do. Will it start a new learn or will it send the message? I never know which one it will do on what system and so sometimes I think if I press return now will it matter if it sends? Right or the reverse of that it's like I'm pretty good about doing alt return. Usually works but I know there's a couple places where it doesn't. Anyway I didn't get on air so happy ending. I'm very glad you didn't get on air Brady but you know do you want to rant your thoughts about the boxing match? No no and you know what my thoughts weren't about the boxing match. No. My thoughts were all about the radio coverage of it and the discussion of it. I couldn't really give two hoots about the boxing match. My overall thoughts about the BBC covering it was yeah they were right to cover it. They gave it a bit too much they gave it too much coverage but they were right to cover it because it was a big novel event and there was a lot of attention on the country on Britain for that hour or two so it was a big it was a local story for the country there wasn't much else happening at the time. Yeah I thought it was right to cover it couldn't care about the match itself by myself you know. Do you know who won Brady? I know it was a draw. Funnily enough. That's King Kong versus Godzilla there right where it oh yeah we can't have either. That did undermine it. I did feel a bit sorry for the reporter because the reporter at the event was kind of sticking up for it sticking up for the event like he he was really good he was really really stick about it but he was sticking out for the event he was like the advocate of the event and he was getting this tirade from the other end and I thought he was doing a really good job and then when they announced that result and he had to convey oh they've just announced it's a draw he was so undermined because then it was like the fix is in yeah it's like look at all the wires showing through this Marionette display. You didn't watch the big fight then Gray? No I didn't watch the big fight. I only really realized it happened today when in frantically trying to prepare for the show I briefly appeared on Twitter then all of a sudden I saw people talking about the fight and I was like oh yeah that's right I vaguely knew this was the thing okay. Was it $7.50 to watch the fight? If you and I had a boxing match do you reckon a lot of Tim's and watch? The problem Brady is back in the early days of the show we've already revealed what would happen in a boxing match like that although I'm just wondering now if a Brady even really remembers yeah but the discussion with the fight was that you would win but that was if it was like a fight almost like a fight for life like you would just turn into like a mad dog and maybe win yeah but if it was a fight just for competition like for show and a sporting contest you think I would win? You would win because I would concede at the first moment of discomfort that's what happened. One punch at the face and be like I'm done right he wins he's the better boxer than me I'm good thanks thanks everyone. You have the size advantage though and that's quite a thing in boxing. That's why I'm saying the first sign of discomfort I'm out but if it was a cage match to the death I would tear you apart without a question yeah but that's why we can't have the boxing match because the outcome is already known. There is a video that just came out today that is absolutely perfect for what you just said which was another boxing match that happened last night this was a real boxing match and one of the fighters was unhappy with the like the financial or contractual arrangements about the fight but for some reason he didn't express this before the fight and they like did their touch of gloves and got ready to fight they went to their corners and the bell went ding ding ding and as soon as the bell rang this box had just went through the ropes and left and walked out and the other box was just standing there going what the hell and this guy just walked out walked through the crowd and walked out the door out the back no one knew it was going to happen. I like that man strategy I like that man strategy that would be you that would be you in the big match he's the real winner. 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it a try if you want to breathe air that has removed even the tiniest and tiniest of bad things from it go to molecule.com check them out thanks to molecule for cleaning the air in people's spaces and thanks to them for supporting the show feedback from our previous episode as always my ability to predict what we discussed in the previous episode that would cause discussion was way off right way off I thought oh the people are going to want to talk about this and that and all with some salient points there that's going to stimulate discussion all anyone wanted to talk about was whether gray or braidy is on the left or the right in their heads when they're listening to hello internet I've never seen so much discussion of a topic I think it may be one of the most it's got at least top three domination of the reddit discussion without adapting and what I think is really funny is sometimes as I mentioned before when you're recording the show you're just talking you don't know what words come out of your mouth and sometimes I've recorded the show and there's a moment where that it even makes me cringe a little bit and I made that comment about not wanting to carry around a cloth bag like a peasant and listening back I was thinking oh I might get a lot of feedback on not a single comment right and like no one nobody like literally not what you're giving people a second botanon by saying it again it is it is endlessly fascinating and interesting and unexpected what gets people's attention what doesn't and it's like oh we're going to do a big topic here I'm sure lots of people are going to talk about it nope minor thing in passing we didn't even really discuss before the show boom that's the whole thing so yes left versus right where do people position you and me in their head in what I always like to imagine the podcast as what I want the podcast to be the experience for the listener is that you know it's a conversation between friends and the listener just happens to be your friend that isn't saying very much in this conversation that's what I want the experience to be that's what I hope the experience is for the listeners I think that the tremendous response of people having a positional awareness of us feels like oh some sort of evidence for a little bit of a victory of that feeling that people had lots of responses lots of really strange responses as well aside from just the left right thing there were some people who were had like an up-down positioning in their head or like there were several drawings in the subreddit about here's how it is there's one guy I really liked who it was basically like AB cameras in a movie right that when one of us speaks it's like that switches to a camera and the other person speaks that switches to be camera it's like people's internal landscape is quite various and unexpected yeah I said one person said that he or she imagines us inside their brain but Brady's in the front part of my brain and Grace in the back part of my brain brains are weird brains are super weird there were several attempts to try to collate a bunch of this data the one I'll put in the show notes is someone threw up a straw pole dot me link for people to vote on okay I haven't seen that at least on that one I take it as somewhat representative that the choices were you know one of us on the left and one of us on the right or neither yeah and that one broke down to be roughly a third for each it was basically even I didn't see that just before we recorded you threw up a twitter pole as well for left versus right and same results interesting which makes me think obviously it's just just no bias it's very but both poles have a very very slight preference to gray on the left but such a small difference that it's not really a big deal yeah I think it not statistically significant if we now have two poles that basically show equal division between all three I think that's that's scientific a twitter pole plus a straw pole dot me like I think we could publish those results in a paper but there is one thing which I didn't really think about until the show went up but I think that there is a lack of clarity in the question itself when we talk about gray on the right or on the left or breeding on the right or on the left on the right or the left of what like when you hear that question how are you thinking about it like the left and the right of what well I'm imagining the listener is imagining themselves as one of the three points in a conversational triangle so as they face us as they face the opposite side of the triangle who is on the left the vertex to their left and who's on the vertex to their right that is really interesting Brady because you've managed to combine the two things that I feel like I was confused about when I thought about it more later because I was like left over right of the ears or of the eyes and these are not necessarily the same thing so to give away my answer which I was concealing from the audience before to not modify the results of our highly scientific polling when I think of the podcast and I'm listening to us with headphones yeah I always think of my voice as going in the right ear and your voice as going in the left I think the opposite do you okay interesting I'm on the right hand side of the conversation like if I was watching us have the conversation you're on the left of my body and I'm on the right of my body that's interesting because when I think about the eyes because you sort of positioned it in the show and I wasn't really thinking about it when you were talking but you positioned it in the show as seeing people who do the animations of sections of the show and there I have the exact reverse experience that it seems to me like if I'm watching us on screen talking that I expect me to be on the left and you to be on the right yeah that's my way that's the Brady interpretation wait wait wait but when I'm thinking about us as a podcast it's the reverse right that I'm thinking I'm going in the right ear and you're going in the left ear yeah so you flip it I keep it the side flip it yeah this is one of those moments where I'm glad we don't do a video version of the show because I'm doing all these hand I'm pointing to my ears and I'm putting my hands in front of me because I'm trying very hard not to say it the wrong way but yeah so anyway it's an interesting thing that I never thought about it but in my head I flip it if it's audio versus video and that it seems like we should switch sides somehow if I'm looking at us talking or if I'm just listening to us talking but the listening to us talking one is super strong though like I can't imagine if I'm listening to us talking that you would be in the right ear no that makes no sense I would be in the right ear I don't understand how it could possibly be just to continue this most self-absorbed conversation in the history of podcasting right yeah I didn't particularly care about the answer until I was just reading on the sub-breddit discussion an hour ago someone pointed out that in Hollywood movies it's usually considered best practice to have the hero on the left and the villain on the right and then when I look through the polls and saw that even though they were very close you did slightly come out on the left more often than me I suddenly thought am I the villain of Hello Internet oh no Brady you shouldn't feel bad look I think if we ran a poll of who is the villain of the podcast and who was the hero of the podcast there is no universe in which you are not the hero of the podcast I don't I don't agree well we can now have another thing for the Tim's to vote on who was the hero when he's the villain oh thanks that's that's gonna be fantastic I look forward to that one I'm just so confident and it's obviously correct that Brady is the hero of Hello Internet and Gray is the villain like I feel like that's not even debatable of course you're the hero because you're like the underdog you've got like an arc what is my arc Brady you're the guy who learns to become human whereas I was human all along so I like I'm just like nothing you have a hero's journey right yeah I mean you haven't completed it yet but and I also wildly disagree and my handshake collection data in real life shows that that journey is not going in the direction that you think it is it's obviously getting worse and worse so I disagree with you here but I didn't see that thing about which side is the hero and which side is the villain I can see why that would that would suddenly make the difference matter to a Brady when you look at photos of Batman and Robin who stands on what side maybe that's better because that way we can both be heroes that way and just one of us is Robin and one of us is Batman I mean clearly you're Batman as can say is that better does anybody want to be Robin nobody wants to be Robin it looks like Batman is more often yeah I think Batman's more often on the left is doing a Google images but hi it's interesting well I do believe this maybe the most self-absorbed section of follow-up we have yet done today on the podcast I mean you're Batman because you're a bit taller and your face is less known like more consumed and you're Robin because you wear glittery shorts yeah I showed gray the glittery shorts in which I was spotted as previously discussed listeners your imagination falls far short of the majesty and beauty of Brady's glittery shorts thank you I've got some complaints to register with the universe Brady yeah it is the the disease or the compulsion on the internet called why don't you just isn't well thank you Gray I think you are about to vindicate something that I've long spoken about and that is when you complain about something you don't want solutions you just want to complain and when I talk that stance no no when I talk that stance I have been widely condemned for that and mocked and I will condemn you right now for it because I do want solutions right listen internet what I don't want are your dumb solutions right and boy when I god damn it god damn it when I posted at your insistence that tweets of the busted Starbucks coffee cups hmm I swear to god I must have gotten 40,000 tweets from people saying why don't you just carry a plastic cup with you everywhere you go or even even better why don't you just carry a metal straw with you I have to say the metal straw intrigued me that was the one why don't you just my moment where I went I quite like the sound of a metal straw I don't want to carry one with me everywhere because it's like the most impractical shaped hard thing to have to carry with you but metal straw sound cool metal straws sound dangerous to me like the soft squishy part of your mouth and the brittleness of human teeth like this this whole region doesn't seem like an area you really want to introduce a thin sharp object well you use a fork very delicately yes very delicately I don't know it's the straw it just seems like a bad idea that you have would have to become much more conscious of because I'm thinking like what if I'm drinking an iced coffee how many times do I just vaguely bring the drink to my face and the straw hits me in the face and bends and then I go oh I'm totally messed right the days of that are over when you can punch a little straw sized circle hole right through your upper lip with a metal straw I imagine the metal being quite thick though and having like rounded edges at each end so I don't imagine you being able to like hole punch a piece of flesh out of your cheek but I do see the potential to hurt your gums or bang a tooth or something though if you're like you know something interesting goes past as you're taking your drink and you're banging your mouth or something yeah you're just not paying attention it's it seems like a bad place for it I want one I want to metal straw oh god I do like the sound of them okay well you're the guy who gave me as a gift at some point I can't remember when those metal ice cubes and I think they're great but they're like metal and then your drinks and things like that like they seem like an accident waiting to happen and dropping big heavy metal ice cubes into glass drinks as well like but I love them I think I just like metal the metal ice cubes are amazing and they are the standard gray gift at this point going forward you were so pleased with those metal ice cubes that we gave you we thought oh we got to start giving these out like Johnny Applesy yeah they are fantastic you're just covering your butt now because you've given them to so many other people yes that's true all across the land people are thinking I thought I was special well spoiler alert nobody special I do like the Johnny Applesy idea though okay I agree with you that of the solutions right the metal straw is the one that at least is the oh this isn't intriguing I never thought about this before right but if you give it two seconds worth of thought or you read the replies from people who actually own metal straws that you immediately come into the practicalities of how do you clean it oh it comes with a special brush so that you can manually clean the inside of your metal straw and now this again is what am I a peasant hand washing all of my laundry here like I'm supposed to carry around a metal straw and it's special brush for cleaning how am I to keep this brush clean in what the backpack now that I have to carry with me everywhere that I go so it's not that I don't want a solution but what drives me crazy is the like I think it's the word just I think this word yeah is why don't you just know help to the English language right and it is such a thing that if you were to think about it for two minutes you can come up with a whole panoply of reasons why one might not want to just do a thing and the thing about keeping around a cup to bring with me to Starbucks all the time it's like are you for real why don't I just like where am I carrying it like I'm walking into work without a backpack I have nothing so I'm just I'm walking down the street now with this cup chained to my arm always with me and then now this is also a thing that I have to clean and my bringing it back from my office every day to my house like no way that's not gonna happen why don't you just get to yeah so I can bring one every time I'm going I can grab one with me it's like listen listen people if Starbucks totally got rid of their paper cups and then only had the plastic cups I would buy one a new every time and then immediately throw it out when I got to the office because I'm not gonna carry it with me it's like I don't want to carry unnecessary cumbersome items especially like a cup that was filled with coffee but now isn't that is also thrown into my like this backpack that I'm gonna carry just for the cup I don't know it's like this word just it's infuriating and it is used in these situations where I think a person is introducing what seemed to me obvious downsides that for some reason they totally disregard is it possible Gray just to do with the plastic cup and straw issue not the justism issue is it possible that you are rolling out the fact that to make the world a better place some small degree of personal sacrifice by humans maybe necessary I mean are you asking that as a question in in general but like do humans need to make sacrifices to make the world a better place yeah of course I agree with that yeah because I think most of the things that humans could do to make the world a better place you dismiss because it will cause you inconvenience and maybe you need to wear a bit of inconvenience maybe we all need to wear a bit of inconvenience but you're not willing to but a lot of other people are the guy who carries the metal straw around in his backpack and he's straw cleaning brush and his special straw cleaning machinery that he seems to have with him at all times like he's willing to make the sacrifice and if we were all willing to make a little bit of sacrifices and carry our peasant bags and all do a little bit of stuff maybe we would start solving some of these things that might be problems but the attitude of oh no that would like cause me some emoticum of inconvenience is one of the problems we're facing as a species I mean now you're rapidly getting into this idea of should which is another idea that I find nagsum I'm not interested in what humans should do right I'm interested in what actionable steps can we do to encourage or discourage the behavior that we want out of humans this is all we can do in the world but people do sure love to talk about what humans should do as I guess we all should be nicer to each other we all should do a lot of things but always with these conversations my feeling is what are you trying to achieve is the thing that you're doing to try to achieve that goal actually effective in the way that you think it is and so much of this stuff strikes me as simply not thought out and one of the pieces of feedback that I thought was very good in the red it which is a thing I was not talking about very well last time is many of these things it's not that like say the metal straws are worse for the environment it's that you're trading one environmental impact for another environmental impact and this is the case of water use the example I always really like is washing your dishes by hand or using the dishwasher machine a modern dishwasher machine is crazy effective in the the small amount of water that it uses to wash your dishes our dishwasher it's something comical it's it's like oh the dishwasher only needs half a cup of water to wash all of your dishes but people think oh I'll just wash a dish and that's better than running the dishwasher and it's like no there's no version of this where you do a better job than the machine does no matter how poorly you load it and so I wonder and a lot of the environmental trade-offs that people want to do I'm just not convinced like have we done a total cost of ownership here for the trade-offs and I just never see anything convincing and it always seems suspicious to me that we just pick like the immediately visible items always and we never seem to be super interested in the much harder structural problems like I've mentioned before my particular pet issue on this one is like drought in California where no one's talking to almond farmers but everybody's talking to people taking showers as a great example but yes is there some level of discomfort that humans quote should endure to make things better yes obviously but I I don't think a lot of the things that people want to guilt or nag you into doing are actually effective I'm just not convinced by it I mean this is what you do if there's anything that is asked of you that inconveniences you you kind of wave your arms about in a way that I don't fully understand and say oh I've seen no evidence or this won't work so I'm not doing it and I don't know if what you're saying is true or not I mean you can just sit there and say oh it wouldn't make a difference anyway and then I'm kind of like oh Grace is it wouldn't make a difference so obviously it wouldn't so I'm not going to recycle either I'm going to take eight tails at the gym as well because Grace says it doesn't make a difference like I don't know maybe you're right but I I don't know what's something in your life that you do there is a hardship but you do because you think it's the right thing to do I don't know are there examples of things you do do because you think oh yeah this is the responsible thing to do as a person it's inconvenient but you know I'll do it that's the hard thing to just pull out off the top of my head dude you separate your recycling do you like you do recycle yeah we like we have two bins in the house one for recycling and one for not recycling and I try to remember which one goes and what but this is actually this is a great example of like a structural change so I have to anonymize the story slightly but someone else who lives in the house with me used to think that I didn't do a very good job at recycling someone that lives in my house doesn't think I do a very good job recycling yeah yeah you know it could be anyone so what she did which was completely genius was got a recycling bin where the recycling bin is just it's open at the top and so our garbage can or our garbage bin has one of those little flippy lids at the top right okay and of course garbage you're putting in stinky stuff like you know old broccoli like you put it in the garbage you don't want to put it in the thing with the open top because it smells bad yeah and then also that means the recycling thing is ever so slightly easier to put stuff into and we can say that this had a dramatic impact on how much recycling occurred in the gray household that's genius in a way that no amount of should would ever have affected and indeed for years ever did affect it that's to me the thing that you want to do you want to make it easier to do the right thing and harder to do the wrong thing I don't like the idea of like oh you've got to perform these specifician tasks uphill just because it's good I had this exact same discussion with the anonymous other person in my house because we were actually listened to that section of the last podcast about recycling and straws and plastic and the anonymous person in my house became quite riled by you okay and by default became quite riled by me but not standing up to you I'm sorry Brady and I said that this issue it was around the plastic bags you know do take your own plastic bags to the shop or pay five pence and get one at the shop and I said kind of similar to what you just said but in a different way I said there are two possible solutions to any problem one is you're just going to charge people more and more money for plastic bags until it just becomes so draconian that they will start you know 50 it's 50 pounds for a plastic bag okay well I'm just going to bring one from home for that or you do what they do when like they design footpaths at universities and stuff and they don't actually pave the footpaths until they look where everyone walks and then they look where the students walk and say okay well that's where we're going to build the footpath and they design the infrastructure to suit people's behavior so they need to find a way to reduce our use of plastic in a way that suits our existing behaviors not try to modify our behaviors that's kind of what's been done here isn't it so kind of what's been in your house yeah and I agree but I'm also like one of the things that makes me a bit suspicious of some of these changes is let's just say that the you know the government does some study and we determine that yes the UK is a tremendous source of plastic in the world and we just and it's a real problem we want to try to solve it yeah I'd be totally in favor of draconian taxes on plastic bags that's one of the best uses of taxes is to try to capture those sorts of externalities and I'm 100% in favor of trying to financially punish externalities and like a ton of environmental regulation is exactly that kind of thing yeah that you're going to charge companies money if they're not complying with whatever the standards are and like that's how you do it the cost of petrol in the UK which is crazy crazy high because they're trying to discourage petrol you know I always forget that it's so high because it's priced out in leaders and so it doesn't it doesn't look that different to my eye of what the prices should be versus America and then I remember like oh wait but it's for a fifth as much gas this exact same price it's crazy what the prices are yeah I'm just always in favor of structural change and I'm suspicious of people focusing on the obvious visual things or when people propose solutions that just have no chance of ever happening there seems to be a very big contingent of people who want to just end air travel it's like yeah I'm sure that the air travel industry is a huge negative impact on the environment but what is the universe in which you're going to convince everyone to stop flying and there's no possibility to put on a draconian tax to something like that because it's just so vital for the modern world like it would have such knock on effects to all kinds of things and so when I see people complaining about people flying it's always like I don't understand what you think could possibly happen in a realistic universe to change this other than just a genie grants your wish and all airports are banned things have trade-offs and there are also things in the world which may be bad for the environment but they're a net positive for civilization overall and you're never going to stop people from doing those things plus I do also always feel in these environmental conversations like I have a real trump card which is I don't have children there's nothing better that I could do for the environment than not have a child no amount of drinking out of plastic straws is ever going to be like outweigh the scale of thousands of years of gray descendants you are a true humanitarian and environmental crusader I think so too Brady you know a bit earlier today I was just scrolling through my Instagram looking at pictures from family and friends and you know what some of them are really good yes there are a few duds a few more pictures of plated meals and generic sunsets than I'd ideally like to see but there are also some absolute crackers but the sad thing is most of them will be looked at for um second or two on my puny little phone then scroll down off the screen and vanish forever never to be seen again and that seems a shame some of those snaps are real works of art they should be adorning an office or a bedroom classroom hanging above a fireplace or maybe even that blank wall in the toilet that you really should put a picture on you know what's coming people one of today's sponsors is fracture now this is an awesome website what all you've got to do is upload a photo and then in a few simple clicks the people at the florida factory get to work printing your photo directly onto a sheet of glass of course you choose the size of that piece of glass depending on where you want it to go that's all part of the process the glass is then given this sort of nice backing it arrives in a beautifully packed box and it's ready to hang on the wall straight out of the box hang on the wall no frames no faffing about it's all ready to go even with a hangar already in the box as well so simple you should do this people do it for yourself or buy one as a gift that great holiday or party you shared with your mates immortalize it with a fracture and at the same time give a really thoughtful present they actually look good if you buy a few of them and hang them together on the wall because they all kind of match they're the same size can look really classy they're sleek they're clean they look really good I've given several of these as gifts already and they always go down a trait now for a discount on your first fracture order go to the site fracture me dot com slash hi and you want to be choosing hallow internet when you do they're really quick one question survey that helps support the show and we appreciate that that address again fracture me dot com slash hi it's easy it looks great and it gets some of those best photos out of the virtual world and into the real world where you can enjoy them every day just before we started recording I was watching a Formula One Grand Prix which is one of my favorite things to do I'm very into Formula One racing and it does occur to me this is not like an attempt to like convert your anything right it's definitely not but it did occur to me that if there was any sport that you should be really into or would get really into it would be Formula One car racing like it's impossible now because I think with sport you have to like imprint early and that should be sailed for you so I'm not saying you should get into it or start watching it in fact you shouldn't oh okay but there is so much about Formula One that makes me think this is like Gray's dream sport if he was going to get into sport I wish I'd written more down but I just quickly wrote some things on a post at note they're about things that you should like about Formula One and by the way this is only really Formula One racing it doesn't apply to other forms of motor sport even like you know Nascar or Indy car racing or anything like that this is really I'm really applying this only to Formula One okay is Formula One is that the one in Monte Carlo where they go they do race in Monaco once a year they race all over the world yeah they race all over the world and once a year they race they have a race in Monaco that's a different race in each country pretty much each week like it travels all around the world oh I didn't know okay yeah so today they're racing in Belgium and then they'll race in America and they'll race in Asia and they have a race in every different country that's one of the reasons I think you'd really like it in my on my list I've created here I mean yeah that is true when you when you add the countries in it's automatically more fun for arbitrary reasons I'll make that my number one reason then the internationalness of it I think would appeal to you it's very international and also all the countries like bid to have a race and they actually pay Formula One to be allowed to have a race in their country and there's all sorts of skull duggery and multi-billion dollar contracts and all sorts of nastiness and controversy over who gets to host the races and where they get to go and who has to pay and who doesn't have to pay and like for example Monaco is such an iconic race that they can have the race for as long as they want but other countries would have to like stab other countries in the back to try and get a race so there's all this like international intrigue about it as this sort of traveling circus travels around the world every year so that's one of one of the things I put Monaco so iconic that I didn't even know what happened anywhere else I thought that was the race there's a whole bunch all year it's a whole championship and they go from each week different country different place some of the circuits are very old and famous and they've been using for years and years other ones are quite new and modern and stuff it's such a logistical sport at every level from during the race itself to like the way the whole production travels around I think the logistics of Formula One is something that would intrigue you the way that these entire like almost factories move around from country to country week to week on all these planes and trucks and things it's it's really amazing and there's they always do stories and reports on it's really interesting and the logistics of an actual Formula One factory where the teams are based they're amazing places I think I mentioned to you once I went to them a Claren factory which is one of the teams in Formula One and it was one of the buildings and places I've been to that I most thought oh my god this is the place on earth that would make Grey really happy they're amazing places obviously it's a sport where this is amazing interface between like absolute bleeding edge technology and humans like what can humans do versus what can machines do it's this it's a really interesting interface between humans and machines it is an absolute war of physics like Formula One is all about physics in the development of the cars in the way the races work like you listen to a Formula One commentary and I reckon without even realizing it 90 to 95% of the time all they're doing is talking about physics about like tire degradation and heat and warmth and the way air is moving over cars and he can't get past him because of the air coming off his car and his car has been designed that way to do this all they're doing is talking about physics the whole time it's also really like it's really techy and geeky and static but also when I was young and really into it it involves lots of maps like the maps of Formula One tracks with things I used to memorize I used to be able to name any you could show me a map a Formula One track like a map and I'd be like oh yeah that's the Belgium Grand Prix that's that's very mappy like the money's a really big deal and finance and economics because everything's dominated by money in Formula One in every way and it's this kind of constant arms war where they're trying to control it but they also realize that the more money's in at the better so there's always talking about money and economics and contracts and things like that there are so many rules and technicalities and things like that I think would would intrigue you it's very very complicated the rules of Formula One racing is like it's like an encyclopedia of rules that no one understands and are always coming about I think that would appeal to and there's always lots of epic drama like that kind of YouTube drama because there's such big egos because it's such a pinnacle sport and there are so few of these drivers and so few bosses of these teams there's so much like sort of self-perpetuating drama in a way that I think you would enjoy in like a popcorn-y type way and this is just like the start of my list of things this is a long post-it note that you have there I know I know this is just on one post-it note and this is without me even thinking about it you will not get into obviously but I think Formula One would be your sport like the only thing I don't think you'd like about it is what most people don't like about it and it's a couple of hours of cars going around on a track right but the strategy and all the stuff behind the underpins it I it's like a perfect storm of stuff that you would like well I did recently driver go kart around a track which I imagine is quite comparable and that was super fun well you like driving too you like your truck driving game stuff like that like you do seem to like driving I do like driving yes that is true listening to you talk I guess I am realizing that maybe Formula One is the logical conclusion of my feeling that arbitrary restrictions and the Olympics are dumb and so if you were to remove all of the restrictions from the 500 meter dash for humans you would just end up with Formula One racing I guess like we got to get from here to there as fast as possible and it's got to be a human no restrictions okay I guess it's going to be a Formula One car that's what's going to happen you said a thing at the beginning which never really occurred to me do you really think it is true that sports are a thing that need to be imprinted upon someone when they're young do you think that sports are not able to be an acquired taste as an adult if you were not imprinted when you're young I think that's like a massive generalization and there are going to be thousands and thousands of exceptions to the rule but in general I think it's true I mean yeah people can change I guess if you you know marry someone who's into a sport you might just get into it through Osmosis or something but generally I think sport in general it helps if you're interested because I could pick up a new sport and get interested in new sport now but that's because I've been printed just in sport in general right then individual sports themselves as well I think I don't know without thinking much about I do think it's reasonably important I think yes but I could be wrong obviously there's going to be exceptions to a rule like that yeah no it's one of those things where as soon as you said it I think it just never really occurred to me but it seems super obvious in retrospect and I wonder if you could do most of the people I know who are really into sport were into sport when they were younger most of the people I know who do not like sport didn't like sport when they were younger whether or not that's just because that's the way they are and they've always been that way or when you're young is the time to imprint I don't know the reason I laugh there is because this is again one of these moments I come up against in the podcast we're about to say a thing where I'm like oh maybe I shouldn't say the thing but while it's just you and me Brady and we'll see if it makes it through later the comparison I was thinking of is you could do a sociological study about sports like the heritability of sports in children and this is a term I think people sometimes get a little bit confused about in sociology but when you talk about heritability it just means if you know this thing about the parents is it true about the children as well it doesn't necessarily mean genetically inheritable I would be super curious to see something on the heritability numbers for sports in kids and the comparison like the the only thing that really is leaping to my head as an obvious comparison would be something like compare the heritability numbers to something like religion where obviously a religion is highly heritable as in you know the religion of the parents and you don't very often get a child who is surprised at a different religion they're almost always the same so I just wonder if you could do something like that with sports about the different branches of sports some are radical maybe some not and like what is the heritability factor with children and then obviously like the heritability of lack of interest in sports because yeah my parents were never into sports in in any way shape or form and then obviously that got passed on to me it's a really interesting thought I'd love to know if there's any actual data out there on sports heritability you got me thinking about my parents I would say my parents definitely not my mom and not even my dad that much was that into sport yeah I got really really into sport I think a lot of that was to do with my my neighbors and my best friends who were a sport family but the funny thing is that got me thinking now like in the last sort of five to ten years my parents are a bit older now and retired and that they have started getting a bit more into sport and whenever they ring me they're like oh I've been watching the cricket I've been watching the football it's been so interesting but in a way that makes me kind of cringe and think no you're like Johnny come lately you haven't given a whole life to this and I almost resent them being into it a bit like they're oh the cricket was so exciting yesterday wasn't it and they'll say something that makes me realize they don't realize that same thing happened 19 years ago in a similar match and I'm like no you're not allowed to be into sport now you haven't done the time that feeling is such a funny human feeling that is replicated across so many different areas definitely I knew the band before they were popular I watched the original Star Wars movies yeah it's replicated across everything and why is it that there's something in humans which almost pushes back against more people like the thing that you like are you guilty of that or are you above that or do you even feel that emotions sometimes I'm having a hard time thinking of a specific example off the top of my head but I know I've felt that I just I can't think of a good example right now do you ever feel that about Apple products when someone says look at my new iPhone isn't it fantastic it does all these things and you're like you don't know the half of what that machine can do well I mean that's a different thing okay I'm never not surprised at the lack of technical knowledge of younger generations for whom I was propagandized my whole life we're going to be amazing at technology turns out not true it's just striking me as such a funny thing especially when when applied to your own parents I'm so guilty of a great whenever like a new film comes out about Apollo and the moon I'm like no it's gonna be a whole bunch of people now there's a new Neil Armstrong movie coming out oh my goodness I'm loathing that right gonna have a whole whole world full of Neil Armstrong experts I never thought of you as a space hipster or I should say an Apollo hipster is really what it would be like I've been into Apollo before anybody thought it was exactly humans are just the worst I know yeah this thing I love I don't want other people to love it I'm trying to think of something I love that I'm happy when other people find out about it surely Brady you love it when more people love hello internet that must be a thing yeah what spread the word far wide that's a thing that makes you happy yes that doesn't count though even though you were into hello internet before it was even published yeah I'm trying to think if there's something like some tv show or band I like and if more people start liking it surely that's good for me because more money comes into it they can make more of that thing hmm like surely that's the only time it would benefit me oh the human resentment against newcomers runs deep get off my lawn I mean I'm quite happy sometimes for people to get attention I think they deserve like for example when we you know we talked about public service broadcasting the band and since we spoke about not because we spoke about them but since we spoke about them they become you know a lot more popular and that has made me happy because I sort of think oh that's good you know those people deserve success and attention and I don't like resent that in any way I think the more the better so I don't know it doesn't apply to everything but it applies to most things anyway for me the one for me the one I think you'd like it it's got lots of grain us in it I'll be sure to check it out I'll see if I can get you into that McLaren factory because remember we went to that what was that place in Waterloo we went to and you like you were absolutely like smitten with the building and the space because you just thought it was just a great space yeah that was awesome and if you could get me into the McLaren factory I would do that for sure the McLaren factory was even better than that physics building in Waterloo for just like a cool space I think you'd like it use your contact breeding get me in maybe that will be also your like gateway drug to getting into Formula 1 if I do get into Formula 1 then obviously you will like Formula 1 less well then I would totally resent it then and then you'll start like a Formula 1 YouTube channel and podcast and I'll be absolutely living and then you start traveling the world and going to all the races and meeting all the drivers I'll be like damn it he didn't even watch Formula 1 before oh that would make it all worthwhile I have to say since this show aired I've been I've been looking forward to my future as a Formula 1 race car fan race car fan racing fan I don't know I'll figure it out later Brady made it sound so romantic traveling the world going to all of those races a lot of zoom it seems like it could be exciting maybe it is something that I could get into but there's definitely something that I know about myself that when I get into things it's hard not to turn them into a business I'm not a man who's good at hobbies so I'm already beginning to think about what I'm going to need to add to my collection my collection of domain names at hover eventually there'll be a blog or some videos or something and I'm going to want to have a website as a place to build my future career in the Formula 1 commentary world and the number one place I go to for domains is our good friends at hover why have I used hover for so many years because their website is just simple and beautiful a long time ago when you wanted to buy a domain name on the internet you had to go through some pretty ugly and sketchy websites that tried to sell you a bazillion services you didn't need not hover you should go to hover dot com right now slash h i to get 10% off your first purchase and take a look at their beautiful website I always feel like I'm relaxed to simply see the beautiful and simple design of hover whenever I have to renew domain names or change any information about them or add or subtract emails any of that kind of stuff it's just a nice clean interface so I'm going to be brainstorming some of those ideas for domain names I want to snap up before other people do and you certainly to have some project that's being mulled over in the back of your brain when you think of a good domain name you need to go to hover to get it to make sure that nobody else beats you to it if someone else is using a competitor a slower competitor hovers simplicity and speed will make sure that you get that domain name first they have world class customer support and they make integrating with any other services you want to use hover with just a snap so once again go to hover dot com slash h i and get 10% off your first purchase that's hover dot com slash h i this is kind of a big thing I'll apologize in advance if it's a bit poorly thought out but the topic is gray is concerned about the attention economy slash his own attention span I think if I had to try to put it in under a header I think I've realized that's what a bunch of stuff I've been thinking about for a while and kind of vaguely wanting to talk about on the show but it never it's never been like the right moment for example one of the more recent little links that I threw in is this news article that in the London underground they're installing big screens in the tube stations you know where you stand to wait for the tube so that they can display the news live to you while you're underground while you're waiting for your train so where they used to have like ads and posts and stuff now there's a lot just rolling news channel or something yeah there's like a rolling news channel and the thing here is it's not what you think it is I don't care that it's news I think it's an example of this thing that I am concerned about and it it seems like everywhere in every aspect of life things are getting better at demanding your attention advertising on the underground isn't new it's been around I'm sure since the whatever is 1890 when they had the first steam trains going underground like I'm sure it didn't take long before somebody put an ad on the walls in those stations yeah so it's not like oh the sanctity of this underground space is violated it's more this is another example of what was static now becomes motion and a thing that really bothered me was a recently flew through Newark airport have you been through Newark airport recently Brady not recently not the last year or two okay I don't know how new they are but I honestly I saw this thing in Newark which to me felt like the horrifying face of the future yeah which is Newark airport on every surface in every restaurant in every waiting area has these little iPad screens that are bolted to the desk that are just little rolling advertisements slash things that the airport wants you to know I'm going to send you a couple pictures just so you can see what these things look like because it was beyond my ability to express the horror in words of what this looks like so let me just send you a couple of these it's like everybody left their iPad behind when they left but the rapture happened while everyone was on their iPad you know what that is a great way to describe it because there's no one in that picture there's just all these sitting iPads like they'd be in use I was trying to take pictures where you know I wasn't taking pictures of people and and the horror that is greater when you see it without context but yeah for the listener I do mean this in a literal way like when you think of you go into an airport and there's places to wait at the gate and there's restaurants that you can sit in every table and every chair had this little iPad that was bolted in front of where the chair is and the chairs most of them are bolted into the ground to the only position you can possibly sit in is right in front of this little iPad but you could not sit at that table and have like your hamburger and chips without staring at that screen you have no choice yeah the only place to put your hamburger would be in the few inches in front of the iPad that they give you as space on the desk right that isn't being used by that iPad and what photos don't convey is they're all constantly moving they're all displaying ads or trying to convince you to do something and I look at stuff like this and while I just earlier in the show took a big poo on a lot of environmental stuff I've come to think of this as a kind of environmental pollution almost I don't know if that is me being overly sensitive or overly dramatic on this topic but in so many areas of life I see this in cursion where stuff is getting better at trying to hold your attention or even just being distracting in the background and while I was in Newark it was it was just intolerable like there's nowhere to sit where these things aren't in your peripheral vision just constantly moving and you can't either not look at them or be aware that you're you're like focusing really hard on what's in front of you like I will not look at these things that are moving in my peripheral vision that picture that you sense exacerbated by the fact there are 10 widescreen TVs above them bolted to the walls above the bar and I'm looking at it I think every single one of them seems to be on a different channel yeah so that picture from the bar to me is what the world feels like it's it's moving towards everywhere with all things there's not only an iPad in front of every seat but as you're sitting at the bar there's TVs across the entire back of the bar and every TV is tuned to a different channel now this is in this is in the physical space obviously but I think you can combine this with a lot of what we talk about on the show with regards to like what does social media do to your mind you know like we were recently talking about I was on Instagram and I was aware like oh wow Instagram is the first social media that feels like it does to me what it does to other people it pulls on on your attention in perhaps not a good way and I'm concerned that the increasing level of all of this stuff the the reason why I think it maybe it makes sense to compare it to a kind of pollution is I'm concerned that like it's giving the world a kind of attention deficit disorder I may be wrong but I suspect that constantly being in environments that are trying to distract you and getting better at it all the time and always having with you technology that is trying to get your attention I feel like I've upgraded my concern about this from oh you should do the best that you can to isolate yourself from all these things into I think it really may be having an effect on people that over time fractures and shatters their attention and their ability to concentrate into smaller and smaller shards I think this in no small part because I feel like this has really happened to me over maybe the past 18 months begin this very slow way that I haven't felt very sharply until suddenly in the last month I've been really really aware of it how does it manifest itself what's an example of you seeing it in yourself so I think one of the red flags that has been building up over the last while is repeated efforts to read more books and finding that a surprisingly difficult task as I have gotten older the amount of books that I have read is just done nothing but drop you know in terms of an actual book with words not an audio book I have read nothing for big stretches what are you doing instead like in that time when you used to sit there and read a book what's stopping you reading a book are you checking Twitter are you just can't look at the screen for long enough or what's what are you doing instead yeah okay so there's two things there the one that I find more concerning is the phenomenon that the reading is actually harder I find my brain just wandering much more and now of course in some sense I'm comparing myself to a much younger version of myself and so maybe like with many things this is just a simple fact of getting older but I don't think that's it the thing that goes along with that as well as in addition to finding books just harder to read I'm finding books much harder to get into it's one of the reasons why a couple weeks ago I actually I even did a shout out on Twitter where I was just asking people to recommend like interesting nonfiction books to read because I had ended up spending basically a whole day just trying to find something to read and totally failing at it that each book I was picking up I'm like I'm just not interested even though this thing is interesting or I should say the way this topic is described like I just can't get into it and so that I find it extremely concerning and it feels like this thing has happened in this very slow way that like many disasters comes on slowly and then quickly do you think that your problem with like using the example of you know settling into a book are you suggesting it's because like your standard unit you know an SI unit of attention time has become much smaller or is it because you've become standardized to you know a top 10 list with a capital letters headline and or you know a three or four sentence pithy reddit comment and like that's just what you want now which are those two things is it like is it a style change or an actual like quantity change is a qualitative change or a quantitative change it feels like both it feels like the SI unit of attention is is smaller I've been trying to do things like setting timers and saying like I'm going to read and don't stop reading until the timer goes off and don't look at the timer either right just keep reading and of course right fail your number one I look at the timer right so it's like okay great great job there uh ability to concentrate and then problem two is I look at the timer and I'm shocked by how much time is left right is like oh I thought I had been reading for a thousand years and I had actually been reading for five minutes right that's super alarming to see the quality thing is interesting because what you were asking before is what has replaced this whenever you're trying to look at any kind of behavior change I think people too easily focus on the additive part like when we were talking about you know fit a tron 5000 lifestyle what are you going to do is like well one of the things you have to do is stop doing something else to have time for your health because if you imagine that you're just going to be additive into your life it's totally going to fail yeah and so obviously for me one of the the biggest things that has taken up just huge portions of my time is just being on the internet for me the two swamps of attention are without a doubt it's Reddit and hacker news which is like a more focused version of Reddit but they're the same thing their places where people post stories I don't read the stories I just read the comment threads about what people are talking about in the stories right yeah and like even that is is a way that I feel like I've kind of unintentionally trained my brain to have no patience so it's like oh theoretically this hacker news page is full of nothing but links to interesting articles how many of those articles have I read zero right because what I just want to get to is what's the top comment that tells me why the article is all wrong right and then I want to read that because you like the conflict and the drama or because you want the intellectual nourishment or if you just become bit of a you just like enjoy the conflict in the theater of people yelling at things so even there Brady you're talking about it so nobly what I feel like has happened is that these things used to be much more additive in my life that like oh I used to get much more benefit out of this stuff and over time it's just become much more of a habit right like it's a well-worn groove in my brain that I go to these places but by going to them and then just skipping to the comments it's training my brain to not read anything that's more than a couple of paragraphs and I mean even there we've mentioned on the show several times like if you want us to read your comments in the Reddit don't have it real long the shorter the better right and I think like even that's an interesting kind of side effect of now I find myself not even reading the article that the discussion is about but I'm not even really reading all of the comments about the article that I'm not reading I'm just kind of skimming over them you're reading the ones that are short enough to not take too much time it's easier to go downhill than to go uphill it's easier to read the comments about the article than it is to read the article and it's easier to read the shorter comments than the longer comments and like with many things in life what is easy is not necessarily better I feel like this is a real area where it just feels like I've trained my brain out of having a longer attention span and for me the ground zero is really this internet behavior and particularly with Reddit and hacker news I am very aware of like this wider phenomenon in in the broader world that oh this happens to be the thing for me but I really wonder and concerned about brains always bathing in an environment that is full of distraction and is also super full of the easy thing to do at any particular moment so these are a bunch of of concerns that I have I can't see what how you have allowed this to become a problem because you're so disciplined about your time and like for example you know you switch on like I know there's no point trying to text you after 10 o'clock because Grace switches on his do not disturb I cannot reach him after 10 o'clock I cannot reach him until the next morning and while I find that incredibly infuriating and frustrating like I accept that's what you've done because you like controlling your life and partitioning things and not having distractions and so why can't you just put one of these plethora of apps on your phone that won't let you use Reddit except for like one hour a day or like of all the people in the world I know who could just say all right I'm only gonna use Reddit for half an hour a day in the rest of the time I'm gonna write a script or I'm gonna walk the dog or I'm gonna go to the gym or I'm gonna do some animation or something like why have you not been able to just write a new schedule that doesn't allow you to use Reddit why haven't you just banned yourself from Reddit if you see the problem so clearly so this is a super interesting thing and it's one of the reasons why I'm concerned about broader society you know in a way that's beyond just me because I've been over the last year kind of talking to a bunch of people about this topic in different ways and without a doubt compared to just about everyone I know my digital and intentional life is already like this monastic existence for years and years I've never had Twitter on my phone I don't have email on my phone I much to the annoyance of many people who try to get in touch with me like dramatically limit all of these ways that I can be reached so I find it interesting that even for me who feels like I try to be super careful about this stuff that I've still been gotten in a slow way over time that I didn't notice and so it's like well yes I don't have any of this stuff on my phone but when come home at night I'm spending lots of time just on the computer on Reddit for example like I'm just sitting on the couch and kind of browsing around and then that's where it feels like it's accreted over time to have this intentional effect and I don't mean to set up this Kafka trap for other people but a thing that I notice in in some people that I talk to is I sometimes get the impression that people have become almost so used to interruptions and so attentively short that they seem to lack the ability to notice this again I am aware that that is like a ridiculously unfair kind of comment to make because there's no way to talk your way out of it but I'm just saying it as an observation that seems like some people are so distracted that they don't recognize what the problem is or they don't even recognize that they're distracted. What's an example that can you give me like a practical example of that? I'm not quite understanding the point. As a practical example of it I've had many many a conversation where I'm talking to a person about how distracted they feel in which during the conversation they answer many a text message and don't seem to be aware that they just halt and stop and then are on the phone texting and then come back to the conversation and seem to be like even if I bring it up seem to be not aware that everything just stopped for two minutes whereas like their subjective experience is oh it only took me one second to just reply to this thing it's like yeah but it didn't yeah like I'm not ballsy enough to actually start a timer when that happens but that's an example of what I mean where the other person's subjective experience seems to not match up with what they think. The classic example of this like before we all became slaves to our phones would be when you had a friend who had a child and you would go out with them like for a coffee or something and they would come with a child they like a parent because you know children are so demanding of your time and you know you have to care for them and that having conversations with your friends who is a parent they didn't realize like you weren't having a conversation because they would like to in the middle of a sentence say child stop that and run off and go and do that yeah and it used to be the joke that that's what it was like if your friends had kids they became these other creatures that you couldn't have a conversation with anymore but now we're all like that like whether we have a child or not we all go out and just like the number of times I'll I'll go out with a group of like four or five friends and it could be like to a restaurant or something or it could be something lovely like going to a cottage by the sea and we're just sitting around in the lounge room like in this lovely place and I'll look around and all of us including me on our phones yeah I went for lunch with my friend yesterday who I hadn't seen for a while and we were like we were chatting and that and I don't think we ever went five consecutive minutes without one of us picking up our phone and checking a football score I'm going oh ever to know one nail up now right or look that's an interesting Instagram post that our friend James just posted like we wouldn't go five minutes without it in between like a conversation we were friends catching up how's your work what are you up to what you've been doing what's happening with your wife where have you been on holiday we're still doing all of that but never for more than five minutes without a quick didgy break I think that that may also be having an effect on intentional fracturing because it also keeps the conversation eternally at a more surface level it's a thing that I have felt with people where sometimes a conversation is starting to dip down into a more significant level but then the outside world breaks it in and you feel like why are we even bothering with trying it like you're just going to have this thing interrupt and it doesn't really matter but then it turns oh our ability to focus in a conversation is limited by the mean time of interruption on the other person's device and so it's like well whatever you're saying should mostly be conveyed in five to seven minute long stretches maybe not longer or just the other thing that I suspect is not good which I've mentioned before like why I first took Twitter off my phone is the recognition of having this background demon running in your mind all the time that's meta thinking about the presentation of your own life and the one that I I still find very strange and I can never get used to it and I apologize to the people who know me who do this in person but but when you sit down to dinner with people and there is the moment of the food must be presented for the grams first and a photo must be taken of this thing that we are about to enjoy together like I never don't feel like I'm in an episode of Black Mirror when that happens where the food has arrived but we perform this little the little sayance of arranging everything to look great to take the photos and then the photos go up and then well five minutes into the meal people want to see how it has been received to the internet like what they're dinner I find that one like the most strange example of this and then your partner will lean over and say oh what have people been saying about it right right oh yeah yeah oh Jeff liked it oh really like I'm totally guilty of this by the way I'm like the Instagramming the food one is is the one where I feel like I'm an alien on it I'm like I'm a stranger in a strange land with that one yeah but then you know I'm saying like I go home and it's like oh I'll read what's on Reddit and then switch over to hacker news and then this is I'm done with hacker news and be like I wonder what's on Reddit and it go back and it's it's the things you just read you idiot and go okay well I wonder what's on hacker news then also the things that you just read and like flip back and forth like a total idiot in this thing that I'm not really extracting any value out of and I think has has made my brain worse and to take it away from the traditional ones I also want to mention one other area that I'm just I'm aware of as having become not a danger area but a bit like the screens on the underground and that's to me just listening to podcasts like I become very aware that it's so easy to just start listening to podcasts in any moment where for whatever reason like I can't do something with my eyes like you're walking the dog you're doing I'm hand washing the dishes for the environment or whatever it is like you can start listening to podcasts and then that's a train that for me can just sometimes not ever end whereas like oh I've started listening to podcasts and they just keep playing and I just keep listening because I I like listening to these podcasts but I can find my own life to full of those things what to podcast take away from from you what's something that you maybe feel you should be doing instead because I listen to a lot of podcasts but I always feel like that's what I do like is filler and like doesn't eat away at other time oh yeah like 100 percent it doesn't feel like it eats away at other time except and this is the real key to me it eats away at your brain's time to just be your brain on its own right if you're always filling your mind with the thoughts of others how do you know what you think about anything this is another place where I feel concerned about this attentionness of the modern world and like I've had more than one friend admit to me that if they ever for some reason find themselves out of the house and they realize oh like I forgot my headphones that they will have just have to buy headphones so that they can listen to podcasts while they're walking around or they'll just hold their phone up to their ear listening to the podcast as though they're on the phone and I have done both of those things as well and yeah I push back against that like I routinely keep uninstalling overcast from my phone and then somehow I find it back on the phone within a few months of like oh I just wanted to listen to this one thing and I and like I can construct some reason why I really need to listen to it right now and then I install it back on my phone and then all of a sudden the podcast are just eating up all of the mental space of my life I'm just listening to other people talk about things and yeah it is filler time like it's it's time that is not being lost to something as opposed to wasting time on the internet is time that could be spent reading a book in a way that lots of podcast time that's not remotely the case yeah but it is eating away at chunks of time where the brain has nothing to do and this again I feel like goes right back into the idea of like a tension deficit disorder society like if you freak out because your brain has a long stretch of nothing to do always like that seems like a like a really bad situation so do you think walking the dog with no headphones no podcast no phone just like looking at the trees and walking along is like makes you a better man makes you smarter helps your ideas form is is making you cleverer I want to state it in the reverse way that always walking the dog and always listening to podcasts makes you worse is not that you are getting smarter by doing nothing in those moments it's that the constant pull on your attention drags you down that's what I think it is whereas reading books as an attentional exercise I do think that that is a good thing for your brain and it's why I feel really frustrated with it in in the same way that much to my surprise ever since starting the fititron lifestyle while I have not been perfectly consistent with it shall we say over time having done that I now have the thing as an adult that feeling of if I don't exercise for a while or I eat really badly I feel gross about myself in a way that I I never did before I'm finally in that place at the moment I quite like it it's a good thing right like at this very moment I feel gross about myself because I've been eating poorly and not exercising and I don't like feeling gross about myself but it's better to feel that way yeah and I feel like I have done the same thing to my brain like I kind of feel gross about how intentionally distracted I have become and that I am a person who was already concerned about this stuff but it somehow still got me makes me very concerned about the world at large oh my god if Gray can't do it what hope with the rest of us got that's how I feel as well Brady what have you allowed to change or slip it sounds to me like you're spending more time when you're computer than you should I don't think anything has dramatically changed I really mean it in what I said before that it's it's a disaster that happened slowly and then quickly like this past month I've been particularly just incapable of paying attention to stuff like I can just really feel it that reading is super hard and doing just about anything other than just like veging out not even fully reading stuff on the internet has just become very very hard to do and has has reached for me a level of like okay something super duper needs to happen it needs to be changed on this I wonder if you're going you know it sounds like you're going to end the path of about to do something extreme to deal with it which I don't always think is the best it's like when someone wants to get fit someone wants to get fit and they say okay okay I'm going to fast for three weeks or something like I'm not always sure that's the best way to get fit but okay sounds like you're about to do something dramatic right well my plan is I'm going to fast for four months so I don't know if that sounds dramatic to you or not but I wanted to talk to you about this Brady because I feel like if anybody if anybody is going to push back on me in an interesting and unexpected way it's you but okay what I am endeavoring to do I haven't nailed down the details fully yet I really think that I need to dramatically close myself off to the external world in a bunch of ways that I allow too much to come in through the internet or through podcasts or through social media and I feel like my brain needs some time to heal and to be almost without a doubt super bored but that's the medicine that's the good medicine here like that is the thing that is necessary is less coming in and more more mental space so I'm kind of thinking of doing this until the end of the year what does that look like what does well like how extreme is this sounds very hermit like it's not the cabin in the woods yet I mean we all know that's like someday that's the eventual endgame for gray we're not there yet right that's you know a while's off but here's my broad outline I'm gonna stop listening to podcasts in the same way that years ago I just stopped watching educational videos like that was a good decision that I have I have stuck with there's a couple of little asterisks for professional reasons there but like I just don't really watch YouTube videos in in the same way that I used to and it's like oh that was a good decision this is a kind of incoming thing that I don't really want in my life yeah and so I'm gonna do that with podcasts I'm just gonna stop listening to podcasts and the thing that may have a bit of an impact on you Brady is I'm gonna go without going back on places like hacker news and Reddit yeah but I think that even means not reviewing comments on Reddit threads yeah I think if there's something that I know in my personality is I'm much better at abstaining from things than being moderate about things right I don't work with the like oh we'll do things in moderation have some popcorn at the movie in moderation no that will never work and I know that about myself and so I've been thinking it over and I was I was originally trying to think like well I could not go on Reddit except for professional reasons but it's like that door feels dangerously open and ready for abuse I think it would also be just interesting to produce a bunch of podcasts without necessarily directly seeing the feedback from people on those podcasts and that that worm did work its way into my brain a little bit when we had those few episodes that were released in a funny out of order way so we never had the comments from the previous show on the next show it's like oh that did kind of work although I am slightly terrified of things to talk about on the show like I'm always very aware of trolling the internet and like writing down notes and looking for things for the show but I think that's that's a door I'm gonna close and I think I'm also going to close the social media door so yeah again I'm just talking about this now I'm throwing this out as the idea but that's that's my thought is I'm gonna close those three doors the social media Reddit and podcasts so you're still gonna create content yeah right and you're still going to use the internet as in like other websites yeah so Reddit hacking news social media no social media posts like we still do like professional social media posts like you know hey everyone new video or new t-shirts available or you're just gonna like delegate that as well and just like not even touch it not touch the poison chalice again I think I have to abstain from things and my initial thought is is not touch not touch the chalice I think that just works better for me I think that the the comment threads on Reddit are as I said many times a great part of the show I think they're a great part of the show for the audience as well but that's super easy for me because when I post things on my blog the post to Reddit are always automatic like I don't touch them it's just an if this then that thing that eventually picks it up and just posts it to Reddit so I never even have to see it so those like the the discussion threads can still exist and I can do a thing that triggers them without ever having to touch it directly myself well what do you think about this breeding I would describe it as like an overreaction right okay but if it's a big problem for you maybe that's what it takes you know like I don't think it sounds like the world's biggest problem like the problems you're explaining certainly resonate with me and they probably resonate with most people I think you're describing a real symptom of the modern world whether or not sort of four months of I guess it's not that much cult here is it's not like you're not gonna touch a computer or it's not like you're gonna you know disappear into the woods and not work and I think it's all right I think you could do like you know a more of a rationing system like I said like if you had a problem with your weight I wouldn't say don't eat any food for four months I would say just like have a bit of everything moderate your diet like when you're on a diet I think it's good to still occasionally have a chocolate and I think it's the same for you or I think there's nothing wrong with saying I can go on Reddit when I eat my wheatabix in the morning for 20 minutes and then I'm not allowed to use Reddit you know and set it up set up get one of these apps that doesn't let you use Reddit except in that window and do one tweet a day or something but do it at 5 pm each night if you've got something you want to tweet also I sort of project this onto myself and I think what if I did what Grace suggesting and my problem would be that I'm so all on nothing and once I failed like once I lapsed once and went on to Reddit you know right sometime in October I'd be like oh well I failed now my streak's over that's pointless I was going Reddit all the time I feel like I'd be setting myself up to fail and once I fail I would fail dramatically yeah that is definitely a personality type and a difference as well whereas I don't feel that way and I always feel like life is always about getting back on the horse and yeah if in October I'm not paying attention and suddenly it's like oh I've been on hacker news for an hour I wouldn't feel like oh well the hell with this right I'm gonna throw in the towel I feel like the experiments or or doing this is simply to be aware that hey notice the fact that you're doing this like what happened why did this occur are there adjustments that you can make and try to get back on on the plan but also part of the reason why I'm talking about it on the show here at all is is to act as a kind of lock-in like I have had it in my project list for months now about doing a kind of like a public lock-in in this way for doing something like this like I think that that is helpful for this sort of project even though I don't normally like to talk about the things that I'm doing until they're done this is a case where making it public seems helpful to me puts yourself on the hook yeah it does it does put yourself on the hook and would be for me helpful in that moment I'm like oh if it's October and I'm reading hacker news like you know dude you said you were gonna do this thing get off here now and it's it's not ruined because you made a mistake although you don't get you won't get court-raiding comments on Reddit and how can you you will get court if you suddenly start tweeting or something but yeah but to me like this is a thing that I feel like I want to do some version of this for myself and it's important to me to have the big stretch to step away that this feels like it's a thing that I want that I think I really need to do in some form and so yeah like no one would know if I was reading the comments but that would defeat the whole purpose which again is a reason to talk about it out loud and to put myself on on the hook for that and one of the reasons why I even think about like not not reading the comments on my own work is the same thing about like creating some mental space for my own brain and doing that would just it would defeat the purpose of it well part of my reaction is like I said before it sounds a little bit extreme right and also like I don't know if you need to go quite that far but also that's quite selfish because this is also going to make my life slightly more immediate like I feel super guilty talking about like I'm very it could be quite interesting in other ways for me you just but the thing that I'm interested in is to see whether or not it has this grander effect that you're hoping it will have of almost like rewiring your brain like that's quite interesting to me like will you suddenly be able to read books again and the other thing I mentioned in is because you're not doing this like crazy digital detox where you're not even like touching an electronic device I'm very curious to find out whether other things will take the place of reddit and heck and use whether you'll find like a replacement drug oh yeah oh yeah I was working on a thing this morning where I was trying to write down what are my thoughts about this you know to put up on like a little blog post and be like what are the guidelines here and immediately identified one area of concern right which is like I thought audio books are okay right but it's very easy to see that audio books slide right into podcasts right that yeah it's it's like well you know oh this heroin is no good but this methadone is delicious right right now it doesn't feel like they can slot in partly because I've just never been able to listen to audio books in the same the same duration for podcasts it feels more tiring but even even that feel is feels like it's part of it though it's it's more tiring because an audio book requires more attention than a podcast whereas you can drift in and out of a podcast much more easily whereas with an audio book if you if you lose the plot you're like wait a minute I have no idea what's going on but yeah it's totally possible that there will be replacement activities I mean that's what happens very commonly but I think if if replacement stuff comes up it's I'm just gonna try to be aware of it ahead of time and if the replacement stuff is better than what has been replaced like well we've still made an improvement so that's good as well it's funny though because I know from your perspective you're saying that this seems quite extreme whereas from my perspective the place where I am having the moderation is well of course I'm still going to use electronics like I'm still going to use my phone and I'm still going to use my computer that to me feels like only a like a madman would draw the line there of of saying I'm just going to abstain from all this digital technology and I'm gonna go back to the analog world that to me feels like where I'm drawing the line of of moderation of like oh my phone is an incredibly useful tool to me and my phone isn't the source of the problem anyway because it's like I've got that really locked down like it's other things that I'm trying to make it make a change about do you know what it's not actually as extreme as I kind of thought it was going to be when you started talking oh yeah and I say like oh this is going to affect me but it's not really going to affect me very much the only way it's going to affect me is when like something like goes wrong like say there's some you know drama or technical problem or something because you know sometimes sometimes technical problems happen when you release podcasts I don't think I don't think no that can happen sometimes and like so when that occasionally hits the fan I need some like back phone to be over to somehow let you know that like something needs dealing with or maybe I'm just going to need more powers and passwords to deal with things as well and stuff like that but you know you sort of saying oh I'm sorry this is an imposition on you Brady but it's not really yeah okay and in some ways it's quite an interesting experiment and it could make Halloween today quite interesting as well for a few months because I don't know what what structure our conversations will start taking I mean I imagine you'll be bringing quite different material to the table and I don't know how that might be different it might be things you've seen out in the real world it might be things from new online sources and I might be bringing new things to your attention so it could be quite an interesting experiment in that respect yeah I'm curious to see what the result is and maybe it's not much like maybe it's like oh right it's the world's just boring and I'm like I'm not getting any better at reading books and like this is just the way things are who knows I am curious though Brady like do you agree with my concern that there is something that's ADDing up the world absolutely okay yeah I do sometimes I feel like I've so changed my mind on so many technological things over time that I wonder like wait a minute am I wrong or is it the children who are wrong like I just don't I don't know and it makes me feel better to hear that you to think that like this is this is a thing in the world that's occurring oh yeah I mean when we record hello internet and you go off on one of your long talks I sometimes pick up my phone and check Twitter well you're talking how terrible is that like my interesting friend who I do like hearing what he has to say who will only talk for two minutes at a time before he pauses to let me talk right and I can't sit through two minutes of just listening to someone talk I have to say oh I'll just quickly check my email and see if any more merchandise has sold from the halloween to it right all right I'll check that it all what's happening as anyone what's the score in the Chelsea game or I'll watch a TV show no that's really good on Netflix or something and I'll still if there's just the slightest lull in the show just the slightest you know I'll quickly glance down at my phone or the thing I think is interesting about your problem as opposed to the problem I see in some other people though is your problems less ego-y than some people like for lots of people it's about themselves like you're saying before oh how many people have been liking my gram how many people have been watching my video what have people been saying about me on on this you don't seem quite so self-absorbed you know you're you're less of an ego-y person so that seems to be less of a problem for you so in that way it's interesting to me that the thing you're so hooked on is just like other people yelling at each other or making pithy comments and it's an interesting thing to me that it's less ego-driven with you yeah it's it's a concern over the state of my own mind yeah you've just basically you've been eating too much junk food yeah I think that there really is a comparison yeah the other comparison to food here that's that's interesting is both the the thing about like the world is filled with food that is terrible for you if you look into the industry of food like it really is quite horrifying how much resources are poured into how can we get people to buy and eat more food like this is an actual industry that you as a person just living your life are silently fighting against and you don't even necessarily realize it and I think that it's the same thing with much of this attentional world that you're fighting against these big institutions that are all trying to control your attention in some way and to like to focus where you're looking and it's it's not good for you in in the same way that food that is manufactured to be maximally palatable is is not good for you and the last comparison there as well as I don't know if I've ever said it on the show because I'm always slightly concerned about even suggesting this but I have done actual fasts like I you know again my abstaining personality shining through here I've done 24 48 and 72 hour fasts what was that lot well the first time you do it you think you're going to die and it's terrible I am not recommending it I want to be really clear here I am recommending to nobody that they fast but I will say that it changes something about your relationship to food that is hard to quantify and I know a number of years ago I did a social media fast I think it was just for December and I was you know I was just was like I'm not going to post on Twitter and I think that was about the extent of it and I feel like that had the same kind of effects where oh I've never thought about Twitter and social media the same way since having done that and having done actual food fasts even if I'm not being great about food it has fundamentally changed the way that I think about food knowing that like oh I can go for 72 hours without food and it's fine like you're not going to die as long as you're drinking fluids a little bit of broth maybe you're fine like it's totally okay and I'm kind of wondering if this much bigger break from things that I think of as external inputs and the normal focuses of attention if doing kind of fast from them will also change the way I think about things but part of the reason why it's on my mind now and why I'm thinking of generally aiming you know through until the end of the year is I have a suspicion that this is this is a much bigger scale of a thing than stuff in the past so I feel like this the phase where we're talking about this right now I'm still being super speculative about it planning phase it's the planning phase too it is the planning phase my rough idea right now is to maybe start in September like with the beginning of September but when this episode goes up I'm still going to be in the comments and I'm going to be curious to see people's feedback and thoughts about this so I want to be clear that this is I'm going to do something but this is this is like a a tentative first talking out loud with someone about an actual plan of action I mean the most important thing is have you given a project name yet project cyclops cyclops yeah really yeah did you just make that up or no no I've been the name in my project system for at least six months wow having some notes on it so yeah that's not a joke really that's for real and now we have a show title
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Category:Hello Internet Episode
Category:Article
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