H.I. #131: Panda Park
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You well? I'm doing all right. I mean, it's a little strange because aside from going to the gym, I haven't left the house since we last spoke. And you've been to China since we last spoke. We haven't had a lot of contact lately. I feel I've lost touch a bit, even by our standards. Yeah, you have been a world traveler and I have been vastly more of a hermit.

than I normally am. I'm sporting like a real proper crazy person's scraggly beard at the moment. So it's like, yes, I've been very much like an indoor person. For work reasons? Have you been on some work project that's been keeping you in or? Yeah, mainly. I've just been sort of doubling down on a couple of projects that I want to finish. And then it's like, oh, my world narrows down to but this tiny slice of things. So yes,

I have no sense of time and in a weird way feel like, didn't we just talk? And then I have to remember you've been on the other side of the world and back. Well, I'm home now. ♪

How's the veganism going? Well, perhaps we should talk about my trip to China because that's where it was put to the test. Okay, if you think so. If China and veganism go hand in hand, let's do that. And again, like, I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, but I'm not going vegan. I'm trying to go vegetarian. You're going plant-based diet is what you're going.

No, that's veganism. No, but the Reddit told me plant-based diet isn't a code for veganism. It's just a new way to talk about this. Well, I think it is code for veganism. I think it's code for veganism too. But it's because veganism has a new meaning. Veganism also seems to come with a whole bunch of ideologies and political beliefs that people don't want to be associated with. So...

Like, I can see how people can say plant-based is different to veganism, but it's only different if you think veganism means all those other things. Oh, okay. So, your take on it is plant-based diet is veganism minus vegan politics? Yeah, and like vegan personality and, you know, like veganism, I think, got sort of taken over by a certain...

type of person in the zeitgeist. And not everyone wants to be associated with that kind of type of person, whatever that means. Before you started on China, I think this is a good moment for a lesson from grizzled veterans who have been around on the internet for a long time. And the danger of applying labels to yourself is like, whatever labels come along,

always get co-opted by the most extreme version of the people who have those labels. And then everybody else who feels like a normal person slowly exits and needs to find a new word. And then the whole process just starts over again, right? Which is like, this happens with everybody.

everything. And it's generally why like, don't put labels on yourself. Just, you know, do whatever you want to do because you're going to get burdened by the craziest people who use that label. And I can't think of any label that is going to morph more quickly than plant-based because plant-based already sounds like a certain type of naturey green thumb type personality.

Like that's gonna morph really quickly into like a stigma as well. Although I do have to say I was I was very appreciative of the reddit I felt like the conversation was was much more civil than I had expected Whenever you talk about diet like diet is a very touchy subject and I feel like the reddit was very calm and very civil and there were just Conversations about the topic so I was like well done everyone we managed to keep it calm You said a few things in the last episode that have been making me think actually. Yeah, because

To sum up what I think your position is, is you think that eating meat and animals is like a little bit immoral, but we do it, but you think we shouldn't do it.

And you are very much looking forward to the time when there is a meat substitute that is so much like meat, you can't tell the difference, but doesn't come from the killing of animals, right? Yeah, that's broadly correct. But in a way, isn't wanting like a true meat substitute that is so much like meat, you can't tell the difference, kind of defeating the purpose? Like, can you imagine if they created...

a resource or you could argue maybe they have created these resources in video games but they created a resource where you could go into a room and they had like a simulated human that you could kill because you just wanted to kill people so much but you knew it was bad to kill people so they created these murder rooms all around london where you could go and experience the thrill of murdering a person without actually murdering a person

That would kind of still seem immoral to me. Like you're still pandering to an impulse that is wrong. And if you think eating animals and meat is wrong, isn't having like a true meat substitute that simulates meat in all ways still pandering to that impulse?

a moral impulse. Because I was talking to my wife and she said, oh, they're going to have these, you know, these simulated meats that even have like blood and stuff like that. And you can't tell the difference. And I'm like, well, hang on a second. Like, aren't we still pandering to that base desire then that we think is so wrong about us? To amplify your point, the only reason I hesitated before about agreeing is that what I don't want is...

the simulacrum that is created right now of

meat where like we have constructed a thing that isn't meat but is able to fool your mouth and taste buds so that it feels like meat my target to make the morality of this more complicated is muscle grown in a vat like actual meat okay yeah which is almost like even worse like i'm trying to think about the murder room thing that you're saying like oh if there was a place where you could like experience the the thrill of murder right but nobody is harmed is that bad yeah

I think all questions of morality come down to a question of suffering. The moment you stray away from who or what is suffering, the questions of morality get much murkier. And I think they tend to come down to gut feelings of uncomfortableness.

that are not necessarily the same as a question of morality. So like, I think this came up when we talked about Westworld forever ago that, you know, if a murder simulation room exists, like it's an incredible VR experience. I don't think there's anything morally wrong with that. And there's a way in which if someone felt like I have this really intense need to kill people and I can satiate it through VR, like that's,

Surely that's better than actually killing people. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. But it doesn't change the fact that if you knew someone spent all of their free time in a VR murder room, you'd feel a little bit uncomfortable about that person. But now this is like an orthogonal angle from, is it immoral? That's kind of my thought about...

The burger is like, to bring it back, is like the clearer example of this. Yeah. I don't think that the impulse to eat meat is intrinsically immoral. I think that impulse just, it's a byproduct of the way humans eat. And so if you're able to satiate the desire for meat and you can't point to any animal that has suffered,

I don't think there's any problem there whatsoever. Like even in the growing meat in a vat scenario, I don't think morality enters the question as long as that muscle tissue is not able to experience pain while it's in the vat. Then it's, you know, it strikes me as a nothing. I had a vegan hot dog for dinner tonight. Yeah. Oh, it was brilliant. It was as good as the real thing.

Yeah, I mean, I've had some of those substitutes and they can be quite convincing. Yeah. And vegan cheese when it's melted is quite good too. It's not so good when it's not melted, but melted vegan cheese is fine as well. What is vegan cheese made out of? I don't know. I don't ask these questions. See, yeah, that is my one concern with the things like the Impossible Burger. Like, I'm very interested, but there's a part of me which has...

caution over this new sort of food group. Yeah. It did occur to me that like in a year we're going to realize we shouldn't have been eating this and it's like killing us all. Yeah. Like it's not that I think that is the case. It's more just a question of caution. Yeah. I think like the thing we discussed on the podcast before about vaping and we're talking about like how annoying vaping is. Every day vaping is getting in more trouble, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, the other day I was thinking about our own podcast when I like, believe it or not, got into an elevator where someone vaped

in the elevator. And it was like, it was all I could do to not murder the person. Right. It's just like, how rude are you? This is unbelievable. Yeah.

But I think the vaping one is actually an interesting case where like our own old man complaining about the actions of people who do it. The intent of it is, oh, this should be like a way to satiate your nicotine addiction without all the negative health problems of smoking. Like that was the reason it was invented. And it seems like it was successful. But now I keep seeing more and more headlines that raise the question of,

What are the actual long-term health side effects of something like vaping? And it's a bit unknown. So I feel like I have a little bit of that asterisk in my brain about things constructed to seem like they're meat that aren't actually meat.

All right. Well, anyway. So how is it going? It's going well, but for my few days in China, the no meat thing went out the window pretty quick. Okay. I mean, it didn't have to. I would be lying if I said I had no choice. I did have the choice, but just for partly for politeness and to experience. Like we went out to these things they love in China called hot pots.

where you sit around this boiling vat of oil in the middle of the table and you just throw stuff into it and it just boils in front of you, like in the oil and cooks, and then you take it out and dip it in stuff. And it was good fun. But like everyone was just chucking meat in there and putting it on your plate and like to have said, oh, I'm vegetarian would have been a problem. And then the meat was cooking in the same vat anyway. And I was just, ah, stuff it, you know, when in Rome.

I want to have the full experience. And I've decided I'm not going to be completely draconian about it. If I'm in a social situation where eating meat is a thing, I'm open to the idea of it. But I am trying hard not to. And since I've been back, I haven't touched meat. I'm doing pretty well. Yeah. Oh, that was a judgy sigh. No, no, no. It wasn't a judgy sigh. What I was thinking there is...

It's just the complications that food have in social situations. Yeah. It really throws a monkey wrench into all sorts of situations. And like you're describing right there, where even if it's very likely that the people that you're with wouldn't have cared a lot about you not eating meat, there's always this phenomenon of

You assume people notice and care much more than they actually do. Yeah. I have a personal example of this where over the past, I don't know, like two years, I've basically completely stopped social drinking, which is a thing that I used to do. Like I just get a glass of wine or something to just be polite.

And I've slowly, totally phased that out. And no one has ever commented or cared. Nobody notices. I don't think anybody pays any attention. Yeah, but you're totally the sort of person who you would expect to not drink alcohol, though. I mean, maybe that's the effect. But I do also think my estimation of...

like what you're talking about there, like, I'll just get a glass of wine to go with this meal. And, you know, it's fine. And it just, it's like, it makes things easier. It was an overestimate of how much do the people that I'm with notice or care. I agree. I totally agree. But I also just wanted to experience the experience. Right. Well, but what I was going to add though, the problem with socialness, and I'm curious about exactly the situation you're describing, but if it were to come up,

Then you would be forcing on the other members of that group the questions of, oh, we're all throwing meat into this oil. Like, is that okay? Right? And then suddenly you become the person that people have to be worried about fussiness with. Right? And like, that's the kind of social situation that you like, you want to avoid. You don't want to like impose upon others. Yeah. But so like you described that very casually, but I need more details. When you say,

We are all just throwing things in the vat of oil. Yeah. I do not have a good picture in my head of what this means. Let me send you a picture because I do. Okay. Funnily enough, I lost my phone this night, which was a very big part of this evening. Oh, God. But I got it back right at the end. Okay. So I was able to take a picture. Let me send you a picture of us.

Huh. Okay. See, there's that thing of oil in the middle with a dragon's head on it and all these chilies in it. And they keep bringing you out plates of raw food, including lots of veggies, but also lots of meats. And you throw the hot stuff into that pot, which is deeper than it looks and it's bubbling. And then after two or three minutes, it's taken out and put into your bowl in front of you.

Yeah, I'm glad you sent me this picture because in my head I was imagining something more like a barrel for crude oil that was just like bubbling with oil and you're like throwing things in. I just wasn't really thinking it through. Yeah. This is like your deep frying Mars bars in this oil is sort of what's going on here. Kind of, yeah. It's very communal. Yeah, that was a great night. Yeah, you had a good time with this? Yeah, yeah, I did. I enjoyed it. What happened was loads of us, because I was at this conference, loads of us got taken on these two buses to this hot pot restaurant.

And I was chatting to someone as I got off the bus. And when I got into the restaurant, I realized I didn't have my phone, which caused me like incredible anxiety, especially because I was like abroad. Right. And the buses had been driven away like 40 minutes away or something. So they said, well, call the bus driver. I called the bus driver and he checked the seat where I was sitting because I was in the front seat of the bus. And he said, can't find your phone. Can't find it anywhere. Okay.

But the bus driver said, I'll drive back to the restaurant 40 minutes so you can search the bus yourself. So for 40 minutes, I was really stressed. And then the bus arrived and I looked at the bus and straight away I went, oh, that wasn't my bus. I was on the other bus. So they called the wrong bus. So they phoned the other bus driver and he went and checked the seat straight away and said, oh, yeah, got your phone. So then I was completely relaxed. And that bus driver then drove into the city as well and brought my phone back for me. But it did mean I couldn't take pictures of the hot pot until the very end.

But also, I think like the anxiety about my phone, which was all consuming for like an hour to an hour and a half, was happening at the same time as this food situation. And I was just like, look, I'm just going to eat whatever's there. You know, this can't be an issue as well. I'm not going to be stressed about my phone and food and everything. I was just like, give me the meat. Yeah. I mean, well, that's the other thing. Something, I mean, this is what I find in life.

Something always has to give, right? You can't do everything to the maximum level that you always want to do. Like there's always got to be a compromise on something.

And stress can break the food, right? You're just, you can't deal with this at the same time. Or like you're in another country, you're with a group of people who you're trying to be friends. Like you can't maintain everything all at once. Life is nothing but these trade-offs. So I think that that's a totally valid pass on the veganism there. Oh, sorry. Vegetarianism. Sorry. Plant-based dietism. Nah, you're still getting it wrong, but I'm just going to let you go now. Vegetarianism. Vegetarianism. Yeah. Okay. Let me see if I can send you this video.

I want to show you what the hot pot looks like when it's boiling. I can't say it looks delicious. It was actually quite nice. But I can say it looks cool. Yeah, it was fun. It's also very China themed as in the oil itself is red and gold. It's not just the dragon on the edge of the plate. It's like everything looks very China here. Well, it's because that outer ring of oil has got lots of chilies in it and the inner ring hasn't got chilies in it. So it depends how hot you want your food. Yeah.

Ah, okay. That's why that works. So, anyway, I'll tell you one more China story because I think it will amuse you. Okay. So, the main reason I was there was to give a talk. It was like this high-level economics finance conference, which obviously I have no place at. But as part of the conference at the university, they do one like public talk. They have someone come and do a talk to university students and stuff that runs in parallel with

So I was sort of the speaker that was going to come and talk to students about something interesting, you know, economics, undergrad students. So I was talking about Numberphile and making videos and stuff. So this was a university event that you were invited to? Yes, it was a big economics university in a city called Chengdu. Mm-hmm.

So, I actually had to give my talk the day I arrived. I arrived at like five in the morning and I had to give my talk in the afternoon. But it was fine. I'd slept all the flight and I was there to give my talk. And I was taken to the building where I was doing my talk. So, I turned up at the building and there's this big sign out the front, like announcing my talk. And it was massive. It was like the size of a house with this big sign announcing that I was giving this talk. And like it was...

way more important than I realized. Is that the title of the talk as you gave it, or is that a translation of it? Like, I love numbers, Brady Haran. That's the title as I gave it, except I used a heart emoji because I was hoping they would use the heart emoji, but they turned it into love. I told them I wanted the emoji because I wanted a talk to have an emoji in the title, but that was obviously too much. It's a very professional sounding talk. I love numbers, Brady Haran. Exactly.

And if you look down at the bottom of that picture I sent you, if you can get enough size, they have like a little description of who I am. But it's just been copy and pasted from Wikipedia. And obviously, like whoever did it didn't know where sentences started and ended. And it just cuts off mid-sentence. The most notable being periodic videos and number file. Full stop. Brady's videos. The end.

So, anyway, I was like, oh, wow, this looks really lovely. And then I went inside and the theatre, like the auditorium where I was doing it, had this incredible screen that was like, it was incredible. In fact, I can show you a picture of that too. I thought, oh, is it going to be some poxy little PowerPoint projector and it's going to be a real struggle? And I turned up and it was incredible. I mean, I haven't been to China in a long time, but my understanding is...

Modern China does things big. I mean, look how big the sign is. They have to be putting you in a gigantic auditorium with a sign that big. Anyway, that's by the by. The thing that was interesting was before my talk, I was told a half an hour before the talk, someone wants to meet you. Like people are going to meet you who are like, you know, the teachers or the bosses or something. So I thought I'm giving a talk to the students. Obviously, a few of the lecturers are going to come down beforehand and do the niceties and shake my hand and say, thank you for coming on all that.

So, half an hour before the talk, I'm waiting around and this woman comes down and introduces herself and she says, oh, I'm the interpreter. And I'm like, oh, wow, an interpreter. Oh, fair enough. I guess, you know, some people don't speak English. It's fair enough. And then a couple of minutes later, this little entourage arrives and I'm like, what's going on here? And then I was taken into this like green room, this side room behind the lecture theatre. And there were these two sofas that had been set up.

And between the two sofas was like a little coffee table with nameplates, a nameplate that said Brady Haran and a nameplate that said someone's name in Chinese. Okay. And a little tea set and drinks and things. And then I sat down next to my nameplate and this other chap who was like the vice president of the university or something sat down next to the other one. And then all these video cameras and cameras came into the room and set up.

And started filming us really professional and all this little entourage and people were all around like behind the scenes watching. And then like this official discussion began where he was speaking in Chinese. We are greatly honored to have you here and stuff. And then it was all being interpreted for me. And it was just like one of those like world summits where like presidents meet for the cameras. Okay.

And like, I suddenly felt like I was on the international stage and everything I said had to be really important. And I was like, I'm just there in like jeans and a t-shirt. I'm so confused. You didn't know that this was going to happen? No, no. I was just like shepherded into this room and I started to have a look at this picture. You look a little taken aback in that photograph, Brady. I'm not going to lie. You look a little bit like a man who's been surprised. And I'm having to say, oh, it's a great honor to be here. And thank you. And like, this went on for half an hour.

I mean, in the end, we kind of like after about 10 or 15 minutes, because every time you speak, it feels like it has to be because it's going through an interpreter. Right. It feels like it has to be this really important thing you're saying. Like everything has to be this grand gesture.

And they'd read about me that I'd like been to, you know, the Himalayas and made videos at Mount Everest and stuff. So they were talking to me like I was this man who'd conquered Everest and international traveler and stuff like that. Not only is he a tremendous athlete, but he's also like a doctor of philosophy. Yes, I can imagine quite easily how this is going.

But I mean, by the end of it, like there was a bit of a rapport and it was a bit of a joke that we didn't speak each other's language and like we were laughing a bit and it was all fine. But for the first 10, 15 minutes...

It was like those moments, you know, where someone like a taxi driver turns up at the BBC and they make a mistake and they accidentally put him on air because they think he's an expert. It happened at the BBC a few years ago. This taxi driver got ushered into a studio and was introduced as a world expert on politics live on air. And he was like, well, I'm just the taxi driver. And he hardly spoke English. I felt like that. I felt like there was some mistake and they thought I was like,

you know, the prime minister of the UK or something. That's very strange. That's a strange experience. And it seems odd to me that you weren't prepped ahead of time. Like, I just, I sort of wonder, like, do you have any idea what that's going to be used for? Probably like, you know, the in-house corporate stuff and all that. But I mean,

I didn't mind. It was just like a surreal experience. What is the difficulty level of having a conversation through a translator? Because that seems to me impossible. Especially my sort of conversation where it's all about like, you know, telling a yarn and building up to a joke and stuff like that. Oh, I didn't think of that. Right. So you have to break it up into like three or four pieces and decide where to break the chapters off for the interpreter because you don't want to give them too much at once. Yeah. Yes. I didn't think of that. But yeah, I feel like

Your personableness perhaps is lost in translation. Well, in the end, it won through. We were joking and he was making jokes about the fact he couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak Chinese. And we were like, you know, there was a bit of a gag.

But it's almost like I'm thinking, when's this going to end? So every time you say something, you feel like this has to be the big ending statement. Right. It's so funny. When there's lots of cameras pointing at you and you're sitting in this scenario that you can see, you feel like you always have to lean over and shake the other person's hand in a photo moment. I always felt like every time I said a sentence, I should be shaking his hand for the cameras.

Your life is very strange, Brady. This was strange. This was strange. It's also strange from my perspective that I know that you go to the spiritual home of Numberphile, but you sent me a message and you're like, oh, by the way, I'm going to China. Like this thing has just happened. Okay. I guess Brady's going off to do that. And so after this international press conference, that was a surprise to you. Then what? Then they shuffle you out on stage and you give the talk to the university students? I gave the talk. Yeah, I gave the talk.

And the whole time I was there, they had given me these two students who obviously some of them were capable undergrad students who were just like at my beck and call for everything. So, like took me everywhere, everything I wanted and sorted everything out for me. They were like your personal butler, which was really cool. But I mean, I know it's a joke on the podcast about Brady not getting the respect he deserves. This was two or three days of me getting way more respect than I deserved. Yeah.

It was a bit claustrophobic. They were fantastic hosts. I'm not slagging it off, but it was way more respected than I deserved. And then there was this final banquet dinner on the last night, which was a room full of tables and there were Nobel laureates and all this sort of stuff there because after the conference, economics conference and stuff.

And I turned up for the dinner, again, just in my jeans and my t-shirt, like skulking around looking for a table at the back where I could sit. Because I'd made friends with some of the delegates the night before, like out for drinks. So I thought I'll sit with them and have a laugh because we got along. And someone saw me and said, oh, no, you have to go and sit at table one. And I had to sit at like the top table with all the like VIPs and everything. And, you know, the Nobel laureates and the president of the university who then came up with his interpreter and spoke to me and gave me this big thank you talk for coming and

I felt like a fraud, but it was bloody great. Are you in this moment daring to edge over into the YouTuber thing of, oh, I felt like an imposter. Like I had imposter syndrome. Is that what you're doing in this moment, Brady? I did have imposter syndrome. Like, and I'm not being overly humble here. It's just that, you know, if I was at a YouTube conference, I'd feel like, oh yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm a pretty successful YouTuber. It's, you know, but here I was surrounded by like economists and

It was just not my world. You know, it was just a different world. So anyway, they wanted me to come and do the talk. So the talk went well. It is a bit weird because YouTube is blocked in China. So it's not like I was like a celebrity who all the students have been watching for years and years. Although from talking to people like, you know, VPNs are...

Pretty common. Like I was talking to a few people saying, oh, you've probably never seen my videos. And all the students like just roll their eyes and say, you know, I know what a VPN is. So, and then you're giving a talk, talking about YouTube all the time, this website that, you know, they're not supposed to watch. How does that feel? Like, how do you handle that? It was fine. Like when I sort of was saying on social media, I'm in China, everyone's all like, oh, China, China. I'm like, yeah, you know.

China's got some issues that people don't agree with, but I wasn't hanging out with the Chinese government. I was hanging out with a bunch of cool people, students and economists and stuff. It was great. I tell you what, the Chengdu Panda Park, unbelievable.

Talk about charismatic megafauna. Yeah. My previous experience with pandas is something you just see at the back of an enclosure that's asleep and not moving. And they're always the biggest anticlimax in history. Not at the panda park. It was crazy. Okay. Why? It was pandas everywhere, eating and running around and fighting and playing. And you could get really close to them and baby pandas and pandas of all ages. Yeah.

It's fantastic. So your overall impression of China, well, actually is thumbs up. Like, have you been to China before? Or was this the first time? I have been a couple of times before. Always very fleeting visits. And this was a fleeting visit too.

But let me send you some pictures from the panda park. Where's my favorite panda video? Oh my God, I've never seen a panda move so much in my entire life. Oh, and I see you brought some hot stoppers to China as well. Yes. Were there some Chinese hot stop drops? Yes, those, my hosts were the recipients of some hot stoppers. Did you give them to the recipients or did you have to hide them somewhere in panda land and then let them know where they were? I just gave them. I wasn't going to go clandestine dropping things around the place in China.

Ah, okay. All right. When you're the only non-Chinese person within 100 miles. I like your panda hat there. Yeah. I had to get those panda ears as soon as everyone in the panda park was wearing those panda ears. And I was like, I'm getting some of them. Right. Well, you would have stood out without the panda ears. Yeah. If you didn't have panda ears, everyone would have laughed at you. So you have to get the panda ears. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't mean to go back to it, but I do find it very interesting, the idea that you are a professional YouTuber giving a talk that revolves around YouTube in a country where YouTube is blocked. It's just weird.

Even if the students are like, LOL, you know, it's trivial to circumvent and I've totally watched your whole back catalogue. I mean, I'm not going to weigh into the politics of China. There's a million things you could say about that, most of which I'm very ill-informed about. But the message that I was trying to get across to all these, you know, future economists and undergraduate students was...

communicate your work, share with the world your work. It's really interesting. I've been doing it using this online video platform for the last 10 years with some success. And maybe it's something you want to think about too.

You know, you've got your own video platforms you can use. Get the word out. Don't just sit in your ivory towers and do economics. Share with the world some of the amazing stuff you're doing. And, you know, question answers at the end. Some of them were saying, oh, I'd like to make online videos about economics. What would you suggest? How do I do this and that? So I think there are parallels to be drawn and lessons to be learned from the experiences. I'm interested in like the positive experience you have on this trip because...

I'm aware that in the last year, I feel like on the map that I have on my wall, where I have crossed off enormous swatches of the world and entire continents, I feel like I have felt my pen hovering over China. You mean as in places you're unwilling to go? Yeah, places I'm unwilling to go. And also being very aware that if I cross out China, the world of places I will travel to is now...

very small. Like China is the last big area left that I could possibly not have crossed off. So you've crossed off Australia and New Zealand and stuff? No, no. Australia and New Zealand are fine. They're still there. You've crossed off South America, haven't you? Yeah. All of South America. Look, basically it's, are you North America? Are you the European Union? Are you New Zealand, Australia? Are you Japan? And previously like China was still on that list, but I feel the marker is

coming down. And it's also just interesting because it has been relatively recent, probably about eight months ago, there was a thing that happened where there was a possibility of me going to China for a project and it just sort of didn't work out. And at the time, I didn't give it a second thought. Whereas now I'm very aware if the same situation had come up. I don't know what my response would be, but I could say that I would

Like, I'd hesitate. I don't know if I'm being too cautious there. I mean, one of the things I find most noticeable about China, and everyone says this before you go, and I always dismiss and say, surely, you know, it can't be like that. But it is amazing how un-far English takes you.

Really? I was given people who spoke English to look after me. But, like, I stayed at the best hotel in the city. And this hotel was impressive. This was probably one of the best hotels I've ever stayed in for luxury and niceness and opulence and stuff. It was really good. And the English there of all the staff was terrible. And when you go out and walk in the city...

I went for a couple of walks on my own just to have a, you know, get a feel for the place. There's nothing written in English anywhere, even in like, you know, a touristy part of town and no one speaks English in the shops. You know, I went into a Starbucks and...

couldn't order anything. I went into a KFC at one point and couldn't get anything done. Like English, they're like, they just couldn't give two hoots. And it also feels like that language barrier is quite high of the difficulty of communication between

Mandarin and English is going to be a lot higher than if you're in a German town and they don't speak English. It's like, yeah, but you could probably try to work your way around it or at least have some kind of communication. Yeah. Whereas that seems like you have a much bigger gulf between the two participants of the conversation. You are really at sea in terms of your language in China. But that's part of the interestingness of travel is being out of your depth. But it's interesting that you found that to actually be the case. I can't say that I'm surprised.

surprised by that piece of information. I was surprised in the hotel. I thought in a hotel, like to get a job there, you would have to be able to have some English. Same in Starbucks, you know, like wherever you are in the world, it feels like if you go into those big American multinationals, that's the one place you feel like you're going to be able to order a drink or, you know, get some food or something because, you know, they'll employ people who speak a bit of English. But in China, it was not the case. Hmm.

I mean, you know, I'm sure it's a different experience if you go to Shanghai and Beijing. I want to see more of China. I really liked it. I was very nervous going into the country because...

Because I'd come from America where I'd been filming and making podcasts and videos. Right. I was like laden down with electronic recording equipment. So, I thought, oh, am I going to go into the country and they're going to like see all these cameras and microphones and think I'm some undercover BBC journalist? Because, you know, you Google me and BBC comes up within five seconds. Right. And it's caused me problems in Russia, as I think we've discussed before. Yeah. But no, I mean, this is the second time I've gone into China with

a whole bunch of camera equipment and no, it's fine. Nothing. When I applied for my visa in London and I had to put who I'd worked for and included the BBC, that did like ring an alarm bell. And I had to sign a separate form to say that I wasn't going to be doing any journalism in China. But you know, I was happy to sign that because I wasn't doing any journalism in China. I also imagine, I don't think the

ooh, are you a journalist thing is particularly unique to China. I'm pretty sure America does the same thing. Yes. If you put down that you work for the BBC, I think they're going to want to know, are you a journalist coming here? And I think plenty of countries do that. That is true. It does. You're right. It does cause problems going into America as well. You're right. Yeah.

There is just an extra level of concern sometimes traveling if you're a sort of public person in the world. Say, for example, you're a former BBC journalist, or maybe you've made a video about Hong Kong. You might want to pause for a minute when you're thinking about these things.

You always worry about it more than you need to, though, I find. It's always blown up in your head. Yes. Like, everything's fine as long as everything's fine. Until it's not. Yeah. And then the downside of it, of not, is really bad. Right? Like, that's the concern. It's like, I'm very interested in going back to China because the one trip I did years and years ago was...

very interesting. And I barely saw Hong Kong in China, but it was a really memorable trip that I was lucky to be able to do. And it had been on my mind of like, oh, I would love to go back and see the tremendous change in China and see what it's like now because it's such a dominant player on the world stage. And it's at the center of everything. It's one of the few places that I can say I have an interest in traveling to. Yeah.

But it's also why I'm just aware of this hesitation of like, I'm not sure if this is a thing that will happen or not. And you're right. I may be wrong, but the risk reward calculation in my head is hard to account for. And you are a bit of a worrier. I'm not a bit of a worrier. I'm just thinking about it. You are. No, Brady, I don't think it's fair to say that if you've made a video about how Hong Kong is a country, you might want to pause for a moment before you think about your travel into China.

That's not like a, oh, wow, what an irrational worry. I think that's a reasonable thing to hesitate over. The other thing that really struck me while I was there was there were these trucks driving down the street that were blowing all this watery mist into the air, like behind them in this huge plume. And all over the city were these little poles, these like 20 foot high poles, like...

like reaching into the air, like all along the streets and through the gardens and that with just like a fine mist of water being blown out the top. And I couldn't figure out what they were. And I eventually, you know, asked a few questions and someone told me. And it's because there's so much construction happening in China and, you know, Chengdu that they're just putting water into the air all the time to damp down the dust in the air.

And I was in one of the buildings where everyone was getting on their bicycles after work and everyone who was getting on their bicycle had to spend a good minute or two

completely dusting down the bicycle because leaving a bicycle out in the open for eight hours resulted in it being absolutely caked in dust because of all the construction sites and the construction everywhere. Everything's dusty because there's so much building going on everywhere. That is also impressive and brachially terrifying. Yeah. But man, that doesn't sound like an environment you really want to be breathing in a bunch. I'm glad they're doing something to get all the dust out of the air, but oof. Yeah. Yeah.

It just sounds like such an interesting place. Like the very fact that this tremendous amount of construction is occurring there is like, it's such an indication of activity and interestingness. I'm glad you went. Okay. I want to poke you more about it at some point. But like, I've been looking at this picture of you on the stage, looking like a much happier Brady, giving his talk.

But now I'm wondering how many people in the audience do you think understood your English or was it being translated live? I don't think they had translations. I think most of it was understood. Like, you know, people laughed at the jokes. And also I was just worried culturally, like, you know, my jokes wouldn't work. But it felt all right. It felt like I was getting about...

80% of the mojo that I would have hoped for. That's pretty good. Hang on. There's a video of the truck with all the mist behind it. Wow. It looks like a cement truck blasting water up into the air. That's really interesting. Yeah, they were pretty cool. I wonder what the efficacy of that is. Yeah. I've got one of those little monitors...

in my office you know it's like this eve system which tells me the temperature and the like the air quality and other stuff yeah and it's just interesting to see that if i like i open the window to outside like it loses one little heart of air qualityness i would kind of love to know after a bunch of these trucks go by if i put one of these little things on the street like what kind of measurement would i get london air quality is terrible as well though that's why when i open the window my air quality measurement thing is like are you sure you want to do that maybe you should keep that window closed

All right. China. I don't know if I'm going.

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Do people think in the first person? Do people think in the third person? Man, people love talking about that on the Reddit. Yeah, they do. Do you have any impression from that before I say anything? Because like you've actually, you hit upon something. No, just my impression was God, people love this subject. Yeah. I was too overwhelmed to come up with any kind of consensus or anything. I was just amazed how responsive people were to it. Yeah. So...

There's something about the responsiveness that raises slight suspicions. It gives people an unfalsifiable way to talk about how they're interesting. And I think sometimes people like to take those sort of opportunities. So I was very aware of the really large volume of feedback as well. And it also led me down a couple of little rabbit holes. So one of the things that came up is,

I was asking again, I want some brain science about people in MRI machines, reading books or thinking about things. And it got completely derailed by a whole conversation about how people visualize things at all. And the number one piece of feedback directed at me was, oh, Gray, I've listened to the podcast and you must have anphantasia. And

anphantasia is a brain situation where you have no mental eye whatsoever. You're completely incapable of imagining things in your head. I got that feedback from a lot of people, and I kept looking at it and thinking, I don't understand how you could have listened to the podcast where we talk about describing how we see things and come to the conclusion that I'm incapable of

seeing things in my head. You keep saying that word. I don't know what you think it means. Yeah, or it's like our whole conversation was about first person or third person memories and describing how things look to us. And then people are like, oh, you must not have any mental eye whatsoever.

Which then causes me to have this kind of like, am I misunderstanding what this word means? But no, like I sort of went down the rabbit hole. There's a number of YouTube videos about this topic, anaphantasia, and how much people visualize something in their head. And so one of the questions about this is, if you're trying to imagine an apple on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being you see an apple in front of you, and 1 being you see nothing,

How clearly do you see the apple? And like, what answer would you give to that question, Brady? Well, 10.

I mean, I'm seeing other things at the same time. I'm seeing my microphone and stuff. Yeah, but if you imagine an apple on the table... Yeah, I can see it. It's red and it's got a white background. And yeah, I can see it. I'm visualizing an apple. You would rate that like 10 out of 10. It looks just like a real apple. Well, I guess I'll give it a nine because I have to leave room for a real apple, which is a different experience. Okay. But your description is it's very close. Yeah. So that's interesting because...

Like on that scale, I would probably rate it like a four. What's the problem? What's stopping it getting a higher score? What's stopping it getting a higher score is just, it's not super clear. Do you know what color it is? It's red. Is it a green apple or a red? It can be whatever I want. Like it's an object. I can rotate it in my head. Like I can imagine an apple. Yeah. But it's a very different experience from it being a real apple. I would describe it as like ghostly or...

lacking clarity in a way that's difficult to describe, but still visualized. Like it's there in my head. Well, I mean, when you start saying things like that, I say, yeah, well, mine's a bit like that too, but that's just how imagination works. Right. Like I'm just used to that. This immediately gets us into the question of like last time, how much is this a language problem versus how much is this

like bring a different kind of problem. Again, like it's just, I find it interesting that you would describe the situation as very close to seeming like a real apple. Whereas I would say it's visualization, but it's quite different. But there is some class of people who score that as like a zero on the scale, right? Where their answer is nothing. So if I said right now, imagine an apple, and then I said, what color is it?

They would say, well, I can't see it. So I don't know. Or like the descriptions that I was going down the rabbit hole of are, they're people who have always taken descriptions of imagination as like poetic, right? Or non-literal descriptions. I don't know. I just thought that was sort of interesting. But like with many of these things, I need more solid data.

Because the Wikipedia page for anphantasia basically says there was a guy in the 1880s who originally came across this term. And it seemed like it was a bit of a thing at the time, like a debate between scientists, the reality of imagination. And then fast forward until 2005, and nothing has happened since then. Some other dude does a study, and that's basically the end of it.

And it's like, you know, listeners, somebody out there is looking for a PhD thesis and this is your PhD thesis. Like put people in MRI machines, like let's get it. I swear there's gotta be a way to get an actual answer on some of this stuff. And the one I was thinking about with anphantasia is I remember when I was a kid, we had to take these standardized tests in New York. And one of the questions that you had to do was,

was they would show an object that was made of cubes, and then you had to pick from these multiple choice options about which of these other objects could be the object above rotated.

And so, you know, so it's like, okay, which one of these is the same? And it's like, oh, this seems like that's got to be a way to get at the actual question of anphantasia, right? That like, you should be able to see that some portion of the population is incapable of answering these questions better than chance. Like surely that gives some kind of indication that it's

an actual thing. Like I sort of take people's words for it, that it's a real thing. Cause I have no reason not to, but it still feels like this is very interesting, but why is there no rigorous science whatsoever? Or my question last time about, haven't we made people read books in MRI machines and then see if the, like which part of their brains light up? It's like, there was nothing really solid that there was like one person who like sort of did something related, but it wasn't really close enough. So yeah,

I still feel deeply unsatisfied by this. And it's interesting that people have such a strong reaction and they really want to talk about it. And that there's also just, there's nothing solid here. You know that thing you said a minute ago about it's a chance for people to talk about how interesting they are? Yeah. And like, that's a real human trait, isn't it? Yeah. Do you think the boom of podcasts...

Is playing into this. What do you mean? Because like having a podcast now is like crazy. It's like almost having a Twitter handle, it seems. Oh, you know, here's my Twitter. Here's my Facebook. And here's my podcast. And I appreciate the irony of us talking about this. We're both podcasters. But it seems like as podcasts are getting more mainstream and easy to make and popular. Like when blogs took off. I don't know. The blog thing is interesting because the blog world...

My take on it is, with a few exceptions, that's an ecosystem that has mostly collapsed. There are some blogs that survive that comet from space, which I guess was YouTube. I don't exactly know. It was like when Google Reader died, all the millions of things that existed in that ecosystem all went with it. I love that comet from space killed all the blogs. I love that.

But it is true. It used to be a real thing, and now it's like, oh, we've lost all of those. They're all gone. It's like having a VHS recorder now having a blog. Yeah. I could be wrong, but my gut feeling is that podcasts are... The geological age of podcasts will last longer than the age of blogs did. Yeah. Because I almost think that the golden age of blogs...

Was a side effect of the kinds of people who were on the internet in the beginning crossed with the still technical difficulties of the internet before its popularization. Yeah. And that.

Once you have everybody on the internet and you have network effects for content aggregators, you just have this very different system in which blogs kind of can't survive anymore. Just to back up and say all of these people are having podcasts and talking about stuff, I think the demand side of it is really high. And this is a way that blogs got kind of out-competed, is that

People like to listen to people talk. That's one reason why everyone in the world seems to be starting a podcast. And I don't think that the satiation point of the general public of podcast consumption is remotely there. Like I think the area has a huge place to grow because this is one of the things that I was concerned about in myself when I started Project Cyclops ages ago, which

But I do think lots of people's lives actually have a lot of space that podcasts can fit into. And people like listening to people.

People talk. That's part of what being human is. It's like, oh, let me have some company while I'm washing the dishes or cleaning the house or while I'm driving to work or whatever. What about the sustainability of it though, Gray? Like, for example, I don't follow many people on Twitter. Like, what do I follow? 180 people on Twitter. If only 40 of them had a podcast, it would already be absolutely impossible for me to listen to all their podcasts, right? So is it going to get to a point where if too many people have podcasts...

And it all gets so fragmented. That's great. You know, it's great for the listener, but will it get to a point where it's really hard to make a sustainable podcast and then you have to stop doing it? Like, I don't know. I haven't thought about this before. It's just coming into my head now. But like, it just seems if everyone's got one, that's great. Like I've got loads of friends and things and people I follow that I would love to have a podcast, but it does make me realize I would ditch loads of the other podcasts and

And if we all start ditching all our podcasts, like, will there be no room for sustainable ones? I don't know. This strikes me as a little bit like a conversation of, oh, there's so many channels on TV. How can they all exist? Right. It's like, I think the demand for entertainment is vast. Like it's a vast, almost unfillable ocean of content. It's not just that the demand is vast, but it's also the preferences of people, right?

And so I really do find it funny. You know, sometimes I'll log on to like, I'm looking for something to watch, like it's the evening time and like, I want to watch something. And being in this funny phenomenon of I have more at my fingertips than the whole of the human race has ever known.

And I can't find something that I actually want to watch. Right? It's like, it's also like the things that people like. So, you know, the YouTube channels or the documentary series that I watch or like the shows on Netflix or whatever. It's like, if you like them, they can never produce enough for you. So it really strikes me that like the human demand for entertainment and the entertainment market is a thing that I feel like I didn't understand before.

how almost limitless this market really is. That like the demand for entertainment is astounding. And there's a weird way in which I've kind of thought about this almost as a tremendous achievement of human civilization that like this much leisure time can even exist in the world is like baffling. It's absolutely baffling. So you're pretty comfortable about the state of the podcast's

Yeah, I don't think there's anything to worry about. I mean, as a general statement, I'm...

Always happy when technical barriers get reduced. Yeah. So that if someone wants to make a YouTube channel, it's easier now than it was years ago. And if somebody wants to make a podcast, it's easier now than it was years ago. You wouldn't think so, listening to the start of every phone conversation we have trying to set up this thing. Yes, that is true. Somehow, we're still always not quite able to get things right. So, like, I think that's good. And I just wonder...

I feel like you had some other point that I don't quite understand about concern about people being easily able to talk into a microphone. I felt like there was something else there where, do you not think it's good that people can casually discuss a thing and put it up on the internet? Or is there something else that you're concerned about there? I guess I feel like there's no...

Quality control. Yeah, but that's the internet. There's never really been any quality control. Yeah. I think like this is the burden that then gets placed on an individual person's life is like you the person.

have to be the one who decides like what comes into your life and and what doesn't come into your life it's just like everyone you meet now here's like i said before here's my twitter here's my facebook like that's an easy thing to follow someone on twitter and that but everyone having a podcast that's like a massive commitment that's like you know half an hour an hour it's now a big footprint that everyone's putting out there yeah but it's not like a tv show where you have to sit down and give it your full attention yeah you know brady

I'm sure every minute of what we're saying here is incredibly gripping, but I'm willing to bet that a huge portion, 95% plus of the audience right now is not sitting down and only listening to us talk.

There's no way that more than 5% of the audience is doing that. Except you, Tim. No, no, not even Tim, right? Because like, honestly, 5% is just my margin of error, but I feel incredibly confident that that's already a ridiculous overestimate. How many people would what, like, like sit down and put it on and just sit still, close

close their eyes and like listen to the show? I feel like I do pay good attention to my podcasts. Now, paying good attention is a different question from, but are you also doing something else? When you're paying good attention, presumably, I mean, do you ever just sit down and you're one, aside when you're editing one, are you 100% paying attention to a podcast when you're listening to one? Very often I will set aside time just to lie on the sofa and listen to one. And I also listen to them in bed. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

I have one further question then. Are those like edited shows or are those conversational podcasts, like the thing that we're doing? They're conversational ones. They're often about things like politics or sport and stuff like that, but they're usually...

people talking conversationally. So you're really just sitting there and you're listening to the thing and nothing else is happening. It's like something I look forward to all day. Like, oh, I can't wait to have an hour of just listening to a podcast and nothing else. Okay. That is amazing to me. And that also explains where your concern is coming from because yes, if you have to sit down and just listen to a show,

then yeah, you're going to run out of time in your day really fast when all your friends have podcasts that they want you to listen to. Well, because there's no other time I can listen to podcasts except exercising, like all other time, you know, because most of my time I'm editing videos or filming videos. Right. So like, you know, my ears are otherwise engaged. Yeah. I just think my experience, of course, is the reverse. I don't think I've

ever listened to a podcast while not also engaged in some other activity. What other activity can you do while listening to a podcast?

You know, running errands, tidying the house, just plant like a really enjoyable leisure time is to listen to a podcast and play a video game at the same time. That is a like high enjoyability of leisure time kind of thing. Okay. So like that's the closest I'll come to giving a podcast 100% of my attention. You never sound more American than when you say leisure. Leisure. My leisure time. Leisure time. Yeah.

Yeah, but that is the closest I can think of to paying 100% attention. Otherwise, I almost always combine it with some activity that just doesn't require me to listen. I'm cleaning up files on my computer or I'm going through something else. I cannot imagine just sitting down on the couch and listening, but that's why you're worried about the world running out of time because there's too many podcasts is because you're sitting on the couch nice and comfy listening to a show with your full attention.

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Have you watched any of the Apple TV shows that have just come out? No, it's completely passed me by. I know Jennifer Aniston's been in the news. Oh, and Reese Witherspoon. Have they got some show? But yeah, that's all I know. Apple's gotten into the Netflix game of making their own TV shows. And it's just come out this month. But here's the thing. I don't have any questions for you about the actual shows. Here's the meta thing. Apple seems to have decided that...

We're going to go back in time to like 1999, and they're releasing their shows on a weekly basis. Right. So instead of, like Netflix does, hey, here's a new season of the show you've been waiting for, and you can watch the whole thing at whatever pace you think is appropriate. Yeah. You have to watch it on a weekly basis. You have to wait for the next episode to come out. What are they doing? Is this because Tim Cook's in charge? Yeah.

What makes you say that? He's so old-fashioned seeming to me. Because he's the guy that always wants like naff old-fashioned bands at Apple launches and stuff. That are like 10 years ago that were cool. Right, right. He just seems a bit behind the times for someone who leads the company he leads. Right. And it seems like something he would have insisted on. All right. The kids are going to love this live YouTube concert at the end of our WWDC. Yeah, exactly. Let's get Fleetwood Mac. Yeah.

I didn't think about it. But when I first heard the plan and I knew that this was coming down the line, I thought, oh, that's kind of interesting. You know, I haven't had to watch a show that way. Maybe this will be...

A different new experience in the digital age. And now, two weeks into this experiment, I'm like, no, no, no. There's a reason that we moved away from this model. Because it sucks. I don't want to have 10 shows running in parallel and you just have to watch them when the episodes come out and keep all the stories storylines.

straight in your head. That's what sucks about it. It's not that just we're the impatient generation and we need it now because we're greedy. It's having to hold so many, oh, you know, where was this at again? Oh, that's right. That's right. She was pregnant. Oh no, no, no, no. She was with that. Oh, I can't remember now. Oh, is he still alive? I thought that, you know, and they've got this going with all these different shows. We can't do that anymore. Yeah. I completely agree. I'm

There's a slightly cynical side of me, which is I think Apple might be doing it for a couple of reasons. One of which is they don't have very many TV shows on their system. So they're trying to like spread it out, right? Make it look like, oh, we've got a lot going on, right? Just, you know, stretch it out. But the other thing I realized about why I absolutely cannot abide by this policy of shows coming out on a weekly basis is

is because I think it also allows mediocre shows to trick you into watching them longer because of this gap, right? Where if you're just binging through a show, it becomes very clear like, oh, I don't actually care, right? Like I'm on episode three and I'm just like, I'm not interested anymore and I don't care. And I think there's something about like spreading things out weekly, like that just...

allows a mediocre show to sort of hold you more because you like forget the details and then every episode sort of restarts up the whole story. So yeah, anyway, this is like my paper cut of I'm furious with this. I don't want to go back to a world where shows are coming out spread out over time. It's like,

Full seasons or nothing, that's what I want out of the world. Are any of the shows any good? They're okay. They're okay. I haven't watched the one that you would probably like the most, which is about space. So I can't give you that one. But they're fine. You know, not amazing. They're not terrible. They're fine. But that's also why I'm aware that the weakliness of them is holding me longer than I think it would have otherwise if I was just...

binging through them. So, yeah. I am getting a bit frustrated by the number of streaming services that I feel like I'm going to have to sign up to just for like one show or something like this, you know? Like, I think this new Star Wars Mandalorian one looks like it'd be pretty good. Am I going to have to buy the Disney one for that? You know? You are going to have to buy the Disney one for that. Yeah. And I know that we have been talking about

The Star Wars movie that's coming out oh so soon. That will be the end of all of this. Yeah. But even I saw the trailer for The Mandalorian. I was like, oh, God damn it, Disney. Like, you're going to get me, right? Like, you're going to get me.

Looks pretty cool. Yeah. There's always one. There's always one show that makes you have to get, you know, like a Game of Thrones or something that makes you have got to get this one service. No more weekly shows. I only want season dumps. I've got two Twitter paper cuts for you. Oh, yeah? And that is when someone does a tweet that goes viral, for whatever reason, it becomes one of those shared things like, you know, figure out what your Star Wars name is or something like that. Right. And everyone plays the game and the tweet goes viral. Yeah.

The person who does the original tweet then replies to their own tweet promoting themselves and what they do. And it's usually completely unrelated to the original tweet. And it just feels icky and ugly that people do it.

So it's like, say I did a tweet where I said, made some joke about politics. Right. And it went viral and it got like 50,000 retweets. Okay. I would then go and reply and say, hey, everyone, while you're all looking at this, did you know that I make Numberphile videos? If you're interested in mathematics and want to learn more about numbers, go to youtube.com slash Numberphile and check out what I'm doing there. Gross. Yeah.

It's gross, isn't it? I also just wonder, can that possibly be effective? Surely not. It's a bad look. Does your reply show up at the top of a Twitter thread? Or can you turn it into an official Twitter thread and then this looks like it's part two of... I don't know. Because I was playing one of these games on Twitter today. It was like, you know...

some jokey thing about movies. It was a fun thing that someone came up with. So I did it. And I wanted to look at what everyone else's reply was. And then the person who'd done the original tweet, like the top thing underneath it was, oh, by the way, everyone, I've got like some gaming YouTube channel, you know, something completely unrelated to. And I'm like, man, have a bit of class. Did you immediately check it out? No, of course not. But it made me think it's just not a good look. It's not for Twitter. But one of the things that is my version of this, where I always feel like

come on guy, just be classy is on Reddit. If someone makes like a really good joke, you can sort of tip them with Reddit gold, which gives them some extra features on the site. Yeah. And I don't know why everybody then feels the need to go back to their Reddit comment and be like, Oh, Hey, thanks for all the Reddit gold, everybody. I really appreciate it. And it's, it's always like, dude, it totally ruins your joke. Whatever the funny comment that you've just made, uh,

is completely destroyed by you going back and saying-

Oh, I'm so glad that everybody enjoyed the thing that I said. You've lost that cool moment where you just walked into the room and owned the room and then dropped the mic and walked out. Exactly. Now you're like this goofy, oh, I'm famous. That is also part of it. It's like Reddit is so pseudonymous. It's like, hey, guy, I don't want to break your heart here, but this is a thousand anonymous voices talking in a room. And-

Yours is the top comment on this thread, but nobody knows or cares who you are, right? This is about the discussion that's happening. Yeah. You don't need to make an acceptance speech. It's not the opposite. This isn't about your moment for being the top comment, right? Or...

The slightly better version is like someone will say a thing and then they'll get a lot of replies and they'll write back. They'll be like, wow, RIP my inbox. And it's like, ugh. Yeah, I totally didn't expect this to go viral. Yeah, it's like, please, Redditors, please. If someone gives you Reddit gold or acknowledges the joke, just let the joke go.

I don't know what you're trying to accomplish by going back and thanking everybody who liked your joke. It's such an awful, cringy move. Can you imagine if a stand-up comedian, every time they got a laugh, said, you liked that one, did you?

That's a bit like what it's like. But it's even worse. It's like if you're in a room and the lights are turned off and everybody's just yelling out jokes and someone is able to get a joke that really lands and then going like, oh, thanks everyone for laughing. We don't know who you are. This isn't even about you. It's the thing. It's so...

It's one of my least favorite little internet cultures things. And I get it. I understand the temptation for the individual person. Yeah, of course. But this is why it's like Uncle Grey is trying to give you some advice here. That the cool move is like, don't go back.

And edit your Reddit comment, you know, just like, just let it stand, man. It's so much better. Presumably, like, you can DM the person who gave you gold to thank them, because it is good manners, I guess. Someone has given you something of actual value, so. Yeah, you can totally do that. You get a message saying like, oh, person X gave you Reddit gold. And you could message them on the sly and be like, hey, thanks, man. I appreciate it. Thumbs up, right? Yeah, that's cool, yeah.

And then you can have like a little interaction with an actual person instead of yelling into the crowd your gratitude. I love your goofy voice. That's almost as good as nerd voice. I like how it's just slightly breaking. Like it's obviously someone who's like a teenager. Yeah.

everyone i can't help read some comments like that that way in my head like that that is the sub vocalized voice in my head at some of those sorts of things and it's part of why i just go like oh it is a funny funny world we're living in where people are taking advice on how to be cool from graham brady

Do you know what we haven't done for a long time? What have we not done for a long time? Playing Crash Corner. And I've got a good one. Look at me. I was literally loading up a thing about bees and Brady cut me off with playing Crash Corner. Okay, go. We'll do playing Crash Corner and then we'll do the buzz.

Okay, what plane crash corner do you have, Brady? Because this plays into something that will surely piss you off. This is a very special plane crash. Okay. This happened in America? Texas? I'll put the link there. Basically, this was a gender reveal moment, which has become a new thing. Are you familiar with gender reveal parties and gender reveal moments? I don't know what you mean by this. Where people reveal the gender of their baby in some spectacular way. Oh, okay.

So this particular one was happened in Texas and someone wanted to reveal the gender of their baby, presumably to some kind of audience. And they hired a plane to fly over. And as it flew over, it would release a spray color of water to reveal the gender. In this case, it was to be a big pink plume of water coming out the back of the plane. So everyone on the ground would be like, oh, it's a girl. I don't know. I find this a bit of a naff practice in general. Yeah.

But the irony was here, the plane slowed down to do the reveal and it slowed down too much and crashed.

And I can joke about it because no one died. Okay, right. That's always the part that I'm waiting for, right? That's always like, does anybody die? No one died, which is why I can do it in a semi-humorous manner. But rather than talking about the crash, because I think it's a bit of a boring crash probably, I just wanted to know what you felt about gender reveal parties. It felt like something you probably would have been to by now. No, I've somehow avoided this. There's been babies in my world, but I think actually...

I'm just trying to think. The people I know who've had babies, I think it's either 100% or a near 100% have known the gender of the baby ahead of time. I don't think I know anyone who's decided to be surprised. That's what's happening with the gender reveal. The baby hasn't been born yet. This is the way that you tell your friends what you're going to have. I don't think you have the baby yet.

like in the hospital. And then you order the pink water, right? There's like barrels standing by and you're going, which one is- I think this is like, you know, we're having a baby in a couple of months, but today's the day we're going to let you all know what we're having. So you know what presents to buy us. Oh God, I'm having such a hard time understanding this whole concept, right? So again, I'm assuming this is like

This is the baby announcement, but you're saying this is a whole separate attention-seeking event that parents can have about the fact that they're having a baby. This is a separate one. Okay. So it'd be, yeah, it'd be like, I'm having a baby in a couple of months. Let's all meet in the park on Thursday and-

Look at the chimney on my house. And if pink smoke comes out, it means we're having a girl. And if blue smoke comes out, we're having a boy. There's actually quite, if you Google it, there's quite a long history now of people having disasters when they do this. I'm just reading this article here. In Iowa in October, a 56-year-old grandmother was killed when a device meant to shoot out coloured powder exploded instead.

In Arizona in 2017, a man fired a rifle at a target that exploded, releasing blue powder to reveal a boy. It also started a wildfire that burned 73 square miles of Forest Service land, and the man was ordered to pay nearly $8 million in restitution. Oh, Jesus. Okay. It's an expensive baby. These baby reveals are perilous. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. Careful what you say, Gray. You may be invited to one next week. Yeah, no, I know. I know. Like, this is the danger of having a podcast, right? Where you're just talking into a microphone and then you say something and then people hold it against you for forever. Tomorrow, one of your good friends calls you and says, oh, we had a $50,000 gender reveal party. This has totally passed me by. So this is the first time I've come across this. Yeah. And it seems... And look, I sneaked into a plane crash corner. You did. Yeah. It seems like...

Unnecessary attention seeking, maybe, is the way I would carefully put it. Especially the bigger of an event that you want to have, like hiring a plane to dump 350 gallons of pink water on people. That seems like maybe it's much more about you than it is about your baby. It's not exactly like your wife getting a text message and turning to you and saying, oh...

Sandy and Bill are having a girl. Yes, I was going to say, that is how the gender of babies has been revealed to me 100% of the time, secondhand through text message. And then a few months later, you're shown a black and white grainy picture where you have to pretend that you can acknowledge there's a penis there that clearly you can't see.

Again, I'm trying to back up and think about this from a society-wide perspective. Because nobody in person is going to tell you your gender reveal party for your baby is ridiculous. That's not going to happen. Because we as a society, we all agree that no matter what anybody says about their baby, there's nothing but positivity that can come out as a response. Right? Where it's like...

It doesn't matter what it is. You'd be like, great. There's going to be this party where we're going to tell you if it's a boy or a girl. And if someone was having a baby and they told me about it, I'd be like, wow, that sounds amazing. We as a society have like,

fixed all of the responses to be 100% positive. There's no room for this. I have to admit, if I was at the party too, I think I may get a little bit excited by it. That's because you like surprises, Brady. That's because you like fun and parties and all the rest of it. But yeah, so it just feels like this is a thing that can escalate forever. Yeah.

Because there's never any negative feedback. And also it will get to a point where there's a pressure. Oh my goodness, you're not having a gender reveal party. You're not a good parent. Yes, that's true. That's true. Yeah.

You don't love your baby. If there's one thing parents like to do, it's shame other parents. That's true. Yeah, 100%. I have to say, though, like, as silly as it is, I think one of my favorite traditions in all of culture is the way that they reveal they've elected a pope with black or white smoke at the Vatican. Like, I love that. I think that's one of my fascinations. What do you love about it? It just tickles my brain. Like, I just think it's cool.

And I remember around the time they elected one of the popes was also around the time there was an election in the UK. And the Sun newspaper right before an election would have a tradition of like revealing which party they were going to support, like throw their support behind in the election. And this year they did it.

They had like a board meeting where they decided which party they were going to support. And then they put smoke at the top of a chimney at their like newspaper office. And it was like red smoke or blue smoke, depending on which party they decided to support. And I thought that was quite clever of them. Like, is it going to be Labour or the Conservatives? Oh, it's the blue smoke. It's the Conservatives.

I feel like you must have done a periodic videos at some point about how to make the black or white smoke. Okay. You did do that. Okay. You have done that? We use the exact recipe that I use at the Vatican. Okay. I've got, I have to watch that one because I remember when I made my video about how the Pope is elected. Yeah. This is like one of the pieces of information in it. And I remember having to decide to, you know, like sometimes when you're making something, you come across these moments where,

Every single article would use a phrase like, they burn the votes clean. And it's like, oh, and that gets you white smoke. Or they don't burn them clean and you get black smoke, something like that. And this is always one of these things where if you're researching a topic, you sometimes come across these phrases that you realize are like, it's not really an explanation. And everybody uses the exact same phrasing. And it always starts to throw up my radar of like, what does this mean? Or like, what's behind this?

But I remember whenever I was making that video, I thought, I don't have time to investigate this, right? Like, I'm just going to use the exact same phrase everybody else is using. And I can't get on a tangent here about what exactly does this mean. So I will have to investigate your video to find out the answer to that because it's been on my mind ever since. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Ting.

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Thanks to Ting for helping people save on their mobile phone bills and for supporting Hello Internet. Hi.Ting.com. Talk to me about bees. What's the buzz? So you have a plane crash corner that's not about plane crashes. And I have a buzz that's not about bees. So this is perfect.

So there was a thing making the rounds on Reddit, which everybody in the world sent me, which is a link to the Bees Act of 1980 in the UK. This is one of these, these like,

fun facts that goes around. I can't believe no one has sent it to me to show you. I think that shows how effective I've been with muting every single person who has ever said, can you show this to Gray? Because if you've ever sent me a tweet saying, you need to show this to Gray, you have been muted by me. And I think maybe I've done that so effectively that now repeat offenders aren't getting through. So this is a thing that popped up on Reddit as one of these fun facts. And so...

The fact as described is that like authorities in the UK are allowed to enter any home or any vehicle if there is suspicion of foreign bees in the domicile. All right. And so, of course, this catches my attention. I think, oh, this is interesting. But as so often these things are.

Looking into it, very quickly it reveals, oh, this isn't remotely what people think it is. Yes, if you just read this one part of the Bees Act of 1980, then it sounds like

Any authorized person is allowed to enter anywhere if they think that there are foreign bees. But the real question is, what does it mean to become authorized? Which then is a much less interesting question. And it's like, oh, yes, there's this whole process. But it's not like a police officer can walk by your house and he goes, I think I heard some buzzing in there. But it doesn't sound like domestic bees. Right.

Yeah. I don't need a warrant. And they can just knock on your door and come in and be like, do you have any foreign bees in here? And they're like, oh, no, no. And in the background, you hear like, le buzz, le buzz, right? And it's like, okay, you're in trouble. Yeah. So this is like one of these things on the internet where it's like, oh, people now get a fact in their head and it will just exist for forever. And it doesn't seem to be the case. But this isn't about the bees. What this actually is about is like...

I have tremendous, tremendous frustration at legal language. And I don't understand why legal language is written in the way that it is. And I'm particularly bothered about this because...

Just the other day, I was trying to make my way through the founding document for the state of Rhode Island. So it's like the charter from the King of England saying Rhode Island exists. Now, granted, that is a couple hundred years old at this point. So there's a time difference. But it's like, I am reading this thing with 100% of my attention and find it almost completely inscrutable to be like, what do you mean? Is this allowed or is this not allowed? Yeah.

And then like you read this B thing and I feel like it's also a good example of why is legal language written this way? So, for example, it says, for the purposes of exercising any power conferred on him by or under section one of this act.

An authorized person may at any time enter any premise or other place or any vessel, boat, hovercraft, aircraft, or vehicle of any other description on or in which he has reasonable grounds for supposing there are or have been any bees or other things subject to control under an order under that section. This is just one sentence from this long law about bees. Yeah.

Why is it written in this way? It's like almost every group of three words I can find a problem with. And it's like it takes so much effort to try to understand a sentence like this. So, like, lawyers, can somebody tell me why on earth do you have to write it in the way where you say any premises or other place? It's all ass covering, isn't it? It's like...

I assume they're probably thinking like you, like they're worriers. Oh, how could someone try and get around this? They could argue that it's not a premises. So maybe we should plot or other place to get around the person who says this isn't a premises. And like, that's how I always read this legal stuff. It's so that although it creates lots of ambiguity in your mind, isn't it to remove any possible ambiguity in a courtroom? Yeah.

I can sort of understand that's the idea. They're trying to cover everything. Yeah. But surely a sentence like an authorized individual can go anywhere.

in which he has reasonable grounds for supposing there have been or are bees. Like, surely just replacing all of this with something like anywhere is more butt covering than to try to name a bunch of stuff. Or like, I find it, this sort of thing is so baffling where it's like, any vessel, boat, and then hovercraft, aircraft. Yeah. Like, and just to be clear for the listeners, it's not hovercraft, comma, aircraft. Yeah.

It's hovercraft aircraft or vehicle of any other description. It just totally melts my brain. And yeah,

There are so many things with legalese and it, like it comes up in contracts and it comes up in all of these other places. And it is just like genuinely brain melting to try to like read these things that for all intents and purposes are basically written in like another language or like you have to spend so much mental effort to,

to try to like decode it and to have it make sense in your head. Another part of this B law, like just another sentence,

And it's like...

There's got to be a simpler way to say that sentence. Like why? It's so wordy. Like it's so hard to understand. And I was looking up some stuff related to like legalese just out of sheer annoyance. And there's like a Wikipedia article on legalese that mentions things that like, it just didn't even occur to me. But like things that happen in legalese is, this one's my personal annoyance here is,

The combining of many words that mean the same thing. Phrases like null and void, fit and proper, care and attention, terms and conditions, controversy or claim, cease and desist. Why? Why do you have to say cease and desist? Like these two words mean the same thing. Do you buy into the sort of cliched argument that things like legal documents and accountancy and that is made deliberately...

complicated so that normal people can't do it, and it sort of keeps self-sustaining for the professions? I don't know how much to buy into an argument like that, right? This depends on how much do you want to catch me as being cynical. And so I don't think it's an intentional thing. So I've worked with lawyers when you have to get contracts written up, and one of the services that a lawyer can provide is...

hey, here's some edge cases that you might not have thought about. You know, you working in this business or like you have a contract with this other person. Here's some things that like happen sometimes that we just want to like set up ahead of time what should happen. But I'm always kind of astounded by how what strikes me as like the normal conversation is

is then turned into a document that I cannot understand. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And it's like, I can never quite understand, like, how do we go from normal conversation to document that? I guess I just like take your word for it that this document says what we said in the conversation. Yeah. You know, like, I don't feel like I'm like a really dumb person here, but like, I cannot read these things in the way that it's written. Yeah.

I don't think it's on purpose to keep the jobs around. I don't know. It's just like, I'm expressing this frustration with the way documents are written. And I don't understand why

Why does it have to be this way? Why can't it be simpler? And just like this bizarre situation we are in the world where they're like these arcane priests who create these legal documents that like, let's be real. No normal person can read and understand. And unlike many other technical language, which I think is necessary. So like I was thinking in comparison, like you have got physics and engineering and there's plenty of technical language and physics and engineering that are

When you're writing about something in physics, it's not scrutable to the outside person. Like in a way, it doesn't matter because it's communication between professionals.

But like contracts and the law, I feel like need to be held to a different standard. Yeah. When you're doing some work and someone says, I'll send you a contract, make sure you read it before you sign it. I feel like laughing in their face. Like what good is reading the contract going to do me? Yeah. Like I could spend a week reading it and I won't understand it. Yeah. There's an example that I like to use from physics, which is if you're a lay person reading something that's written about physics,

You can come across a paragraph that you think you understand because it uses words like energy, work, and force. And you have an idea in your head of what those words mean. But it doesn't even cross your mind to realize that those words have different meanings in this context. And so like, even if we start from the place of, oh, I can understand all the words in this document, it doesn't mean that I know them as they're being used as like

in the technical sense. I think these things are literally non-understandable. And these are laws that are just supposed to affect people in the world. It's such a weird situation. And I don't think that makes lawyers smart that they can do that. I think it makes them dumb. What do you mean? If they were so smart, they would write documents that we could all understand. Do you fall on the cynical side then? Do you think this is to keep a job? Or you use the word crutch there.

What do you think causes this? I think a lot of it is tradition and like an inertia to change and make things better. And it's just veered off on the wrong course. And it's just going further and further off course. And it doesn't get changed because of the old fashionedness of the industry. So you think it's like a historical way of writing that's just very hard to budge. And it's become so isolated, like it's on an island, that it's becoming more and more

Non-understandable. It's like a regional accent that's been cut off from the rest of the world for so long that a thousand years later, it's become a whole new language. And it's like, what the hell happened? Except it's among us.

And I think anyone new who comes into it, like young lawyers, if they ever went to their legal professor at Harvard and said, Professor, this is ridiculous that we're writing like this. They would be told from on high, no, this is the way it's done and always has been. And you will continue the great tradition. Yeah. And it's a bit Emperor's New Clothes. And no one ever says, you realize you guys are a bunch of wankers and we can't understand a word you're saying. Yeah.

That's an interesting point. Like one of the things that backs this up, which I never even noticed until I came across something pointing it out, is that legal documents are often intentionally written without punctuation. So like this is apparently considered good style in legal documents to use as little punctuation as you possibly can. And it's like,

I'm sorry, what? This is the idea that like, oh, the punctuation gets in the way of the words, that all of the meaning should be contained within the words, and that you shouldn't use punctuation, and that this is the tradition of legal writing. It's like, oh, okay. That B act that you sent through is the latest version. If you click on original as enacted, the older version, there is a comma between hovercraft and aircraft.

Oh, wow. Just so you know. So anyway, this is me just complaining about this thing, but it's been bothering me because there's areas of life where I think understandability is a really important thing.

Another example of this is, I've talked about voting systems a lot, and everybody has their own pet voting systems. But I think the ability to explain a voting system- Gray, not everybody has their own pet voting system, by the way. Just so you know. Okay, you know what? You're probably right about that. But like, okay, so people I argue with about voting systems, I am often on the side of

arguing against voting systems that are like a 2% improvement, depending on what characteristics you're trying to optimize for, but that I view are 90% less explainable to a person, right? Where it's like,

There's this thing about voting on projects and you're like, oh, everybody gets a certain number of votes that they can spend. And what we're going to do is we're going to take the square root of everybody's votes that they want to spend and then square the result and compare it. It's like, guys, guys, I understand what you're going for here. And this may be a theoretically very optimal system. But this is totally going to fail when you try to explain to other people how they're supposed to spend their 100 voting tokens.

It's not going to happen. I'm sorry. I get what you're going for. But the ability to like explain how a system works is really important. And it's why I think like, oh, approval voting is a system that is pretty good because it like it gets you a lot of the advantages. And it's also relatively quick and easy to explain.

And it's important that people can understand how the voting works. And it's like, it's just been really getting under my skin about laws and contracts and terms of service that like, I think these are all the same thing where it really matters that people can understand what these things mean. And there's like, you know, this lie of society that we all pretend that people are

can possibly understand the laws as passed or can possibly understand how the contracts are written or can even attempt to read terms of service that they're agreeing to. And then a company gets to say like, oh yeah, no, you agreed to that. And it's like, it's very unfair. Yeah. I think it's really wrong. You know, it's like a tool of obfuscation that, um,

shouldn't be used that if like other important things in public life were this difficult to understand people would be angry about it and like revolt against it but this this sort of stuff is just like accepted as it is and we all we all just go along with it and

And I'm furious about it. If you had to understand the terms and conditions of Netflix before you could give them the money, everything would change, wouldn't it? It's bloody easy to give them your subscription money. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Yeah. That's a good point. Like if people had to take a test that proved they actually understood what they agreed to. Yeah. It's just very frustrating. And so, yeah, this has been my like...

bugbear for a while and now here it is on internet like hello internet me just complaining about this stuff all right well job done job done