Diversity as a Strength

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It's a term that I made up because it reframes everything about Ebstein. So you know, like when you hear people talk about Ebstein, everyone just is on the kind of almost like it's the human interest stuff. How big of the island? Where was the island? Who was on it? Oh, was Trump there? Was that? And it's all the stuff that we kind of like as human beings want to buy into . And they're just or interested, what the story? Who was, you know, how's it work? Where are the receipts? What's going on? And it's so interesting because it is mad to look at this stuff. So it's really easy to think that Epstein is a one off but there's a group of just bad apples, right that just did it. And there's this phrase bad apple that gets bought up all the time. And the best way to describe I find that Epstein economy is by actually naming the full phrase. A bad apple comes from an idiom. A bad apple ruins the barrel , right? Because it's not about one single bad apple. It's about one bad apple that makes everything else rot. So you also say that's the original expression is that the original expression that we just all forgotten about. Let's leave off the important part. The second half is really important . The actual point of bad with a bad apple, I guess. And that instead of individualizing and instead of like saying this was one person who did this thing and that was their choice because that's how they're made up , you take a look where you're like how does someone like that come to be? And in that analogy, right, the bad apple ruins a barrel, right? Is the barrel is actually what the problem is, right? Because the problem is you take one apple, you take it out of the barrel, but the fact that they're all in the same barrel. So the Epstein economy itself is the idea that, say, for example, the barrel is a structure, but the structure of having super rich people, the structure of having billionaires, the structure of having this whole economy that's built around the idea of maximizing wealth , it creates Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein is not the grade one villain. He is the henchman of a psychological way of seeing the world about wealth accumulation that literally creates people at Geoffrey Epstein. Yeah. So when you when you have a load of extra wealth, when you have a load of extra money, your brain respond s in a certain way , right? You stop becoming empathic. You stop seeing other people's emotions. You stop seeing other people around you as human. You literally, the more money you have, there's documented science done about this. There's this great little experiment you can do, right? Bear with me, right? So draw a letter E, you know, the letter E, like with the capital E mma. Draw a letter E on your forehead. Just do it right now with a finger. Okay Right ? Now if you ask people from a lower socioeconomic background to draw a letter E on their forward, they draw it so that the other person can read it because you just think you're not thinking about yourself, you're thinking about the other person. Yeah, I did that. Yeah, you did that. Yeah, don't worry. You're a good guy . But statistically , the higher up somebody is socioeconomically , the more predisposed they are to drawing the E their own way round. Wow , right? Yeah, yeah. Because the very neurons in your brain that allow you to see emotion on other people's face, to allow you to put yourself in the shoes of another human being . They get degraded. Your brain changes with more money . And to the point where so if you're in that position have where lo youad a money of, we have a load of power, like you look at Jeffrey Epstein what he was doing to young girls, young women. Like it's absolutely horrific , but actually he is been conditioned by his position to see other human beings as expendable. And that is like when you listen to Jeff Bezos talk about he wants his workers to be frightened of being there. I don't know you've ever seen that quote of him going, I want my workers to be afraid of like sacking off work or taking too much longer to have to go to the toilet because it will bring death. Like how much of an evil bond villain? Yeah, think that he doesn't think of it like that because in his head, he's like not thinking about another person's point of view. He's just thinking about productivity and all of that. So partly all of the structures that increase that so there's the empathy structure. The other part of the Epstein economy is also something called moral licensing. Moral licensing is where because you think greed is good, because you think making money is good in itself . It allows you to do anything you like in homage to that end goal. So okay, some of workers need to be a bit frightened . But you know what? I'm a job creator, I'm a wealth creator. That's just what I do. You know, I'm just helping society kind of one cape at a time. Look at me with all my cape on. This is what I love about your content is like so, what we are on the left sometimes guilty of even doing ourselves is like we often will critique like the individualization of looking at say crime or poverty and we see like how the right frames that as individual failing . And we're quite able to do that with people who we see as like vulnerable or like you know the smaller ends of that. But then you're applying the same analysis to the wealthy people and their behavior. So your and we can be guilty sometimes of being like, look at these evil rich bastards and what they're doing to their workers, what they're doing to people, what they're doing to the planet, but you're taking a step , a better analysis is it's not that they're individually choosing to do that. It's that literally their position is creating their brains and changing the you talked about in one video how it literally changes the wiring in their brain because they start to realize every interaction that they have is effectively they can't trust it on like the word like transactional . Yeah . And the way that I like to see or another way that I like to see it is like it's very hard to see people's personalities through their brain chemistry, right? You just kind of think, Oh, we are who we are. But actually your own life and your behavior changes you, right? So if you get punched in the face every single day for fifteen years , right? Whenever you see somebody just raise their hat, you'll learn to flinch. My cats at the moment my stray cats. I don't hit 'em. That's not my stray cats. that And's not gothing to do with kind of the way that you think, the way you go around the world, it's just behave like the way that our body learns is around other people and the experiences we have in, right? And the brain is exactly the same. Another way of putting it is like, you know, if you see somebody that's got logo muscles, right? Like massive like worked out onroids fucking massive, right? If you look at that person, right, their ars is gonna be shitty, right? Because you can't, you just can't reach round. You can't, you can't , there's no way you're not getting round to that, right? I took it as you mean their ars was just underdeveloped, like they haven't worked out. You literally mean Yeah, they can't walk their own up equal, right? Yeah, more figure unless they're unless they're in Japan with the fucking brilliant Bays that they have over there Japan say it. So basically and it's like that kind of that person you're like oh they're just a bad person because they got a shitty art. No they're just biochemically they, can't they're biophysically, they just can't reach around and it's like that with billionaires. They literally can't be empathic . They have been trained by their experience to think of themselves as better, to think of other people less because other people are transactionally part of their world. And so we think, oh, they're an evil bastard, but really it's just almost like saying like to somebody that's just absolutely rocks on it. Yeah, yeah, just like, oh they're you know, why don't you smell sh ait all the time? And they do. Trust me, if you've ever met any bodybuilders, I'm going to give you load of bad comments They're the worst people you want to piss off because they'll destroy it. Yeah, you're kind of making this argument that under capitalism or under this sort of consumer ist forever growth model you inevitably make these imbalances of power that inevitably make people like Epstein because not only is it you were saying like you, know it, creates an Epstein but, it also, which I found really interesting was it creates the vulnerable class of people that can be exploited by an Epstein. So in a more equal world, you're not probably going to have people that would fly out to this island because they're not in a desperate situ ation where they might want to. Yeah. And I thought that was really quite interesting what you were saying about the power balance and how that creates different behaviors . Well, it's interesting because you don't see it and the power balance you don't see, right? So I was talking to you about this before the podcast, wasn't I? Like I've got a friend that's going out to Thailand, right ? And I have a friend, ex friend that's gone out to Thailand, right? And they were talking to me about like they just come back, they're visiting and we kind of mount up and he's forty, he's kind of overweight. He's kind of like, I'm definitely not going to say his name , right? But he's all and he's and he's showing me this picture of the person oh yeah, I'm going to go back 'cause I've met somebody that I really love. And I'm like,, Oh that's great. And he showed me his picture man. And it's like and my first I was like, oh, how do I say this? I was like, how old is she? And he didn't even say the age. His response was, well, you know, they see age differently over there. You know, it's just like and okay, for sure. He's convincing himself, which is a kind of form of kind of motivated reasoning that people do see age differently over there. But what you can't see from somebody from the UK going over to Thailand , you can't see the power imbalance . Literally, they've got no NHS, they've got no safety net over there. And so if you're dating, if you're out and you're a forty year old in the UK and you go out and meet a twenty one year old, you've got a sense of like there's a little bit more autonomy there. They got a little bit more of choice. It's like, oh, maybe they like four year olds. Maybe they like maybe they like fatter guys. Maybe that's just who they are, you know? They're going to be fine. They've got a safety net more or less, you know, over here, more certainly more than you do in Thailand . But you don't see that. Like if you're in Thailand and a twenty one year old comes over to you and starts being really nice and really friendly, you just think, Oh, I think she likes me, but you can't see the fact that actually there's a desperation that's actually kind of like I'm not saying everyone's desperate , but there's a part of it if going love survival because you just don't have the same safety n et. And that's similar to Jeffrey Epstein thing. Like that's me trying to put it into a kind of relatable way. Like when you go to Tai and everything's cheap. Yeah, there's there is a power imbalance by your position. You just can't say that you aren't aware of no, and it changes how even people around you behave. And you won't feel that you're in an exploitive position. No, but you just are because you are in that position. Exactly. So then that's the same when it comes to Epstein. Billionaire and you just think that everyone's a nice and you know, they wouldn't come to the island and let everybody fuck him if they didn't want to. You have no idea what vulnerability is. It's like if you were plucked from, say, I don't know , whatever country Azerbaijan , wherever they were taking girls from, and then you put them on an island . It's not like they can escape the island . It's not like they can row off like, oh, you know what? I'm going to swim to the mainland. No, you can't. You're there. So if you're surrounded by other people and normalizing the sense of that, yeah, well, you know, like if this guy will come in and he will do that, but it's just what we do over here. It's just like, oh, I'm sorry. Well, right, well, we'll see we can sort out a flight for you in a couple it suddenly gets spoiled a lot of people, I guess who are groomed, they don't recognize it till they're older . And like then they realize what happened was that they were in a vulnerable position and they were exploited by someone more powerful. They might not have felt awful in that moment , but it's later in life that they start to realize it whether they were like . That's another key thing is that often even vulnerability, you don't see your own vulnerability. So because we can't experience ourselves. So I might look at someone and go, They're vulnerable , but they might not always think that they're vulnerable. You know, like I was a comedian at fifteen, so I started doing comedy when I was fifteen. And when I was seventeen, I was in the final of something called Say You're Funny, which is a comedy competition. Now, I wasn't going to go to that, but I was doing a gig in London. I'd hit shight to London, and the comedy promoter said, Are you going to Edinburgh? Because loads of comedians go to Edinburgh. And I was like, Oh yeah , at that point, 'cause I was working class, I'd never been like out of the country before at that point, let alone like Scotland. You ready? Exclusively on Disney plus. Rid of every second count, baby. The multi award winning series The Bear is back for its final season. Restaurant is flooded . And it's the last chance. I am selling the building. To save it all. We have each other and nothing left to lose. FX is the bear. Everything's either going to be okay or not . Final season exclusively on Disney plus eighteen plus subscription required T and C supply. Felt like well I can't go to I can't hitch to Scotland so I'm probably not gonna go and the promoter said, Oh, I'm driving up tonight. You can come with me if you like, right? So I was like, Oh, so I fell my parents told them I was going to visit a university in Scotland , right? Hedward University and lied to them. And I was driven up that night. And the promoter was really lovely. She let me stay with her parents who lived outside in Muscleborough. But the next day, she dropped me off in Edinburgh, paid me upfront for a few gigs, but I had nowhere to stay . And I was I look back on this now and this was a close shave, right? So I was I knew Matt Lucas at the time. He was kind of new. He had the show at the assembly rooms. And I was like, Oh, I got nowhere to stay. I don't know how to do. Maybe I'd just walk around the town center late at night and just kind of like stay away. But this older guy came up to me and just started being really friendly . He was like must have been in his forties or fifties and he was buying me drinks. And I was like, this guy's really nice, you know? What a nice guy. And it's just like and I was like, I haven't got anywhere to stay. You could stay with me if you'd like. Oh my that. And I was like, okay. So I went over to Matt, and I said to Matt, and Matt's like, Oh, how you doing? You're right. It's like, yeah, great. I've got a place to stay tonight. And I was like, Oh, that's great. And I said, And he goes, well where who was like, Are this guy over here? He said he's been lovely. He's been driving buying me drinks all evening. And I'm that lesson went, No, no, no, you 'll stay with me tonight. So you can stay with me. And then he David Williams really didn't want me to say it. But Matt was just like, No, it's alright, you can stay on the couch, it's fine. But literally, I mean, Matt's only a couple of years older than me, but he's got a bit more of a way of the world. He's always been a bit like I'm a bit naive. I'm an idiot . Why is it every time I take a shit , a shareholder gets rich? Why is that? So a lot of people out there, I know most people don't have a lot of disposable money to give to charities. There might be causes and things you want to support, but you can't because you ain't got any spare cash. Clean sheet, these bad boys are a sustainable bamboo toilet paper that do not pay out shareholders, right? They use all of the money, all of the profit, that profit goes into things like their housing, climate action, workers' rights. So literally one hundred percent of their profits are going to grassroots causes. Honestly, I'm really happy to work with Cleansheet as a sponsor. Some of the things are like when renters are trying to fight landlords. 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The amount of times that I would be hitchhiking to a gig and then before now I've had to share a bed with a female promoter. Like she was naked. I had all my clothes on because I guess she just sleeps naked but at the age of eighteen because I'm an innocent. I'm just an idiot. That's what you was brought up in a counselor state. I'm not kind of like, you know, world ly. But I don't see my vulnerability there. And like, and I tell you what, I got a privilege if I was a female comedian doing gigs and hitchhiking around at seventeen, fifteen , a lot worse would have happened to me, I'm sure. I mean, checking my priv pilerigevilege . But what's interesting is that you just don't like in the psychology of power , you often don't see that you've got a load of power over somebody. You just think they're being nice, you don't see your power, but also you don't often see yourself as vulnerable until you get into a position where you suddenly realize oh fuck I can't get out of this I don't know if you've ever had a female friend that's literally slept with somebody literally because they didn't want it to be violent. Yeah, you hear about it. And yeah, it's like such a disgustingly common story. Yeah . And it's like, it really is, it was going through like your angle is more psychological and you're kind of what I was really interested to find out was sort of like how you got into that. Like how did you get more into this psychology sort of side of things? So the thing that kind of pushed me was a lot about economics and like, you know , but then your takes are largely built around psychology and understanding power dynamics and stuff like that . And I was curious how you kind of got into that. So maybe we can talk about your like personal journey . So from my understanding, Barry has been doing like, you know, basically Barry's sort of pitch is he's not Gary. Gary very wealthy there's Gary's economics but I'm Barry's Economics. And Barry's economics, he had a period of his life where he was not doing so fantastically. Yeah. Maybe you can explain it. Yes, yeah. Well, that's an understanding. Yeah. But like yeah, I'll explain I'll explain the Garyed thing for people that don't know but 'cause it's a way in, but like I started Gary Stevenson obviously you've had Gary on the podcast. He does Gary's economics as one half million things, but it's you know best selling book and that. Like he blew up and I've got a bit of comedy. I've been doing comedy since I'm fifteen. I got a bit of comedy about the name Barry because Barry's, let's face it, it's a shit name, right? Like, it's not a good name. I always use Bazar in my sketch. I realize I always say funny name. It's a funny name. It's a ridiculous name. Baza. You can tell it's ridiculous because this is what I say. It's like, all of the harry names are rubbish. Like, if you're invited out of a night and somebody's like, Are you just gonna be there? And you're like, well Barry, Gary and Larry are gonna be there. You're like, that's not a party stay in there. Yeah. That's a support and I don't even know what that is. I mean, it's just not the Arries. And it's a shame. The Arry, but you say that right? What's interesting is the hat is one harry name that's a good name? I know it Harry Harry. And you know why is socioeconomic? Harry, you have Kings called Harry, you have a posh person's name, whereas the other ones are working class names. It's really interesting, right? Yeah. But what's funny you can tell the name Harry is better because what does it go with? You got Prince Harry, he's a cool prince. He moved walked out of Royal Family into Hollywood. He's in Hollywood. You've got Harry Styles. You've got the film Dirty Harry, right? And you notice from the name of that film that's a cool film about a cool person, right? But a film called Dirty Barry . That's a noncevil. It's not a cool film, isn't it? Reading glasses. Some greasy hair. Exactly . That's a short film about dogging. Like dirty Barry, I don't want to be in that film. That's terrible. Like and you could like it just goes with that. It's terrible. So when I saw Gary's economics, I like he's a trader, he's a millionaire, he's really successful. I was just like, it would be quite funny to have Barrow's economics, which is just this guy going, yeah, I spent twenty p on a kit cat I've never been to. I've only got twenty p left now because I bought a kit cat, right? And I just thought of like a failure. And it was in my head. And then Gary did this shout out for it. Other people should be talking about this. And then I was like, should I do the parody? Not parody, but joke channel . And then I thought, yeah, you know what ? It's interesting because Gary's the success right, I've been a failure. I've been a failure all my life. And by that, I mean from perspective of the world. Like I started Stan at what was fifteen. I've been doing comedy for like thirty years , hard , and I went bankrupt. I was homeless. I kind of like just kept trying to do comedy. I got great reviews at the Endrofestal. The reason I went bankrupt is because when you take shows to the End of Refestal, you don't make money. You lose money and that's why a lot very few working class comedians make it because like now all of the arts is a privilege of people that have got a safety net or the bank of mum and dad to be able to bankrupt. It's like it really is. It's why you've got people like Benedict Kumberbach that or kind of like , you know, all of the Eaton lads are plowing into kind of acting . Like it just you just sorry, you've just triggered in my head like, this is what's good about your stuff is you've made me rethink what you just said there. So like in amongst art, why is there so much of these stories of Brett Weinstein and these people? Because there is a, you know, the people who want to make it , they're desperate and there's that power imbalance there. So you get these people, they get groomed to get into it. And then why do these stories come out? Like, yeah, one hundred percent I never thought about through that. That opportunity, the wine stein opportunity , like if you've got people there like and in his head I bet he's going, you know what? I'm doing a favor. My come creates I yeah. Well, hang on mate. I don't think they're there for your cum . I think they're there for other reasons, mate. Yeah, he doesn't know I'm just have you seen him? He literally looks like Jabber the hut . He couldn't be more jabbing. Like he's yeah it's just my secret source like mate, do you think your secret source is may be owning a filmmaking company and being a little bit pathological and forcing yourself on people? Or do you think it's something else? Yeah . And you wouldn't see it in from his position. He just is, you know, like the again the, brain just gets into that position where you can't feel empathy. I tell you what, there's a really good show called The Morning Show. It's only the first series is good, but it really looks at the Me Too movement from lots of different positions of power. Steve Correll is disturbing and brilliant in it. But he's but often when again, when somebody's vulnerable in a position of vulnerability, they don't often know they blame themselves like I spent years blaming myself. This is how I got into the psychology, you see, because I spent years blaming myself for my failure. I didn't see the lack of support. I just thought, oh, I'm getting these good reviews, but nobody's nobody's given me a TV show, nobody's given me a writing thing. And I just thought it was all me, right? And you can't help but blame yourself. You can't help but make it. And this is what I'm obsessed with. Like my family are brilliant. I've got a love, lovely, supportive family. They're all mental, right ? Because when you have no money, you're quirky as fuck, like you just can't help it. You have to you punch drunk by life, right? But my brother is a car valetor in Paul, left school at sixteen, you know, just was never given opportunity to go out and kind of like do other things. My brother could literally run companies, but you just he never wanted to because it's too much stress and hassle and all the other stuff. You just, what happens if you've got no money is you just blame yourself, you think it's all your fault and you also don't don't ever think to do other things , which is I for there's this interview with Gary Stevenson and Daniel Priestley on Dire CEO and they talk about they're talking about how toxic it is in the world just like telling people you could become anything. Just keep trying . And Gary's like, no, people can't become anything . They can't. Like if you 're the best you've got is a minimum wage job and you've got no safety net and you've got to work two of those in order to afford rent, otherwise you're living at home. You can't fucking become anything, mate. And Daniel Priest is like, You can't tell people that. You've got to have ambition. It's like, that is true for you, mate. When you've got money, if you're told that you can do a thing, you get up of bed and you go do it. If you've got no money and you're told you can do anything, it's like being gaslit by life. The worst ones are the people who have had no money and made it because it's so like you can go one or two ways when you come from nothing. You can either realize it or you're like, I am God. Yeah , like I've seen it a lot. And I think honestly, I might be wrong. I think Daniel Priestley does come from a slightly lower class background, I think or more working class, but he has gone into this mindset where it's like it's because of, you know, what I did, the decisions I made. It is as well as luck, timing, just all these things that you cannot like bank on. And you just it's just simple mathematics. Like if you have , say you want to be a music and you need to at the age of eighteen move out your parents' house and get a job, you work three jobs and you're exhausted all the time and you're great at playing guitar, you have no time to play it. I make music and I don' entough have time to do it in what I do. So imagine you're like young talented eight and you're a working class person. You have no time to do it. And whereas you're wealthy, your parents aren't kicking out the house. You have like ten years to just get really good. And they might be incredible, but it's they literally just have more capacity to take the opportunities. They could go and know you say you went bankrupt to go and do Edinburgh. Yeah, it's like they can do that without going bankrupt . So it's like you can do twenty of them. Yeah. And it's like, it's just and it really I got quite lucky like when I started to get more successful, I started to like see it. I was like, well, I got furloughed. Like you know what it was? It was COVID happened . I got furloughed, I was being paid to stay and a video just went viral in that month and I had time to just make like three for hour videos, jumped on it. And I was like, I couldn't have planned that. Yeah, you know? Like I couldn't have there was no way threatened by the space of being furloughed. Yeah , which was a global pandemic. Yeah, it's not it's not like a common thing . Boom. Let's have another plan. Yeah . How to get a rich from Jimmy the giant global pandemic . Come on, let's get those bats. I've been kissing bats ever since, been sucking, sucking off bats. Just come on, I don't know that's how it happened, but that's how I think there was summit like that. Some suck in maybe some dust in Wuhan in bat sucking competition. I don't even think it was about sucks. It was an anti like vampire thing. It was like it's always suck in your blood. So it's just like him. Scalbanon. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuckin'. You actually had a take on Batman. Yeah, what a segment , which was that Batman is actually an evil villain. Yeah. Well, this is the thing about being gaslit by society, right? So we're gaslit to think of rich people as being these great, they're wealth creators, they're amazing people. No, no, they're like even Batman is like so this is the take is that when I was younger, I used to think Batman was the best superhero, right? Yes. I should have one of them than plastic boys. I love him. The real person. It's like, you know, he's just a regular guy fighting crime. Whereas Superman's got all these superpowers. Patman's just a regular guy. That's what I used to think, right? That's why I loved him. And then I grew up and I realized, hang on, Pat Man isn't a regular guy. He's the billionaire, Bruceay Snew . And being a billionaire is the best superpower you can have. Like if you give me like other superpowers, say tomorrow you give me the superpower of flight, right ? Great. I fly myself to work. Like how's that going to help? What do you do? I lose five I gained five quid on a bus fare. Fucking brilliant, right? If you if you give me tomorrow the power of being a billionaire , I will fly my blow job power jet overwork bombing the HR department on the way. Like there is no like because what is Batman? Batman is basically a Nepo kid his father was rich. He's a Nepo kid that thinks he's going to solve the whole world's problems by buying himself cool tech. Yeah. Like I've got my back copper I back this and he never spends one bat cent on the real cause of Gotham's problems because what are Gotham's problems? They're fundamentally economic, aren't they? Like, I'm sorry. If your employment opportunities are a mad clown or a guy that dresses and talks like a penguin, you're fucked mate. Like if you gave me a billion dollars, I could like solve Gossam's problems like that, right? What you do is you go to the most rundown part of Gotham, like you know where all the criminals come from. And you open an artisanal bakery . You have a galaxy. A banging nightclub. Yeah gales. And you let the hipsters drive those criminals out, right? Yeah , it's something called gentrification brief. Yeah. Yeah, you would have learned that in business school, wouldn't you if you weren't too busy dressing up in tights and punching them mentally ill? Yeah, it up the pores . Oh, that's incredible. It's so true. Like it's true, like , so funny and I never like, I've never thought about it. The bad man is effectively a dick. Yeah. Dick is a neat. He's a kid like straighten up the pores. Yeah. The problem. Yeah, yeah. Incredible. Let me pop on my tights and go punch some mental people. No mates, calm down, get some therapy and solve the problem . So we were talking diarrhea and actually I really loved a video you did, where you were talking about and I think I agree with this. Diaria the CEO is diarrhea a CEO keeping people poor? Yeah, totally. Yeah. The diary of a CEO is basically gaslighting you into thinking that you are the reason that you're not getting rich , right? Because there's this whole idea, right, where they just give you, oh yeah, these are the, I think Steven Fartlet's , I can't help it. I'm audian. Stephen Fartlet, what's wrong with that? He's sitting there parpin' away, right? Stephen Fartlet. He eats enough fuel. He must be parpeting. Yeah, they might where is it called Shulk No? What's that? I got a Yule, but not AG noise Hugh boy 's a Hule boy He's invested in the company. This is what makes it, this is the sinnest thing about Diver CEO or the like bigger podcast is that he advertises Hugh, right? And he's an invest or in the company. At no point does he say that. This is one advert. It's mental. He's going, yeah, he's got a fuel thing there, right? He's going, you know, I'd never really heard of fuel before, but then this guy walked, he literally says this. You can look it up. This guy walked past the vook window and he had this huel t shirt on and I just thought that's a really interesting font but he's out in real life. And then I tried fuel and I've never really been a fan of these but now I'm a real fan of them. At no point does he say, Oh, and I happen to be an investor so buy it and they'll make me money. But it's never says that was on the phone. Frank got me. And what happens in Dire Zoe is that the whole culture of you know, success podcasts of like his book is like the thirty three L aws of Business and Success. Wow. The idea that there's this successful thing. I wake up at five in the morning, I cold plunge my dog, I kind of like I bathe in warm piss and then I'm out, you know. The best line I heard was remember who you are, white boy . Ryan Sheckler didn't need a cold plunge . Yeah. Yeah. Right. It was just like, yeah, we're all like, I don't know, when we were growing up , we didn't give a fuck. We were just like going skating, listening to music, crying over emo music . And it was like, and yet people still, you know, a hundred percent made something like that. We weren't optimizing. We weren't like fucking grinding. We were, but it was a different type of grinding. And you know what that optimizing does, the psychology of optimizing. Firstly it tells you it's all your fault. You're not doing it, you haven't got it because of that reason. Right? And so it gives you a framework to blame yourself. That's first, right, which is fucking sinister. The second thing optimizing does is it is it makes the idea of optimizing, is it allows them to sell you products ? Yeah , 'cause I've got to think better. I've got alpha brain, I glue that I think better. I've got a gone I'm gonna spend so much time making food, do I get hello fresh? It's like, it's really interesting, isn't it? The bigger the podcast , the more what they talk about is good for selling you certain things . You know, it's like when those two things link together , you know , you go, hang on . Does the sales stuff lead to the podcast being big? Because if you've got a load of money to spend on it, you know, like you're paying for your studio here. Like, you know, you're working on a shoestring, right? But like these fighters have got like, you know, they got the money for a proper they build everything . They've got full time behind them. That's, you know, for one who had full time doing their thumbnails? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got somebody that does my thumbnails. He's AB testing every thumbnail and did old videos. I don't whack myself. I forgot somebody else who does that. Yeah, yeah. You know , just like, it's too much effort, man. I just optimize , optimize, optimize. This happens way something else. I'd get somebody else to suck my bats off but it's like when it's at that scale, you're almost like a destiny that you're going to become successful. Yeah . And you can only move at that scale when you can sell certain products . So the product ability to sell products actually creates the style of podcast that gets popular. And so you know, like I don't think Steven Barley gets up consciously and just thinks I'm going to make this kind of podcast. But when those two forces meet the profit model meets a certain type of kind of content, it then becomes massive. And so that content keeps you watching because you're almost you try it doesn't quite work so you go back. Yeah, there's a thing in the brain, a dopamine thing, dopamine part of the brain about variable reward cycles. So there's anticipation anticipatory reward . Now that is training. That's what social media, that's what a lot of like high level content does is it gives you like you can look into this BF skinner is incredible. Really interesting guy, really interesting his studies have been like he's I think he's started doing stuff in the nineteen thirties might be nineteen fifties. I'm really bad for remembering numbers unless I looked at it. But essentially, he came up with this idea of the variable reward cycle, which is where if you're if you don't know when the reward is going to come , then you get almost addicted to it. Yeah, you know, like they get put rats on a variable reward cy cle. And like if the rats knew when things were coming, they'd kind of like, you know, they'd eat a certain amount, but they would overe to the point of death if it was on a variable raw cycle because they got so addicted. In fact, BF Skinner was so worried about the finding of the variable reward cycle that he spent he came up with it and then spent pretty much the rest of his life warning about it. God. And social media absolutely says like there have been whistleblowers and social media companies that have said, yeah, we've been using that. There's a phrase within the social media kind of like the algorithmic kind of industry called the race to the bottom of the brainstem . Because what they're trying to do is they're trying to engage you under your conscious knowledge and control . And that is a science that they've got thousands of psychologists and behavioral experts literally training. So you think your feet is just coming up, right? Just you're reading it. It's just random stuff. Uh , they know when your thumb hovers over something the warmth of the sun, they know they know exactly what you're looking at. Social media can tell you your sexuality before you know it. Good . By where your brain, by where your eye looks, they can tell the sexuality of a twelve year old or thirteen year old. You know, like that age where you don't know. I don't know if you ever had that when you're growing up. You're like, Am I gay? You could have had minutes. Yeah, you have ten minutes. Ryan Gosen. I don't find men attractive, but how am I you? Yeah. I mean, I've never kissed a girl. So I don't know. It's your hypothesis at this point. I don't fucking know, right? at that point you just don't know . Well, they know. Fucking incorrect. They know because they and people are like so like people get so wigged out about data by the government having your data , right? They're like, this is like a big thing where they're like, oh, imagine if you had this big state that knew everything about you and could do it. It's like you're whilst typing that on Twitter, you're giving that to Elon who is doing the same . And it's like people I don't know why they don't notice this like why when a private company does it, they don't seem to be as scared about it. Isn't it? It's like a worse than they have, you can't vote for this company and their incentive is purely to extract value from you . Whereas if it's a government, I'm not saying I want a government but if someone is going to have hyper amounts of data on you, I want it to be something we can vote on . And I want it to be something that can do something for the good of public. And it's like, but we're giving it to these private companies whose objective is just extraction. And it's like such a strange such a good point. And it's such a clear point well put. It's like what people always say about the BBC is just like, Are the BBC aren't this or that? Well, at least there's some oversight. Is there somebody trying? Yeah, because I tell you what there isn't with all Murdoch doesn't give a fuck. Bro. And it's we don't give a fuck on YouTube, right? We have a competitive advantage on YouTube to all of these BBC, ITV, they're all trying to push into YouTube now and they're contacting loads of people and like trying to push in and they are handcuffed against us because we can say whatever the fuck we want. We are basing our content like the only regulation on our content is our m orality. And there are people on YouTube who don't have morality and they in other words, they have no regulation on their content. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's like that. What moral compass? Did I ask that the door well, listen, immigration. You're going to have to literally and they are winning and they like the algorithm, you know, if they can lie and like BBC is slower. It's like in the market of content . BBC once this tries to push into YouTube, it has some brand recognition, but the algorithm is not built on like your your brand name doesn't carry that much now. It's like individual pieces of content, whatever is the most attention grabbing, whatever's gonna and it's when you can when you don't have that control over any sort of form of regulation, people just go at you and do the most, as you say, like deep stem brain . And yeah, it's like super, super, super fucked up. And it's a really good point. And I don't think, you know, like in our brain in our kind of like fear response , we think government like , you know, government is the worst case scenario . But actually the worst case scenario is in government because government at least has some, you know, like sure, you'll get a scandal coming out. And you've got all the dynamics of power that play into it and government isn't perfect, right? And my God, is it not perfect? But I tell you what a hundred percent is wor se is when you've got one person in control. Like Rupert Murdoch is literally the reason Trump is in power because he took the like the window of what you should be doing, what you should be talking about, Fox News created the climate where Donald Trump sound bity kind of like, what's this mad guy saying? What's this mad guy saying? Oh, what's he saying? It became the type of media. It's the race to the bottom, essentially the brain center, it's just the race to the bottom of like clickbait , like the dopamine system. Like that's interesting. Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. You always hear you always see these things. If you ever watch an archived BBC or arch ived, even American media , ever like an archived conversation on , I don't know, like a panel show or like a documentary they did. All of the comments will be either winning back to the good old fucking days or it will be wow, what a more nuanced conversation than we get in our thing. And people think it's just people because again, we individualized everything. They think that we have just become these types of people that are more I don't know dumb or dumber, we're like we're more emotional . But it's not as the format has become more competitive and obviously when you have more channels competing against each other and then when social media comes in like it can be anyone and we're all competing in a global market for the algorithm , the people who are more provocative win. And so you lose these nuanced conversations because back then there was like five channels . They were competing against each other, but like they didn't have to be so extremes. So they could do two hour piece on like I don't know council estates on BBC and it would be very nuanced and they would tell you the whole history. Yeah. Now it's like, I don't know, BBC have even recently they're saying stuff like they need to appeal to reform voters more and they're not now making genuine like explorative content into these topics. They're doing stuff to pander to an audience. Like they made a whole piece on immigration. And it was just like there was clear gaping holes in their arguments it. was And like kind of right wing propaganda . And they're clearly doing it just because all the comments were positive and it was like they got more views for doing this video . And then I look at these old BBC ones. Like I make a lot of content where I go through old BBC content and I just sort of repackage it in a way their stuff on Council that they couldn't make that now because who the fuck is going to click a BBC video the history of council housing when you've got the migrant boats to come in like obviously you're gonna click that and it's like that dumbs us all down . But we individualize it. Weird dumb are now, but no we're not. It's the system and the market mechanics that drive sensationalism. And what's the deep brain? Well, you got to remind me of the phrase at the bottom of the brain stem. Yeah , and it is more primal and stupid . Well, but the thing is we're not , you know, the thing because it's a great point and it's it's we think it's us and it's another thing. It's the structure and the system. Like often we blame ourselves whether it's bl aming us or blaming other people that it's their fault they're doing this but actually it's the structure. Now the key structure as far as I can see where you get this last especially the last twenty years but there's an argument for last fifty. This is a great book by a guy called Neil Postman called Entertaining Our Selves to Death, which is really, really good book. It's a short book. It's all about this. It was written in nineteen ninety, and I think it was or maybe nineteen eighty seven or something . But it was true then and it's even truer now, right? But the clear thing , the reason why all of this is happening is because of the extreme profit motive . Now profit, there's Gordon Gecko is this kind of guy from a TV film called Wall Street and this phrase you might know greed is good. Oh yeah that kind of thing who does the speech in front of you Greed is good . Now in our society at the moment there is this underlying belief greed or profit is good in itself. If something is profitable, it must be good. It's like I'm a wealth creator. Yeah, I'm making money. Now we all believe in that. In the same way like we say something how much you worth, money is to do with worth , self worth. Not how much do you make, how much do you worth which is like tells you the psychology of it? And the profit motives, you can see it most clear in the what's happening with privatisation in the UK. Like privatization has shown that the extreme extractive profit model means that people suffer . So the water company has made profit after profit year after year. If you were investing in the company, you would have made a load of money. But they haven't invested in the infrastructure and now all our beaches have got shit in them. Yeah, apparently even Brighton Beach. I didn't know that. Yeah, there's an app. Push that down there too. There's only some shit in there. Did drop a hack I saw it. There's an app that tells you when the poo's coming. So the poo's coming on boats is coming over from there. It's coming over from France. Yeah. They're shipping us our poo now but a Farage with a lime back because it's like, you know, it's guy probably got cheese in it. He loves it. Yeah, he does. He's Farrage is a French name. From yeah. Nigel Fromage. Nigel Fromage, it's always stinky. Everybody talks. Nigel Fromage. I can't believe it. Look at him anyway, it doesn't matter what character human. But the profit motive . So you look at privatization. It's the clearest example of privatization that it doesn't work. Yeah . And we're the most privatised nation on Earth. We're the only nation that is privatized like privatized public utilities because this is this is why it's really hard for it to debate because the debate is actually quite nuanced. So there's a thing called external costs and internal costs. So if you look at a company like , you know, the water company , their internal costs are pretty low in terms of like, you know, like they've got people that run things, they've got the infrastructure and all those kind of things, you know? But the external costs of running a water company badly, shit in the river, like people getting poisoned, all this kind of thing, actually, they don't they just, get a fine . So if it costs them less money to let it be rubbish, right? Yeah, yeah , than it does not to. So the profit motive dictates that it's more profitable that they don't update the infrastructure. Yeah. And so that's the profit model in any easy turkey . Yeah. And people often don't understand. So like you get a lot of these right wingers that believe in small state, blah blah, it's just a phrase. It doesn't mean anything. In order for that to for the system that exists, you have to have it by law that a CEO and like their duty is to the shareholders and turn the profit. It is. So it is illegal for them to make a decision . They will go they will be fined or maybe go to jail. I don't know exactly, but it is illegal for them to make a decision that is considered anti profit to the shareholders. Yeah. So that's not a small state. No , you have the global, like, you have it's other stuff like, you know, if I make if I want to sell this like chair and put Winnie the Pooh's face on it , the American government has so much power . They have a global like, you know, they influence the law and wait, it's actually English law. I don't want to get lost in the detail, but it's like they have so much power that I can be fined and if I don't pay the fine, I'll go to jail go for using a face that someone drew on something. It's like so your whole that's just copyright law . And without this just simple copyright law is all it is is like, you know, it doesn't you're not actually doing like anything, really. Like you're not like , you're not smashing someone's face in to grab their thing. You're just drawing it. Winney the poop's face and whack it on the head . But without a global apparatus that can enforce the law of intellectual property rights. You don't have capitalism because anyone can just do it and just take it and so you lose the value of a whole industry. And these people talk about small state like there's this small little government. That's the best way to run in the society. But it's like your whole system doesn't't work if you don go to jail for copying when he poosed face from your jet. Well hang on you so you want small state get a profit but where you where you don't get a profit , you actually want big , you know, like yeah . People big state where there's money for you to make. Exactly. So enforce it. Heads I win tells you lose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly that . And but which is exactly the psychology angle as well because psychologically we all have the way that we see the world is motivated reasoning. You are like we are all motivated psychologically to see the things we want to see . No matter how kind of like kind of objective we all think we are , actually we only see the world the way that we kind of have been taught to see it and buy into wanting to see it. Like if we want something to be true, we can find what's there's a bit of brilliant bit of research about the more educated you are, the more kind of knowledge you have about a subject , the more likely you are to be able to convince yourself something's true because you've got to wait someone's gonna prove yourself that. So actually smile is God I know . Do I say this? Very addicted to a substance you shouldn't do that somehow makes it seem logical exactly. You sound like you're reasoning and I'm like , I think you're right, but I know you're wrong. Yeah, you shouldn't be doing it. You won the argument here, but you've lost the debate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So when we're talking, we're talking a little bit about Darisi. I know we kind of gone, but we want to sort of bring it back to that . Because there is a history of do you know about like the history of like self help content ? Gone. So like I know there's a there's a massive correlation between times of economic uncertainty and the rise of self help . So like the most singular famous self help book is how to win friends and influence. Caragley written in nineteen I think it's ninety four I'm going to read down ninety four to great depression. Yeah. And it's like the Great Depression there's a whole rise in self help books. Yes, yes. And then you have post war consensus, shit's like improving . We like fantasy. We like futuristic. We like sci fi, we like optimis and in seventies you have another rise of self helpment . When the whole economy is going tits up , they tell you it's your fault and you need to find ways to solve it. Yeah. So I understand fully agree with your thing on diarrhea. Yeah, that's that's really interesting . The thing that also ties into that, have you ever noticed like there's a mental health crisis and you know it's to do very much with the thing. So things are tough right now, huh? Or have you tried harder . I mean, you know, yeah, I know you like, you know, but this is it. It's just like instead of going, Ah, you don't get enough money from one job to in order to be able to pay for your life it's like, man, you've got a hustle bro,. Yeah. That's you. They're like, hang on, is it? Well, I've got to be wake up. Like they've made the idea of working yourself to the fucking bone. Yeah , a cool thing to do. Yeah, I wake up at five AM three hours before I go to bed. I kind of like it's like a Yorkshman sketch, the Marty Python for Yorkshire sketch without any irony. Like there's that kind of sense and I whip myself seventeen times and really make sure that I'm really focused on the thing, but the optimization of self , think about why nobody asks, hang on . Why do you need to optimize? Yeah, yeah. Because the best people I know, right ? They don't optimize. They're kind of fun. Yeah, yeah, my dad weren't optimized them back in the day. Guys, yeah, exactly. He was in pipe and he bought a house in his twenties. So it's like if I'm to copy a successful model , I don't think that's going to work right now. And I think there's a reason why it doesn't work right now. Yeah. Exactly. But the mental health crisis is another part of it because you say you're depressed, right? Nobody and Adam Curtis has spoken about this, but I've not heard anyone else speak about it. It's really interesting when they talk about mental health cris is because they go, Oh yeah, and you know, there are this many people in antidepressants. And they make it sound like that it's a biochemical brain thing. Yeah, yeah , rather than , you know, cultural , maybe there's a reason we're depressed. Yeah, maybe there's a larger reason why, you know, it's almost like I, you know, there's there's a real incidence of people smelling like shit. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, well, I am sat on my own shit. Oh, hang on. Is it got something to do with that? No, you've got to, you've got to get more perfume in the thing. You gotta like spray that. When I was on the right, I remember using it used to when you were on the right. When I was on the right, I remember kicking some guy's head in the head in and he was talking about this. Yeah Bad therapy. I couldn't hear it. Couldn't hear what he was saying in the mouth in the mouth . So when I was like, I'm not saying you would be like, you know, I might. I might 've when I was on the right, I remember when people would say about mental health problems. And like, you know, like, I would say I was okay mentally , I think. And so I wasn't what it's really cathartic kicking people's heads in. It really helped. I me feel better. I'm not gonna recommend it to all. You know what? I mean, yeah, you know what? I'm not necking this. I remember a book about it, so what? When I'm feeling a bit down on a Friday night, I just go out and punch a punch a lezer. It makes me feel fucking great. You know, I don't know why these people can't say everyone could do that, but it worked for me. So when I was on the road me on that? Yeah, that's your career's done now. Yeah, it was a good five month. It feels like that context, right? What the hell was Barry Barry's economics was about punching kind of LGBT people for no reason whatsoever. Like anyway When I was on the right, I remember my friend had like, you know, fucking depression. And I know a few people with depression. And I remember using how can everyone is using a word? I've used it twice now. It's used. What's it mean? to eat. So it's like used . Oh yeah. Used. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember he would have like everyone had mental health issues. I was like, how can you all have like in how can all of your brake? Like that doesn't make sense from like an evolutionary perspective , I was like, why would the human body would so many people has brains been made so poorly that they all have it? And it all happens to be in this era . And over because I had no economic or structural analysis, you come to a cultural argument, which is like, oh, the music or it's like they're all talking about it so they're all pretended. And I remember yeah, it wasn't like that point used to drive me so I was like, How can you all be depressed? And then you go on and you realize, oh, once you realize what the economy is making people f ucking depressed because they can't afford the basic things. And just like they can't afford just the basic things, but also there's like a deeper part of how the economy in the model modern world works is it's alienating on like a cultural level by that I grew up in a small town Dunstable and I had to leave Dunstable to go to a town that had more work . So I had to leave my economy I had to leave my community . Whereas, you know, you could argue in the past people would work in a town and there would be a warehouse there or there'd be a factory there and then they would all go there, they all knew each other. There was more of a sense of community. Now we're all pulled apart. You have to go there, you go there for three years. Then you go to London . And in London, you're in a community of everyone in the same block of flats as you works the same sort of jobs. You all work to the bone. Yeah . It's all the same type of people . And so all you see like in your luck, even if you're in a luxury living complex are accountants, lawyers, marketers, there's no young families, there's no students having fun. There's no old people playing chess outside. Your whole life is built into this like hyper focused, robotic consumerist world. And then it's like that is soul destroying. Like when you think about like what would be nice would be a nice town, high street, lots of different people out eating their food, drinking their coffee, chatting, you do a nice job for, you know, four days. Come on, come on. Don't be a mate. I mean, that's not optimized, mate. Yeah. Like seriously. I mean, how can you buy what you want WHIS everywhere, do you like an actor? I'd go cold plunge shop here like a plunge we work, right? I'm literally sat in the cold plunge doing the whitel. I mean, it makes me type really fast. It does the day. It speaks up the great. Yeah. It's absolutely, you know, like I go through laptops quite regularly, but seriously, fuels the economy. It feels the economy. Yeah, keeps it going . You know that thing about GDP, I don't know, you know, like the GDP of Mordor is much better than the GDP of the Shire. You know that, right? Because so true , 'cause Mordor is like they're doing stuff. They're hunting. Yeah, they are. They're kind of like killing things they're cutting down the trees they're building . They're chilly poose through the roof upstairs. What are these twat fucking hobbies sitting around? They're doing they not they barely work all day. They have a second breakfast. What twats? It's like a small town in Italy, like I mean and they're happy. Yeah, that's it and it's like lived the longest, yeah. Yeah, and it's our whole economy is literally pulling apart, you know, like the whole Maslow's hierarchy's thing. It's like it's pulling apart such fundamental things to people's happiness. And then we're confused why people are depressed. Yeah. It has to be the food. Why this might be. Yeah. Wonder why, you know, it's strange, isn't it? Like, I haven't seen anyone all day . And the only thing that I've really kind of inter acted with was a couple of three videos about immigration and people coming out of boats. And the only picture , you know, nobody's called, nobody's texted except for one person that was trying to sell them trying to sell me some insurance. You know what? I think you know, I'm depressed as well. I mean, maybe the problem is that I'm depressed. Oh no, maybe the problem is the other stuff. Immigrants. We think yes immigrants fucking immigrants. Coming over here, taking our ant idepressants , but it really doesn't occur to people. And this is the structural stuff, which I'm obsessed with by , because I think that you can't see the structural stuff like a frog in a boiling piece , you know, boiling pot of water, you don't feel it getting warmer. You don't feel it getting hotter. And you actually think like it's you. I was like, funny. My legs have just gone numb. Oh, maybe I need some no, that'll be the hot water frog. Yeah , where you know, but we don't see it because we're interacting. There's this great phrase called the normalization of deviance where we actually kind of don't see the stuff happening. It just gets things get normalized deviance or kind of like depression or anything else because as human beings we don't see the structures around us. Have you ever heard of anchoring? No. So anchoring is a brilliant way of seeing how your own thought about a thing isn't actually the fact of that thing. So I'll give you the analogy of it, right? So just say, for example, you go to school, right ? And every single day of school, you get punched in the face by the teacher, right? Everyone does. It's part of school. Go there, right? If they bought in a law, right, that kids only got punched once in the face, a week, forgot once a week in the face, right? Everyone would be delighted. They'd be like, brilliant. Yeah, it's fantastic. School's brilliant now. You can see I'm not, you know, like it's brilliant. I'm not healing. But right. So there's that. Everyone would be happy about it. But if you were going to school and they bought an law and there's no punching in the face, but they bought an alarm saying from now on, teachers are allowed to punch every kid in the face once a week. You'd be an urious. Perhaps relatively things relative so it's anchoring. As human beings, we only see the world anchored to what our previous experience of that thing is. And it's a really good example to show that your own perspective of the thing isn't actually the way things are, it's been anchored by all of your previous experiences. So often if you're told in life that it's all your fault, right? And you just believe that, it doesn't even occur to you that it won't be . Because you've got all this experience in the past of just going, Oh, I just got to work harder or I got to do this. You don't even see it . It's like the people being punched in the face once never think, hang on, is alright not to could we just ask not to be punched in the face at all? They just think, oh this is so much better. You did a video where we were talking about homopholey. Homopholey. Yes, I want to ask you the question because it's become a meme now. The phrase diversity is our strength. So now if you say the phrase diversity is our strength, that is a right wing dog whistle to mean diversity stupid. So can I ask you a question? Why is diversity our strength? The reason diversity is a strength is that if you get there's been great studies done about this, where if you get four people that think the same , that have been to the same university or that have been there they could be the most intelligent people in the field , right? Say for example you get the eight most intelligent , kind of successful physicists . Now , did a study where they got different people from different fields working together , like in the same fields. And then you got some people and they're asking the same questions , but they a lot more diverse . There were nurses, there were kind of like, you know, cleaners, there were people coming from different perspectives as well as some of the best minds in their fields, you know ? And they gave them the same activities, the same questions to find answers to. And the diverse groups, the ones that came not just were diverse in kind of like race, gender, and those things, but also diverse in background . Those groups were way better at solving those problems because and this is what homopholy is. It's like often and another way of saying homopholy is the birds of a feather flock together , but it's essentially people who have the same point of view in the world not only make the same assumptions, but when you make a same assumption about a thing, you don't even consider other options. And it leads to a self correction that makes you go way off . And you can see it in the classroom like right now, forty percent of people in the political class or in the judges that are judges went to private school. Forty percent . Do you know how many, what percentage of people, I think this percentage I remember it right. Do you know what percentage went to private school off the population ? Five . Jesus, yeah. Right. Now, if you've got one class of people, one privileged group that are forty percent kind of gone to that kind of background , then it means that there's no diversity in it. It's one of the reasons why politics is so kind of screwed is and what happens is that people make bad decisions because they're surrounded by other people that also make those bad decisions. You did a bit in one of your videos. I think you said the study come from France. All the research came from Francis Golton. Right? Who yeah? Francis Golfon is a cow. Yeah. It's incredible. So just side note, Francis Golton is like the kind of ideological backbone of eugenics . Oh yeah, yeah, he's a same guy. Sort of, I don't know, I don't know a lot about him, but I know he's quoted because he sort of yeah anyway IQ test. I think that's him anyway. But the it would match Broke clock is right at this one I don't know yeah so his study was something along the lines of you got a whole load of people all different backgrounds and they were asked to guess the weight of a cow or something . And they were all some were off completely, some were like close. But what they do is when you pull all these different types of people together , the guess becomes very accurate . Whereas if you got like one other group and they're all very similar types of people , their guest can be miles off. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So I mean, the best way to put it is, well, this is what it did. He went to County Fair . And he asked everybody the way of a cow, kids, farmers , experts in cow weights , just passersby , stallholders or whatever. And nobody got it exactly right. Nobody. But when he divided it by the say , you know, asked a thousand people, when he divided it by the number of people he asked or a thousand , the answer was right. That's crazy because everybody everybody corrects in different ways. So if you don't have a diverse group, you end up having everybody's over correcting for, say, they think it's heavier. And then that average, the correct weight of the cow doesn't isn't there because you're only using a certain group of kind of like that are making the mistakes. And this is the key thing. Everyone makes different mistakes . So I'm not saying say for example politicians are making huge mistakes . But if they're not making the right mistakes, if you've got nobody in the room making the right mistakes from a poorer socioeconomic background and know certain things, then that doesn't get read and suddenly you' there wrong way of a cow . You know, you've got to have a room that's properly diverse to allow the actual truth of it. Yeah, the vision like reality because you'll see in every perspective. And that's why it's such a shame that these terms get villainized. Like diversity is our strength because it's like it literally is just true. It is true and there's so much says to say that it really is. It really is fundamentally true. Yeah, it is our strength. And that's the problem. And I think the political angle is the most interesting because that misrepresent that over representation of private school people they just can't see the world same. Like you ain't got a prostitute in there. Yeah. She's going to see the world. No, they got a few prostitutes, but they come and go. Yeah, yeah, that's it. They're not they're not all canvassed. Yeah, exactly. And they're just not like, you're not seeing every corner of society and they would be able to tell you about this corner because we have and again, it ties back to this sort of meritocratic attitudes and this sort of ide a that if you're winning, if you're successful, then you're right . And then that's like but it's fully because it's not really how the world works. We've conned ourselves into believing that success means correct when it doesn't. And it's and yeah, I don't know how you is there a level of just telling people this, educating people this? Like how do you feel like intrinsically people sort of know that know that . Well, this is what I love about your channel, it's what I love about Gary's channel. It's that all you can really do is keep normalizing the conversation to bring these points of view in. Because actually I'm really lucky, right? So I was brought up in Paul. My dad's a screw salesman. My mom was a stay at home mum. I'm one of thirty six cousins, none of which, when I went to University, none of gone to university. Nobody in my family went to un uniiversity. I only went toversity because I was lucky enough to pass eleven plus. My mum didn't really you know with me as growing up, she just I was the oldest kid. She sat there and just read to me. That's how what she did. And it meant that I was ahead when I went to school and it just meant that I kind of could do math and I got to grammar school. And because of the grammar school, they just presumed that you'd go to university. And so I just went, oh, I guess I do, then. Like it never occurred to me not to, right? Now that is pure luck. Now, the reason there was a reason I was saying that why was I saying the back what were we talking about? Survivorship bias was it kind of what was the thing Oh you gone No hang on there was, a thing that you about were talking gold as gone. So basically we both ADHD and the fuck out and we forgot what we were talking about. So wherever we're picking up here, the other study that always comes up for me is this, have you heard of Abraham Wald, survivorship bias. Okay . So if you look at like this is why the way that structures, it's very hard to see structures. I love this study because it makes it so clear. So during World War two , there were like certain planes were coming back and they had bullet holes all over them . And so they did a study of like, okay, where do we need to reinforce like put extra metal on the planes in order to stop them being so vulnerable? , So right they took all of the bullet holes. They did a survey of all the bullet holes of the planes and right, right? Those where the most bullet holes were, that's where we need to reinforce, right? Because you want the planes not to have bullet holes in them, right? Yeah, one on one. And this guy Abraham Halford says and that's not where you want to reinforce. And they're like, shut up, mate. You don't know what you're talking about. I know planes, bullet holes. We don't want them. And he goes, No, no, no, those are the planes that came back. So the planes that came back, the bullet holes didn't do any har m. Otherwise they wouldn't have come back. Can you see those areas where there's no bullet holes? That's not because it's repelling the bullets . It's because if a bullet goes through there, the plane doesn't come back and it's not in your data. What I do know about survivorship bias is and I feel very lucky, this is where I was going with it is that I've got that background the only one of thirty six cousins to get university. There aren't many people like me that invite onto a podcast by somebody that has I've got enough time to make videos. I've got enough time to do this stuff and I'm very lucky. I failed hard for thirty years. I've worked at McDonald's, I've worked at KFC, I've worked at a porkie p factory, I've worked I'.ve had hundredss of job, right? Hundreds of by the way, all the fast food restaurants, best place to work, burger king. Shittiest place, Wimpy. Absolutely true. Never work at Wimpy. Absolute bell ends. But you know, I mean that's my life advice. Come on. Don't work at Wimpy. Yeah, don't work at Wimpie, right? I mean, loads of jobs . But I have failed hard for thirty years. Now people with a life experience like me , right ? Haven't got a podcast. Yeah , don't. And that's the survivorship bias of it, because most people that you hear from these vodka gas, like, you know, one of the reasons why there are very few people in the left wing is that actually , if you and I don't really describe to wing, are you a left wing, right wing? I think these really archaic sense of like combative politics. Yeah , one of the reasons why you don't get that many people talking about social issues and how important socialists ues are and how hard they affect people is that most people that social issues affect don't have time to talk about it. They're too busy surviving , you know? And so there's this whole gap where everyone goes, Well, it can't be a problem. People aren't bringing it up. And the only people that do are kind of like, you know, they're middle class or middle class or whatever, and it doesn't ring true because they're the only people that actually, a lot of people have to speak for them. Yeah. It's why when you get somebody like yourself or like Gary or myself, you know, one of my problems is I look middle class, I look like Bastard son of I don't know Lannister Richard Branson and the Dwarf from Drag Game of Thrones. Yeah, yeah, I feel a game of Thrones. Lannister . I'm you know, I look Lannister. It's the curse of my life. Like, I've got no money. I've been homeless. I've dropped along a bottle like a laser. When I'm on stage, I've heard I've got friends who have actually said when I'm on stage like this is what this comes to him before he inherits. Like the only thing I'm inheriting is choretz. Like I got like emotional what's going on like I've got nothing else happening right but anyway I do look, the way I look but I, come from the back ground I come from. And but we are outliers there aren't that many people that have a background that where you've really had to suffer or you've grown up with not that much. And that's why I feel compelled. And I've spoken to Gary about this as well, is that it feels like a responsibility to talk about it , because my brother would talk about it, but you know what? He's got four kids and he's really fucking busy . Like he cleans cars for a living. It's like it doesn't give him a huge amount of money. Like and he's just, you know, he's got three grandkids. He's got another one on the way. Like and you know, like my nieces are struggling to make it, like, you know, and and there's just there's if you're at the lower socioeconomic and you just don't wait time Where's your time for a podcast? Yeah, it's literally not yeah, it's just it's time energy and so many people can't see that. Yeah, I realize like how much my politics now is shaped by the fact because I was literally as I said, I was right wing and then it was literally the process of achieving things and becoming successful . Where I realized like I contrasted what I've achieved, what I've done, how much I work for it versus my dad and what he had at his age . He worked very hard, but he worked he was a carpet filler and he had a house in his twenties and could afford to have two kids . And I look at me, I'm in my phase. I have an apartment and I can't see where I'd have time to have kids right now . I have to restructure everything. And so I'm like I had this sort of break where and that's apparently quite a common thing in political radicalization into different places is where you're perceived where you believe you should end up doesn't meet your expectations or where your expectation of status should be versus where you get to . And when those things don't meet, it's why you know people white working class people can be radicalized because white people are typically expected to , you know, we look at the history books and we're like, We did fucking so much shit . And we see all these stories and we're like us white bros, we fucking did it. And I'm sat here flipp binur'gers and I can't afford rent. And it's like that gap in status . It's like I expect like when I look at the world, people like me are like this and then so you can very easily get radicalized because you didn't get where you should have. And I went the other way where I achieved the success to some degree. And I'm like, this is I can't expect everyone's gonna do what I did. Like I've met and they don't deserve, they don't they shouldn't have to do what I did. Yeah. It feels like an unsustainable, unrealistic world to think that everyone can optimize and work in this insanely high level and find the unique angle of available just to have a society that has kids so that we can continue our existence. Exactly. There's this great interview with Elon Musk, right? Where it genuinely is so funny because he's going there's this kind of mood music on and he's going I used it in the video but he's going you know and it was that point where I was , you know , SpaceX wasn't really working and Tesla wasn't really working and I was down. Man, I just thought I wasn't going to make it. I was down to my last thirty million . And you just go the fuck last thirty millions? Chill out. Have a nice light mate. Yeah. Like and or just like take the risk, you know what? Put a million aside, you'll be fine. Yeah , yeah, yeah. Like everything's alright, chill out, but you get acclimatized to that kind of level of privilege and that kind of level of the thing is got nothing you get acclimatized to that. But you got Elon Musk going, why aren't you building SpaceX? And as a white guy, you look at that and go, well, I'm not Elon Musk. It must be a failure then. You'd never see the back end. Yeah . It's so fucked. It's so deep But it is but you know what? The hopeful thing is and this is why I love this fact, right ? The hopeful thing is that there's conversation around this now. There's an opportunity to be have conversation. And you know, the change the thing is we look at things being fucked right, but the studies on it are really clear , right? If I tell you a fact about the world, right? Or if I help you out, let's say I help you out, I do a nice thing for you. Now that feeling doesn't just last with you. It goes to three degrees of people. You feel better and this has been scientifically proven you feel better and so you're nice to somebody else . And then actually it lasts for like three degrees . So the next three people that you've got the opportunity to help, it lasts that long, right? Then it fades out, you go back to being a cup. But whatever it is, right ? But it lasts for three degrees. Now most people know an average of about one hundred and fifty people , right? That's most people with social circuits. It's called the Dumbar number. It's kind of like an average of how many people. That's why when you go to a wedding, you know, you get to about like one hundred and fifty, that's how many is at a wedding. And that's why when you meet the uncle that's drunk and absolute bell end, he's one five one and you can't bear it, right ? But like if you times one fifty by , so one fifty times one hundred fifty times one hundred and fifty, that's the effect that you can have. You can have affects one hundred and fifty people and it can times three. Do you know what that number is? one hundred and fifty times one hundred and fifty times one hundred and fifty. Do you know what that number is? Big number. three point three seven five million . Wow. That's how much your your effects in your life. We can't centralize how effective we can be. If we go out and we say the things we say to the people around us, you don't need a podcast, you don't need to say other things. But if you go out and affect the people around you in a positive way and really ground your life and these ideas to know that it's not your fault that kind of you're poor that is actually there are these other structural reasons. Yes, you have to try, everyone has to try, but actually your successful failure has got nothing to do with the success. All you could do is turn up and try your hardest and you will carry on trying. But if you bring those ideas into your life day to day, actually the effect that that can have is way bigger than you think it is. And that's super hopeful because another number, there's this tipping point number that to get social change, to affect social change, you don't need fifty percent, you don't need seventy five percent . A tipping point on social change is between twenty and twenty five percent. That's all you need. Yeah. Because once you get to that amount, then it tips everyone else. And you' neverd know whether you were the tipping point. Yeah, you'd never get to see that. And it's a really hopeful message. And so yeah, yeah. I think it's good to be realistic with how big the struggle is, but I think at the same time, it's like I am optimistic just purely through the position that I think quite in market terms a lot. I just think we have more room to grow than the right does. And I think our election is in a quite a nice timing where Trump comes out of office if he comes out of office the year before our election and I think we 've got Yeah, we've got momentum so I think I'm quite optimistic. It's been lovely chamber y'all really enjoyed it lovely love and exclusively on say I'll say about my club so yeah I run a club called Angel Comedy. And so I was bankrupt and homeless thirty years and then ended up building a really successful comedy club. And I performed. So you can see that in Angel in Islington. My name is Barry Furns, but literally if you google Barry Comedy London, my face will come up and you can see that. And we were talking about maybe doing a live interview at some point. Yeah, I really like the idea of doing an interview at the club and like because we got cameras set up and like just to interview you live, I think it'll be a fun thing to do. Wow , enjoy the that's not the word I'm going to use. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed it . Love you all catch the next one. Bow