Cleo Abram: What Could Go Right?

Oh wait, let's talk about Alice. Actually, Eugene is a huge fan of aliens. I am also alien. Have you have you discovered anything like currently we're close to making first contact in the next two years or something? You see, I love it. Now we're at the party, he's just said that. Yeah. So there's a guy first first have your drink and say it. I think it it sets the scene. We're at a party.

Hey yeah, um So aliens. So there's an extraterrestrial uh being that comes through a guy called Darrell Anchor. Ha ha ha ha ha. Don't you just hate it when your pessimistic friend is a DJ? This is what You take your time. You just go ahead and take your time. Every moment, every second you need. You just take Do they have that on on YouTube? I know they have subtitles and dubbing, but can you dub to other accents? That would be dope. That would be nice.

We should just have the whole episode in a sudden vaccine. They I think you should do that for this episode. We really should. I think you should ADR it after. Just do the whole thing. What's ADR? Uh I think it's Untechnical Challenged. I actually don't know what the I I oh I did what I always hate, which is using an acronym when I don't know what it stands for. I think what ADR means is when they go back in a movie and make the same

Sounds again uh when they didn't catch it. Oh no, you've acted in my own. Ha additional dialogue recording. But they should have a name for it when it's over the other one'cause not additional. This is the same dialogue recording. It should be a good thing. It should be called DDR, duplicate dialogue recording. And you can upload your own audio files on YouTube. What do you mean? So you could Post the video. Yeah. And then you post another audio file and I think you'd have to call it

You'd have to choose a language. I don't think like Southern America. I'm actually we should start doing that. We'll make every episode in another accent as well. Because people people think of everyone who speaks other languages. Mm-hmm. But what about other accent speakers? What about them? Yeah, no one cares about that. We could be doing this whole episode in an English accent. Eugene, I I say Eugene. I couldn't, but you could. Yeah, but the universal African accent must never see the light.

'Cause we ever came up with that universe'cause even in Africa we are you you which ja accent are you talking up about You see it's I can't even like do it, it's hard. Yeah. That accents. It's in like every movie where there's Africans but they're not African.

Africans hear it, but where it's a very it's a very specific kind of accent. I I don't even know how to do it because it's nowhere. You shouldn't know. It's nowhere. Because if you did know No, but do you do you um you know it's uh be we were we were talking about this just before we started recording. And I wonder if you have to think about this. You know, as as your platform's grown, as you've gotten bigger, do you have to think about balancing out like

what you'll do for a view and then what the views will do for the people who are viewing the thing. Hmm. Tell me more about what you mean by that. So what we were chatting about earlier is let's say I'm interviewing somebody on the show, right? We're hanging out here. It's me, Eugene, the person, who whoever it is.

Let's say they're a politician and then you go, like for instance, we had Zoran on on the show, and then someone's like, Oh, we'd be cool if you did a thing on Trump and whatever, and then I go, It could be cool and it could be crazy and you could do whatever you want, right? So I could go off and and do like I let's say I do like a mini roast of Trump or whatever. Here I am with Zoran.

So he's like Zoran Mamdanny, the mayor of New York, and then you're like, Oh, let's play out what happens. Like, welcome Zoran, nice to see you in my office. Mama Danny, nice to see you, Mama Danny. Now if he joins in and Trump sees that. And Trump gets pissed off and then goes, Oh, I'm gonna cut funding for New York. Was it worth it? No. That's my point. Yeah. So now but I wouldn't have to think that if we only had like fifty viewers, then you just do whatever you want.

Yeah, but you wouldn't feel good about it even if you had fifty. Oh, I would definitely feel good about it. You heck how can you not feel good about an act out? I'll just say about my show. I've constructed the whole thing so that it prevents That question. Because the premise of the show is I'm gonna genuinely explain something to you that's complicated that I want you to understand.

I'm gonna do it in a way that is, in the end, optimistic. You're gonna have a specific feeling about like, oh, there are smart people working on a hard problem and I can see how we could make this better. And then it's gonna be visual and beautiful and joyful all at the same time. And if it does those three things. Visual, beautiful and joyful. Whenever I look at you, Eugene, that's what I think of. I think you are visual, I think you are joyful, and I think you are beautiful. Not often.

Your hands are warm and mine are cold. That was nice. Um the three things no, the three things are uh genuinely good explainer. genuinely optimistic and visually stunning, a visual piece. And so if it's those three things, then it gets to be on huge. And if it's not one of those things, then it shouldn't be there. And so that permeates a lot of the no stop. Yeah. And if so it's not one of those things

then the pressure is on me and on my team and on I mean, frankly, the audience now now knows like what feels like huge and what doesn't. And it it's a pressure that counterweights a lot of the other pressures on journalists and ones. Okay. Okay. Got it, got it, got it. To be pessimistic, to be um unscrupulous and sensitive. Yeah. All of those things, no. Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a counterweight. And I'm not saying like it's

it's perfect every time. We we also think a lot about how do I do those three things in a way that millions of people want to watch. So there's absolutely like a a storytelling element to it. But it strips away a lot of the things that I didn't like as a journalist that I don't want to watch that aren't in the end, helpful for me to actually understand something.

make me feel optimistic about the future that I can participate in building. Um, and that use the fact that it's a video, right? Like watching a video requires a lot of your time and attention. It requires your eyes as in addition to your ears. And so I think a lot about how do I earn that from my audience. So anyway, if those if I'm doing those three things, yeah, then it should be on the show. And in those moments where like you can feel the pressure

to to do something else because you think it'll spike in viewership. I mean, everyone talks about that. Everyone who's been involved in YouTube, ev'cause I because I think there's a there's a specific um There's a delineation between the types of content you make when you wait when you're making it for like what we call like mainstream media, let's say. Your bosses have already confirmed it, it goes out, it's commissioned, it gets put on TV or in the movies and then it's done.

YouTube, you are the boss. You're making you're making the decisions, you're putting it out there, you're doing your thing. So in essence the only driving force behind whether it does or doesn't go out is you. All right. But that means that people I remember talking to is Jake Paul or Logan Paul. I always forget which brother. I think it was Jake. I think it was Jake. and um w uh w was interviewing him and we were talking about his life and his show and then he talked about how

the the click cycle got him. He did one thing. He he he fell somewhere. He broke something. And then people like, more of that, more of that. And they didn't say it verbally, but people loved it. Yeah. And then him and his team were like, You gotta do it again and then you're jumping off the top of your stairs, the banister in your in your house and people like more, more You're going high and high and the next thing you know you're in like, you know, a forest, a suicide forest in Japan.

And you are looking at yourself going, How did I get here? But stand up has a lot of those elements, right? Oh yeah, stand up when we first started was just us trying to see how far we can push the envelope. Yeah, you're not wrong. And then you get one T V gig and now you have to be careful. You get one endorsement, now they're like, also are you gonna say that for real, real, real?

Yeah, it's but it's almost the the other way around, funny enough, with stand up now that you mention it. It's almost like stand up they They almost calm you down in a way. 'Cause as stand ups what we're trying you see like your rules. I I don't know about all stand ups, but like I I can say for myself and this gentleman seated across from me. This fine squire right here across from me. I would say it's like if we think of our rules, you go, Do we find it interesting? Yes. Yeah.

Do we think it's funny? Yes. Then that's it. It's as it's as simple as it doesn't matter where it goes and how it goes. You're trying to break everything. That you don't think are funny. That you think are just not that'll make you feel good. Yes. That would that that helps a lot. That feeling, like for me, it's these three criteria I've come up with. This sp and it helps to have a I think what I'm what I'm really coming to in this is it really helps to have a mission.

It really, really helps. These criteria are part of the overall mission of the show, which is in my case, and everyone ha chooses their own. My mission is I make this show so I can show people with those three criteria, explain to them things in an optimistic way, in a a visually beautiful way. I make this show so I can show people visions of the future.

Because I believe that if they see those visions in an optimistic way, they can help build them. So my goal, I'm not an engineer, I'm not a scientist. My goal is to present who's working on hard things and how are they doing it and what could it potentially do and how could it go wrong and how could it go right and make a optimistic explainer video.

It helps people see if you're watching it in the audience and maybe you are someone who could help, and I believe that everybody can in their own way. Yeah. You can help participate in making that better somehow. I look at people like you with a mission and I go, Why do you care? Well now we could get into all kinds of You know, my the way that I grew up and and why I want to do this work. Then let's do it. Let's do it. I'm happy to let's do it.

Like we don't have an option. You're like, oh well then I gotta get into it's like you've come to the right place. Why did you get it?'Cause I remember when I so I'll I'll give you a bit of context. When I first came across your work, I had just started on the Daily Show. So um

I joined the Daily Show in twenty fifteen, right, when Jon Stewart was still around. And so I was just a correspondent, John would phone me, be like, Come and do this funny thing I'd be like, Yeah and then we'd leave. And then you know what I mean? Back and forth, back and forth. John announces he's leaving, they find a new host, the host happens to be me. I've shrunk the process down. Before I was gonna host the show, I went through this like I wanna say like six, seven month period of just

I mean like gorging on every piece of content that I could'cause I just had to learn about this new country and this new place, but from the inside. You know? So what's the news? Where's the news coming from? And then America's unique and I guess now it's not as unique as as it was at that time. in that the news doesn't just come from one place. Yeah.

You know, so we grew up where it was like, did you watch the news? Yes, I watched the news. And then now here it's like which news? Whose news? Whose news? Who said it's the news? So now I'm watching all news, collecting all news. And I remember coming across your work and at the time it was on Vox, right? Yeah. And Vox was this new platform that had come out and they were explaining stuff and they made the news digestible. And let me tell you, if there's somebody who needed stuff explained,

Mm-hmm. This guy right here. Mm-hmm. 'Cause I was like, What what what is a filibuster? Wait, what is happening?

Who's possibly the most who gerrymandering? Who's Jerry? Why is he mandering? What is going on here? Right, I was like, what is happening in this country? And you know the funny thing is um Americans will make it seem like they know what's happening. Yeah, they make it look like everything is normal. Yeah, and then when you find out about it and then you ask most Americans, they'll be like, I actually don't I I actually don't and and not in like a shit way, it's just there's there's so many

Intricate little details to the system. And that's when I came across your work. You're making these videos, making these videos, making these videos. And it was doing pretty well. And then you You just left. And you left when things were going well at Vox and you were just gone. This is the best time to leave anything. I mean, that's the craziest. There you have to We really have to wait for a workman's camp your marriage. Eugene's advice.

Leave your marriage on a high. Make sure to leave your marriage on a high. Honey, can I just say I am having the best time ever with I love you so much. I love you so much. I'm leaving. What? Yeah, I mean I just figured So so take us it wasn't like that. No, so so so let's go back. Let's let's let's try and understand.

I think as Eugene eloquently pointed out, how do we how do we get to the core of this person who wants to make things that are optimistic and informative and visually beautiful in a world where you get more reward for making things that are negative? And rage baity and cause you could have a big show on YouTube doing that. You could go, let me show you why the Hadron Collider's gonna kill all of us.

Let me show you why dinosaurs are gonna come back and kill all of us. Let me show you why asteroids are gonna kill all of you could you could make that and I think it would Oh I like this. So let's let's go down a rabbit hole. You're good. How do we meet you at this point? What what what happened in your life that made you this person? So I was

If we rewind all the way back, I was a kid who I grew up in Washington, DC, and my parents were both lawyers. And my mom was working for Congress and my dad was a litigator and he did a lot of death penalty cases.

And we would talk about these things. We would talk about my homework and we would talk about their work at the dinner table. And I m both of my parents were the kind of people where if I gave them something that I'd written, they would like cross out the lines really brutally and say, like, there's a simpler way to say that. Like you can always say it in a simpler way that people can better understand. Wow. And my dad in these these cases that he would work on.

I really saw as a young kid how if you can explain something complicated in a way that twelve normal people can understand, you can actually save someone's life. Like in a real way. Like that's what he was demonstrating when I was a kid. And I guess that lesson stuck with me. It's hard sometimes it's easier now to draw lines b uh from you know what you did. Like now I see how that's connected. At the time, like it was just a a thing that I knew.

And I grew up and I go to college and I graduate and I begin working at Vox VOX. And Vox at the time was doing explainer journalism, which I loved. Um And I'll shorten the story somewhat, but No, no, no. There's no rush. There's no rush here. We were fully in. Great. W you only need to start w w Eugene does the yawn, then we I'll look for it. It's a very special it's a very special type of yawn that Eugene has.

It's fake, but it works well on people. I'll I'll show you an example now. I'm I'm gonna tell you about my morning and then I'll show you I'll show you how Eugene just gently lets you know that it's time to move on. So this morning guys, I I wanted to have oats. And you know how sometimes your oats are you know how sometimes your oats are like I don't need you in my life No, please go on, go on. Um so I

Uh we can come back to my journey inside box because I started on the business side and then I began uh I'll I'll promise. Um but Fast forward to I'd been working as a journalist for a couple of years. And I'd been covering technology. I'd been making things for Explained on Netflix, which is a a wonderful show that Vox made, very intricate, deep dives into different things that matter in the world.

I had made one on computer programming and one on diamonds explained, which are really fun to work on. I've seen that one. Really? Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Where it talks about artificial diamonds versus real diamonds, the sentiment, the beers, and then the history of like wine. Controlling the market. Yes. And then we ended on artificial diamonds. It was so fun to make. I love doing that. I love that. It was so good.

Thank you. It made me feel smart because I was like, Oh, there is a pr yeah, okay. Thank you. Yeah. Um so I I've been working on on Vox in that way. But I also was a just a person who loves learning about technology and I was looking at it my media diet and I was really unhappy with it. I was really frustrated. And I I think to boil down the reason that I was frustrated was I felt like There was this d knee-jerk pessimism in the news that I was consuming.

That was preventing me from understanding what was really happening in the world and also understanding how I could participate in making the world a better place. Right. And I in doing some research, I happened upon an article, um I was looking through the New York Times archive for reporting reasons, and I found an article from nineteen oh three.

October ninth, nineteen oh three. And it was called Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly. This is a ri like you can go into the New York Times arch uh archive and find this article. It talks about how we will basically never have planes. It talks about how three we will never have planes. They basically say it it boils down to if it took birds thousands of years to develop evolutionarily the ability to fly. It'll take humans millions of years.

And it ends my favorite line in this piece, I still remember it, is something like um Good luck. It's basically the effort might be employed more profitably or something. It was nineteen oh three they were writing. That's beautiful. And um and but so basically they were saying like do other things. This will never work. If it might be employed profitably elsewhere. Yeah.

October ninth, nineteen oh three. December seventeenth, nineteen oh three, two months later was when the Wright brothers took their first assisted point. Two months later. And I looked at that and I put the timeline together and I was like, what like that? matters to me somehow. Like something something is wrong here. And we've been doing this and it felt similar to what we were doing today. It wasn't just like a thing they did in nineteen oh three. This was like a knee jerk

pessimism about some about new technologies or or dreams or scientific efforts. Oh, that won't work. Or once it starts to work, oh people won't want it. Or this'll go really, really wrong. And there's no way it'll help people. This is only gonna hurt people.

And I looked at that and I thought, like, first, this isn't a modern thing. I feel like it's been getting worse for reasons we can talk about, but like this has been happening. Look at this article from 1903. But then also Why does that matter?

Like why care? Maybe the media's generally a little bit pessimistic. Maybe there's also this like hype cycle that happens sometimes and that's also a problem. And so altogether, like, why is this really a problem? What why should I start some new show that's gonna offer something different? I uh you know. And I think there are two problems with that that pessimism. The first is Yeah. that it stops the conversation from getting interesting. Like if I tell you airplanes they just won't work.

We'll have like a five minute conversation about why airplanes won't work. Yeah. But you'll never get to the conversation about like, wait, if they work.

That means that people are gonna start living in different places than their families. That means that people are gonna start traveling to other countries. That means that global trade is gonna fundamentally change a lot in the next hundred years. Like if you told my grandfather what that was gonna look like and just the I mean he was alive when planes existed, but like just the the absolute skyrocketing of the commercial airline

That would have been a fascinating conversation if you'd if you'd said, like, let's just assume that it works for the purpose of this conversation. That's basically what I try and do on my show. And let's assume all the ways in which it could go, you know, awry. Like, okay, now we can have a conversation about

CO two emissions. Now we can have a conversation about like the impacts of tourism. You know, like but you only get to those conversations about real problems when you assume that it's gonna work. And you don't have that pessimism. So that's the first reason. And then the second reason, the thing that was really frustrating me was there's this kind of Ma maybe it's a nihilism that takes hold when people don't believe that the world can get better and that they can help make that happen.

It's like if the world is just getting worse and I can't do anything about it, and I'm not seeing stories about people that are helping make it better, and I'm not imagining technologies like quantum computers, for example, I'm only imagining the ways in which they're gonna be a security problem and not the ways in which they're gonna help develop new medicines and new materials. Then I like why do I why should I try?

Why shouldn't I just be very self interested and like pessimism coupled with helplessness always goes well together. That's a much more succinct way to put it. Yeah. Like your dad said. Yeah. You just scratched out the thing and you just feel like BAM. Pessimism. Combined with helplessness. Is bad. Go do your homework. You're trying to do the opposite. You know, I I I often find that um A healthy amount of pessimism is a good catalyst for people to act.

So you've of you you've often heard people who are very successful talking about the teacher that told them they'll never amount to anything. Yeah. Then we have that conversation in hindsight of them being successful. And the teacher seemingly being pessimistic and and negative. Yeah, they were reacting to it. Exactly. But they had to have the optimism, right? Like they had to like push off against this subject. They never speak about the optimism that they had to have.

to push against the pessimism. Yeah. That's that's true. But I sometimes think to myself, in that same situation to what you're saying, I think a more positive catalyst is one That's sort of a little bit more. prompt your optimism as opposed you know'cause I think of how many people are defeated by that that statement. Yeah. You will never. You'll never amount to anything. You'll never be anything. You will never go anywhere.

I think it works on a lot of people. Because if your teacher's telling you that, who knows you better? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? If someone's like, hey, I've been looking at your body of work. From the age of eight to eleven. Mm-hmm. Yo, man, this shit's not gonna work out for you in life. But teachers never say that. No, they say remember that teacher is per grade. Because people always remember one snippet. of their school career where one teacher said that.

And it's very rare that you go with a teacher from grade zero. No, we went with like in primary school. We like So the same teacher said this to you for twelve years. We you met them literally What evil teacher did you have? No, but this is what I'm trying to say to you. We all knew that and there was always like that teacher. Everyone knew them as

teacher. Do you get what I'm saying? Whatever they catch you, they'll tell you. Yes. The number of people who must have been inspired also by a teacher who said, By the way, have you ever considered that you could do this? Like I've actually heard more stories like that in the end. Of of teachers when I think about my life, I think about the teachers who said, like, Oh, you're very interested in this. Have you read this book? Have you like done that? They're sort of fueling you.

in this way. And I sometimes think of the show that we now make. Um the show is called Huge If True that I left Vox to make this show independently on YouTube. Okay. And I think about it like that. I think about it like offering a menu of

stories and options and futures that could come true to people that might be able to help make them happen, or to an audience that just wants to understand what they could potentially do with their lives and with their time or with their free time. Trevor Burrus You take for granted how powerful that is because

I I don't know if you've if you've seen any of the um any of the polls that people have conducted around AI. Right when they ask the general public, what do you think of AI? And not not like how it's being applied now, just AI as a concept. The sentiment is generally negative. Like you go, Would would you trust machines? Would you trust an all powerful AI? Do you think it would be good for humanity? Without fail.

A majority of the population says, No, it won't be good for us. It's gonna kill us. It's gonna take over. It's gonna do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. It's also interesting that most of those people have had their views shaped by

the images of AI that they they had growing up. So they watched Terminator. They were watching Star Wars. They were watching so they go like, Oh no, there's only one path that technology can take. It only goes this way. Yeah, it it can only go this way and it can kill you. An interesting poll that I saw the other day and I I was shocked by this is People in Africa generally have a more positive attitude towards

artificial general intelligence than people in the Western world. Yeah, because people in Africa deal with racism for a long time. You see you, my man. And that was man-made intelligence. You see you, my man. Try artificial. Aha. Aha.

But I think Eugene is the other half of my brain. You know when people are like your left brain, right brain, I'm like Eugene But it's true. No, but it's but it's it's exactly what you're saying. Right? It's interesting how People who have assumed that the intelligence will be built around them and their histories and their past. Yeah. Now think that that same technology will go on to do to them what they did to others.

But then the people who were only on like the receiving end in recent history of a thing, yeah. Go like, Oh yeah. Any change is good change. They could be like, Maybe this will work. Yeah.'Cause it also puts us in an equal footing. I look at wars the same. Oh damn, I didn't think about that. Yeah, of course. You don't know. I don't know. Let's see what this thing can do for I would be the white people of everyone. Yes, yes, yes. Hey. You want? I do.

Leo, you have to take us seriously. Please continue with your point. Actually, actually that is a question that is a question that I have. And maybe it's because I'm I'm comedy biased. It's just because of my brain. It's it's not like how I I I don't choose to have this filter on the world. But you also have humor in your content. You also Do I I don't think I mean I'm not funny like you guys are. No, no, no. But there's I promise you there's humor in it. Like

When I was watching your your your asteroid video, it's funny. Like the fact that you have Mark Rober voicing an asteroid, that's a funny thing to do. To be talking about the potential destruction of Earth and then use a funny person's voice on the video.

That's funny. You know when you're talking about like the when you're doing the dinosaurs one and you're going around with the archaeologists and you're brushing there were funny moments in that and then you've really watched the show. This is awesome. Wow that why would I invite you here if I hadn't watched the show? Well

That would be a weird thing to do. Just be like, come and No, but you've like seen uh you you remember uh this is great. Yeah. Yeah, but you know why?'Cause you teach well, genuinely. Because you teach well. It it it it's um

It's easy to consume, it's easy to digest and it's engaging. But I remember the funny moments. Even with like the hadron color. Or when you like when when you were showing the um the quantum computer, I was just like the size of it, the scale, but the jokes in between are something that that I found myself fascinated by. I was like, why why bring human into something that most people go, this is this is the future of mankind. There's no time for jokes. But you bring in jokes in.

I think it's it's also that I'm I'm the proxy for the audience. Like I know very little. I know how to tell a great story. I'm a really, really good visual storyteller, but I am not an expert in anything that I'm talking about. And so that requires me to come in by understanding like I'm the secondary character.

The topic is the primary character. Oh damn. My goal, like why learn from me about quantum computers? You learn from a quantum physicist on YouTube. Like why am I there? The reason I'm there is so that I'm a proxy for the audience. I'm like

having fun with it like you might have. I'm asking the questions that you might ask. I'm I'm there to recontextualize what the expert is saying to kind of like translate for them a little bit. Like that's the magic of what we do. Because the the problem with that first bucket that we talked about, the the feeling of like, oh, pessimism ends the conversation, explainers that are too complicated, like they're just not they don't bring people in. The problem with that is

you end up i in a place where I think unfortunately, despite the fact that huge is growing really quickly, like we're we're ver we're small compared to, you know, mainstream media. The um the place that we're in is one where like Most people hear about The future. When it is

has largely been set up by a smaller number of people. And my belief is that if you bring people more into the earlier parts of the conversation, if you say like we're we're gonna need to learn about quantum computers now, though you're, you know, not actually interacting with them anytime soon. m more people at the beginning of that process is a good thing. More people to your point about AI, more people are helping to build that system if you show them what it is.

at the beginning versus saying, Oh, it won't work. Oh, don't worry about it. Oh, this is not something that's gonna be accepted, not something that people are gonna want. It's not gonna be a, you know. maybe it'll change the world but just you should be scared of it. That posture may means that you are less likely to participate in helping it go right. And so that's something I think a lot about. Like how can I make it fun enough?

and good enough and entertaining enough so that you want to be a part of it earlier in the process. So like now when you go about your day, you understand something about what we've discovered about dinosaurs. You understand something about CRISPR or quantum computers or supersonic planes. And like

Maybe you won't work on those things tomorrow, but maybe there's some way in which that is part of your life and you at least know about these topics and you're you're having conversations that are interesting and you're more a part of it than you would be otherwise. I believe that having more people

understand complicated issues means that more people will participate in making sure that they go right. That's what I'm trying to do on my show. I like that you say that. I um I was in uh Washington State. And as an event where who working with Microsoft on basically like getting AI into schools, like having kids learn, teachers learn, whatever.

And they set up this this program where the teachers are advising on it. So they're going, This is what we actually need AI to do. So don't just don't just give us AI. This is what we need you to help AI or make AI do for teachers. You know, so it's lesson plans, it's

helping them mark and grade and all that. Perfect teacher's aid. Exactly. It's supposed to be that. Not a teacher. Right, exactly. And then they will and then parents also like, this is what we need AI to do. And we're at this launch event and I'll never forget this moment. One of the Student um journalist comes up. And at the end of like all the other like journalists, journalists, they've all asked their questions.

And then this uh student journalist c comes up and then asks the president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, goes, Hey, um, I see that you've got this panel convened that's gonna be doing all of this in the schools. Do you have any students on your panel? That's an amazing question. And all of us in the room were you know where you're like, huh? All of us. And then Brad to his credit was like, No, I didn't think about that. And why don't we?

And then literally on the spot was like, Oh yeah, we we we gotta do this. But to your point That's awesome. Even in that moment I found myself going, Oh yeah, you you you take for granted how We are constantly building futures, but not engaging all the people that the futures are being built for. And then when we get there, we're gonna be like, How did we miss this? And it's like, Yeah, but did you just ask everyone? Did you ask everyone what they like Eugene, what do you need from AI?

What do you want AI to do for you? Do you know what AI is? Let me start with this. Because Eugene is very AI is, first of all. Eugene is my Laddite. Eugene is fully my Laddite.

I I always compare everything new with how things were before there was technology. So I hear what you're saying and I hear what he's saying and I combine it to Before there was technology to disperse information and get people into doing something for the collective good without sometimes general understanding of it is wars. So a few men would decide that

This is the creator cause for what we're doing. This and then there'll be conscription. So you don't have to understand fully why we're doing this thing. So we're gonna make you do it. So while you're at this thing, you might discover some people might make it, some people might not, but you look at the ones that came back from wars and how many industries were built.

It's always been an accelerant for technology, for ideas, for industries, for businesses, customizing cars, building technology, weapons, private jets. It's always because of something huge. Catastrophic that happened that included conscription. And I guess once you add a little bit of pessimism in there, you can find a lot of ideas when people push back.

Because people just usually go with something. So I like what I like with explainers is it always starts with have you ever wondered why? But then you have to stick around to the end to go, what are you gonna do about it? So that usually in now normal society you have it's elections. You have to wait to choose the

to almost feel like you have a choice because you've seen what happened in the last four years. Did you see sorry to interrupt you, did you see that did you see that thing in uh I forget where this is in Canada. I think they've they've they're they they had an election or they're planning to have one where everyone can just vote on their phones from home. Yes.

Digital voting, mobile voting. Um like full on turns out it's extremely difficult from an encryption perspective. Wait, same old why. So uh this was a a little while ago, so I don't wanna butcher this too much. But The question I went into the story with is why don't we all just vote on our phones? I love this question. It would be great. And wouldn't it make uh for a more participatory democracy? Sounds good to me. But I I generally believe more people voting is good. Yes.

Let's make it easier to vote. Lovely. I'm in. And so I went and I talked I'm not I'm I'm I'm I'm not a fan of of total outright democracy. You know? Maybe we should start there. Well we'll still be a representative. I'm like, some people don't deserve a voice. We'll still touch that later. We should come back to that. Oh man. As you were anyway For the purpose of this

I why I went and I asked all of these encryption experts. And so we talked to folks that were working on mobile voting. We also talked to people that deeply oppose mobile voting. We should not do that. That's a really bad idea. And I wanted to understand why. My what it boils down to is um that voting is not like online banking. It is not like the secure things that you do online. Okay. And why is that? Couple reasons. The first is that everything you do online accepts some level of fraud.

Because the the banks are basically backstopping a certain amount of fraud to make it easy for you to log in and and do transactions and all those things. They accept that there will be some level of acceptable risk. And that level has to be below the friction that they would have to put on you to make it less risky. Okay. So they just have to mean like more activity that makes them more money versus

uh the amount of fraud that they have to pay for. Okay, so if I if I was to like dumb this down for myself, it's the equivalent of Like a clothing store going, We'll only put a certain amount of detectors on the clothing. Mm-hmm.

To make it save to deter people. Yeah, but we we can't we can't cover the thing in detectors because then you won't want to try it on, you won't see the thing. So we have to accept a certain amount of risk to have you exactly comfortable in the buying trade. What items in the store are we putting detectors on? Uh huh, okay, got it, got it. Okay, got it. We can't accept that invocation.

Because the i the the small amount of risk In especially in the way that we vote in the United States with such small pockets where it matters a lot. You can't accept any amount of risk that way. And also philosophically we don't believe that you should. The idea if you try to explain to people that like we're gonna accept some voter fraud because more people can vote. Well in America's the elections are basically like fifty fifty at this point.

So if you have like like a three, four percent, that's not good. Right. Oh damn. So so you can't accept you accepting. This is fantastic. Um it would help more if we had the visuals. We could have a map, we could have like a you know ahead system. I guess I do speak English the way that you were Sounds good. Um So that's reason number one. Yeah. Reason number two is that um

it's just like nothing else on earth when you have global powers that want to affect each other's outcomes. Like we are not talking about stealing A million dollars, a hundred million dollars. We're talking about

China and Russia and the United States trying to impact each other's elections. This is like this is takes like nothing else that exists at all. And so when you talk about that, like the way that these encryption experts talk about mobile voting, it's like the things that it would have to withstand. are like nothing you've ever experienced online.

Like there's nothing in the world that matters as much as the outcome of the elections of the most powerful countries. It makes absolute sense because if you think of online versus physical voting You are more susceptible to whims if you vote online than you would if you're voting physically. Maybe there's a maybe there's a change in the way the there's Because you might be sitting on your couch feeling a certain way. And then that might determine how you vote.

But if you have to get up, take a day off, go queue I think that would be now I'm gonna vote worse. Yeah, that would be an idea. You just don't want me to stay at home. Why you why are you doing this to me? Also. Why are you doing this to me? Now when I get up, now when I go I might change my vote vote on the way there where I'm like this is a terrible day.

Terrible day. Not after you've my man, have you seen the conversation that happens at Qs when you're about to vote? That's another reason I don't want that. Because now people are talking to each other about voting. Yes. Who should they talk to? Nobody. Your vote, your vote is a good idea. Because we're assuming it could work. We're talking about it. So if you're standing in a queue in the snow and you're about to make a decision around other people who took the same decision as you to

There is actually hold on, there is there is research. There's research on the fact that it's like a community builder. That's a separate argument that's a separate argument. That's a separate separate argument.

The I generally make up your mind. Whose side are you on? Hold on. If you're not sure. She's not on anybody's side. That's what makes her good. She's encouraging discourse, Eugene. Boo. Okay, one more interesting thing about voting is also um the ways that you would have these countries hack

Voting. Yeah. I didn't really understand what I was talking about. I was I was thinking like in like a cyberpunk movie where you like see, you know, then then then there would be a glitch and someone in the US would notice the glitch and like there would be a hack, right? Right. A lot of these encryption experts were like, listen, the way that they would do this is like we already know that in districts, if it rains It marginally affects voting. Yeah. For the outcome of older people.

And those people are more likely to vote this way and then all of a sudden because it rained that one district that affects this one state that affects the electoral college that affects this, all of a sudden. And so what they would do th this gave me the heebie jeebies when they said it. He was like You could imagine a foreign power just digitally making it rain in just the right places, and we would never know. Cloud CD. Like digitally making it rain. Like like I'm making it

Um the lag time on the screen. They could make it a little bit longer. And that would mean that fewer people would vote and you'd never notice. Or the the login, maybe they would make it mess up a couple of times and that would affect like older people in particular. Just it just a little little things on the edges and then you'd have an outcome that you didn't expect to be.

I'll make the lock a little tighter. I'll jam the door a little bit more. And he never and he never has an And then some days he just doesn't I'll be like, Yeah, come over any time. And then he'll be

But I but you know what it makes all my sense. That is crazy to think about it like that is like So you go down the way that we did this episode was you go down this rabbit hole and you're like, Okay, what are th these are all brilliant people that I'm talking to that have thought about this their whole lives. This these are all the reasons why you wouldn't want it. I'm like okay, but

But you could, right? Like this isn't I've talked to people who are building rockets. Like this isn't rocket science. Like you you could do this, right? Like there's ha there has to be some. And so I'm I'm pushing like optimistically, like this could work, right?

And so then you get into the the area of science that's a little bit more boring and I won't talk tell you all about it, but like how would they do it? What are the encryption strategies? There are people that are working on this that could do it in a way that what you would notice.

The the digital reign. Yeah. Like there's there's real effort here and there are experiments. As you said, there are countries that are experimenting with it. There are places where they're trying to make this easier. Um And I think I mean the episode ends with like it's worth the effort to try. Like here are all of the reasons why it's way harder than you think. And it's not just like, oh, I bank online, I should vote online.

But we believe that more people voting is a good thing. You could be part of a future that allows that to happen. Like here are all the smart people working on this hard problem. And so you don't end the story with, oh, it's way harder than you think. You end the story with Oh, here are all the smart solutions, it's ongoing. If you want to participate, you absolutely should. Don't go anywhere. You know what I just realized? You must be both the most fun and irritating person at a party.

Ha ha ha! That's why she comes in early and le uh comes in early, leaves early. Exactly what I'm saying. No, no, you know why?'Cause this is what this is what I was thinking. People love people love speaking to other people who know things. They love it.

until those people actually know things. That's what I've learned. No, but I don't know anything. No, no, no, but you do. You see you do. Because let's say we were at a party now. We're all standing around with our drinks, right? And we're all having this conversation. We're all Oh yeah. So so how do you know Eugene? Ha ha ha

Then I'm like, you know, uh the the election. I think they should vote uh you uh you saw in Canada they're gonna they're gonna do the digital vote, then you go like, Oh yeah, actually they did they did a thing on the then we're like, No, but the thing and then you encryption, encryption, encryption, encryption, encryption Facts, facts, facts, facts, facts, data, experts spoken to, et cetera. And then someone would be like

I'm gonna go um I'm gonna go get a I out of context matter. I'm gonna go get another job. Give it a party, I promise I know ish what I No, I wouldn't. If I were you, I'd keep doing it. I'm just saying because we live in a world where let's be honest, we live in a world where what you said earlier really struck me. You said, I'm not an expert. I don't know anything. And I go, that's a strange level of humility for you to approach this this sphere with because

You do know things because you've learned on it from the experts. And I always go like knowledge is is from someone. You know what I mean? There's very few people who make original knowledge alone.

Everyone takes from somewhere, takes from somewhere, takes from somewhere. The expert. And then when you read even if you read those like textbooks, I love you know when you go down to the footnotes and they're like, Oh yeah, this guy said that part and that person said that and she said that and that person said and then from who? You're always taking into weird words.

Extraterrestrial beings called the Anunnaki. Oh, I don't even know what that is. Yeah. Anyway. Oh wait, let's talk about aliens actually. Eugene is a huge fan of aliens. I am also alien. Have you have you discovered anything? Apparently we're close to making first contact in the next two years or something. Yeah.

So there's a guy First first have your drink and say it. I think it it sets the scene. We're at a party. Hey yeah, um So aliens. So there's an extraterrestrial Uh being that comes to a guy called Daryl Anka. Don't you just hate it when your pessimistic friend is a DJ? We shouldn't have put him in charge of the music. You were saying. Now look at me.

So there's this being that comes through him, it's been doing this for the last twenty, thirty years. It's called Bashar. So Bashar a couple of years ago previously. I'm sorry. Are we talking about like Daryl Anker? Uh Kazamai the only one who knows about Pashar and Spirit Box at the same time. So explain the Eugene. Please this is one of Eugene's favorite YouTube channels. Yes. So is this like a

Like Spirit Box and Pasha are two different things. But we'll go into spirit box later. And are they doing that? I'll ask I'll ask this the way that my five year old niece would ask this. Like is this the pretend world or is this the real real world. But with some level of protection. While he describes it, then I'm gonna play it for you. So Pashar has been I mean I mean Darrell Anka has been channeling this being from another planet psychically.

Called Bashar, right? So Daryl does this. And then Bashar five years ago predicted that in the next coming years we're gonna start seeing things that we can't explain in the sky. So those are different levels of aliens that will start making contact.

And then two years ago, a year ago we started seeing drones that people couldn't explain, governments couldn't explain, um, phenomena that was happening globally at the same time that people couldn't explain. And then he said, Two years from now, we're gonna start seeing more contact, human contact. with aliens. And I believe it.

I was gonna go a different route with this. Tell me. But Wait, wait, before you do, I'll I'll play you I'll play you a s this is a a guest John Bay Ramsey spirit. I'm pretty sure when we were talking about And and Pasha so start with Pashar. Spirit Box is something else. Oh I don't I don't know. Okay, start with I only remember the Spirit Box'cause it like made my life. Say Pashar. Okay, hold on, hold on. But then you Are we sure we should be giving this more airtime to ever?

We can just we can just we can just bleep them all. Remember when you were worried about your your your digital diet. So now let me uh let me ask you as as somebody who loves science, who explores you go How do you delve into a topic like this? This is a good moment. So let's say we were in the office now, Eugene had just pitched you Well we did this. And also I mean I think the thing that I really like to do when I hear things that

with all due respect may or may not be true. Yeah yeah. Is uh you take that and you say, okay, what are people interested in here? And how can I show you the way in which the science that I'm confident is is at least going through the scientific process, is um more interesting for the reasons you are interested in this than a sort of fictional world ever could be. So for example, people are really interested in the large Hadron Collider at CERN. There are a lot of conspiracy theories about it.

Oh, they think it's like gonna tear a hole in the universe. They think it's there's a lot of like devil worship kind of thing. Yeah, the sort pseudoscientific, but also like much more spiritual as well that this is wrong somehow, that we shouldn't be playing God. There's like a lot of like centralizing things. opening a portal for things to come in. Yeah, and like all of that. Um Also like There have been a couple of instances in which I'm not sure.

S like people have played into this. Like there were a couple of students who pulled a prank where they were like dressed up a certain way and like did a sort of Oh man. That wasn't ideal. But it got a lot of headlines. I'm deep into conspiracy. So whenever whenever we're talking about something like PhD students or something. A bunch of PhD PhD students play a prank and that prank prank becomes more famous.

than the original conspiracy and then it rubs out that conspiracy I think those are agent provocateurs. Maybe. I don't know. I have no idea. You'd like this actually. You you might appreciate this. I r I remember having a conversation with uh someone who was pretty high up, used to be at the CIA and I said to him, I was like, yo

We we laugh at conspiracy theorists and all that, but he said, but we're also glad that they are as crazy as they are because of how many times they are right. And can I tell you that changed my perspective? Because I'm not he's a conspiracy theorist. I'm not. Like I'm genuinely not. But it changed my perspective

Forever because I was like, oh, we assume a conspiracy theorist is always wrong. Yeah. We assume they're always wrong. And then what he basically said to me was, no, no, no. Sometimes they're right. But the stuff that they're wrong on is so often and so crazy that it covers the things that they did get and then we just get to th that's why they'll never like confirm nor deny anything. Because it just it stacks on itself. And I think in the last couple of years they've tried to do

to dispel the myth that most CIA agents are white and also that um what they're doing is unethical. Because you've seen there's a there was a huge ins there was this one guy who was famous with an afro. um who used to be on all podcasts and you'll be you'll be talking about guys really do you think do you really I'm here, they hired me with an afro and I'm black. Do you really think they're that bad? Then everyone was like, yo are they that bad but people who've been affected by

Spies and CIA agents and people who've done things where like they didn't look like you. So there is always, like I certainly believe when there's protests. when there's um Oh, but that's been proved. There's always been an agent provocateur who's just person credible enough to dispel what is really going on. But that's been proved. I mean I think there's there's a lot to read out in the agent provocateur.

This is how it starts. I'm not. I'm not sure. Okay, shut, shut. That's all I needed. I contacted a denial. Yeah. I'm not easy. Eugene's easy Eugene's easy to to please. Are you a spy? No. Okay, cool. We're good. We're good. We're good. We're good. I try and think about it like What is the core interest here? Like so for example, I um I love the idea that I might be alive when we make first contact. Like the idea that there are

Aliens out there, especially intelligent aliens. I'm taking supplements for that reason. You want to be alive for longer to go to the city. To see when we meet. Yeah, totally. Or even I mean I would be Lion's main, I'm in. I would be excited about like Bacteria on another planet. I'm sorry, just sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. This guy just said wait, I'm sorry. This man just said that's what I'm taking because now I pictured the aliens coming down to Earth.

Making first contact with you specifically. Going back to the mothership. And then they go like, Have you met them? And it's like, Yes, I've made contact. Full of magnesium and high high levels of lions made mushrooms. Is this all of Yes, I think they are fifty percent mushroom and fifty percent human. Are you sure? I'm pretty sure I I scanned him, I'm pretty sure. And why is his pea orange? Ash Ashwaganda. I'm sorry. Sorry, so you were going to No no no but you said I take supplements

Hoping for that day. We never think of which do you know how important it is I just nodded and smiled. Yes, but do you know how important it is to think about which human will be our first contact? We never think about that. Because if the aliens do get here and then they meet who they meet first?

Oh, but I think they're gonna be like looking at us from afar and seeing that there's nitrogen in our atmosphere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think they're not. What do you mean they are going to? They have been. I think there's so many Well, okay, so to get back to conspiracy theories, I promise. Um, the thing that I am most interested in is what people are interested in. So for example, the idea that people we we as humans feel this kind of

loneliness inter like with each other and also cosmically, that I think is really beautiful somehow. Like we're we're we're so used to reaching out to each other that we we understand that the world is big, the universe is unthinkably enormous and we we we reach out and we really want that. And so I think that is beautiful and interesting and I

When I tell stories, I I wanna make a a video. I just made an episode all about what would happen if an asteroid were about to hit Earth and how we would figure out how to solve that problem. There are real solutions to that, which are fascinating. But I wanna do another version of that where I imagine like what is the most realistic

case where we might encounter aliens? Is it that on the moons of Europa we're gonna say the is it that on Europa we're gonna find, you know, bacteria in an ocean somewhere? Is it that we're gonna look at a Star system you know, hundreds of light years away and see that there's a an atmosphere there that we think looks like ours because it has life. Like what would the realistic scenarios be? And then you create a sort of

I'm really in into the idea right now of mixing science fiction with the explainer stories that we're doing. Because I do think that science fiction, if you are very clear again with the voicing with Mark Robert, if you're very clear about what's fiction and what's fact. You can play out a situation.

An asteroid is coming for Earth. Okay, now what are the real what is the real science and technology that we would use in that situation? So in this case, okay, imagine the realistic scenarios in which we might actually encounter life in off Earth. What would happen next?

What would we do if we encountered some, you know, light? How would we verify that? Will we send a probe? It's gonna take uh a hundred years to get there if it's a hundred li it's gonna take much, much more than that, actually. Um how would we verify that? And so you you play this out and you

you accept what people find interesting and what the seed is. And then you try and show them the science and the technology that you're convinced is real through the scientific method, but that gets at this this thing that they are excited about.

So another example is uh It's the same as the nineteen oh two article. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. You try and you try and do that in in an optimistic way so people can see like, okay, if the plane were to fly, what would that mean? Okay, if we were to find aliens, what would that what would that look like? What is the real science and tech there? Same thing. I guess what I'm doing is sort of You saw the nineteen oh two first article. Nineteen oh three for the White Brothers was nineteen oh three?

Pretty sure yeah. Okay, nineteen oh three, yes. No no I'm just I don't know. I'm just I'm just making sure I remember it correctly. Yeah, nineteen oh three. And so you can do that over and over again with all of these different These different interests. I don't even want to call them conspiracy theories. It's just like okay, you're interested in CERN, you're interested in the fact that we're smashing particles together. Let me tell you the real science of track.

No, can I tell you listening proton. The real thing that we're doing. Under particle smashing. Are you gonna Only Eugene could make it. Science. Sexy. Uh uh. You see those particles smashing. Now I get it. What did the one Hedron Collider say to the other Hedron Collider? So did you smash? Ayy. There's a scientist out there who's loving that. He's like, yeah Um I I just realized you that's a superpower that you have.

that is not just in short supply. I I I I can't think of many people I've met who who have this ability. You spend very little to no time focusing on the definitive place that people find their imaginations at. And instead you encourage the possibilities of where that imagination could lead. So like you you just did it now, right?

Eugene goes, I believe the aliens and they they speak like this and they're doing this and I'm going like I don't believe in this. I believe it's popular, I don't believe in this. And we roll like that. We're friends. And I always say what I love about that is like I don't think people have enough friendships where their friend has a thing like Eugene treats my views on soccer like I treat his views on aliens.

Do you know what I mean? So when I'm like, oh that game, he's like, what game? There was no this is all not like you know what I mean? But we have fun with it. We genuinely do. But what you do is is is more interesting, is like y you don't sit in the is it right, is it wrong, is it real, is it not, is it no? You go, Huh. How would we? What would we? Where would we? It it it like encourages this journey it encourages a journey.

Yeah, and they're not going to be able to do it. But I think most people don't treat people like that. Like I I tried to explain this to somebody once I genuinely did not have the eloquence nor the compassion that I think you have when when engaging in the topics. But I remember saying this around like parents with vaccines, you know? And I remember I think on one of our episodes we talked to maybe Dr. Becky about it. And I was saying

A lot of parents are anti vaccine, right? And we we live in a world now for the most part where people go pro, anti, fight. How can you not? How can you? And that's it. It's as simple as that. And there's very few people who who'll take a moment to go Well, somebody who is anti vaccine has actually spent a lot of time on their own

Googling and reading and that's almost why they've become anti vaccine is because they've gone out of their way to consume copious amounts of information that have led them down a certain path. Now, whether the information is valid or not is a separate discussion. But it means that they have a hunger and they have an interest in the topic.

That has now brought them to that place. Can you offer more than that? Yeah, can you offer anything that allows them to do that thing that they do in a in a direction that

i that has more for them to do it too. There's more information over here. You could you could be more excited about all of the many different research papers that are coming out every day. Like here's here's a place to start. Like here's here's some interesting information. And I also think like The thing that gets me really excited is that the world is very strange and very exciting and ver and full of things to learn and to get excited about. And so I I view my job as to create a

a menu of journalistically rigorous, genuinely beautiful, deep explainers that might excite someone to go down all of these different paths. Have any of them been wrong in any way? I mean we issue corrections when we get things. Oh you do? There have been there haven't been any ma major stories where the underlying point of the story has been wrong. Right, right. And I I we work really, really hard to make sure that that's not the case. If it ever is, we would do a big correction on that.

So far it hasn't happened. Um but every once in a while we'll we'll need to do a correction on the on a fact. So you you can um YouTube has a really great UX where you can put the time code and then a colon and the corrections. User experience. Experience, okay. So there's a a feature on YouTube where you can say the time code and then say correction and put whatever you want people to understand that is different than the fact that you said. So I do this sometimes if I say like

If I um an example would be uh I use the wrong um we do everything in in metric, but I have a American audience as well. So if the if a um translation is incorrect. I would put the correct one. There's some like things that are sometimes they're they're more deep than that. Uh uh we had a

cave that we said was in one country but it's actually in another. You put the correction. And this is I mean, this is basic journalistic practice. This is what you want, you know, if you're telling a story. And I mean you say that. But we live in a world where that isn't a th why why journalism, by the way? I mean if if both parents were in law, why why did you pick journalism?

Well, I began working at Vox on the business side actually. Okay. I was really excited. I had no experience as a journalist and I was really excited about the idea that I could help facilitate the storytelling that I was so excited about. Um sorry to interrupt you there. Like are you ever not excited? No, you you like you strike me as a very positive, optimistic, excited like

I understand. Making videos about asteroids hitting the earth and like explaining the world. Excited. I'm with you completely. Law, death penalty, excited. You just said I was gonna go work in the business division, business affairs, and I was excited. And your eyes told me that you worked. Yeah. Is there anything where you go like boring? Like is there anything or or have you always had this as a as a as a filter on the world? I think I was so incredibly lucky that somehow

I th I I don't think it's innate. I think I was taught this somehow along the way. That there's nothing I'm actually I'm doing an episode right now. I'll spoil it. When does when does this come out? Well whenever it needs to come out. Um I don't know. This is not the kind of thing that is like a big spoiler. We're working on an episode for the Olympics, it'll come out during the Olympics. Okay. And we're focusing on curling the sport. The sport.

Um big wheel of cheese. I'm obsessed with curling. I think curling is just the most fast. From a physics perspective, the ice is amazing. There are all kinds of applications of the way that it's the curling stone spins. that might in an interesting way helpful. You guys criticize me. Oh, I promise. Uh-uh, uh uh, Eugene. You're talking about a granite jean? Yeah yeah. Wheel of cheese. Yeah. Let's be clear. I've never criticized you. I've only mocked you.

There's a difference. Um Iish can where in the X UX can I put this correction? You want some? Yeah. So yes, you're fascinated by curling. And you said how it might s help us solve? So the physics there's a a physics mystery in curling, which is oh man. I g I gotta explain this now. So No no no no no no no this is the thing that nobody would understand. No, I'll explain this one second. I need a I need a prop. You need a sip? Yes. Okay. No, she needs a prop.

She's gonna Oh a prop. So you d okay. Okay. You're the life of the city. That would be really fun if we were if we were at a party now, you'd be like, all right. Okay. So the mist the mystery in curling is um Usually if I have this and I spin it, uh I don't know if you saw that, but it I was spinning it in this direction. Yes. And it moved that way. Okay. Does that make sense? So it counted as good. Yes. Uh in curling.

That's not what happens. I can't demonstrate it with this right now, but uh if you're if you're with a curling stone, which has a very specific like bottom. And you you spin it on the ice, if you watch Olympic curling, it will spin this direction, right? That's the same as what I spin and it will tr move this way.

And that has been confusing physicists for a hundred years. Wha why why why is the other one normally happening? Is it centrifugal force? What what is happening? What's causing that So the reason why the reason why that happens So I spun that way, it moved that way. I think I did it a little bit. Let's see if I can do it going straight and really trying to make it work. Yeah, so it moved that way, I spun it that way. Yeah, okay. The reason why that happens is something to do with

friction on the front and it like I I I don't totally understand why it happens, but it basically happens with everything. So if you um the physics of This spin and the friction of forward motion means that it should move that way. But on ice with a curling stone, it goes. It it goes the opposite direction than you would expect. Because there's no friction? So we don't uh totally understand why.

So this has been confusing physicists. There are a lot of genuine research papers written about this. This has been confusing physicists for like a hundred years. And there's a lot of very reasonable uh uh reas if you if you ask why. And you look at the papers, there are a bunch of reasons that they give. Some there's there's one uh theory that has to do with the friction on the front.

Uh, of a curling stone is different than if it's on this because the ice is melting slightly as the friction moves across. So there's something to change about the friction. Like is it that the is it that the water and the ice are like doing two opposite things and then there's like a layer between them or? It I I couldn't repeat you with the theory. Trying to figure out why the stone spins the way it does. This is exactly my point. And what material is a stone? Granite.

A s really special granite. It comes from one island. Every single Olympic curling stone comes from the same island. What island? Uh it's called You can just say any island and we'll throw in a correction. We should just do that for fun. Just just to show people how it works. So the specific island. In Scotland it's called I'm not gonna remember this. I'm not gonna match it. Just say an island. Just say an island. The island of stone. Stone. Alisa Craig, thank you so much.

The sober guy at the party. Arm effects meant to be that we don't bada bab. But see, every single stone comes from that one island. Okay, here's my point. And every single boring person comes from that island too. Thanks for the facts, facts guy. We were having so much fun here guessing. They were gonna make me make up an island, so thank you. Oh man. Um here's my point with this. The island of Bashar and then we would have put the correction. It would have been perfect. Sorry, Eugene. Sorry.

My point is that curling is a sport where if you read the YouTube comments and most videos about curling, or if you look at the way that people cover curling, especially on television during the Olympics, They make a lot of fun of it. They they they talk a lot about like how did this become an Olympic sport? Like, oh, you know, why are we like it

It's sort of a a joke. It becomes a a joke. First, I think curling is amazing and I think the curling athletes are amazing. So I I think that shouldn't be the case in the first place. Curling athletes? Yeah, yeah. Oh oh I tried curling at the curling Olympic trials. I tried it. It's insane.

Wait, what makes sense? What's hard about it? Um knowing that your friends might see you doing it. No. The balance of doing it. I mean you know you know we sat at this we are, man. You know we sat in this we are, man. Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Man, you know you know So you know we started this we on baby. I've never heard you use that voice before. Don't be out here acting like you don't know what we try to cut a we off. This is my point, you guys, which is.

Cleo are trying to trick us into acting like curling's not funny. Some people think it's funny. We are those people. You don't have to go far. There are some people who think it's a we are those people. You have Found us! I am gonna make the case for this. I am such a big curling fan. I am gonna make this case. My point Okay, sorry, sorry. My point is that It is lame to be the cynic who looks at curling and thinks, oh, it's funny, it's not interesting.

Not you guys but damn it's lame. Show it it is much more interesting. And it makes your life better to be the person that goes Why does it work that way? Gotcha. Why is that? Turns out there's a crazy physics mystery and and uh stone island and a relationship to how we're gonna discover aliens, by the way, because we need to understand we don't need to understand physics of curling time, but it relates. To the way in which we're gonna explore.

islands where or um it relates to the way that we're gonna explore planets with ice and oceans underneath. So we need there there's a whole physics of the way that ice rubs against other things and you need to understand that if you're gonna drill into plant it's just My point is that there's an endless amount of interesting things to know when you don't

stop at oh that looks a little funny. Yeah. There's that there or it's more funny you just get in clues of the universe. But you also just made me realize that comedy does the exact opposite of what you're saying.

But it's all about assumption. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? I would just say that your comedy makes me think more about the everyday things. You're very you're very kind, but I think like when I think of like most if you if you think of some of the crazier jokes that we'll tell as comedians. Fundamentally what we're doing is

Uh uh the seed is the same. It it it's all it's all born in curiosity and being inquisitive. However, the conclusion is necessary, like the the assumption of the conclusion is necessary. Otherwise it isn't W um one of the first ones where where I knew this was um Jerry Seinfeld, one of his most famous jokes. was about um the expiration dates on milk.

Mm-hmm. And he was like, How do they know? How do they know when you milk the cow? It's like s you know, they've got the date. And it's like and he had this really amazing bits about like he's like, Are they milking the cow and the far and then the the farmer leans in and then the cow's like, yo, yo, January seventh or what you know what I mean? Very funny bit.

I never f I never laughed at it, never found it funny because I knew before I saw the joke how they have the expiry date and it's just the number of days after it comes out of the cow. And so I learned in that moment That's a lot of comedy relies on you not knowing the facts. Yeah. Being curious, but don't pull out a phone. Don't do the research. Don't just be like,

How do they and then you've gotta go on your own journey and figure it out. Mm-hmm. And God forbid you figure out the truth. It's just like the joke is finished. Yeah, the joke just like it like Such a CIA thing to say. Yeah, I don't know. I think a lot of what you've been doing with your comedy is like You do explain. Like you land You land an explainer.

After a if a funny journey. If it's if it's a real story, I mean you and I assimil it in that way. If it's like a real thing, I'm not gonna try and make it not a but there are moments where you go, Yeah. What is the like one of my favorite jokes of myself, you know every comedian has their own favourite. is one of mine was like the origins of the the Ku Klux Klan.

And I was like, where did they get the name? The KKK. Mm-hmm. Right? Because then I looked into it, then it's like it was the joke was something about like how. The origins were they they got it from the Greek brotherhood. It was Kuklos Alphion was the original name. Right? Kuklos Alpion. Kuklos clan is how they got the name. Kuklos. Clan. Right? But then I was like

But then it's it's not it's not Ku Klux Klan. It's not supposed to be KKK. It was supposed to be like KK yeah, it was supposed to be like KK C and then it was supposed to be a whole thing and then I like played with it, clay and I took you down the origins of it, but it was crazy stuff and then I ended up on KFC.

And I was like, that's the original that's supposed to be the name of the K of the KKK is the KFC, but then they they were like, We can't do that. Then I was like,'cause black people would love them. And then Who told you they couldn't do it? I thought you were gonna say who told them take me loving Yeah, you were so close. You were so close. That's why I'm not a comic. And then I ended it by saying that.

But I guess everyone wins because I'm sure the KFC has been responsible for the deaths of way more black people than the KKK. My man, we're trying to get sponsors on this thing. Aren't you tired of struggling? Oh my god. Aren't you tired? Oh man. We're walking home after this, thanks to you. Amazing. Actually I need more can we can I get water for the sake of science. She chugged it for the sake of science to show us something. Oh it's it's right behind you in the credenza.

It's in the credenza. It's called a credenza? In the credenza. And a credenza is something else. Cadenza's the problem. Credenza. Oh, thank you so thank you. No, thank you. I'm fine. Thank you. You need all of it. Yeah, you all of it. No, no, no, but like how Cleo put the water on turbo. She was like, No, so I like. But but I think the the look the the seed of it in the essence is fundamentally the same, and that is

Curiosity. Once we stop being curious, we stop growing. Like we stagnate. We don't we don't try and make the plane. We don't try and make the rocket ship. We don't try and make the hadron collider. We don't try and make the internet. We don't try and All of that requires curiosity. You know what I mean? And and I've always I'm I know I've said this to you before, but I go, people forget. that the only way you can invent something is to imagine it first. But it can't exist. Yeah.

You you know what I mean? You have to imagine it and then it's not exist as someone's imagination. Yeah. Someone just went like, imagine if and then now we treat that as no like a helicopter we just treat as a normal thing. Of course a helicopter works.

Yo, helicopter. Have you explained helicopters?'Cause things are crazy. It's actually incredibly difficult to explain. The physics of a helicopter is very, very hard to explain. Those things should not be in the air. Didn't Da Vinci draw the first helicopter? Yeah, but even his was more normal. His one was better. Yeah, what they made today. This is so fun. Like this is what we're trying to do And that's all the things that will come next.

That too. Have you explained so are there any things you've tried to explain or gone into that has left you with more questions than answers? Oh most things, I think. Yeah, because because imagine so you start out with something and you're like, um Take the CERN episode for example. So you start out and you are curious about why there is a seventeen mile loop underground in Switzerland and France.

And it runs underneath all of these farms and houses and it's just this like massive tube with a vacuum in it. And down the tube they're firing protons in opposite directions. And then when the protons are going nearly at the speed of light, they smash them together in one of these massive detectors. Why are they doing that? Why did they choose to build that? Why are they doing it there? Why are they

Why I don't think I don't know. Okay. Maybe Okay, until someone comes up with a with a better catalyst. I think international collaboration. Maybe I don't know. I genuinely don't know. And and so that you have all these questions and And so you begin to answer them. You you ask, for example, why do we want to smash protons together? And it's like, Well

The the energies that you can get create different kinds of particles that we think were around at the beginning of the universe. So it's teaching us things about the beginning of the universe. It is also proving the existence. Just to confirm, is it the beginning of like our universe or all universe? Which which I I never no, I've never known. I don't know that much about'cause it's our universe. Theory because I don't know I only thought of this now while you were saying it I was like

'Cause Tina, when you're going to be able to do it. I think the question you're asking is, is the theory about multiverses do they all begin at the big bag? That's what I'm asking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying is it all universes or just the our universe? All. All universes from one big bang. One big bang.

Huh. I mean he said it with such confidence. He really did. And this is how he wins all our arguments.'Cause now I'm I've I he beat me. I I genuinely don't know. Maybe Yeah, I th I think it's about all universe'cause You must remember up until recently we thought the universe was our planet. Yes, that's true. W that's what we thought, right? But you can see in pop culture starting to pop up.

the theory of of quantum jumping, um, the the theory of the multiverse and they're all interlinked'cause you look at a popular movies that show Doctor Strange going from one port to the other. You're like they're explaining that. But the theory of Whatever you're going through now, there's another version of you that didn't choose to do the thing that you're doing now. Yeah.

Oh, this is a really good episode idea. I haven't done much on like multiverses. I I'm gonna write this down after this. So I I think when when the short the shorting is cat theory as well. Yeah. I don't know. People like observing photons. and atoms because there's this theory that if you're observing it it changes, but if you're not looking at it. But it's like mostly with anything. But you think of yourself in your apartment or your house.

If you're in the living room, you don't know what's going on in the bedroom. But somehow your curiosity, because we always think of curiosity as grandiose. Something has to be invented and ha you have to have some show for it. But it sometimes happens to you when you're sitting in your living room and you go, I wonder what's going on in the bedroom. And you meander in there and then you go Everything as I left it, then you go back to where you're from.

So I think m answering those questions of why there's an A loop underground smashing protons. There's a few guys who are really interested in finding out why, but the impact of it will reverberate towards everything that we're doing currently. Absolutely. And when I It's like a cell phone signal. And when I look into those stories and I I wonder why did a couple hundred scientists build something like this? What what is the purpose? And why do they

There's some there are some people sign us too. Um and then why do they want to build a bigger one? You're gonna wear a white a white coat and do what? No, we're going to Switzerland. There's a loop. And then and then there's a torch. Other friend is gonna be firing the torch from and then And then But like here's a question. No science. Here's a question that I had when I was going into this story. How do they make them hit each other?

Yeah, that one that one blew my mind. That's a that's a good way. So then you you keep going and every question begets like ten more questions. And everyone, it's like a fractal says, oh out and out and out. But you know what's funny is most people who do this become pessimistic. Really? Yeah, I I find most people Or many people who go w whate wa but but but then but then the then then they go into like a spiral of

Uh uh but then but then nothing that's not. No, they go piss they they start off they they start off curious. Yes. And they can lean towards pessimism or helplessness. Yeah, that's what I mean. Which comes back to That's what that's exactly. Whereas you help you find so maybe That would be a great thing to to help I mean,'cause I think it would be great for everyone to have that feeling and that and that framework for life.

What is it about the endless possibility of questions that leaves you feeling fulfilled as opposed to debilitatingly unknowing? You know, there's this feeling of Awe. When you look at something that you already know is spectacular. Like you go and you look at I've never seen this, but this is what I imagine the feeling of looking at um like The Aurora, like the northern light. Or um like um apparently better on your phone. Is it really?

From the guides they say they say when you're there. Yeah. Okay, what's something that fills you with a sense of the thing? No, no, no. I just wanted to let you guys know that it's beautiful on your phone when you're there because you should do something on this. About why it like fills because apparently your phone.

your phone and again I'm only working on what I've heard from people who've gone there. And they've said that your guide even is like'cause you know some people like so calm all of a sudden'cause it's the nighttime sky, Eugene. Oh. You want me to be shouting Aurora Borealis? When you're looking at something that humans built that's astonishing. I have that feel like my show allows me to have that feeling a lot. Humans. Yeah. Sorry, carry on. Don't don't don't interrupt. Yes. Yes. Humans.

Which you can be confusing the pyramids of the Purch Khalifa. And you were saying? I was saying. Yeah. Um I have that feeling a lot. I have that feeling a lot about awe. I'm sorry, I ruined the water. I put us in the mood. Um like Planes and vaccines and you know, the fact that water comes out of a tap when you open it. Like it is ridiculous. There are things that are ridiculous. And I feel very lucky to be alive right now. And I feel like

The next hundred years, I hope, will be even more interesting. And I have this incredibly rare opportunity that we all have. to understand what that might look like. And there's so many things happening right now. The the idea that I could get the opportunity to go understand quantum computers and s bringing back supersonic planes and um the large hadron collider and artificial wombs and you know uh faster, more efficient

cars and, you know, all of these things that I've had the chance to do. Theoretical physics by going in a zero gravity plane like How incredibly lucky, first of all, to be able to tell those stories. But also just as a person, this is the show that I wanted to watch. This is the thing that I felt like I was missing. Your version of popular mechanics for kids.

Remember the show? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But I think what you're explaining now is um I I have a theory that the next hundred years we won't see any huge technolog technological jumps. Really? I think it will be to explain it to people will be the same as

How we've been as gamers anticipating the release of Grand Theft Auto Six. Yes. Preach brother. But then it keeps being postponed. It does indeed. In its postponement, we've realized that there's so much we haven't explored in Grand Theft Auto V. Oh interesting. We keep discovering new universities, there's upgrades, it gets better and better, and we like now we've come out and said, But Grant Theft Auto Six can wait.

But I think there's so much that we haven't explored about'cause we've been on this technological binge and gorgeous you were saying. We're just going to the next thing before we devices by like big shifts. Like I think that there won't be any new technology that blows us out the water. That's your bet. That's my hundred percent bet. Wow. We should save this. Please do. No no no I'm I'm serious, just as like a bet. I'm interested.

Yeah, but I think I think you could end up I think you could end up right in a lot of different ways. So you could end up right where like We already have machine learning. So we already have like AI. Yeah. But there are lots of ways in which it isn't yet applied, right? We've just seen, you know, alpha fold. We've just seen like some of these the beginnings of things that are are gonna be hopefully really interesting for our lives. And and so I I think in that sense like

You could call those new technologies, or you could call them evolutions of what we're already seeing. Exactly. That's it's it happens over time. I think you're right that it's like a It's it's always one foot in front of the other. It's an upgrade. It's always like that. But there'll never be anything new because if you think about it, if we Not in the sense of like

Now we're back to aliens. Oh no. Not in the sense of like like something just like hits us like a bag who Yeah, I don't think anything's gonna hit us like a lightning bolt. But I think like you get to be a part of of the progress of technology. And I think that's a really exciting thing to lean into so that you get to say what you think it should do for us. But the more we want something new, the more the underpinnings stay the same. Because if you think about it, we need

Textile has been the same, just a little bit improvement here and there. Farming, engineering. And that is the underpinnings of engineering can fall under buildings, transportation and medication and science. And then obviously textile can fall into other what we use to design, how we dress and what our our our homes look like and agriculture, how we stay alive.

So I don't think anything new is gonna come. I think once people start doing i hydroponics we're like, We've reached the end, guys. We don't need soil I was like Yeah, I mean I think in a certain sense like everything is And this is this is something I I love about humans. Um Everything stands on the shoulders of what came before it. I c I completely agree that like nothing is new out of thin air. Everything is

um one step above what the people who came before you built. And I think that's actually a big part of what I'm trying to to do is to explain. You know, for example, when I'm um when I'm trying to explain um new ways to communicate and like like why, you know, everybody is trying to put uh satellites to have the internet. Wow, you really knew where I was going with this. You need to explain

how the internet infrastructure works right now. You need to explain the cables on the bottom of the ocean. Like there's the in in order to understand what's next, you need to understand what's now. And we spend a lot of time doing that on the show, explaining like, okay, if you are, you know, trying to understand

Um, why we don't have supersonic planes. You need to understand the history of the Concord, you need to understand how planes currently work. You need to understand what happens when there's a sonic boom over everything, right? Um that that's a I think there's so much that we can learn about the future from understanding what's happening right now. And I think

You know, one one thing that we haven't touched on yet is how we use war to test out technologies? We did touch on that. Okay, sharp. You brought that in. Continue. Is get the opportunity to go down these rabbit holes and choose whatever you want to make. Is by say more. Is by owning your own thing, by making your own thing. Like we haven't we haven't talked about the fact that we're having this conversation on a show that you're publishing on YouTube.

And that you get to decide like how long this goes on for together. You guys are coming up with the ideas. Well you're part of it as well. You can just walk out of the life. You could leave any time. I'm I'm just you could just bounce. Yeah. We're gonna transition. No, but you you're right. Actually you know what? I'm glad you brought that up because it's something that I've been fascinated about because I I think you were

You're at the vanguard of a movement that wasn't particularly obvious at the time. There are many people who've started their own things. Because they were never part of something mainstream, which often makes more sense to me. Yeah. Right. If you're not part of something, you will oftentimes create your own thing.

You were definitely part of something. And you were part of something that was quite popular, quite powerful, and quite um, you know, it was quite obvious, for lack of a better term. You then left when it wasn't obvious. And you went off to do the least obvious thing in many ways. Help help me understand that thinking.

What is it about the environment you were in? And what is it about you as a person that made you go, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna try create the world that I want to live in, even though it's a lot riskier than the world that I'm currently in? Thank you for putting it that way. That's a very I mean I... first got obsessed with the idea of this show.

I mean we spent a long time now talking about why I'm so obsessed with this idea. Like I I hope that you can see that it's like it really comes from my desire to watch it, like my desire to make it creatively. Like there's just this itch that's just kind of unbearable at a certain point. And I wanted I wanted to make it.

And I wanted to know if other people wanted to watch it. I really I mean, one of the most incredibly gratifying things about making Huge If True has been that all of a sudden there are other people who are along for the same ride you are, that feel the same itch that you do, that that also felt like the journalism that they were getting was was pessimistic and it wasn't a full media diet and they wanted something like this. Like to to be um

To see that other people have the same feeling that you do is really, really gratifying. And I knew that in order to make something that had this kind of to be honest, like sharp edge. Like huge is different than other media that I consume. And it that's not to say that other media isn't great. Um, but I there is there are things that I'm saying I don't like about mainstream media. There are things that ha like I the show has a an incredible positivity and a joy. It also has an edge.

It's saying like there is harm in being knee jerk pessimistic. There is a there is a th a point to this show. Um And we're doing things a different And that that feeling, I just knew that I wouldn't be able to do that in the way that I really wanted to do it. And I wouldn't be able to test whether the actual thing that was in my brain was the thing that other people wanted if I was inside a big media company. Right. Like I just

I w to be clear, I wasn't offered the opportunity to make this show inside a big media company, but I didn't even I didn't pitch it. I didn't I didn't want to have incentives and the constraints and the lack of control inside of the side. You literally talk about this all the time. And in fact and and so that was the the main the main point was I really wanted to make this show the way that I wanted to make this. Were you ever afraid? No. Look at what it's done to you.

Yeah. All the time. Yeah. I think there's still when you're when you're making anything that you really love, I think there's an underlying fear of it. first not working, then when it is working, oh my God, m might it it might go away. Mm-hmm. Like there's a you live with a kind of when you're really doing something that you love, you live with a kind of

Healthy fear, I think. I think that's good. I think that feels good actually, to not always feel first the fear of something not working means that I think you're pushing yourself creatively. Second, the fear of Other people not liking it means that you are potentially making something that some people will dislike and some people will love. And that's probably healthy. And third There's just a fear of putting yourself out there. Like a fear of like doing what you want and it just

And it just not working or w once you have success of it going away. Um and I wanna feel that. Like I wanna feel that all the time. And so it felt much scarier to do. to do this. Anything. We've got more. Now after this. Now that you're in it, how do you insulate yourself from the Hedonic adaptation of the success? How do you it's something that's always fascinated me when I when I watch people in life. Um Someone's an actor, they just dream of getting an acting gig.

And then they get into a movie and this is their dream. And then now they want to be one of the leads. And then they are one of the leads. And then they want to be the lead. And then they are the lead. Then they wanna be a star, then they are a star. Then they wanna be an ailis star, then they're an ailist star and then And then all of a sudden they spend all their days depressed that their box office numbers aren't what they used to be.

I used to think that that was reserved and maybe naively when I thought this, I I thought it was reserved for like mainstream and industry. But you realize it applies to everything in life. And I see this with a lot of people on TikTok, on YouTube, who create and make, and they hit a high.

And man, getting back to that aha or like you ha have you ever I've I've I've always enjoyed doing this. I'll go to somebody's like let's say a TikTok goes viral, like mega vir everyone's watching it. And then I'll go down a rabbit hole of that person's page. And it's amazing to see how they were just doing whatever they wanted to do. And then one video goes absolutely viral.

And then watch how their whole page after that just becomes that video now. It alters their trajectory. Yeah. But more importantly, it alters how they see themselves and what they should be or shouldn't be doing. So you find they're singing karaoke, they're cooking food in front of the camera, they're hanging out with their friends, they're doing all these things. And then the karaoke video goes viral. Then they hang out with their friends, nothing.

Then they cook nothing. Then they do karaoke again. semi vi and then you just see them make that their identity. How do you how do you grapple with that and w like do you have any safeguards or do you have any ideas that you impose on yourself where you go, Oh, this is how I always come back to me being me? And not letting the clicks define who I become. It's not me. It's the show. Oh everything comes back to the mission of the show. Oh, I like that. And so for me, I didn't start with

a lot of different ways in which I could be popular on YouTube. I started with I want to make this one show. Will it or will it not work? Do you also want this show? Mm-hmm. How do you define work though? Like will it work? What what's what's your metric for will it work? Can I make things that I'm proud of that have this mission of

showing people optimistic visions of the future so that they can help build them the three pillars. Can I successfully do that and get better and better at it? And by the way, experiment in lots of different ways. The science fiction in the in the asteroid episode, the you know, going to Formula One behind the scenes. Like there are lots of different ways in which we experiment with formats and topics. But can I do something that meets this mission that we set out to with Huge If True? And also

do people want to watch that? Is that because the the reason why

I am so ambitious with this show. I really want this show to be watched by many, many more people than it is now, is because I actually think it accomplishes something that I want to happen in the world. I I really think that if more people had generally a media diet that allowed them to see these visions more often and allowed them part to participate more in the conversation and allowed them to explore how they could contribute to the world.

in an optimistic way, we'd all be better for it. And I wish more people were doing it, but Right now, like the way that I can accomplish that in the world is through making this show enormous. And so I I have this incredibly strong ambition and motivation to make this show watched by millions and millions of people, which it already is and it's it's growing and I'm so incredibly proud of that. Um but at the same time I'm not I'm not trying to find the way in which they'll like me.

I'm trying to see if they like this. There's a world in which nobody wanted to watch this and then I just stopped. Okay. Because I wasn't I wasn't experimenting. I didn't start out the channel by saying, you know, here I am, I'm gonna explore like I'm just gonna make things like come along with me for the for the journey. Right. I said I'm gonna make this show.

And that I think has been really protective. Yeah. You've separated yourself from the project, from the work. Yeah. And then the other thing that's happened is that in sorry to interrupt you. I feel like that's That's in that book. I'm sure many people have said it, but in that book, um, The War of Art. I think one of the it's really amazing. I think you'd you'd you'd enjoy it. But it talks about

the the complicated nature of artistry and and the journey of making and what it means to create, right? To take something from nothing. Bring it out into the world, make it something and then other people consume it. And one of one of the main things it speaks about is how The true mastery of being an artist requires you to know that you are not your work and your work is not you, but you have deep pride in that work.

then in its success or in its failure you will always define yourself. Yeah. But if you go, this is a thing I made or did. Do you like it? Yes, no? All right, well I made it. But I guess you are experiencing th there's always what I find is an h healthy amount of um insecurity that comes with being an artist. And I think that's why even the greatest artists were either unhappy or they had to have paradigm shifts where they move elsewhere.

You know, because I I I think when you catch on to a great idea, they're always explained as you have an antenna, everyone has. Ideas are floating around, but one person will catch it. But they have to have the naivety and the confidence to think that what they're thinking is unique. Then go out there and do it. And then if they've done it enough, they start thinking, Well, if I'm here like Einstein. He he thinks if I'm here in Germany and everyone

Maybe I must go somewhere else. Then he goes somewhere else. Then he comes here. Then here they're like, tell us more about that thing of yours. Cause he goes, Where I come from, maybe. Everyone's thinking. Yeah, Van Braun is here because he makes rockets. So clearly there's something there. So you go somewhere else. And that's where I think.

the analogy that I made about being in the living room and then going into the bedroom to see what's going on. Only to come back again to the living room uh comes into play. And I think if you don't move as an artist, and I think that's what you are,

If you don't move, you've realized that you you die. If you don't evolve, you perish. Yeah. And then you try to create a show that makes us evolve forcefully at our pace and the comfort of our own homes and screens, right? Thank you for saying that. Yeah. Do you want this? Yeah. That's beautiful, Eugene. I think I think that's exactly right. So I I wanted that creative opportunity. I wanted that for myself. I wanted it for the show. I wanted it for the audience.

Now I have this incredible team that I work with that you asked also how do I how do I make sure that it stays the show? Like they know what feels like huge. And they create a constraint. That's right. the the vessel to make the thing better on screen, but we're all making it together. And that I think is really important to to maintain the mission of what you're doing. And so so all of those things I think help a lot.

And then there's also the enormous wave. I mean we haven't talked yet about I think huge and what we're doing is Part of at least three big trends in media right now. Okay. And what are those three? The first is That YouTube is eating television. I mean YouTube has been the most watched streaming platform for at least two years. It's eating it alive, which is very sad. It's wild. Don't wait for it to die first, it's kicking it. No I mean you guys are you guys have been part of that. Um

Sorry, it's a deep cut. Yeah, it's a sorry. And um and so you guys have been part of that. Uh And the the wave of YouTube allowing I mean,'cause the bet that YouTube made was incredible, right? Like every other streamer said, if we have a small number of gatekeepers and they decide what gets made, yeah, then that is the best stuff that most people will want to watch and that's the stuff that should get made.

And there's a a whole business model around giving upfront money, you make the thing, you put the thing, you have a subscription, you watch the thing. And that's the philosophy that has grown every other streaming platform. And YouTube had a fundamentally different bet, which was if we give a platform and split advertising revenue with anyone in the world who could make great things, then If we wait. And we allow that work to kind of improve and percolate upward and have a system that recommends

the right work to the right people, then that is actually the way that we will get the work that the most people want to watch. That's a crazy bet. That is a fundamentally different bet than every other streamer. And it turns out it's working. And how incredible is it that that works? I'm torn though on. I'll tell you why I'm torn. Only because to obviously on the one side, I think it's amazing.

I think to live in a world where people can create what they feel needs to be created if they don't see it and people get to consume what they want to consume. Like I have a friend who watches knife sharpening videos that Pretty much all he does is just like watch knife sharpening videos. Is he in this room? Yeah. He is in this room. By in this room he means

Oh he's yeah he's here with us now He's here with us now screaming from the Great Beyond. Um no so like but but But what I mean by that is I do think that part of it is amazing. Just like your show, what I like to try and do is also think about always the second system effect. What are we missing that we we we take for granted? Because with every gift comes a curse. And the other side of it is those institutions, while they were and while they still are definitely flawed.

they're a lot easier to hold accountable because you can find them. Do you know what I'm saying? So when the BBC says something that's wrong or that people don't like, they can find the BBC. They can like go after the BBC in in a in a very definite way. When Netflix has a show that people are not angry about, or you know what I mean? Like Diddy suing Netflix, where he's like, I'm gonna sue you for the documentary.

But he can sue Netflix. But if that thing was put out on YouTube, just y it becomes a a little more opaque, it becomes a little less tangible, it becomes And so it's like that's why I say I'm torn because it's this world where it's like, ah, y you want people to have as much freedom as possible to put out what they like. But we also don't want to live in a world where

the ultimate harms can be done because nobody can be held accountable. Do you know what I mean? Like I I'm sure you think about that as well. And it's made even more complicated by the second trend, which is that people like all of us who m might have been employees at large companies then go independent. And so the the trend I mean I I'm thinking yeah. I'm thinking of the trend particularly in journalism of people going independent. Um

True in in many other places too. It's obviously true in comedy, it's it's true in lots of different industries. And so that I would say I'm a part and Hughes a part and you're a part of this second trend of independence that is created by the first trend of the success of YouTube. And then the third trend is

Maybe maybe it's a part of a story about pessimism itself. It's it's part of a story about the feeling that people have about news and the world getting worse and the feeling that that news has contributed to our understanding of the world getting worse and huge is something different. And so those I think are the three

like stories in the world that we are somehow in the middle of the Venn diagram on and it's an interesting place to be because to your point there are all kinds of parts of those stories. There they're the the shadow sides of each of those things, there's the extreme upside of like, what if what if this these trends continue and You know, I mean, we're already at a place it's so interesting to look at the difference between when I launched just three years ago and where we are now. I mean

The story when I launched was like new media is coming. This is something that is coming. Like we're we're long since here. Yeah. Like that story makes no sense anymore. Like we are Already running shows that are larger than any other media company on the largest streaming platform in the world. That's really important and interesting. And to your point about accountability, like how do how do people that have

are now independently running these shows that are bigger than the media operations on the biggest platform in the world. How do they take responsibility, as you said, for the things that they publish? Um And so it it's it's a it's a really exciting time. I'm obviously I'm in true to form, very optimistic about where this is all going. But I I think it's um

It's interesting uh and complicated and thrilling. And I remember, um, I've been wanting to ask you this question because I remember when I left Vach. And I got a lot of congratulations. But a lot of it was with this tone of like Oh, I wouldn't I would never do that. Or like, oh um the the phrase a lot of the time was that's so brave. Oh I love that phrase. Yeah. So brave. And uh and I got a DM on Twitter from you and You said Congratulations. Thank best of luck.

And this was when you were on the Daily Show. Yeah. And I had been watching your stuff for a long time. And I had no idea that you were watching Vox and you were watching mine. And so I'd announced that I was going independent and you said best of luck. And You I mean I've I've said this to you before, but like it was a real moment for me to say, like, oh

I knew I was already making the bet, but it was incredibly helpful to hear from someone who had a show that was, let's be honest, like the definition of mainstream success. Say like Best of luck, basically, like I think this is a good choice for you. So thank you. But for me it's it's an obvious one. And Eugene and I have been on this journey for what twenty years now? I've I think it's two things. One I love appreciating the people who've made an impact in my life even from afar.

Do you know what I mean? So in my whole journey, whether it was on the Daily Show or not, I I remember like e ev in my whole life, every comedian who like put me on on some stage or introduced me to another comedian or promoter in another country.

I remember journalists who wrote great pieces who helped me understand the world that I was trying to understand. I I r authors who've literally changed my life. I try and have them on this podcast now. And some of them will say to me, they'll be like, I wrote that book ten years ago.

And I'm like, yeah, but it's it's still with me now. Yeah. You know? They're like, why did you call me now? There's literally some people who come to the show and go, I haven't done anything in ten years. And I'm like, yeah, but it stayed with me for ten years. That's the first part. The second part is Exactly what you said is is the The unsafe bet. And

I think there's a misalignment oftentimes in how we act in society versus what we say. We will say we want to explore. We will say we want people to go out and try things. We will say we want what we often want is uh the reward from these things. We want huge, if true. We want the show now that it's working. Mm-hmm. But we don't really want people to go out and like try it in that way. And I and I don't know what it does to people, but you you and I've spoken a lot about it.

It makes people uncomfortable when people, as Eugene says, go rogue. It it it's interesting how it makes people around you uncomfortable. Yeah. The amount of people who said that to me, and by the way, this has been the story of my life. When I When I first started doing stand up comedy I had been lucky enough to get a job on a radio station at three AM on the weekends in Johannesburg, in like in Ghauteng only, right? So it's one state, one province. Regional. Regional.

And that's where I was. No one listened. I knew all my listeners by name, tiny little thing, but it it paid my bills. I started comedy while doing that. Comedy grew and I was lucky enough that comedy it just got to the point where I had to choose which one I was gonna do. I chose comedy.

Everyone said, Yeah, what are you doing? You have a great up what are you doing? What do you step away from being at breakfast? And the thing it made me what it made me realize even at that time was Not only did they not see the possibility that I was aiming for,

It made them uncomfortable. Because if you're on if you're living on an island, someone gets on a boat and says, I'm sailing somewhere else that we cannot see, you'll be shocked at how it makes the people on that island angry and uncomfortable. Because they're like, are you saying this isn't it? Are you people start to internalize things. They go, Are are you saying I'm boring for staying on this island or

Are are you saying there's a better island out there? Are are you saying this island might not exist in a highlight? And all of a sudden people get angry at you. How could you? Why would you leave? What are you doing? Fox, are you kidding? And so whenever I see people who do that, you know what I mean? It for some reason it it sparks something in me.

We only want to leave when everything's fallen apart. We only want to explore when we're forced to go. And I I often think to myself, wouldn't it be beautiful if you could find those opportunities and those moments to do it in like a good leave with energy. You know, don't escape. Embark. There's a different feeling in in both of them. And so for me it was one of those things where it was like, what you're doing was crazy. It was genuinely crazy. And I was so impressed by it. I was like, ah.

I mean, I've loved the stuff you've made. Good luck. You're gonna kill it out there. You've got the talent. Those types of people, you're one of them as well. Those types of people who inspire me because I go like, what are you doing? Oh boy. All right. Well, that's a crazy thought. Like with Eugene, it was like the opposite. Eugene like just took a break at some point. And I was like, What are you doing? And he's like, Yeah, I'm taking a break.

It's like whew. You're taking a break. He's like, Yeah, I'm just gonna pause for a while. And I remember it's the craziest thing. I was so inspired by the fact that this human being showed me That there was the option to take a break. Even though you don't know what's on the other side of that break. Mm. So in all of these, I'm just like, Yeah, man. And and by the way, I didn't think you were making

The right choice. I just thought you were making a good choice. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Because the question I wanted to ask you, if I'm if I'm honest about that message, what you said was I've been wondering when you're gonna do that. And I thought to myself, two things. Sounds like him. I th I thought to myself, two things. The first was, you know who I am? When did you start wondering this? And the second thing I thought was

How did you know that that was even an option? Like because for me, going independent on YouTube, there was at least one person, Johnny Harris and Iz Harris, who were building a journalistic independent media group. front the he had left Vox. And so there was at least one example that I could see of someone doing this well. But until I actually began thinking about doing it, it didn't feel like one of the options that was available to me. And I thought it was gonna be the start of

what what has now become true, which is this wave of sort of people going independent, both in journalism and in comedy and in and in all walks of life. Um but at the time, like, how did you know that that was an option. Because my perception is I should have been more likely to know that that was true than you, who were at the kind of the the pinnacle of

mainstream media success? So I I I didn't know that it was an option, but I think I sometimes have I don't know if it's just an innate ability, but I I can oftentimes spot somebody who is an outlier in the environment that they're in. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they don't gel with their environment. I just go like Yeah. And not leave in a bad way. You're just you're gonna leave. Does does that make sense? Because there's there's there's something about you that tells me

you are going to do something that goes beyond this. So on your side, I mean, uh now I'd have to be like trying to go back and remember what it was, but maybe just having this conversation with you. I was probably thinking at the time, you're creating these explainers. You're you're you're making this world really interesting, entertaining, positive.

despite what the content is. It was all about like Congress and and the Senate and this is not an a positive world and it's not necessarily an interesting world. Exciting. Mm-hmm. But it is definitely a limited world. You know what I mean? And so maybe I saw in you something that maybe I hope to see in myself, which was, Oh, I'm not only this thing. Yeah, I love politics, but I'm not only that. You know what I mean?

I've I've literally met people who think that's all I am all the time. I'll never forget in the str like in Miami at like midnight, some random guy came up to me in the street and he was just like, Donald Trump 2024. Yeah. And I was like, and and he was like Yeah. I was like and w and I genuinely looked at it and I was like, What do you what do you think's gonna happen? Did you think you're gonna say that? I'll be like no No said Mandela Like what what did you think? I was like

Like, oh, it's because your your experience of me is one dimensional. So you think that my world is contained in that one dimension. I oftentimes will latch onto people. who don't operate in that one dimension because they inspire me. So this guy here is like comedy's one of his dimensions. And then I mean history, you know, nature documentaries, guns, motorbikes.

Um aliens aliens, like but I mean it's no but it's infinite really. It really is infinite with you. And I think when you when you see that and you see somebody especially at somebody who's creating you'll see that they're they're forced to create in one sphere. Like we had Derek Forger uh on on the podcast and he's a friend of mine who's an artist, phenomenal, phenomenal artist. But everyone knows him for like his paintings. And then he started making sculptures.

And I remember asking him one day, I was like, Hey, why the sculptures? And he was like, Well,'cause I want to make sculptures as well. And I remember going, Oh yeah. Just because you're famous for this thing doesn't mean you should limit yourself. Just because you're successful in this thing doesn't mean you should limit yourself.

And then he started making a whole interactive show. I'll tell this to anyone who can. If you ever see a Derek Forger show come up, they're always free. They're at an art gallery, but they're always free. Go. It is one of the most amazing experiences you'll ever have because he makes the life.

live. Like you you're not n you're no longer just looking at a painting. You you you're transported to a time. Music, videos, paintings, sculptures, installations that you have to walk through. And I always tell him, I go like, Oh, you remind me To use your analogy, that being a human being, no matter who you are, you have your antenna up there. Certain things will make them vibrate more than others. You'll catch more frequencies than others.

But it doesn't mean that you should only vibrate at the strongest frequencies. Explore the other ones. Mm-hmm. Do you know what I mean? The faint signal. Yeah, there's this this faint signal that's also wonderful to have. And so I don't know. I I I think it was something like that with you where I was just like When I'd see you there I'd go Well this can't be the only thing that you find interesting.

So it's only a matter of time before I assume you're just gonna go and make your own thing somehow somewhere. So when it happened, I wasn't I wasn't particularly shocked. I was like, Oh yeah, all right. I was waiting to see when this would happen. I think um Sometimes when you revisit the past you get to see what the present and the future will definitely look like.

What you guys are explaining now and from hearing this is is no different from how ancient civilizations always rewarded and found a way to crowdfund well, they called it something else back then, to crowdfund philosophers. And those philosophers should have apprentices. And those apprentices m will one day become the philosophers of their time. And the written word was the only way that those philosophers was their was their YouTube.

Interesting. So those people were paid to think of ideas, to envision how politics should be and how art and culture and if you had a great idea, if you could think, if you could paint, if you could sculpt. pay this person to just do that thing and that's how civilizations are born. And I think we might just not see this now, but

Two hundred years from now if someone looks at this portal that was opened, which is YouTube, which is equivalent to a thousand years ago to written and spoken words, scrolls. It's like a pr the press. The same thing. This footprint There's ideas, they will never be new again.

Everything that you're speaking about now might be obvious in a hundred years, but will never be new again. And I guess that's the whole thing. That's the whole synergy. And that's what you've been good at spotting. You know you've you've spoken a lot of people off their cliffs and giving them their careers without even knowing is their ability to see another philosopher.

And go if you explore this idea further, you might hit the jackpot of your own independence, of your own freedom, and of your own autonomy, because that's the ultimate reward. And I think that's why super uh thoughtful people who are philosophers, financial reward is never their aim. It's autonomy. It's them feeling like I can do what I want when I want. Yeah.

And once you've reached that, that's the pinnacle. And I think you every exactly that, right? I think everyone benefits. That's that's the most important thing as well. Yeah. Is the understanding that everyone can benefit from it. That's what that's what I also find selfishly I'm going as a fan of yours. Well

I I hope I see more. Same with your comedy. You remember f even from back in the day I was like, Yeah, when when when Eugene? Yeah. I'm waiting for this, I'm waiting for that, I'm waiting you know what I mean? Yeah, uh I'm selfishly I'm going this this This benefits me, so I'm assuming it benefits us. He did it for other people. That's beautiful. And so what's it what's it been like? What what is if the lesson is

An ability to more fully experiment with or express who you are. What's it been like for you? What do you feel like you're able to express now? What are you trying to experiment with? That's an interesting question, damn. Okay, so here's here's here's the analogy I would use. I think a lot of life is us trying to climb a mountain. And a lot of the times, that mountain is often introduced to us by others.

They tell us, Hey, that mountain over there, man, if you can climb that mountain, whew, you've done it. And so then we we grow up our whole lives going, Okay, mountain, all right, mountain, one day And then at some point you start, you start climbing the mountain, you start climbing the mountain, you start

And while you're climbing the mountain, you might meet some people along the way who've either come down or have settled at certain parts of it and they'll you know, they'll be like, Oh yeah, the mountain, welcome to the mountain, you're on the mountain? You're on the mountain, mountain. Yeah, mountains, we go to the top of a sea at the mountain.

And you're climbing it. And if you ask yourself the question, why am I climbing it? It's could be because I've I've always wanted to climb. I've always you know. It's only when you get to what you have to define as your peak that you stop and go, Oh, this is lovely. This was hard. But what mountains do I want to climb? Do I wanna go walk in valleys? Mm-hmm. Do I wanna stroll along rivers? Do I want to

Oh, I've I've now climbed what mountains people hoped I would climb. So now what would I like to do? And in that exploration it's terrifying because first of all, Success or failure becomes like a, you know, everyone has the oh, when are you uh you gonna get back to mountain? And you're like, No. Yeah. You know? Hm. Like one of the number one things people ask me in general is like, so what's uh

What's next? That's that's why I named the podcast. It's like, what now? So, what now? Yeah. What now? And I was like, What what do you mean? And like, so, what uh what whatever I'm like I'm gonna live life. And they go, yeah, but I mean beyond that. And like what is beyond living life?

And now I get to enjoy all of that more. I wouldn't have had the time before to sit down with you like this and s sit down with one of my best friends and explore and learn and have a deeper understanding of how you create and You know what I mean? Get into the mind of somebody who's gonna be shaping generations to come because of her work. You I wouldn't have the time. And so everything in life I find now is

There's a there's a beautiful book that I that I read. We should have the we should have the author on if he'll join us. It was a book called Four Thousand Weeks. And it's a book that just breaks down that the average human has about 4,000 weeks on this planet. How do you want to spend those weeks? And when you understand the limited nature of those weeks, you also understand that you're always going to be missing something because you're doing something else.

And so instead instead of instead of having FOMO, rather enjoy this thing that you're actually experiencing. So when you're at this party, don't think about the party you're missing. Or don't when you're at home, don't think about the party you're missing. Be like ah Can't believe I'm in my bed right now. What a joy. And there I genuinely have found some of the most fun and the most joy and the most like

And so when people ask me these questions, sometimes people be like, Wow, but I mean you what do you what do you what do you so what do you and I'm like, Well, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, maybe nothing. I see them get uncomfortable on my behalf and I'm like, No. Maybe this is because I'm trying to climb my mountain. Go, yeah. But do you ever think about the fact that this mountain might be bigger? It's always gonna be bigger. But like the the the what you always

this wave that there is a very real future where in l in literal terms, in the success terms that people used to talk to you about. That's so funny. I mean this actually could be the bet that is the biggest thing you ever make, that is ah that is like

And that's kind of hard to keep together, right? Because what you're expressing is a very healthy psychology of like I'm doing this because I want to do this. Yes. But at the same time there is a reality here where you're experiencing this wave of independent owned media and you own it and you're making something that

I don't know what the daily show viewership was. I don't know what your viewership is right now, but like in a very real way, this could be or become the biggest thing you ever make because you're all of a sudden part of this. This new mountain. I think that's exactly what I do is hold them both at the same time. I'll tell you why. When Eugene and I started doing comedy in South Africa, at the time, comedy was how many years old?

Sure. Less than like like stand-up comedy. And I mean this bit. Less than ten. Yeah, because remember, we didn't have free speech in South Africa because of apartheid, right? So it's not that's what I mean by

stand up comedy widespread people doing. It wasn't really a thing. Less than less than ten. You have the first wave of comedians who jumps out and they start doing the comedy, right? We were like the second wave, I would argue. Yeah. But it was a a relatively young scene. There were no comedy clubs.

This was not a structure or a thing. I remember once my mom saying to me, What do you do? Like where are you going? What and I said, I I do stand-up comedy. And my mom said to me, Trevor, this lifestyle of selling drugs is gonna catch up with you. Yeah. and i said what and she said This lifestyle of selling drugs is gonna catch up with you. And I said Mom I I don't sell drugs, I I do comedy and she says uh putti, she said that c save your lives for others. This lifestyle will not end well.

And I was like, Mum I and she said, e even ask yourself what do you what where do you say your money comes from? And I said, I go and I tell jokes and she's like my my child and she just walked into the house calm but she was like That's how I I don't know what it was like for you when you first told someone what you do. There were cops in my bedroom. Then my mom was like, I told him.

This lifestyle won't end well. But but you do you know what I mean? That's how that's how random it was, right? So But I there there was the there's this spark. And I this is what I always encourage people to do this as I go. Remember that you need to do things to survive and you also need to do things to thrive. We oftentimes forget the latter.

Survival is important. I'll never tell anybody I I don't like it when people go like, chase your dreams, throw everything else at No, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, survive. Mm-hmm. Survive. Work, survive. Come on, get that thing going. But also don't forget to find ways to thrive. I'm always searching for ways to thrive. So comedy was that. When we did it.

Genuinely. There was no money in it. There was no industry in it. There was no kid. This was the thing we did. We met each other at it's like a local bowling alley and telling jokes type thing. That's how that's the vibe. Then at some point it seemed obvious, right? In fact it was a it wasn't f it was a failure for I'd say like the first year and a half at least. It was an utter failure. In fact you didn't come here to do the daily show. Yeah, I didn't get wrong sometimes.

No, I was here doing stand up comedy, doing stand up and then I was home and then the Daily Show, John Stewart phoned me and was like, Please come do one episode, we did one and then he tricked me and trapped me and I still hold it against him and I also am grateful to him forever for it. But like

That thing I I hope I never lose it and I hope everyone has the opportunity to experience it. Because what happens is you bump into the things, right? So Joe Rogan, for instance, is one of the people I speak about this. It seems obvious that UFC is the biggest, you know, fighting platform now and it's worth all this money. But when Joe Rogan was starting in UFC, it was this fringe they used to call it cage fighting.

Cage fighters. And Joe Rogan loved it and people did it. And and he and then they were like, Do you want to comment? He's like, I w he was I think he was the one who was like, Can I come and commentate on this thing? People are like, You know about it? Now it seems obvious. No. It was his passion, it was his joy, he did that thing, and now it seems obvious. And so I I think sometimes we make the mistake of only thinking about where we'll go because it might become something

And not just because we want to do The Wright brothers did not think. I I would say, I don't know, you you've probably read more on it. I don't think they thought about airline industries. Yeah. Hm. The Wright brothers were probably just like, man, wouldn't it be cool to fly?

Wouldn't it be cool to fly? They just wanted to prove their girlfriend's wrong. You're never gonna fly, Mark. The next thing aircraft investigations on Jam. Maybe maybe they were the teeth the version of the teacher that said Imagine you could fly. Exactly. And they said, Oh

Yeah. And a few months before that they read an article that said you could Yeah. So I think poof, I think that's all it is, you know. Um and and that's that's why you are here. So thank you. Thank you for this by the way. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you so much. Most importantly, thank you for putting you out.

out there'cause we've all benefited from it. Thank you. And uh I can't wait to see what you do. Now I mean I'm in curling in a way that I didn't need to be. In February I'll have a video for you. I was already gonna watch for the jokes but now I'm there for the science as well. Thank you very much. For real. You delivered and surpassed. What now with Trevor Nois? The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer.

Robiu Music. Hannes Brown. By Ryan. Join me next week for another episode.