Cleo Abram: What Could Go Right?

26:24The 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. You take for granted how powerful that is because I don't know if you've seen any of the polls that people have conducted around AI. When they ask the general public, what do you think of AI?

27:01And not like how it's being applied now, just AI as a concept. The sentiment is generally negative. Like you go, 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 going to kill us. It's going to take over. Do you know what I mean? 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 can only go this way and it can kill you an interesting poll that i saw the other day 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.

27:53Yeah, because we're in Africa and deal with racism for a long time. You see you, my man. And that was man-made intelligence. You see you, my man. You try artificial. Aha! Aha! Again, I'll help you. 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!

28:13But it's true. No, but it's exactly what you're saying. Yes. Right? It's interesting how people who have assumed that the intelligence will be built around them and their histories and their pasts 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 go like, oh yeah. Any change is good change. They could be like, maybe this will work. Yeah. Because it also puts us in an equal footing. I look at wars the same. Oh damn, I didn't think about that. You don't know. I don't know.

28:44Let's see what this thing can do for us. I would be the white people of everyone Yes yes yes Oh Hey man Fuck a line Because that Hey

28:59You want? I do

29:04You noticed I was feeling a little bit I was like What do you want to dip? I did I did

29:16you have to take us seriously please continue with your point I am actually that is a question that I have and maybe it's because I'm comedy biased it's just because of my brain it's not like how 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 no no no but I promise you there's humor in it Like when I was watching 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.

29:55You know, when you're talking about like when you're doing the dinosaurs one and you're going around with the archaeologist and you're brushing, there were funny moments in there. Oh, you've really watched the show. This is awesome. Wow. 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 you remember this is great yeah you know why because you teach well genuinely because you teach well 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 Collider all your key pillars have been ticked off or when you like when you were showing 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 bring humor into something that most people go this is this is the future of mankind.

30:40There's no time for jokes, but you're bringing jokes in. I think it's also that I'm the proxy for the audience. I know very little. I know how to tell a great story. I'm a really, really good visual storyteller, but I'm not an expert in anything that I'm talking about. And so that requires me to come in by understanding I'm the secondary character. The topic is the primary character. My goal, 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.

31:15I'm asking the questions that you might ask. 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 problem with that first bucket that we talked about, 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 in a place where i think unfortunately despite the fact that huge is growing really quickly like we're very 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.

32:02And my belief is that if you bring people more into the earlier parts of the conversation, if you say like, we're going to need to learn about quantum computers now, though you're not actually interacting with them anytime soon, 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 going to be accepted, not something that people are going to want. It's not going to be a, you know, maybe it'll change the world, but just you should be scared of it.

32:38That posture 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. 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 having conversations that are interesting and you're more a part of it than you would be otherwise.

33:12I 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 was in Washington state and I was at an event where we're working with Microsoft on basically like getting AI into schools, like having kids learn, teachers learn, whatever. And they set up 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 give us AI. This is what we need you to help AI or make AI do for teachers. So it's lesson plans.

33:49It's helping them mark and grade and all these things. Perfect teacher's aid. Exactly. It's supposed to be that. Not a teacher. Right, exactly. And then parents were 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 journalists comes up and at the end of like all the other like journalist, journalist, they've all asked their questions. And then this student journalist comes up and then asks the president of Microsoft, Brad Smith goes, hey, I see that you've got this panel convened that's going to be doing all of this in the schools.

34:18Do you have any students on your panel? That's an amazing question. And all of us in the room were, you know, 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 got to do this. But to your point, even in that moment, I found myself going, oh, yeah, 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 going to be like, how did we miss this? and it's like, yeah, but did you just ask everyone?

34:52Did you ask everyone what they, like Eugene, what do you need from AI? What do you want AI to do for you?

35:01Do you know what AI is? Let me start with this. Because Eugene is very, Eugene is my Luddite. Eugene is fully my Luddite friend. 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 this is the greater cause for what we're doing this and then there'd be conscription so you don't have to understand fully why we're doing this thing so we're going to make you do it.

35:41So 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 what I like with explainers is it always starts with, have you ever wondered why?

36:16but then you have to stick around to the end to go, what are you going to do about it? So that usually in now normal society, it's elections. You have to wait to choose, 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, did you see that thing in, I forget where this is in Canada. I think they had an election or they're planning to have one where everyone can just vote on their phones from home. You see? Yes, like full on. We did an explainer about digital voting, mobile voting. Like full on? Turns out it's extremely difficult from an encryption perspective.

36:54Wait, say more, why? So this was a little while ago, so I don't want to 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. Wouldn't it be great? It would be great. And wouldn't it make for a more participatory democracy? Sounds good to me. I generally believe more people voting is good. Yes. let's make it easier to vote I'm in and so I went and I talked I'm not a fan of total outright democracy Eugene the semi-dictator I'm like some people don't deserve a voice let's unpack that later we should come back to that

37:38oh man as you were for the purpose of this conversation. Okay, okay, shut up. So I went and I asked all 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. What it boils down to is that voting is not like online banking. It is not like the secure things that you do online. And why is that? A couple of reasons. The first is that everything you do online accepts some level of fraud. Because the banks are basically backstopping a certain amount of fraud to make it easy for you to log in and do transactions and all those things.

38:27They accept that there will be some level of... Acceptable risk. 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 the amount of fraud that they have to pay for. Okay, so 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 to make it safe. Because you'll buy more. Yeah, but we can't cover the thing in detectors because then you won't want to try it on.

39:04You won't see the thing. So we have to accept a certain amount of risk to have you comfortable in the buying experience. And what items in the store are we putting detectors on? Okay, got it, got it, got it. Banks do this all the time. Okay, got it. We can't accept that in voting. Because the small amount of risk, 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 we're going to accept some voter fraud because more people can vote, not great.

39:33because elections are basically like 50-50 at this point. So if you had like a 3%, 4%, that's not good. Oh, damn. So you can't accept that. You're good. She's fantastic. I'm in. This is fantastic. It would help more if we had the visuals. We could have a map. We could have like a, you know. We have your hand. I guess I do speak English the way that you would. That was good. So that's reason number one. Yeah. Reason number two is that 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.

40:19We're talking about China and Russia and the United States trying to impact each other's elections. This is stakes 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 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.

40:53Maybe there's a change in the way that 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 an argument. Now I'm going to vote worse. Yeah, that would be an argument. You just don't want me to stay at home. 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 on the way there where I'm like, this is a terrible day. Really? Terrible day. Not after you've, my man, have you seen the conversation that happens at queues when you're about to vote?

41:24That'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 is your secret. Because we're assuming it could work. We're talking about it. I think anything that you're struggling for will make it worth 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. Boom. To get out the... Hold on. There is research. There's research on the fact that it's like a community builder. Exactly. That's a separate argument. That's a separate argument.

41:54that I generally make up your mind whose side are you on hold on 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 the ways that you would have these countries hack voting yeah I didn't really understand what I was talking about I was thinking like in like a cyberpunk movie where you like see you know then there would be a glitch and someone in the US would notice the glitch and like there would be a hack 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 for the outcome of older people.

42:35And those people are more likely to vote this way. And then all of a sudden, because it rained, that one district that affect this one state that affects the electoral college that affects this all of a sudden. And so what they would do, 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 notice. Cloud CD? And I was like, like making it like, 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.

43:06And 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. Like just, it's just a little, little things on the edges. And then you'd have an outcome that you didn't expect. The politics would have very little to do with that. That's literally how I keep Eugene out of my house when I don't know who to visit me. I'll just like I'll make the lock a little tighter I'll jam the door a little bit more and he never and he never he hasn't noticed and then some days he just doesn't I'll be like yeah come over anytime and then he'll be there I just didn't come in but you know it makes all my sense that is crazy to think about it like that 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 these are all brilliant people that I'm talking to that have thought about this their whole lives these are all the reasons why you wouldn't want it I'm like okay But you could, right?

43:56Like this isn't – I've talked to people who are building rockets. Like this isn't rocket science. Like you could do this, right? Like there has to be some. And so I'm pushing like optimistically like this could work, right? And so then you get into the area of science that's a little bit more boring and I won't 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 you would notice the digital rain. Yeah, like there's there's real effort here and there are experiments. As you said, there are countries that are experimenting with it.

44:24There are places where they're trying to make this easier. 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.

44:57Don't go anywhere because we got more What Now after this.

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46:33You know what I just realized? You must be both the most fun and irritating person at a party. That's why she comes in early and leaves early. That's exactly what I'm saying. No, no, you know why? Because this is what I was thinking. 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 like, yeah, yeah.

47:06So how do you know you did? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, yeah. And I'm like, you know, the election, I think they should vote. You saw in Canada, they're going to do the digital voting. Then you go like, oh, yeah, actually, they did a thing on the digital. Then we're like, no, but the thing. And then you encryption, encryption, encryption, encryption, encryption, encryption. Facts, facts, facts, facts, facts. Data, experts spoken to, et cetera. And then someone would be like, I'm going to go get a. What's on this next? Out of context matters I'm going to go get another drink I promise I know 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 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 from who?

48:21You're always taking me into weird words highly intelligent extraterrestrial beings called the Anunnaki oh I don't even know what that is yeah anyway oh wait let's talk about Not aliens, actually. That's true. Eugene is a huge fan of aliens. I am also. I love aliens. Have you discovered anything? Apparently, we're close to making first contact in the next two years or so. You see, I love it. Now we're at the party. He's just said that. Tell me more. Yeah. So there's a guy called - First, first, first have your drink and say it. I think it sets the scene. We're at a party. Hey, yeah. So aliens.

48:55so there's an extraterrestrial being that comes to a guy called Daryl Anka

49:07don't you just hate it when your pessimistic friend is a DJ

49:13we shouldn't have put him in charge of the music you were saying

49:24I encouraged him to start mixing now look at me so there's this being that comes through him he's been doing this for the last 20-30 years it's called Bashar so Bashar a couple of years ago are you ready for a Eugene explainer by the way I'm sorry are we talking about like Daryl Anka the real world he channels Bashar he has seminars Guys, am I the only one who knows about Bashar and Spirit Box at the same time? So explain there, Eugene. Please. This is one of Eugene's favorite YouTube channels. Is this like a... Spirit Box and Bashar are two different things. But we're going to Spirit Box later.

50:02And are they... I'll ask this the way that my five-year-old niece would add this. Like, is this the pretend world or is this the real world? Okay. But with some level of pretend in it. I'm going to pull this up in the meantime. While he describes it, then I'm going to play it for you. So Bashar has been, I mean, Daryl Anker 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 going to start seeing things that we can't explain in the sky. So those are different levels of aliens that will start making contact.

50:35And then two years ago, a year ago, we started seeing drones that people couldn't explain, governments couldn't explain, phenomena that was happening globally at the same time that people couldn't explain. And then he said, two years from now, we're going to start seeing more contact, human contact with aliens. And I believe it. I was going to go a different route with this. Tell me. Wait, wait, before you do, I'll play you. This is, I guess, John Bonet, Ramsey, Spirit. I'm pretty sure when we were talking about... No, Spirit Box and Bashar. So start with Bashar. Spirit Box is something else. Oh, I don't know.

51:08Okay, start with... I only remember Spirit Box. Because it made my life. Say Bashar. Okay, hold on, hold on. Are we sure we should be giving this more airtime, Trevor? We can just bleep them all. Remember when you worried about your digital diet? But actually, wait, wait. So now let me ask you. As somebody who loves science, who explores, 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 for - Because it's huge if it's true. It is huge. The show is called Huge If True. If somebody can speak across dimensions to aliens.

51:46And 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, is 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, at least going through the scientific process, is 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. Yes. The real Large Hadron... Wait, what are the conspiracy theories?

52:23Oh, they think it's like going to tear a hole in the universe. They think there's a lot of like... It'll create a black hole. Devil worship kind of thing. Sucks everything. Yeah, sort of 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 stargate kind of stuff 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 like people have played into this like there were a couple students who pulled a prank where they were like dressed up a certain way and like did a sort of chanting oh man it never helps you see that wasn't ideal but it got a lot of headlines i'm deep into conspiracy so whenever whenever we're a bunch of like phd students or something a bunch of phd phd students play a prank and that Plank 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 might appreciate this I remember having A conversation With someone Who was pretty high up Used to be at the CIA And I said to him I was like Yo Conspiracy theories Like are these people real Are they onto something And he said something That'll stick with me forever He said At the CIA We We laugh at conspiracy theorists and all that.

53:34But 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 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. 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, that's why they'll never like confirm nor deny anything because it just, it stacks on itself.

54:15And 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 what they're doing is unethical. Because you've seen there was a huge, there was this one guy who was famous with an Afro who used to be on all podcasts. and you'll be talking about I've seen that guy 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 yeah are they that bad but people have been affected by spies and CIA agents and people who've done things were like they didn't look like you so there is always like I certainly believe when there's protests when there's 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 a lot to weed out.

55:03You could be an agent provocateur. This is how it starts. I'm not. Okay, shut up, shut up. That's all I needed. Eye contact and a denier. Yeah. I'm not. Eugene's easy to please. Are you a spy? No. Okay, cool. We're good. We're good. We're good. I try and think about it like what is the core interest here? So for example, 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. Not for my daughter to graduate university. To see when we meet.

55:40Totally. Or even, I mean, I would be. Lion's mane, I'm in. I would be excited about like bacteria on another planet. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm really 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 levels of lion's mane mushrooms. Is this all of them? Yes, I think they are 50 % mushroom and 50 % human. Are you sure?

56:22I'm pretty sure. I scanned him. I'm pretty sure. And why is his pee orange? He had ashwagandha, a lot of ashwagandha in these species. I'm sorry. Sorry, so you were going. You thought I was bad. Look. No, no, no. He said, I take supplements 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. Wow. Because if the aliens do get here and then they meet, who they meet first. Oh, but I think they're going to be like looking at us from afar and seeing that there's nitrogen in our atmosphere.

57:01You think they're going to David Attenborough us? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have been. 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. The thing that I am most interested in is what people are interested in. So, for example, the idea that people, we as humans feel this kind of loneliness with each other and also cosmically that I think is really beautiful somehow. Like we're so used to reaching out to each other that we understand that the world is big, the universe is unthinkably enormous, and we reach out and we really want that.

57:39And so I think that is beautiful and interesting. And when I tell stories, I want to make 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 want to 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 going to – is it that on Europa we're going to find, you know, bacteria in an ocean somewhere? Is it that we're going to look at a star system, you know, hundreds of light years away and see that there's an atmosphere there that we think looks like ours because it has life?

58:19Like, what would the realistic scenarios be? And then you create a sort of, I'm really 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 Rober, 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 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 off Earth.

58:51What 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 going to take 100 years to get there. It's going to take much, much more than that, actually. How would we verify that? And so you play this out and 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 thing that they are excited about. So another example is… It's the same as the 1902 article. Exactly. Yeah, you try and do that in an optimistic way so people can see like, okay, if the plane were to fly, what would that mean?

59:31Okay, if we were to find aliens, what would that look like? What is the real science and tech there? Same thing. I guess what I'm doing is sort of sci-fi every time. You are the 1902 first article. Yeah. 1903 or 1902? 1903 for the - The Wright Brothers was 1903? Pretty sure, yeah. Okay, 1903. No, I don't know. I'm just making sure I remember it correctly. Yeah, 1903 Wright Brothers. And so you can do that over and over again with all of 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.

1:00:02Let me tell you the real science and tech. No, can I tell you? Smashing protons. The real thing that we're doing. Particle smashing. Hey, Eugene. Only Eugene could make science sexy. You see those particles smashing. I was thinking more combative. Now I get it. What did the one hadron collider say to the other hadron collider? So, did you smash? Hey. There's a scientist out there who's loving that. He's like, yeah. I just realized you that's a superpower that you have that is not just in short supply I can't think of many people I've met 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 just did it now right eugene goes i believe the aliens and they speak like this and they're doing this and i'm going like i don't believe in this i believe it's pop but 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 There was no, this is all not, you know what I mean?

1:01:26But we have fun with it. We genuinely do. But what you do is more interesting. It's like, 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 encourages a journey for everyone involved. Do you know what I mean? Well, the energy is there. The desire to learn, the desire to do research. But I think most people don't treat people like that. Like, I tried to explain this to somebody once. I genuinely did not have the eloquence nor the compassion that I think you have when engaging in the topics. But I remember saying this around, like, parents with vaccines, you know?

1:02:08And 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 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 will take a moment to go Well, somebody who is anti-vaccine Has actually spent a lot of time On their own Googling and reading 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.

1:02:54Can you offer more research that allows them to do that thing that they do in a direction that has more for them to do it too? There's more information over here. You could be more excited about all of the many different research papers that are coming out every day. Like, here's a place to start. Like, here's some interesting information. And I also think, like, the... The thing that gets me really excited is that the world is very strange and very exciting and full of things to learn and to get excited about. And so I view my job as to create a menu of journalistically rigorous, genuinely beautiful, deep explainers that might excite someone to go down all of these different paths.

1:03:43Have any of them been wrong in any way? I mean we issue corrections when we get things wrong. Oh you do? There haven't been any major stories where the underlying point of the story has been wrong. And 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. But every once in a while we'll need to do a correction on a fact. So you can YouTube has a really great UX where you can put the time code and then a colon and put correction. UX is user experience. Experience, okay. So there's 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.

1:04:25Oh, wow. So I do this sometimes if I say like, if I, an example would be, I use the wrong, we do everything in metric, but I have an American audience as well. So if a translation is incorrect, I would put the correct one or something like things that are, sometimes they're more deep than that. 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 a basic journalistic practice. This is what you want, you know, if you're telling a story. You say that, but I mean, you say that. But we live in a world where that isn't a thing. Why journalism, by the way?

1:05:01I mean, if both parents were in law, why did you pick journalism? Well, I began working at Vox on the business side, actually. 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 going to go work in the business division, business affairs, and I was excited.

1:05:41And your eyes told me that you looked excited. Yeah. Is there anything where you go like, like boring? Like, is there anything 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 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 this come out? whenever it needs to come out. 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.

1:06:15Okay. And we're focusing on curling. The sport. The sport. 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 help us solve physics problems. And when I talk about Pasha, you guys criticize me. No, I promise Eugene You're talking about a granite Eugene? Yeah, yeah Wheel of cheese Eugene, let's be clear I've never criticized you I've only mocked you There's a difference Where in the UX can I put this correction?

1:06:56You want some? Yeah So yes, you're fascinated by curling And you said how it might help us solve So the physics There's a physics mystery in curling which is oh man i i gotta explain this now so this is this is your life 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 yes okay no she needs a prop she's gonna oh a prop so you okay okay you're the life that would be really fun if we were yeah if that was if we're at a party now you'd be like all right okay so the The mystery in curling is usually if I have this and I spin it, I don't know if you saw that, but I was spinning it in this direction and it moved that way.

1:07:42Okay. Does that make sense? So it counters did. Yes. In curling, that's not what happens. I can't demonstrate it with this right now, but if you're with a curling stone, which has a very specific bottom, and 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 move this way. And that has been confusing physicists for 100 years. Why is the other one normally happening? Is it centrifugal force? What is happening? Something about, so the reason why that happens, so I spun that way, it moved that way. I think I did it a little bit.

1:08:18Let's see if I can do it going straight. 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 I don't totally understand why it happens, but it basically happens with everything. Got it, got it, got it. So if you, 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 the opposite direction than you would expect. Because there's no friction? So we don't totally understand why. So this has been confusing physicists.

1:08:53There are a lot of genuine research papers written about this. This has been confusing physicists for like 100 years. And there's a lot of very reasonable – if you ask why and you look at the papers, there are a bunch of reasons that they give. There's one theory that has to do with the friction on the front 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. Is it that the water and the ice are like doing two opposite things? and then there's like a layer between them? I couldn't repeat you where the theories are.

1:09:26You just tricked me into being interested in curling. I know, I know. Look at me. Now I'm going to be watching the Olympics, watching curling, trying to figure out why the stone spins the way it does. This is exactly my point. And what material is this stone? Granite? Really special granite. It comes from one island. Every single Olympic curling stone comes from the same island. What island? It's called... You can just say any island and we'll throw in a correction. We should just do that for fun. Just to show people how it works. So it's a specific island with a... And it's called... I'm not going to remember this.

1:09:55I'm not going to imagine. Just say an island. Just say an island. The island of stone. Alisa Craig, thank you so much. The sober guy at the party. I'm a facts man. 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 going to make me make up an island, so thank you. Oh, man. Here's my point with this. The island of Bashar, and then we would have put the correction. See? Too soon. It would have been perfect. Sorry, Eugene. Sorry.

1:10:37It's okay. My point is that curling is a sport where if you read the YouTube comments in 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 talk a lot about like how did this become an Olympic sport like oh you know why are we it's sort of a joke it becomes a joke first I think curling is amazing and I think the curling athletes are amazing so I think that shouldn't be the case in the first place yeah yeah oh I tried curling at the curling Olympic trials I tried it it's insanely hard wait what makes it hard what's hard about it knowing that your friends might see you doing it no the balance of doing it I mean you know we said it is we are man you know we said it is we are come on baby come on baby man you know you know i'm so jealous of that come on 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 we started curling we are this is my point you guys which is clear we're trying to trick us into acting like curling is not funny some people think it's funny we are those people you You don't have to go far.

1:11:45There are some people who think it's a, we are those people. You have found us. I am going to make the case for this. I am such a big curling fan. I am going to 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 that you guys, but it's lame. Shots fired. It is much more interesting. And it makes your life better to be the person that goes, why does it work that way? Why is that? Turns out there's a crazy physics mystery and a stone island and a relationship to how we're going to discover aliens, by the way, because we need to understand.

1:12:29We don't need to understand physics of curling time. But it relates to the way in which we're going to explore islands where it relates to the way that we're going to explore planets with ice and oceans underneath. So we need there's a whole physics of the way that ice rubs against other things. And you need to understand that if you're going to drill into play. 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 boring you just includes 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 you know what i mean i would actually 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 the seed is the same 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 um one of the first ones where i knew this was um jerry seinfeld one of his most famous jokes was about um expiration dates on milk and he was like how do they know how do they know when you milk the cows like you know they've got the date and it's like and he had this really amazing bit It's about like, he's like, are they milking the cow?

1:13:54And then the farmer leans in and then the cow's like, yo, yo, January 7th or whatever. You know what I mean? Very funny bits. 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 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 got to go on your own journey and figure it out. And God forbid you figure out the truth.

1:14:27It's just like... The joke is finished. Yeah, the joke just 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 an explainer after a funny journey. If it's a real story, I mean, you and I are similar in that way. If it's like a real thing, I'm not going to try and make it not... But there are moments where you go, what is the, like one of my favorite jokes of myself, you know, every comedian has their own favorites, is one of mine was like the origins of the Ku Klux Klan. And I was like, where did they get the name?

1:15:03The KKK, right? Because then I looked into it, then it's like, it was, the joke was something about like how the origins were, they got it from the Greek brotherhood, it was Ku Klux Alpheon was the original name, right? Ku Klux Alpheon, Ku Klux Klan is how they got the name, Ku Klux Klan, right? But then I was like, but then it's not Ku Klux Klan. It's not supposed to be KKK. It was supposed to be like KKC. And then it was supposed to be a whole thing. And then I played with it. 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.

1:15:36That's supposed to be the name of the KKK is the KFC. But then they were like, we can't do that. Then I was like, because black people would love them. And then. Who told you they couldn't do it? I thought you were going to say, who told them black people love them? Yo, you were so close You were so close That's why I'm not a comic

1:15:58And then I ended it by saying 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?

1:16:20Oh, man. We're walking home after this. Thanks to you.

1:16:26Amazing. I'm going to go get another drink. No, she doesn't even have water. You see what happens with no fighting. Actually, I need more. Can I get water for? She chugged it. For the sake of science. She chugged it for the sake of science to show us something. Oh, it's right behind you. In the credenza. It's in the credenza. It's called a credenza? In the credenza. And a cordenza is something else. My uncle used to drive a credenza Oh thank you Thank you No thank you I'm fine You need all of it Yeah All of it No no no Like how Cleo put the water on turbo She was like No so I like But I think Look 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 try and make the plane We don't try and make the rocket ship We don't try and make the Hadron Collider.

1:17:19We don't try and make the internet. All of that requires curiosity. You know what I mean? And 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. You know what I mean? You have to imagine it. Everything that exists is someone's imagination. Yeah. Someone just went like, imagine if, and then now we treat that as like a helicopter. We just treat as a normal thing. Of course a helicopter works. Does it? Have you explained helicopters? Because those things are crazy. It's actually incredibly difficult to explain.

1:17:52Those things should not be flying. The physics of a helicopter is very, very hard. Those things should not be in the air. Didn't Da Vinci draw the first helicopter? Yeah, but even his was more normal. Really? That's awesome. His one was better. I might be wrong. Yeah, it had that spirally thing. His one was better than what they made today. This is so fun. This is what we're trying to do with all the things that will come next. That too. Wait, wait. Have you explained? And 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.

1:18:24Yeah, because imagine, so you start out with something and you're like, take the CERN episode, for example. Okay. So you start out and you are curious about why there is a 17-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. Like, why are they doing that? Why did they choose to build that? Why are they doing it there?

1:19:02Why are they... I don't know. Okay. Maybe. Okay. Okay, until someone comes up with a better catalyst. I think it was just international collaboration. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. And so you have all these questions. And so you begin to answer them. You ask, for example, why do we want to smash protons together? And it's like, well, 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 our universe or all universes?

1:19:39which I never no I've never known I don't know that much about multi-universe theory I think it's the universe in totality but I'm saying because I don't know I only thought of this now while you were saying it I was like there's more universe right I think the question you're asking is is the theory about multiverses do they all begin at the Big Bang that's what I'm asking yeah yeah yeah I'm saying is it all universes or just 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. Because now he beat me.

1:20:14I genuinely don't know. Maybe. Yeah, I think it's about all universe. Because you must remember, up until recently, we thought the universe was our planet. Yes, that's true. That's what we thought, right? But you can see in pop culture starting to pop up the theory of quantum jumping, the theory of the multiverse. And they're all interlinked. Because you look at 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 yeah it's a really good story so i i think when when there's a very serious 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 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 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 answering those questions of why there's 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.

1:21:39Absolutely. It's like a cell phone signal. We didn't care until we cared. And when I look into those stories and I wonder, why did a couple hundred scientists build something like this? What is the purpose? No girlfriends. Why do they... There's some people scientists too. And then why do they want to build a bigger one? Girlfriend will stop you. You're going to wear a white coat and do what? No, we're going to Switzerland. There's a loop. And then? And then there's a torch. My other friend is going to be firing the torch. 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.

1:22:19How do they make them hit each other? Yeah, that one blew my mind. How do they make them hit each other? Yeah. That's a good one. So then you keep going and every question begets like 10 more questions. And everyone, it's like a fractal system. Oh, out and out and out. But you know what's funny is most people who do this become pessimistic. Really? Yeah, I find most people or many people who go whatever. But then they go into like a spiral of, but then nothing. 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 exactly what I mean.

1:22:56That you're trying to avoid. Whereas you find - So maybe that would be a great thing to help. I mean, because I think it would be great for everyone to have that feeling and that framework for life. What is it about the endless possibility of questions that leaves you feeling fulfilled as opposed to debilitatingly unknowing?

1:23:26you know there's this feeling of awe when you look at something that you already know is spectacular yeah 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 lights or um yeah or like um apparently better on your phone is it really I've just heard this well you sound like a Debbie Downer no I'm just from the guides they say when you're there okay what's something that fills you with a sense of no no no I just wanted to let you guys know it's beautiful on your phone when you're there because you should do something on this about why it like filters to your resolution is better apparently 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 because you know some people like no don't pull out because it's the night time sky Eugene you want me to be shouting we're feeling awe yeah we're there and then they say pull out your phone and it looks better on the phone you should check think about that feeling that you have though when you look at something that you know is astonishing actually it's even better for this story when you're looking at something that humans built that's astonishing yeah I have that feeling like my show allows me to have that feeling a lot humans yeah sorry carry on pyramids don't interrupt yes yes humans I feel like we should continue this confusing the pyramids of the Burj Khalifa and you were saying I was saying yeah I have that feeling a lot I have that feeling a lot about why are you whispering now because we're in the night time sky you're just feeling a feeling of awe I put us in the mood of like planes and vaccines and you know The fact that water comes out of a tap when you open it.

1:25:20It 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 idea that I could get the opportunity to go understand quantum computers and bringing back supersonic planes and the Large Hadron Collider and artificial wombs and, you know, faster, more efficient cars and, you know, all of these things that I've had the chance to do.

1:26:00Theoretical 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. Yeah. Remember the show? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I think what you're explaining now is I have a theory that the next 100 years, we won't see any huge technological jumps. Really? I think it will be, to explain it to people, it will be the same as how we've been as gamers anticipating the release of Grand Theft Auto 6.

1:26:33Yes. 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 universes, there's upgrades, it gets better and better. And we're like, now we've come out and said, but Grand Theft Auto V can wait. But I think there's so much that we haven't explored because we've been on this technological binge and gorge, as you were saying. We're just going to the next thing before we... We've just moved more devices, shows, information. What do you mean by like big shift?

1:27:03Like I think that's - Like there won't be any new technology that blows us out the water. That's your bet. That's my 100 % bet. Wow. We should save this. Please do. No, no, no. I'm serious. Just as like a bet. I'm interested. Yeah, but I think - I don't think you're crazy, but - 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 folds. We've just seen like some of these, the beginnings of things that are going to be hopefully really interesting for our lives.

1:27:36And so I think in that sense, you could call those new technologies or you could call them evolutions of what we're already seeing. But it happens over time. I think you're right that it's like a, it's always one foot in front of the other. It's an improvement. It's an upgrade. It's always like that. But there will never be anything new because if you think about it, if we go - Not in the sense of like, now we're back to aliens. Oh no. Not in the sense of like, something just like hits us. Come back home. Yeah, I don't think anything's going to hit. Oh, that's another version. But I think like you get to be a part of the progress of technology.

1:28:09And 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 obvious textile can fall into other what we use to design how we dress and 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 hydroponics we're like we've reached the end guys we don't need 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 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 know 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 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 trying to understand why we don't have supersonic planes.

1:29:48You need to understand the history of the Concorde. You need to understand how planes currently work. You need to understand what happens when there's a sonic boom over everything, right? 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 thing that we haven't touched on yet is... How we use war to test our technologies? We did touch on that. Okay, sure. You brought that in. He always does. Yeah.

1:30:19is the way in which you get the opportunity to go down these rabbit holes and choose whatever you want to make is by owning your own thing, by making your own thing. 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 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 it. You could leave any time. As you often do at parties apparently. You could just bounce. Yeah. We're going to transition. No, but you're right. And actually, you know what?

1:30:52I'm glad you brought that up because it's something that I've been fascinated about because I think you were 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. 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 like 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 going to 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.

1:31:49Thank you for putting it that way. 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 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 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 also felt like the journalism that they were getting was pessimistic and it wasn't a full media diet and they wanted something like this.

1:32:39Like to be – 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 you just different than other media that I consume. And that's not to say that other media isn't great. But there is – there are things that I'm saying I don't like about mainstream media. There are things that, like, the show has 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 point to this show. And we're doing things a different way.

1:33:23And 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. Like I just, 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 want to have the incentives and the constraints and the lack of control inside a big company. Yeah, we talk about this all the time. We literally talk about this all the time. You did this.

1:33:54And in fact, and so that was the main point was I really wanted to make this show the way that I wanted to make it. Were you ever afraid? Yeah. Of meeting us? No. Look at what it's done to you.

1:34:11Yeah, all the time. Yeah. I think there's still, 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, it might go away. 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.

1:34:52And 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 once you have success of it going away and I want to feel that like I want to feel that all the time and so it felt much scarier to do this don't press anything we've got more what now after this your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change your receipt did The sausage and muffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just$5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary.

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1:36:35Now that you're in it, how do you insulate yourself from the hedonic adaptation of the success? It's something that's always fascinated me when I watch people in life. 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 want to be a star. Then they are a star. Then they want to be an A-list star. Then they're an A-list star. And then all of a sudden, they spend all their days depressed that their box office numbers aren't what they used to be.

1:37:15I used to think that that was reserved and maybe naively when I thought this, 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 high or like, have you ever, I've always enjoyed doing this. I'll go to somebody's, like let's say a TikTok goes viral, like mega viral, 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 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 and then you just see them make that their identity how do you how do you grapple with that and 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 everything comes back to the mission of the show.

1:38:42And 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? How do you define work though? Like, will it work? 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.

1:39:48I really think that if more people had generally a media diet that allowed them to see these visions more often and allowed them 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 had this incredibly strong ambition and motivation to make this show watched by millions and millions of people, which it already is. And it's growing. And I'm so incredibly proud of that.

1:40:22um 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 journey right i said i'm gonna make this show and that i think has been really protected yeah you've separated yourself from the project from the work yeah and then the other thing that's happened that's isn't 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 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 because if you're unable to separate yourself from it 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 there's always what I find is a healthy amount of 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 think when you catch on to a great idea they 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.

1:42:15Then if they've done it enough they start thinking well if I'm here like Einstein 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 because he goes where I come from everyone's thinking this 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 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 die.

1:42:49If you don't evolve, you perish. 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. You want this? Yeah. That's beautiful, Eugene. You too. I think that's exactly right. That's really beautiful.

1:43:08So 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 make sure that it stays the show? Like they know what feels like huge. Oh, that's great. And they create a constraint. That's great. Like there's a team culture and a team mission and we're all together making this thing. And so I am the vessel to make the thing better on screen, but we're all making it together. And that, I think, is really important to maintain the mission of what you're doing. And so all of those things, I think, help a lot.

1:43:48And 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. 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 to watch. Don't wait for it to die first. It's kicking it. No. Bataka! By the way, you guys have been part of that.

1:44:28Sorry, 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 because 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 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 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.

1:45:05And 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 that's fundamentally yes there's a lot of i'm torn only because 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's pretty much all he does is just like watch knife sharpening videos is he in this room yeah is he good he is in this room he passed away in this room he means

1:46:12oh he's here 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 take for granted because 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 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't sue Netflix but if that thing was put out on YouTube just it becomes 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 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 like 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 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 but it's true in in many other places too.

1:47:51It's obviously true in comedy. It's true in lots of different industries. And so that I would say I'm a part and huge is 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 it's a part of a story about pessimism itself. 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 yeah 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 they're they're the the shadow sides of each of those things there's the extreme upside of like what if yeah what if this these trends continue and, you know, I mean, we're already at a place.

1:48:50It'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 long since here. 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. and so that's that's really important and interesting and to your point about accountability like how to how to 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 and so 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 think it's it's interesting and complicated and thrilling.

1:49:49And I remember, I've been wanting to ask you this question because I remember when I left Vox and I got a lot of congratulations, but a lot of it was with this tone of like, oh, I would never do that. Or like, oh, the phrase a lot of the time was, that's so brave. Oh, I love that phrase. Yeah. So brave. And I got a DM on Twitter from you, and you said, congratulations, like, 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.

1:50:42and I mean I've said this to you before but like it was a real moment for me to say like oh

1:50:51like 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 you're welcome but for me it's it's an obvious one and eugene and i have been on this journey for what 20 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 daily show or not i remember like 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.

1:51:43I remember journalists who wrote great pieces who helped me understand the world that I was trying to understand. 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 10 years ago. And I'm like, yeah, but it's still with me now. They're like, why did you call me now? There's literally some people will come to the show and go, I haven't done anything in 10 years. And I'm like, yeah, but it stayed with me for 10 years. That's the first part. The second part is exactly what you said is the unsafe bets.

1:52:18And 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 guard and try things. We will say we want. What we often want is the reward from these things. We want huge. if true we want the show now that it's working but we don't really want people to go out and like try it in that way and i don't know what it does to people but you and i've spoken a lot about it it makes people uncomfortable when people as eugene says go rogue it's interesting how it makes people around you uncomfortable 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 3 a.m on the weekends in johannesburg in like in gauteng 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 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 going to do.

1:53:29I chose comedy. Everyone said, what are you doing? You have a great opportunity. What are you doing? You step away from being at breakfast. And the thing it made me - You're one slot away. 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 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? People start to internalize things.

1:54:10They go, are you saying I'm boring for staying on this island? Are you saying there's a better island out there? Are you saying this island might not exist in a few years? 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? For some reason, 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 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?

1:54:49Don't escape, embark. fuck there's a different feeling in both of them and so for me it was one of those things where I was like what you're doing was crazy it was genuinely crazy and I was so impressed by 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 I was like what are you doing and he's just like yeah i'm taking a break it's like phew 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 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 yeah what you said was i've been wondering when you're gonna do that and i thought to myself two things like him 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.

1:56:13Because 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. 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 going to be the start of, what has now become true, which is this wave of sort of people going independent, both in journalism and in comedy and in all walks of life. But at the time, like, how did you know that that was an option?

1:56:56Because my perception is I should have been more likely to know that that was true than you who were at the kind of the pinnacle of mainstream media success. us so 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 you're gonna leave and not leave in a bad way you're just you're gonna leave Does that make sense? Because there's something about you that tells me you are going to do something that goes beyond this.

1:57:44So on your side, I mean, 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 making this world really interesting, entertaining, positive, despite what the content is. It was all about like Congress and the Senate and this is not a positive world and it's not necessarily an interesting world. And exciting. 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.

1:58:19Yeah. Yeah, I love politics, but I'm not only that. You know what I mean? I've literally met people who think that's all I am all the time. I'll never forget in Miami at 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 I genuinely looked at it. I was like, what do you think is going to happen? Did you think you were going to say that? And I'd be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Mandela. Like, what did you think? I was like, oh, it's because your experience of me is one dimensional.

1:59:00so you think that my world is contained in that one dimension i oftentimes will latch on to people who don't operate in that one dimension because they inspire me so this guy here is like comedy is one of his dimensions and then i mean history you know nature documentaries guns motorbikes um aliens like but i mean it's no but it's infinite really it really is infinite with you and And I think when you see that and you see somebody, especially somebody who's creating, you'll see that they're forced to create in one sphere. Like we had Derek Forge on the podcast and he's a friend of mine who's an artist, phenomenal, phenomenal artist.

1:59:43But 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, because 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 derrick 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 you're no longer just looking at a painting you you're transported to a time music videos paintings drawings, sculptures, installations that you have to walk through.

2:00:29And 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. Do you know what I mean? The faint signal. Yeah, there's this faint signal that's also wonderful to have and so i don't know i i think it was something like that with you i was just like when i'll see you there i'd go but 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 to crowdfund philosophers and those philosophers should have apprentices and those apprentices will one day become the philosophers of their time and the written word was the only way that those philosophers was their YouTube.

2:01:51Interesting. 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 can 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 200 years from now, if someone looks at this portal that was open, which is YouTube, which is equivalent to a thousand years ago to written and spoken word, scrolls, rock paintings. The press, yeah. The same thing. This footprint, these ideas, they will never be new again.

2:02:23Everything that you're speaking about now might be obvious in 100 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 spoken a lot of people off their cliffs and giving them their careers without even knowing. It's the 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 thoughtful people who are philosophers, financial reward is never their aim.

2:02:56It's autonomy. It's them feeling like I can do what I want when I want. And once you've reached that, that's the pinnacle. And I think YouTube is exactly that, right? I think everyone benefits. That's the most important thing as well. Yeah. Is the understanding that everyone can benefit from it. That's what I also find selfishly. I'm going as a fan of yours. well I hope I see more same with your comedy you remember even from back in the day I was like when when when Eugene I'm waiting for this I'm waiting for that you know what I mean selfishly I'm going this benefits me so I'm assuming it benefits others basically what you're saying is Michelangelo didn't spend years upside down painting the ceiling of the Basilica for him to look at it he did it for other people that's beautiful and so what's it what's it been like 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 um

2:04:02Okay, so 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, 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 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 yeah the mountain yeah mountain mountain yeah we go to see at the mountain and you're climbing it and if you ask yourself the question why am I climbing it's because I've always wanted to climb.

2:04:53I'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 want to go walk in valleys? Do I want to stroll along rivers? Do I want to? Oh, 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 You're going to get back to mountain And you're like No Yeah You know Like one of the number one things People ask me in general Is like So what's What's next That's why I named the podcast It's like What now So what now Yeah What now And I was like What do you mean And they're like So what I'm like I'm going to live life and they go yeah but I mean beyond that I'm 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 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 going to 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 beautiful book that I read.

2:06:21We should have the author on it if you'll join us. It was a book called 4 ,000 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 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 when you're at home, don't think about the party you're missing.

2:06:52Be like, ah, I 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, what do you, what do you, what do you, 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 going to be bigger but like the what you are doing right now is part of like we talked about this wave that there is a very real future in literal terms in the success terms that people used to talk to you about this actually could be the bet that is the biggest thing you ever make that is that is like 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 it's it's hard to do hold those things at the same time i think that's exactly what it 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 true less than like like stand-up comedy and i mean this less than 10 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 less than less than 10 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 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 and I said I do stand up comedy and my mom said to me Trevor this lifestyle of selling drugs is going to catch up with you

2:09:16and I said what and she said Mtanam this lifestyle of selling drugs is going to catch up with you she was so gentle with it and I said mom I don't sell drugs I do comedy and she says Puti she said that save your lives for others this lifestyle will not end well and I was like mom and she said even asked us where do you say your money comes from and I said I go and I tell jokes and she's like my child and then she just walked into the house calm but she was like that's how 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 do you do you know what I mean that's how that's how random it was right so but i there was there's this spark and i this is what i always encourage people to do this is 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 don't like it when people go like chase your dreams throw everything else no no no no no no hey survive 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 this was 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 when i was going to do the daily show it wasn't obvious at all in fact it was a it wasn't it was a failure for i would 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 which is what people 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 also i'm grateful to him forever for it but like that thing 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 now 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.

2:11:57And then they were like, do you want to comment? He's like, I think he was the one who was like, can I come and commentate on this thing? People were 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 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 it. The Wright brothers did not think, I would say. I don't know. you've probably read more on it. I don't think they thought about airline industries. The Wright brothers were probably just like, man, wouldn't it be cool to fly?

2:12:33Wouldn't it be cool to fly? They just wanted to prove their girlfriends wrong. You're never going to fly, Mark. The next thing, air crash investigations. Or maybe they said, maybe, maybe they were the version of the teacher that said, imagine you could fly. Exactly. And they said, oh, what an interesting idea. And a few months before that, They read an article that said this thing will never happen. This thing will never happen. Yeah, so I think that's all it is, you know. Yeah, and that's why you're here. So thank you. Thank you for this, by the way. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you so much.

2:13:03Most importantly, thank you for putting you out there because we've all benefited from it. Thank you. And I can't wait to see what you're doing. 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 going to watch for the jokes, but now I'm there for the science as well. She did it again, folks. Cleo's done it again This was fun, thank you Thank you guys Cheers Cleo Thank you very much, for real Thank you so much You were worth the hype You delivered and surpassed What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by DayZero Productions In partnership with SiriusXM The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle Rebecca Chain is our producer Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu.

2:13:55Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

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