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Probably Science

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Hey everyone, welcome to probably science

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I'm Matt Kirshen. I'm Andy Wood and

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I'm a partner in ensure no I'm

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we always I'm sorry. I'm Jesse case.

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Oh, that's it. It's strange that you made that mistake

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though, because our guest

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Actually has the name that you nearly accidentally

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said Yeah, I

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accidentally say that name all the time and we finally

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you do found someone with a

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return

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Yeah, I know. It's

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a very common name It's

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gonna be it's gonna be awkward the number of times people just

0:44

put in a partner Nan Chela as they're sort of

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like

0:46

Fake name when they're filling out online forms.

0:49

Yes a partner channel group gmail.com

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and everything and then you're getting all this junk Birthday

0:55

January 1st, you know, yeah Yeah,

0:59

the most common 1900 as well when you I

1:01

believe you were born 1900. Yes.

1:03

Yes. I was born January 1st 1900 That's

1:05

right and and also

1:07

weirdly is weirdly appropriate as well

1:10

that so many people are doing that to you

1:12

because A partner is now also

1:14

the author of the fantastic book I'm chugging

1:16

through it at a great rate and not because she is a great

1:18

writer and really enjoyable and it shows

1:20

in the book But the book is called unreliable

1:22

narrator me myself and imposter

1:24

syndrome

1:26

That's right. I wrote a book And

1:29

it's a bunch of essays about my

1:31

struggles with self-doubt Which

1:33

was not the best idea to write about

1:36

I learned very quick

1:37

Was

1:39

yeah someone who's already got that as their

1:42

main issue to just dive into

1:44

Now you're questioning if you wrote a book Yeah,

1:48

yeah, yeah exactly I'm like is this

1:51

even mine really I Feel

1:54

like almost anyone who writes a book as well

1:56

at some point goes through a point of just

1:58

what am I even doing? What's the?

1:59

This is absurd to try and write a whole book.

2:02

What's the point of this? This is ridiculous.

2:05

So yeah, to just be like opening that, that

2:07

part of the brain. Yeah, it was

2:09

really not my best idea,

2:11

I have to say. But

2:13

now it's the book and now it's everyone else's

2:16

problem. Deal

2:18

with it. I

2:20

think a lot of like, not someone's

2:22

best idea has taken off.

2:26

You know what I mean? True, yeah. For

2:28

some reason when you said that, I immediately thought

2:30

of the how ice

2:32

cream cones were invented. I don't know if that's

2:35

what you were alluding to,

2:36

Tessie. No, I was thinking of

2:38

like, I was actually, this is weird, I was

2:40

actually picturing Boba.

2:42

Oh, is

2:44

there a story behind Boba? I

2:46

don't think there's a story, but whoever invented it's a psycho.

2:48

I mean, they're like, let's put some pudding

2:51

in tea, and then everyone just loved it. And

2:55

also just serve it with an oversized

2:58

straw so that every sorefoot,

3:00

it just kind of gets Augustus glooped in

3:02

the straw and then just shoots into the back of your mouth and

3:04

you're like, this is great. Yeah, but like,

3:06

if you'd never heard of it, it looks like

3:09

something that like someone on TikTok is

3:11

doing for views. Right,

3:13

right, right. A spaghetti hamburger

3:15

or whatever. I would,

3:18

I'm not going to let this whole, this

3:20

whole stream though fly by without us doubling back

3:23

to ice cream cones. Yeah, I don't know

3:25

the story. You just presented

3:27

it as the fact that everyone knows.

3:29

Okay, the story's pretty

3:31

quick. I guess it's, there was a guy

3:33

selling ice cream outside in the summer,

3:35

it was hot and you know, it kept

3:37

like melting. I don't know how he was originally

3:40

serving it, but he decided to start

3:44

wrapping it up in like waffles and

3:46

then just putting the ice cream inside the waffle

3:49

and then handing it to them that way. And

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that was the first ice cream cone.

3:55

But so you think that that guy

3:57

probably also had better ideas.

3:59

though like

4:01

well I just yeah I don't I think he was just

4:03

like you know improvising in the moment

4:05

I wouldn't say he probably thought it was a terrible idea but

4:07

he was probably just like I'm just gonna do this for

4:10

today things are

4:11

going awry just winging it but then it

4:13

took off but then it really

4:15

took off I

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would say it's still going strong

4:19

to

4:19

this

4:23

day to this day

4:24

everyone knows the name Alfredo Cornetto I

4:29

mean now it's like you know they're not

4:31

soft waffles they're like they

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got some rigidity to them they

4:35

really they've gotten bitter over

4:38

time but but

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yeah I would say the waffle part

4:42

has held up

4:44

mm-hmm absolutely so the waffle had to

4:46

come so the waffle came first

4:48

then I didn't know any of this I didn't know I

4:51

mean I guess the waffle I didn't know if the waffle

4:53

was invented if someone was like what if we flattened

4:56

ice cream cones

4:57

and had them for breakfast you know

4:59

what I mean yeah once we took

5:01

this ice cream cone maker and

5:04

put syrup on it like just someone really

5:06

off the rails like that

5:07

sounds like a tick-tock yeah

5:11

right right oh there's like there's

5:13

a bunch of cooking

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hacks that I keep seeing videos

5:17

of online where people are making fresh pasta

5:20

by blend look by like putting

5:24

regular dry pasta into

5:26

a food blender and then mixing it with water

5:28

and then sort of rolling it out it just feels

5:33

weirdly unnecessarily circular to make

5:36

something

5:37

is that idea that it's homemade

5:40

then I think

5:41

so and I think you add an egg to it as well so

5:43

it's a little bit more it's a bit closer

5:45

but I don't know if you if you're already going to the older effort

5:47

why not just buy I know

5:50

I like the wheat like the grains properly

5:52

and do it I

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think you kind of that

5:55

yeah one of the just one of the

5:57

other harbingers of the house society

6:00

is derailing.

6:01

My

6:04

mom just had a birthday and

6:07

she's gotten very very into gardening

6:09

and baking and all that stuff

6:11

you know. She's always been into it but I think pandemic

6:14

she really she went all in and I

6:17

got her for her birthday I got her a bushel

6:19

of like this large bushel

6:22

of cocoa pods so

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she could try to make her own chocolate like totally

6:26

from scratch. Oh yeah. And

6:28

boy is it hard. She really

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it's

6:31

like there's a reason that's the whole

6:34

industry that that

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you have to like be a part of and it's people

6:37

are paid for it. It's very difficult.

6:40

So she's

6:40

done it or like

6:42

had any successful? You

6:44

have to like open the pods

6:47

and then this pulpy stuff comes out but you have to

6:49

ferment it. Yeah

6:52

it's the fruit it's a fruit and you have

6:54

to ferment it then

6:57

then you crack open like the nibs

6:59

and then roasting the beans. There's so many steps

7:02

before you have anything that in any way resembles

7:05

chocolate.

7:06

I mean it kind of blows my mind

7:08

like I wonder how long it took to you

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know it's only oral history up until that point.

7:13

It must have taken like 20,000 years to

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get to the point of someone like

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try this then this then this then we have chocolate

7:20

because

7:20

it's crazy

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and no it was horrible it didn't work but she was

7:24

no it just tastes

7:26

it tasted like vinegar like she messed

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up the fermentation.

7:30

She should do the

7:32

pasta thing where she just takes existing chocolate,

7:34

she melts it and she adds

7:35

the egg. That's

7:38

how my dad like thinks he does

7:41

like my dad makes his own salsa but like the first

7:43

step is buy salsa. He

7:46

like buys and he puts some corn

7:48

in it. It's like dude you didn't make

7:50

salsa. You garnished

7:53

salsa. Yeah it's like how we like to embellish

7:55

this. We all feel productive when

7:57

we add crap to the frozen pizza we bought.

7:59

I made a pizza. No you

8:02

didn't. You didn't make a pizza at all. Anyway,

8:07

so don't try making chocolate unless you really

8:09

have your stuff. Unless you're a chemist.

8:11

And don't try making carob

8:14

unless you're a masochist.

8:16

I still don't fully understand

8:18

what carob

8:18

is. I don't either, but I know it's

8:20

what the kid whose

8:22

house you didn't want to go over to,

8:24

what his parents made him eat. I

8:28

don't think I've heard of carob. It's like

8:30

a chocolate substitute that

8:32

your neighbors

8:33

think

8:36

can pass for chocolate and it can't.

8:39

But why are we trying

8:41

to... Yeah, I can't remember the... It's

8:43

better for you or something.

8:45

I'm looking it up to see if... Maybe

8:47

it's crossed the pond. I don't know.

8:49

I do know someone bought us once as

8:51

a gift some... It was

8:53

like 90% cocoa chocolate. And

8:57

it was one of the

8:59

worst things. You'd

9:02

almost challenge people to eat it as a bet. You used

9:05

to take one square of it and it removes all

9:08

of the moisture from your mouth. It draws all the joy out of your

9:11

face. The

9:14

cocoa percentage... I mean, I

9:16

want to see data on sociopathy

9:19

and cocoa percentage. Because

9:22

I think once you get over 70%,

9:25

when you meet somebody and they're like, yeah, I only

9:27

go 85 or above, it's like, that

9:30

scares me.

9:31

Jesse,

9:33

I have a confession

9:35

to make.

9:36

Oh, no. What if this...

9:39

I've switched to a 70% and above lifestyle.

9:43

Well, I'll go above 70% for

9:45

sure. I go above 70%. I'm not a milk

9:47

chocolate guy. I mean, I'm not some pushover.

9:50

I know, but I have

9:52

bought a 90%

9:53

bar before, I should say. Wow. 90%.

9:56

What

9:58

did you get out... Did you get like a... rush out of the

10:01

awfulness

10:01

of it. I

10:05

think, I don't know what I was, I don't

10:07

know what my headspace was. I'm

10:10

sure I was feeling low, looking

10:12

for new ways to feel anything.

10:14

There

10:16

is a strangely related story this week

10:18

that Rachel Carter sent in, along

10:21

with the, she emailed

10:23

it in along with the notes, can Matt please read the

10:25

name of this man's company? I

10:27

will make sure I do that when we get to that bit of the story.

10:30

Yes, we will absolutely get to it,

10:33

but before we do, I

10:35

would like to ask Aparna, when did you first feel

10:37

like the fraud that you are?

10:39

When, I'm kidding. No,

10:43

I mean when did

10:45

you notice this is, first of all,

10:48

I think you're, I'm not just saying this, I think you're

10:51

so brilliant and deserving of everything

10:54

and much more in this funny

10:57

little thing we call life. So

11:00

when did your, I would call it a false

11:03

narrative develop, because I also have

11:05

those, you know? Sure, sure. When

11:07

did you get the, when did this narrative start?

11:09

This, yeah.

11:12

Yeah, I mean I think

11:14

very early on I just felt like,

11:16

I'm sure a lot of kids had this, but

11:19

like I didn't fit in and I didn't really

11:21

know how to fit in better and I just

11:23

felt all the other kids were

11:25

operating from a, I don't know, some kind

11:27

of playbook that I didn't have access to.

11:30

So I think I've always just had a mindset of

11:32

playing catch up with everyone else. And

11:35

then I think as I got older that just kind

11:37

of crystallized into like, you don't know

11:39

what you're doing, like whatever

11:42

field you're in, you're just like, you're

11:45

kind of like you don't have the same access

11:47

to information as everyone else. And I

11:50

don't know like why it got so bad,

11:52

but it felt like it got worse the

11:54

more success or opportunities

11:57

I got. It just felt like that.

12:00

got louder, probably because I never formed

12:03

a foundation of self-esteem.

12:06

But I think that

12:08

makes total sense for that to get worse. If

12:11

you sort of naturally have a

12:14

certain level of like, I don't deserve this,

12:16

the more you get, the more you then

12:18

feel that something's gone wrong.

12:21

And I think this industry is firstly

12:24

rife with that feeling, but also just I

12:26

can't think, in so many ways,

12:28

it's both incredibly suited and incredibly

12:31

unsuited to someone with that personality. Yeah,

12:33

totally. And many of us drift to it. Yeah,

12:35

and I think also just how our

12:37

industry can be so random in that the

12:40

way you get stuff, you see like someone,

12:42

your peer who has been working just as hard

12:44

and for maybe longer than you and doesn't

12:47

get a thing, you're like, well, they definitely deserve a thing and

12:49

they didn't get it and I got it, like

12:51

who am I? You know, like it's

12:53

also sometimes it doesn't even make sense.

12:56

Like why one person moves ahead

12:58

and another person doesn't necessarily have that

13:00

same trajectory. So I think

13:02

there's just a lot of ways to find doubt

13:05

in the system anyway.

13:07

This is why astrology and Scientology

13:09

and all these things, I'm serious. This is why

13:11

Hollywood is rife with them. You have to make sense of this

13:14

fickle ass business. Totally. Yeah.

13:17

I mean, like your whole career could

13:19

change or not based on whether

13:21

a casting director got an argument that

13:23

morning with your toddler. Right. And

13:26

like you're like, OK,

13:28

I guess that's this feels good. You know,

13:30

I mean, there are so many things like that in life. Like

13:33

there's there's stats on the

13:35

people have done studies on sentencing

13:38

and or like appeals, whether people get

13:40

their appeal. Oh, after lunch. Oh, after lunch.

13:43

Yeah. Yeah. It's

13:45

like, yeah. But you're hearing it straight after lunch. You're in

13:47

a much better position than if it's just before lunch. Yeah. No,

13:50

I always book mine at like one p.m. You

13:52

know, every time I'm up

13:54

for it, I'm glad

13:56

they they bought me a podcast. Mike, I just got

13:58

one. I was just able to do that.

13:59

So

14:00

oh it's so depressing

14:03

No, I I

14:07

completely It's

14:09

so hard cuz like when I think when you're a

14:11

kid if you start thinking

14:14

You don't have the tools yet I

14:16

mean you're you don't have the tools at all

14:19

to counter those narratives everything is

14:21

the truth when you're a child Like

14:23

yeah, I guess what I mean is like you believe

14:26

your own brain You you take your thoughts

14:28

very your thoughts are the truth you

14:30

yeah

14:30

And then I think you also assume

14:32

you're the way you see everything is

14:34

sort of how everyone else is seeing everything

14:36

too Yeah, and and I think once

14:38

a narrative starts It's

14:41

really hard to

14:44

Like like the there's something wrong

14:46

with me narrative Which I think I was probably 10

14:48

or 11 maybe when that narrative I

14:51

mean looking back Well, I had no idea but I mean looking

14:53

back when that sort of takes

14:55

hold But it's like if you're not on it, which

14:57

of course you're not gonna be because you're a child It

15:00

can really solidify

15:02

Yeah, and it's hard like

15:05

it just goes with you because you didn't have the

15:07

tools to

15:09

to be like, ah, that's uh

15:11

That's kind of silly, you know or or whatever.

15:13

I don't know.

15:14

Yeah, it's interesting. I did like a very

15:17

non scientifically rigorous survey

15:19

of just like peers When

15:22

I was writing the book of just like have they

15:24

experienced imposter syndrome like when

15:27

did you know? How did it manifest

15:29

for them and there were like I would say

15:33

98% of people experienced it, but I think there were

15:35

like one or two people are like no I've never I've

15:37

never had that and I I don't

15:39

know why just I've never felt that way and

15:41

I was just like That's we should

15:44

be studying those

15:45

people. Yeah

15:47

Like what where did you

15:49

just have the unbridled like where did you find

15:51

your unbridled confidence?

15:54

Yeah

15:55

And I would say that two people I mean

15:58

I kept it anonymous, but I wouldn't say say like

16:00

the two people said they didn't have it are like people

16:02

I would be like oh but that's definitely like a

16:04

sociopath or something.

16:06

No I mean I just

16:08

speaking for myself like there

16:10

have been times in my life when I think I've

16:12

not had or I thought I didn't

16:15

have it I thought oh I'm confident

16:17

I'm I'm on it whatever but

16:20

then of course that was just me that

16:22

was a lack of self-awareness because that was just like extreme

16:25

avoidance. Oh you

16:27

know what I'm saying like I was I was running

16:29

from my feelings or insecurities like full

16:32

blinders up so yes and you

16:34

can only make it so far before it catches you so

16:36

there have been like little one or two year

16:39

periods in my life

16:41

where I've been I thought confident

16:43

it was really it was a house of cards but like

16:47

the the real the real mindfuck

16:49

of it is that's when like the career

16:51

stuff like went the best. Oh gosh

16:54

you know what I'm saying it makes

16:56

sense

16:56

like no it totally makes sense like I think

16:58

that's

16:59

the way I was crushing it but I was still

17:01

running I was like I was still Wylie

17:04

Coyote just not looking down but like

17:06

I was just walking out over a cliff right

17:08

when I was like but like it works

17:11

and then so that's also very

17:13

weird.

17:14

Yeah

17:17

I don't know I don't know people

17:19

really buy into you know

17:21

the appearance of confidence like even

17:24

yeah the performance of confidence

17:26

is Americans love

17:28

it.

17:28

So also it has to be the right

17:31

amount of yes like a

17:33

stand up you know you we know on stage that there's

17:35

like there's like a perfect there's

17:38

like a right amount of confidence and then there's a

17:40

wrong amount like I can think of times where I've

17:43

ruined a gig by just not but by being too

17:45

in my head and too nervous but also

17:47

there's times where I've ruined a gig by being too

17:50

blasé. Yeah right right

17:52

like I can think of two times.

17:55

Your high kick bass was so weird. You

17:58

would come out and do the high kick and. It was so

18:00

weird. Yeah, but

18:03

the thing was, but it worked. I mean,

18:05

the thing is that worked, but sometimes, sometimes

18:10

when I tried to spin kick, that was where it like, spin

18:12

and then high kick, that's when it really went to, no,

18:14

but I can also think of just two times where

18:16

I had terrible gigs in London in the last,

18:18

I reckon it was about five or six years ago now, because

18:21

I don't gig in London very often, but both times it

18:23

was the third gig in a triple

18:25

up, where, and I was thinking-

18:27

Feeling good, feeling good, yeah. Exactly

18:30

the same thing happened both times. Gig number one was

18:33

pretty good. Like I had a fun gig. Gig

18:35

number two was just rocking,

18:37

like an absolutely great gig. Cause

18:39

I think I went in with just that little bit of extra swagger

18:42

cause I just had a good gig, so I was feeling really buoyed.

18:45

And then gig number three, I went on with

18:47

just the overconfidence of the great gig,

18:50

forgetting that this is an entirely new group of people

18:52

who have not seen me be- Oh no. Like

18:55

they hadn't seen me be fun. So it was

18:57

like, I sort of didn't prove myself to them enough

19:00

in the first crucial first 30 seconds

19:02

to a minute, and then you just feel

19:04

the gig slipping away, and then it just turns

19:07

completely on its head, and every ounce of confidence just

19:09

drains from your body. And then, you know, you feel

19:11

like a little trickle of sweat down the back and you just try

19:13

and keep a straight face. Yeah. Yeah,

19:17

we've all been there. But

19:20

yeah, but it is weird how much of it is like

19:23

the right level of confidence trick. It's

19:25

also like, it's weird how much of it is a

19:27

self-fulfilling prophecy that even

19:30

though you

19:31

know that, I can't,

19:33

at least I can't muster it.

19:36

Like if

19:38

you're like, okay, I'm gonna go, this is gonna be really

19:40

fun and I'm gonna do really well. Right. It

19:42

generally does because that's

19:45

your vibe or whatever, but like sometimes

19:48

I still can't, even though you

19:50

know that, it's strange to me that my brain would still sabotage

19:52

that. Oh yeah, yeah,

19:54

yeah. Sometimes you're saying that,

19:56

but you don't believe it, so it still

19:58

doesn't work. Yeah.

20:01

I was I don't know

20:03

if this is in this week's science

20:06

stories but someone told me recently that

20:08

it's been definitively proved there's

20:10

no such thing as free will

20:12

I read that yesterday and I

20:14

don't know but I only read the

20:16

headline and it I don't know

20:18

yeah I don't know

20:20

if it was like clickbait or not and I

20:22

don't think I have the free will to read it it just was there

20:24

for me I

20:27

think yeah any argument that's

20:29

logical comes to that conclusion

20:32

because to say anything otherwise

20:34

is to imply magic and

20:36

whatever magic might exist but like it's

20:39

magic like the fact that some

20:41

people

20:42

exhibit what seems to be more free will than others

20:44

because of things that were out of their control

20:46

like how they were raised in their genes like

20:49

that yeah it also implies a lack of free will the fact

20:52

if free will were real it wouldn't be doled out

20:54

in different amounts like so

20:57

it's all everything you do your product of everything

21:00

that's come before you whether that is environmental

21:03

or genetic and you chose none of those things so how

21:05

could you imply that

21:07

anything well I

21:09

mean it would come down to like there are

21:11

reasons you are making your choice yes

21:14

every thing happens for

21:16

a reason not in the hippie sense of like a good

21:19

reason but like everything is right every

21:21

choice the consequence of prior things

21:23

right every every action has

21:25

a consequence and your choices

21:28

there are reasons for your choices yes

21:31

right and you could and you could you could suddenly

21:34

start to act as though in

21:36

a way that you perceive as having more free will

21:39

but that's just that's just

21:41

like because of some input you could read

21:44

some book that tells you to seize the day

21:46

well now that now that new day

21:48

seizing is a consequence of this

21:51

was the book it's not

21:53

sure

21:54

sure I recently read

21:56

an article that there's no such thing as free willy

21:59

which

21:59

It was just a yeah,

22:02

it was a it was a hoax. Yeah,

22:04

it was an orca film denier Yeah,

22:07

it was actually filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood

22:10

Kubrick big free willy

22:16

That's so stupid

22:18

Wait, wait, wait, I have to see something really

22:20

quick about orcas that I also heard recently

22:23

I think on another podcast, but remember when

22:25

the orca pods were like bullying

22:28

people

22:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well apparently this one scientist

22:31

said that the explanation was that

22:33

Orcas

22:38

just like orca pods kind of are

22:40

like teen Like clicks

22:42

of teenagers and that they just like they

22:45

catch on to a fad and then they're like just really

22:47

into that for a While and then and then they

22:49

move on to something else So one

22:51

of the things they were into was like this whatever

22:54

like hazing boats or something But

22:56

then they were giving another example of like

22:58

fads they've had and one of them was that

23:01

they would wear Fish that

23:03

they had killed. Yeah, it's

23:05

like hats

23:06

Yeah,

23:09

I just can never it was just the

23:11

best thing I

23:12

ever heard yeah, wasn't it like salmon

23:14

hats But then yeah, we were talking about it. I was

23:16

picturing they made salmon sashimi somehow

23:19

It was like a little cube of orange

23:21

on top of their head But they were just wearing

23:23

it's so weird because that is exactly how teenage

23:25

fads start wearing

23:28

some clothes backwards or Whatever

23:32

and it's just like I guess that's what we're doing now.

23:34

We're

23:34

all wearing fish hats

23:35

No, I

23:38

was just at the gym yesterday. There was a kid

23:40

who must have been like 18

23:43

He had the exact like 1995 haircut

23:48

that I that dumb parted down the middle

23:53

The curtains the curtains

23:55

it's back. I never thought

23:58

that it would come back and I I think this

24:00

is true in the 90s in general, but that was the

24:02

first time I was like, that's 95 baby. He's

24:05

like, you kids on the block back up

24:07

dogs or something. That's

24:09

proper vintage to them though. That's 28

24:12

years ago. I

24:15

play in this, I play

24:17

music with these guys and the drummer has I

24:20

think a 12 year old or something and

24:22

he was talking about how, or 12 or 13 or something.

24:25

So he's gotten really into cars, but the cars

24:27

he's really into are cars that all of us would totally

24:30

scoff at. It would be like a 1997, you know, like cars that he thinks

24:32

are cool old.

24:38

Yes, right? Right? You're

24:41

Saturn. Like the stuff that they think is cool

24:43

is stuff that we thought was so dumb in 1995.

24:47

Now it's retro, but it's the car you learned to drive

24:49

on because it was the car that your parents

24:52

didn't mind you crashing. Right, right, right.

24:54

My grandma's cut with Sierra.

24:57

Yeah. It's just interesting

24:59

to me that like

25:00

a bunch of mid 90s stuff that

25:02

we were like, no, man, come

25:04

on. You know?

25:06

I've heard like an insult now

25:08

that kids use on their parents is like, you

25:10

were born in the 1900s and

25:12

I was like, oh no.

25:13

I mean

25:16

that is insane though. We

25:19

were born, like airplanes

25:22

didn't exist at the start of our century. We

25:25

were born. It's

25:28

crazy. Like no one had seen a germ

25:31

before, you know, the century we were born

25:33

in. I was just reading,

25:36

I was just reading The Machine Stops

25:38

by E.M. Forrester. Have

25:41

you guys read

25:41

that? Great book to read in this current AI

25:44

era and crazy that it was written in 1909. So

25:48

as I'm reading it, I'm Googling, actually,

25:51

ironically, I'm using chat GPT to paint a picture

25:53

for what 1909 was technologically

25:56

so I can see what because the book is

25:58

getting everything about our

26:00

smartphone addiction and AI correct, but

26:02

it still thinks we have to get from place to place using

26:06

airships. It takes two days because

26:08

the airplane was like the Wright brothers had

26:10

only happened like within the last five or 10 years, but

26:13

they didn't realize airplanes

26:15

are going to be faster than just dirigibles.

26:17

So like it's a future where you have a machine that

26:19

makes everything for you, gives you all your entertainment,

26:22

but you still take two days to travel

26:24

by airship. But it is

26:28

really crazy that the 1909 book got all

26:30

these things about AI so right.

26:33

Well you know there was a little book written

26:35

about 2000 years ago that got everything right Andy.

26:39

A little man named Jesus. A

26:42

few little man names. I

26:44

mean probably everyone was shorter back then. Something

26:48

I've been thinking about that's weird is like and hopefully

26:50

this you know none of this happens, but you know I've

26:53

got an anxiety disorder. But like you

26:55

know the news is popping off if you watch the

26:57

news. Things feel like they're popping

26:59

off and I think it's very interesting

27:01

that like all of our dumb outfits and

27:03

cars and stuff that we have right now could be

27:05

considered pre-war one day. Oh

27:09

my god. No

27:14

like if you see somebody twerking it's like you see those

27:16

pre-war dance moves. Oh my

27:18

god. This

27:21

is like the Roaring Twenties. Yeah

27:24

like just whatever dumb

27:27

you know like your dumb hat like look at that guy's

27:29

pre-war hat it's like a guy in a beanie. Oh

27:32

wow. By the way we officially are

27:35

not going to get like I was during

27:37

COVID I was like looking for a glimmer of hope and

27:39

there was a guy who admitted good argument for how 2024 was going

27:42

to be the Roaring Twenties. We're not going to get a Roaring

27:44

Twenties. It doesn't always happen. We

27:46

don't get a period. If

27:48

the last two weeks have showed us anything we don't get any

27:51

fun times after COVID. But

27:54

weren't the Roaring Twenties for still

27:56

only for 0.1% of people?

27:57

Like

27:59

we are.

27:59

in the roaring 20s we got people

28:02

with super yachts and shit like

28:05

weren't most people in the roaring oh so they're basically

28:07

their guts being it up yeah but

28:10

wasn't that also what it was like in the 20s like

28:12

it's not like that's true like

28:14

we see these photos and it's like

28:17

oh but I mean like dude 10

28:19

people had a camera it was like a million dollars for camera

28:22

I don't

28:24

think I just think most people were

28:26

very poor in the 20s

28:30

that's my hot

28:32

take they got more poor

28:34

but like all right

28:37

you know I mean I mm-hmm

28:39

I think right now things are way more roaring

28:42

for

28:43

the roaring right right

28:45

well you you know what's particularly roaring and

28:47

what we're not short of what's that nice

28:49

work man capsaicin

28:53

oh yeah pepper

28:56

heat there is this is a story that we've

28:58

been working towards for the last 15 minutes

29:01

and was that then there is a there

29:03

is a new exciting news

29:05

in the world of heat and food

29:07

there is a new hottest pepper that's

29:10

been officially confirmed by the people

29:13

at Guinness Ed Curry

29:15

who is the South Carolina hot pepper expert

29:17

who crossbred and grew the Carolina Reaper

29:20

which we discussed a couple of episodes ago has

29:23

broken his own world records with an

29:25

with a pepper that is three times hotter

29:28

that he has dubbed pepper X it

29:31

is beat it be

29:34

meeting out oh this is there

29:36

is a there is a lot of very intentional

29:39

alliteration in this KTTC article

29:41

that written by Jeffrey Collins and the

29:44

Associated Press it

29:46

says beating

29:49

out beating out the Reaper in Curry's

29:51

decade-long hunt to perfect a

29:53

pepper that provides immediate brutal

29:55

heat mmm

29:58

and when he tried it he ate it himself.

30:01

It does say, I don't know if it's in this article, but I did read another

30:03

article where it says he's actually

30:05

a former addict and then employs a

30:08

lot of recovering addicts in his

30:11

Salsa factory, which kind of makes sense as well. That

30:13

completely tracks with just

30:16

like, okay, you're not doing drugs anymore,

30:18

this is your new hide that you're chasing

30:20

that is significantly less dangerous, but

30:22

did give him cramps for three

30:25

and a half hours. Yeah, his company

30:27

is called Pucker Butt. Oh

30:30

yeah, that's true. That's what Rachel asked me

30:32

to say apparently. Pucker Butt is the name of his

30:35

company. There you go, Rachel. Thank you for the story. But

30:38

he was laid

30:41

out flat on a marble wall for approximately

30:43

an hour in the rain groaning in pain.

30:46

So

30:50

it

30:51

says, and again, we

30:53

discussed these numbers in the other day, but now there's

30:55

an update. So heated peppers is measured

30:57

in Scoville heat units. Zero

31:00

is bland. So that would be just like a green

31:02

pepper or green, like a bell pepper. A

31:05

jalapeno pepper registers around 5,000

31:07

units. A Habanero, which apparently

31:10

was the record holder 25 years ago.

31:12

I did not know that, but so

31:14

this is all intentional

31:17

manmade cross breeding that has called these ludicrously

31:20

hot peppers. I'm guessing the

31:22

Habanero was one of the first ones, but

31:24

yeah, Habanero was a hundred thousands. That was

31:26

probably also a man, you

31:29

know, cultivated. So

31:31

Habanero is a hundred thousand is a hundred thousand

31:33

Scovilles. The Carolina Reaper

31:36

is 1.64 million. Pepper X

31:39

has now is an average of 2.69 million.

31:43

Oh my God. And it says by comparison

31:45

pepper straight police pepper spray

31:47

is around 1.6 million units. Best

31:49

spray is 2.2 million. So this is stronger

31:52

than best. Like I'm going to put that in my body. Um,

31:54

yeah. Wow.

31:59

What do you think is the... Do

32:02

you think there's like, um... It's

32:04

like the same thing as like a bungee

32:07

jumper or something like thrill seeking?

32:09

Oh, I think absolutely, yeah. And also

32:11

then like the endorphin

32:14

rush that you get from it as well. I'm sure it's like...

32:16

Like me and my 90 bar?

32:19

Exactly, yeah. You and your 90 bar. People

32:22

who go on like ultra marathons or any

32:24

other kind of extreme, you know, push yourself

32:26

past the pain barrier and then keep going kind of things.

32:30

I think that's all the same or all similar

32:33

mentality.

32:34

Wow, pepper.

32:35

There was a book actually, there's a whole book

32:37

about pain and masochism written by a science

32:39

writer a couple of years ago. It

32:42

was really good. Let's see if I can find it to

32:44

delve into all of this. The Habanero, I mean

32:47

I know it's probably been cultivated but it

32:50

does look like it was a natural find. Okay,

32:53

sorry. No, no. I mean it

32:55

comes from the Amazon.

32:58

Then it eventually spread reaching

33:00

Mexico.

33:02

Yeah,

33:05

there you go. Her name's Lee Cowart,

33:08

L-E-I-G-H and then C-O-W-A-R-T and

33:10

the book's called Hurt So Good, The Science and Culture

33:12

of Pain on Purpose. Oh.

33:15

But it definitely goes into like people who chase

33:19

ultra hot foods and that kind of thing.

33:21

Yeah, so it says, Pepper X has been in the works since Curry

33:24

last set the hottest pepper record with the Carolina

33:26

Reaper. That was 2013, which is a

33:28

bright red knobby fruit with what

33:30

aficionados call a scorpion tail. The

33:32

goal was to offer an extremely hot pepper, pepper

33:35

flavored with sweetness. Pepper

33:37

X's greenish yellow doesn't have the same shelf appeal

33:39

and carries an earthy flavor once its heat is delivered.

33:42

It's a crossbreed of a Carolina Reaper and what

33:44

Curry mysteriously classifies as a pepper

33:47

that a friend of mine sent from Michigan that was brutally

33:49

hot. No. Could

33:53

be 23 and me this thing or something. Yeah,

33:57

I don't know. So it says, the chemical in

33:59

peppers that cause the birth of a is called capsaicin

34:01

and is not dangerous unless pounds of it are consumed.

34:04

Even so, the minds of humans

34:06

and other mammals perceive it as a threat and

34:09

send a strong burning signal to the body. Because

34:11

birds don't have the same reaction, they are able to spread pepper

34:14

seeds while sparing the plant. I didn't

34:16

know that. That's interesting. The

34:19

burning sensation spurred in humans also

34:21

releases endorphins and dopamine into

34:23

the body. And

34:26

Kari, who went all into growing peppers after kicking drug

34:28

and alcohol addictions, considers that kick a natural

34:30

high. He shares his peppers with medical

34:32

researchers hoping they can use them to cure diseases

34:34

and help people who suffer chronic pain or discomfort.

34:38

Yeah, and apparently there's a lot of testing and

34:40

proof to show that it is a different plant with

34:42

a different fruit. He documents his average

34:44

heat over different plants and generations. He

34:46

said, we covered the genetics, we covered the chemistry,

34:49

we covered the botany. And

34:51

he's trying to build an empire of hot pepper

34:53

sources through his pucker butt company. It's

34:57

so funny to me when

34:59

a company or even a band or something

35:02

starts as sort of a joke. But

35:04

then it gets really big so it's just stuck with

35:06

pucker butt. Or

35:09

Pearl Jam. Oops, our joke

35:12

is now headlining. Oops, we're

35:14

number one. Oh, Jesus. Yeah.

35:17

Yeah. Oh, there is, so

35:19

also he didn't copyright, he didn't trademark

35:22

in any way the Carolina Reaper and a bunch

35:24

of people, like 10,000 products

35:26

that use the name or his intellectual property

35:29

have been used without his permission. So he is protecting

35:31

Pepper X. He says no C's will be released until

35:33

he's sure his children, his

35:36

workers, many of whom are on their second chances like

35:38

him, and their families can fully earn the rewards

35:40

of his work. Like I read another art

35:42

interview with him. He sounds like a just genuinely

35:44

good guy who just has this

35:48

hot pepper death wish. It

35:51

is interesting

35:51

though that he frames it as like therapeutic.

35:54

Because I've heard people talk about those like, you

35:56

know, cold plunges as

35:58

like therapeutic. Where it's like,

36:00

you know, going through some kind of pain

36:03

and then there's some high on the other side

36:05

of it. But yeah, I wonder

36:07

if that's also tied to

36:09

just like him being

36:10

an addict and that,

36:12

you know, I'm sure it is because

36:14

that addiction is very closely tied to dopamine.

36:17

Yeah. And

36:19

also endorphins are meant to be a sort of natural opiate,

36:21

aren't they? Right, right, right.

36:23

So, yeah,

36:25

I'm sure

36:27

this is a way that he can, you know,

36:30

chase that sort of... Feel something for once

36:32

in my goddamn life. Yeah, exactly.

36:34

They like chase that feeling and like trigger

36:37

those chemicals in his body, but without the sort

36:39

of harmful side of drug

36:41

and alcohol addiction.

36:42

It does say in the article that

36:45

one teenager died at some

36:47

point

36:47

from... Yeah, so this is why we covered the

36:49

story a couple of weeks ago, it actually

36:51

died from... It

36:54

was one of those like hot food challenges that you can

36:56

buy, you know, that sort of the people are then doing

36:58

on TikTok and the like, where it's like a

37:00

candy or some or a chip that you eat and you

37:02

have to film yourself successfully keeping it in

37:04

your mouth for a minute or whatever it is. Oh. Oh,

37:07

God. This author is enjoying

37:10

this. Curry wants people to eat peppers

37:12

and thinks they can benefit from the rush

37:14

that comes after the burn. He calls most

37:16

hot pepper challenges stupid and

37:18

cautions pepper peekers against

37:21

being overly ambitious and reaching too quickly

37:23

for a Carolina reefer or a pepper X. He said

37:25

you need to build up a tolerance. I

37:27

mean, it says he's working on something even stronger.

37:32

That's interesting, though, if it says, first of all,

37:34

that the heat is just in

37:36

your brain, but then someone died.

37:38

I mean, we covered the death before.

37:40

Well, all pain is in your brain. It doesn't mean it's not

37:42

real.

37:43

Well, yeah, no, that's true. Correct.

37:46

Correct. But I

37:49

suppose this is because of

37:51

a chemical rather than like actual

37:54

nerve. It sounds like rather than actual nerve pain.

37:56

Rather than freewheeling yourself into being in

37:58

pain. From free willy. a hoax movie.

38:01

But I wonder if they could invent

38:03

some sort of pepper or Narcan. Like

38:06

if you've eaten something that's too spicy,

38:09

you know, and restaurants start having it or something? Yeah.

38:11

Isn't it great yogurt?

38:12

What do they give people on

38:14

that Hot Ones show? Is it milk?

38:16

It's like milk or ice cream usually. Yeah,

38:19

I think dairy products are meant to be one

38:21

of the better things at neutralizing. Water doesn't help.

38:23

Right. Water doesn't help.

38:25

But I think dairy products do

38:28

help to an extent.

38:30

I also think it's interesting that all of these super

38:32

hot peppers are technically the same species. Kind

38:35

of like how kale

38:37

and broccoli and collard

38:40

greens and cauliflower

38:43

are all the same species,

38:46

but just different cultivars of that.

38:48

Yeah, and Brussels sprouts. And Brussels sprouts. Yeah,

38:51

yeah. Really? And Colby...

38:52

I think broccoli and kale were

38:54

the same. Yeah, I found that recently as well.

38:56

They're all like different parts of the same plant and

38:58

then that have been selectively bred to overgrow

39:01

in one bit or the other. But yeah,

39:03

all of the hottest peppers. So from Scoville,

39:05

I mean, from Habanero on up through Pepper

39:08

X, these are all capsicum chinensei

39:10

or Chinese. I'm not sure. And then

39:12

all of the bell peppers and

39:14

jalapenos and cayenne peppers, those

39:17

are all the same species. Those are all capsicum annuum.

39:20

But the... Okay. So it

39:22

wasn't it... it was misnamed because

39:24

they thought that it came from China.

39:27

Oh, is that true? Oh, yes. Chinese capsicum.

39:30

It's misnaught. Yeah, it was just

39:32

misnamed because it came from... it started in the Amazon,

39:34

but they thought it came from China. There

39:39

are... we've got a couple of clarifications

39:42

from stories. Oh, yes. Comments from stories

39:45

that we've covered, all the things that we've talked about in recent

39:47

episodes. Oh, that's interesting. I think we're pretty right

39:49

about everything. I think this isn't

39:51

an inaccuracy. I think this is just a clarification

39:53

or an elaboration

39:56

on things that we discussed. So in the last

39:58

episode with Dave Hill, you...

39:59

Jesse, you were talking about sports

40:02

coaches who wore the

40:05

uniform for their sport, like baseball

40:07

coaches who get full baseball kitted up despite

40:09

being a man in his 60s who is very unlikely

40:11

to get caught onto the pitch, onto the field.

40:15

I obviously crushed it on that rip and I

40:17

don't see why anyone emailed. Well,

40:22

Sarah Kowalrowski,

40:25

who says, not a science story but a story from

40:28

a scientist, so thank you Sarah for actually being

40:30

a real scientist, writes in to say,

40:32

I grew up playing water polo in

40:34

Canada. We had this old 70 something

40:37

Hungarian coach who, unlike all

40:39

our other coaches, would wear a speedo at all times

40:41

while on the pool deck. I never once saw him

40:43

get in the pool.

40:45

Wow. So

40:47

that's just his work uniform. That's

40:49

a beautiful... I love an old Hungarian man

40:51

in a speedo giving instructions. Yeah,

40:54

yeah. It really matters if this pool is outside

40:56

or not though. That answers a lot of questions. Oh, yeah.

40:59

Well, it's in Canada, so... Oh,

41:01

gosh. I'm guessing it's an indoor pool.

41:05

Yeah, I mean, that's even funnier, like swim

41:08

coaches wearing the gear.

41:10

Yeah, that's a solid...

41:12

What do they say,

41:14

dress for the job you want?

41:15

Right. I don't know.

41:19

Does that mean he wants to

41:21

be playing? I don't know.

41:23

Oh, it just gives them the idea that you better

41:25

buck up your ideas because I could tag you out at any moment.

41:28

Right, right, right. Yeah, I just don't

41:30

understand the... Because, you know,

41:32

I guess... What is it? Like

41:35

hockey and basketball, they

41:37

wear suits. But then football, they

41:39

just wear like sort of a track...

41:42

It's like they're going to the gym. But they're

41:44

not. I just don't know how they... I

41:48

don't know which sports pick our

41:50

coaches are going to wear this ridiculous crap

41:53

versus other... Like, I don't

41:55

know.

41:56

I don't know. That's the football one.

41:59

They do have to...

41:59

move around a lot more so

42:01

they need to be in the

42:04

sort of athletic wear just the size of the

42:06

field compared to hockey and basketball.

42:09

Is that part of it? I don't know. Do

42:11

they? I mean are they running?

42:14

Yeah don't they move around a bit

42:16

more? Maybe not that much I guess.

42:18

You guys are gonna get so many

42:19

emails. Yeah I'm not a sports

42:21

guy. I think it's some reason why yeah football

42:24

is definitely the most like you're

42:27

never gonna see a suit you're

42:29

right. Yeah yeah just

42:32

a capri a nice capri and

42:36

yeah but

42:37

as a business shoulder pads.

42:38

Also you're either outside

42:40

a lot of times it is it is like cold

42:42

you just need like a winter or you

42:44

know a windbreaker. Right. I

42:47

believe there's also a discussion on the new

42:50

football cliches podcast the

42:52

most recent episode about the

42:55

doctors the medics in Spanish football

42:57

teams wearing full suits. Oh

43:00

when I don't know what the specific reason is

43:02

for that but anyway there is another

43:05

clarification or or other elaboration

43:08

from this Nakudro Marvel.

43:11

I don't even remember what we were talking about that prompted this

43:13

but the email just it's

43:15

the two it's a very short

43:17

email that says I have a

43:20

subject line you can give chickens glasses.

43:22

Okay.

43:25

Body of the email I have given a chicken

43:27

glasses it didn't like it that is all.

43:29

Okay

43:33

all right yeah

43:35

I vaguely I remember us

43:37

discussing can chickens wear glasses yeah

43:40

yep

43:41

so there we go the hard it has been it

43:43

has been attempted and at least

43:46

I'm going to say this is a small study size small

43:48

sample so maybe not as scientifically

43:51

rigorous as we might want from a from

43:54

a full study but it does at least suggest

43:56

that the full study

43:58

is maybe not worth scaling up. It might

44:00

be a lost cause.

44:02

How do you test the chickens

44:05

vision?

44:06

Well you ask it. I mean

44:09

like anyone else you ask it to read the you

44:11

know Better like this? There

44:16

have been loads of studies though that have come up

44:18

on the show over the years about testing

44:20

the vision of different animals and I think it is about sort

44:22

of

44:23

seeing what they pack out and see what they react

44:25

to. I see I see. I think there was a story

44:27

about

44:29

kind of a story. Yes, I've got to find this now

44:31

about whether

44:33

It about whether birds are aware

44:35

of their reflection And

44:38

a clarification of it So

44:43

maybe Maybe

44:45

maybe we should cut let me see if I can find

44:47

that story But I did see

44:49

good the good tick-tock of a drunk dude fighting

44:52

his own reflection in a bar beer

44:54

It

44:56

seemed legit. Oh Like

44:59

it was a real reaction like he was just that

45:01

like

45:01

it was a guy who was Capturing over

45:03

his shoulder as this guy he didn't know

45:06

was drunkenly Punching himself

45:08

in the mirror in the bar. Wow.

45:11

Wow.

45:11

That should be the video at the bottom of

45:13

the article about how there's no free

45:16

will Back

45:20

when I back when I drank I

45:23

Just a you know, a messy few years

45:25

there back back when I drank I was at

45:28

a bar one time and I had to go pee and I went and

45:30

I stood at the urinal and

45:31

I just pissed my pants. I

45:34

forgot to take my penis out. No, just stood

45:37

there and peed I Like

45:40

thought I was peeing in the urinal, you know, I mean I was like and

45:42

then I was like, oh, no No forgot the step

45:44

there. Oh, because that one. Yeah forgot

45:46

step one What I was like wean

45:49

like forgetting to take it out and forgetting to put it back

45:51

away again

45:52

I Think

45:55

forgetting to put it back away again because then it's like you're

45:57

crossing over into, you know, there could

45:59

be like police

45:59

involved. Right, right, right. Yeah, that's like,

46:02

you know, right, right, right. You know, but

46:04

um, no, I mean, I, my

46:07

point is even in that state, I think I

46:09

would have known my reflection. I think I would have passed the

46:11

test

46:12

of like, Oh, that's a mirror

46:14

and that's me, you know? Yeah.

46:16

Well, can I ask you guys, can I ask the three of you to click

46:18

on that link and, and give me your assessment?

46:21

It doesn't seem staged to me. So we'll put

46:23

this in the show notes as well so that

46:25

listeners can also check, click on this Instagram

46:27

reel and see.

46:30

Yes, it was not tick tock, I guess. I'm not on tick tock.

46:32

I always assume when I see a video like this, that was somebody

46:35

reposting a tick tock onto

46:37

an Instagram reel. But um, what

46:40

do we think? Is this guy, is this guy for real

46:42

fighting himself?

46:44

I

46:46

see.

46:47

Or is he angry with himself?

46:50

Yeah, I think whatever he's doing

46:52

is legit. Like he's not state. I don't, I'm

46:54

pretty sure it's not for formative. No, whether

46:57

he's a different person or whether he's just sort of like

47:00

fucking idiot kind of like,

47:02

right? Like he's just sort of angrily banging

47:04

the mirror at himself.

47:07

He might be aware of what mirrors

47:09

are, but he still hates himself in his drunken state.

47:11

Yes. Yeah. So he's still chastising

47:13

himself. He's still chastising the person

47:15

in the mirror, but he does know that that person is him. This

47:18

is the personification

47:21

of imposter syndrome. You guys. Yes. Yeah. Right

47:23

here. Because it's

47:25

usually like, that's

47:27

usually an internal or a private

47:30

argument with yourself. But because he's drunk,

47:33

he doesn't realize that everyone is

47:35

seeing it.

47:38

Oh, poor guy. This is completely unrelated

47:41

to science stories. Um, and it's

47:43

also not really a segue into anything I have to say, but,

47:45

um, are you guys getting into how

47:48

are you doing fun Halloween stuff?

47:49

Oh,

47:51

no. You guys get

47:53

into it or I

47:56

hate the obligation of, I'm just so

47:58

bad at, at costumes. and

48:00

it just always makes me... Yeah.

48:03

I always keep the point, myself and others,

48:06

because I just don't have that kind

48:08

of maker mindset. So, I've

48:11

never had a good costume, so I always feel bad at parties.

48:14

I'm not that excited about

48:16

the whole costuming part, but I like

48:19

an enjoyable gathering. Right. Right. Yeah,

48:21

yeah.

48:21

I like seeing other people's

48:23

creativity, because I feel like I never

48:26

can think of anything interesting. Though

48:29

I did see a good kids costume the other day. I

48:31

saw this little boy just wearing

48:33

a cardboard box, and he just wrote

48:35

eggs on it. Oh, yeah.

48:37

That's nice. That's great.

48:40

That's great. A carton of eggs. I had a good cardboard

48:43

robot costume in like second grade

48:44

that my mom made, and we used

48:47

the air conditioner or the trier

48:49

vent ducting for the arms. Spray

48:52

painted the whole thing gold, and I had like

48:55

those egg things that Pennyhose

48:57

comes in, half of those

48:59

for eyes, I think. But

49:01

then the box was so big that my hands didn't

49:03

connect in front, so I

49:06

couldn't pick up candy. I couldn't put

49:08

candy in my mouth, so I had to take it off. Lawrence

49:11

was in school, and I had to take it off to eat candy. I

49:14

know

49:16

Holly will try and put our cats

49:18

in Halloween gear, and they,

49:20

to their eternal fury. We

49:24

can just about get Doug to wear a bow tie. Oh,

49:26

yeah. Cats do not like to be dressed

49:29

up. They like being in

49:31

the nude. They're all nudists at heart. I'm

49:35

going to, this afternoon, I'm going to

49:37

a haunted hayride. You are?

49:39

I am. Nice.

49:43

Do they do non-haunted hayrides at other times of year?

49:45

So that's the thing. I have so

49:47

many questions about how the hayride became haunted,

49:50

and if it's just the route

49:53

is haunted,

49:54

or,

49:55

because

49:56

I would assume originally it had to be an unhaunted

49:59

hayride.

50:00

And something happened someone died and they

50:02

have a you know They have unfinished business

50:05

on the our mortal realm

50:06

and they've haunted the day ride and

50:08

I don't know

50:11

Yeah, I don't know how it's gonna work

50:12

I had a friend who worked

50:15

at a Haunted hayride and

50:17

she said her job was

50:20

to just scream every 10 minutes

50:22

Like they put her in somewhere in the field

50:25

and then she would just you know time herself and

50:27

then every 10 minutes She would have to scream.

50:29

I didn't even know you I've just been

50:31

doing that for 20 years. I didn't know you

50:33

could get paid I

50:35

live alone and that just happens

50:39

I've just by the way, I've just sent you a

50:41

picture of our cat

50:43

looking furious in a in

50:46

a Halloween costume She

50:49

looks just like a human lady.

50:51

Oh, she looks

50:52

oh no, that's Holly. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah Yes,

50:56

it's Doug in little Frankenstein

50:58

hat Great

51:02

Looking looking live it. Oh, I'll

51:05

see if like I think we can put that somewhere

51:07

on the website for your You

51:10

never see anyone in you never see neck

51:12

bolts anymore, you know No,

51:14

never see a good set of neck bolts and I I

51:17

thought even in non Frankenstein applications

51:21

You'd see them more like some sort of you

51:23

know, like almost like a tracheotomy You think you would see

51:25

some people they need neck bolts

51:28

Like it'd be like a pretty that's not like a body modification

51:30

that people have done because the only people do like the

51:32

horns made out Coral and stuff and like

51:35

that I've seen people do that bad I've liked people

51:37

with extreme body mods and full face tattoos

51:39

and everything. Mm-hmm I've never seen the I've never

51:41

seen the neck bolts that feels like a piercing that

51:43

should exist. Yeah Yeah,

51:44

have you guys ever seen the bagel head?

51:47

What yeah, oh, yeah, yeah where they inject

51:50

like a silicon ring, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

51:52

Oh, yeah Great.

51:55

Yeah. So why okay.

51:56

Well, I like I thought this podcast

51:59

was about to get

51:59

So racist. A

52:04

part that just went off the rails. No,

52:10

I'm sorry. Oh

52:12

no, they should

52:14

come up with a better name. Yeah, yeah. You

52:18

can't see the bagel. Good

52:20

night everyone. Yes,

52:25

I have seen the, I've seen that modification

52:27

and it's awful. It's

52:28

the weirdest thing. I

52:30

mean I guess you could call them the donut heads. I don't know

52:32

why they decided it's a bagel.

52:34

Yeah, what's the difference? Um,

52:36

let me see here.

52:39

Frosting? So when I, is it even called

52:41

that though? When I Google it, I'm just seeing

52:43

restaurants called bagel heads in Florida. Oh,

52:47

maybe. Is it spelled with a V or H-E-D-Z?

52:50

Grubbed from the internet. Um, I'm

52:52

gonna go to image here.

52:55

Oh no, so you can go with donut head

52:57

or bagel head. Okay.

52:59

Um, you can go with either.

53:02

And... Is it a third eye kind of thing?

53:06

I mean that's what it sort of looks like.

53:10

What's the significance?

53:14

Yeah, I don't know. Is

53:17

it permanent? Oh, it says it's a tempera-

53:19

well, It's gotta be like Botox, right? It's

53:22

an temporary swelling. Okay.

53:27

Hmm. Donut head surgery.

53:29

But then apparently, uh, it

53:32

appeared on a National Geographic TV

53:34

special in 2012, and

53:36

then it was falsely declared

53:39

a Japanese trend. I guess it wasn't actually

53:41

one. Okay.

53:45

Interesting. This is back in the days when,

53:48

you can only really get away with that pre-internet, and

53:50

just put something in a magazine and go like, ah,

53:52

this is from Japan! Right,

53:54

right, right. The crazy

53:56

people of the Orient. It's

53:58

just... And it's just like a guy

54:01

with slightly dark skin in a circus I showed

54:03

him. It's just like, you know, he's from Des Moines.

54:06

Just... Yeah.

54:09

Wow.

54:10

So, uh, roosters. Yeah,

54:12

we got roosters who act differently. Uh,

54:15

when faced with another chicken versus their

54:18

own reflection. This may

54:20

mean that the birds can recognize themselves in

54:22

a mirror, a key test of self-awareness

54:25

in animals. This is a new scientist

54:27

story. The way researchers tailored this mirror

54:30

test to roosters may open up new methods

54:32

of determining self-recognition in a

54:34

diversity of animal species. Uh,

54:37

in the traditional mirror self-recognition test developed

54:39

in 1970, researchers placed a mark

54:41

on an animal's body in a spot that it could only

54:44

see reflected in a mirror. They note if the

54:46

animal inspects or touches the mark while examining

54:48

its own reflection, suggesting it understands

54:51

the reflection represents its body. Uh,

54:55

there's just few non-human species have passed the

54:57

test, but those that have included

54:59

some great apes, dolphins, elephants,

55:01

and magpies. In recent years, researchers

55:04

have claimed other species like penguins, horses,

55:07

cleaner wrasse fish, and manta rays have

55:09

passed the test, but not without controversy.

55:12

Results in the test are often highly variable. So

55:14

Sonia Hilamaker at the University of

55:17

Bonn in Germany and her colleagues wondered

55:19

if this has less to do with the animals not recognizing

55:21

themselves, and more to do with the fact that there

55:23

is little natural motivation for many animals

55:26

to investigate the marks. Looking

55:28

at behaviors relevant to a species' day-to-day life

55:30

may give more reliable insights. So

55:32

here they go. Here was, here's the test they did. They

55:35

turned, they turned to roosters, which

55:37

loudly alert other chickens to the

55:39

presence of nearby predators, but stay quiet

55:41

when alone. Uh, in the

55:43

lab, the researchers tested 68 roosters

55:46

one by one in an arena divided down

55:48

the middle by a wire mesh. They placed

55:50

a bird on one side and either left the

55:52

other side empty or put another rooster in

55:54

it. Then they added a mirror

55:56

to the divider for some tests. To

55:59

mimic a threat, they produced a the silhouette of a hawk

56:01

on the ceiling above the arena. So,

56:04

the researchers found that when a rooster

56:07

was paired with another rooster, it raised

56:09

the alarm far more often than when it was alone

56:11

in the arena, regardless of whether it could see its

56:13

reflection. Showing another rooster

56:16

present, but blocked from view behind a mirror, led

56:18

to similarly few alarms, suggesting they

56:20

distinguish between reflection and reality through vision,

56:22

not smell or sound. So, okay,

56:25

so when there's another rooster there, and they

56:27

think that there's a hawk coming, they make a loud noise

56:29

to go, there's a fucking hawk coming. When

56:32

they're by themselves, they don't make the warning sounds.

56:35

And when there's the reflection of themselves in a mirror,

56:37

they also don't make the warning sounds. So,

56:41

it seems that they're aware that this reflection is

56:43

them. Okay,

56:46

that's

56:46

kind of interesting.

56:49

Yeah, I didn't realize so few species

56:51

have passed that test. I mean,

56:53

dolphins and apes had, but I didn't know. I

56:56

guess the other ones, I guess a lot

56:58

of birds, but manta rays, that one.

57:01

Well, aren't there some species where it's

57:04

even within the species? It

57:07

can be different. So,

57:09

I have two cats. One of them

57:12

knows her reflection and knows that it's her. The other

57:14

does not. And

57:16

it's weird. Yeah,

57:18

I mean, we have dumb humans and smart humans

57:20

like cancer feet. Have you

57:22

tried, like, does the other cat ever, like, if you put like a

57:24

pane of glass there, can they do like the sort of Marx Brothers

57:27

mirror routine? Yeah,

57:29

no, they're learning all sorts of fun stuff. They'll

57:31

do like a Buster Keaton stuff, all sorts of fun

57:33

stuff. Yeah, you got to see this cat

57:35

in the front of a train. It's hilarious.

57:39

Can you make your cat like pretend to walk

57:41

downstairs or like row a boat behind a

57:43

couch? I

57:49

did see I've got to try this at some point to see I

57:51

doubt it's going to work with us, but I the

57:53

latest do this thing to your pets

57:55

and film it thing that I saw this

57:57

week is

57:59

when your cat is sleeping.

57:59

you put a treat near to their face

58:02

and watch them sort of gradually start tasting the

58:05

air like I

58:07

know they're like they start like sticking out the tongue and like sleep

58:10

eating Yeah, yeah, yep

58:14

That's great. Yeah So

58:18

I gotta get I gotta give that a go and see if that works.

58:21

You haven't done it No, I haven't done

58:23

that yet I just saw a video of someone doing it like a

58:25

lot of these things that I see people doing videos of don't

58:27

work like The drawing a box on the

58:29

ground and your cat gets into it Right

58:36

Just a like a one-dimensional square

58:39

Yeah, you put you just like to talk up you

58:41

chalk a square on the ground or like make it with tape

58:43

and then they get Into the box even though it's just

58:45

oh God, I got it.

58:47

Sure. My cat only does that with pentagrams

58:50

with chalk We're very

58:53

unnerving She's

58:55

always we sometimes they just appear anyway

58:57

like I'll wake up and she has one and she's in it. I

58:59

don't know what's going on Yeah we

59:02

tried It

59:06

the gym jet was working on Jim Jeffries

59:08

There were a couple of office dogs and we

59:10

tried doing the map the disappearing

59:13

magic trick on them There was another video that was going around

59:15

where you stand in a doorway and you like throw a sheet

59:17

up

59:18

Or blank it up in the air and you then you like disappear

59:20

behind you sort of duck around the doorway so when the

59:22

blanket falls you've gone and

59:25

in the videos the dogs just run concerned

59:28

to the To

59:30

see where the person's disappeared and none

59:33

of her office dogs could give less

59:35

of a shit They

59:39

could not they could not have cared they

59:41

just sort of like oh, all right and just wandered

59:43

off in the opposite direction

59:45

Yeah, I feel like animals

59:48

all have such distinct personalities

59:50

it really is like it's kind of like very

59:54

Presumptuous of us to be

59:56

like, yeah, all dogs are gonna do this Yeah.

1:00:01

They're not a monolith.

1:00:02

They're

1:00:04

not.

1:00:07

It is fun how like I think I think

1:00:09

pet owners tend to fall

1:00:11

into... I don't

1:00:15

think many pet owners will tell you their pet is average.

1:00:17

Like they like to tell you that their dog or their cat is

1:00:19

smarter than average or dumb as

1:00:22

shit and they'll take real pride

1:00:24

in that just don't you guys the dumbest dog.

1:00:27

It's just so stupid. It's like children

1:00:29

yeah. No one wants an

1:00:34

average kid. You want the real outliers.

1:00:37

Yeah you were like no seriously this is a problem.

1:00:41

It's just it that is amazing to me. It's

1:00:43

it's we're coming up on eight billion people

1:00:46

on earth so like the chances

1:00:48

of you having just a mediocre child

1:00:50

are overwhelming. Overwhelming

1:00:54

like a 99.9999 percent and people can't handle

1:01:00

it. This meme you guys seen this meme

1:01:02

go around that just has a bell curve and you know

1:01:04

it has like

1:01:05

drawing of an idiot drawing of an average

1:01:07

person and drawing of like a whatever

1:01:10

like leet hooded monk

1:01:12

or whatever on the right side of the curve. I

1:01:15

don't know what I could be just my

1:01:18

tailored social media but for some reason

1:01:20

this looks like it's like a concept

1:01:22

that's going viral right now just that there is a

1:01:24

distribution of intelligence which

1:01:27

is like obvious in the one hand but also you don't

1:01:29

really think about it that often just what

1:01:31

a huge difference there is between 150 and

1:01:34

a 50 IQ like and the fact

1:01:38

that we all live on this planet together

1:01:41

there are people who will literally never understand

1:01:43

things.

1:01:45

It's kind of like it

1:01:46

applies to lots of like

1:01:52

I think not to get into politics like

1:01:55

this theory of mind stuff like like wrapping

1:01:57

your head around how someone else could

1:01:59

think about something is not that

1:02:01

easy. We're also thinking about like,

1:02:04

I think a lot of people aren't smart enough to grasp

1:02:06

what the concept of super intelligence would mean

1:02:08

and that's why a lot of people aren't that scared of

1:02:11

the coming AI stuff because they're

1:02:13

like, oh, we could always, and they'll just insert

1:02:16

an argument that only makes sense if you are smarter

1:02:18

than a thing. I think, no, no, no. If this

1:02:20

thing is truly way

1:02:22

more intelligent than any human, by definition,

1:02:25

we couldn't outsmart it or it would not be more intelligent

1:02:28

than a human. That's built into

1:02:30

the definition. Isn't that

1:02:32

just how our,

1:02:34

I mean, literally our brains only work

1:02:37

from

1:02:38

their own perspective? Like you can't.

1:02:40

But I can't actually picture the fourth

1:02:43

dimension. I know I never will be able to, but

1:02:45

I can wrap my head around the concept the

1:02:47

same way someone should be able to wrap their head on the concept

1:02:49

of an intelligence that greatly exceeds theirs, even

1:02:51

though they wouldn't know how it actually thinks or

1:02:54

how it plays Street Fighter. Oh, there

1:02:56

it is. There it is. What do you got?

1:02:59

What are you laying

1:03:01

on us? I just dropped a link to

1:03:03

a tech radar story. One

1:03:06

step closer to the matrix, AI defeats

1:03:08

human champion in Street Fighter, but the

1:03:10

revolutionary type of memory it uses to make itself

1:03:12

even more powerful. The

1:03:14

AI system powered by phase change memory and reinforcement

1:03:17

learning was trained for just two days. So

1:03:20

researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design

1:03:23

created a new software centered around reinforcement learning

1:03:25

and phase change memory. It's designed

1:03:27

to understand complicated movement design. Previous

1:03:30

work has applied this kind of deep learning to other games like chess

1:03:32

or go, but they decided instead to expose

1:03:35

the DPPO algorithm to the rigors

1:03:37

of Street Fighter Champion Edition 2. The

1:03:40

SUTD researchers trained its

1:03:43

SFR2 AI player on two

1:03:45

days of consecutive play against the computer before

1:03:47

letting it loose on a human participant

1:03:50

who the AI powered system beat comfortably.

1:03:53

The work has implications. Oh, sorry.

1:03:55

I was going to say this is sending by Sean Robertson. Thank

1:03:57

you, Sean. Thanks, Sean. applications

1:04:00

for movement science more broadly according to the research

1:04:02

paper and can possibly be fed into improving

1:04:04

robotics and autonomous vehicles, for example.

1:04:07

It paves the way for broadly applicable training in fields

1:04:09

where machines may observe human norms and

1:04:12

attempt to replicate and outperform them."

1:04:15

Ah. Hey,

1:04:20

if you are worried that you're not

1:04:23

as smart as you are but without cause

1:04:25

because you have crazy

1:04:27

imposter syndrome, is there a hilarious

1:04:30

and very well written book by a fantastic

1:04:32

comedian and writer that people could access? That's

1:04:37

full of essays and all sorts

1:04:40

of personal anecdotes and stories. And

1:04:44

if so, I wonder where someone could buy such a great book.

1:04:46

Oh, well, I wrote

1:04:48

one. What? What? Yeah,

1:04:51

I just remembered, I wrote one. I wrote

1:04:54

one that sounds similar to what you're saying.

1:04:56

Alright. But

1:04:59

you know, it's available where books are

1:05:01

sold, independent bookstores,

1:05:04

big bookstores, audiobooks stores,

1:05:06

e-bookstores.

1:05:07

Did you do your own audiobook

1:05:10

narration? I did.

1:05:11

It was hard. I thought

1:05:14

I would like it more but it was honestly

1:05:16

kind of grueling.

1:05:18

I've heard that from other people who've done that. It's

1:05:20

a long time to read in a row. Even

1:05:24

though it's your own work and you're proud

1:05:26

of it, it's just a long time to spend in a booth

1:05:28

talking.

1:05:29

Yeah, and also some of the essays

1:05:31

I wrote were kind of personal and then you're just

1:05:33

there with a sound engineer and a director

1:05:36

you've just met and they're nice but

1:05:38

you've never really known them

1:05:40

before and then they're just quietly

1:05:42

sitting and then occasionally they'll be like, you

1:05:45

stumbled on when you said my shame or whatever.

1:05:51

I think it's funny when people,

1:05:55

not like a fiction or something like

1:05:57

that but when it's a memoir or autobiographical

1:05:59

book.

1:05:59

Funny when people don't like

1:06:02

like like Britney Spears did not

1:06:05

read her own audio book for the It's like she's

1:06:07

around she's here And

1:06:10

there's like nah, nobody wants to hear that for eight hours Nobody's

1:06:13

gonna

1:06:14

now Interesting by

1:06:16

the way a parna. I just clicked on the Amazon

1:06:18

link to the audible book and Guess

1:06:21

who's the number one new release in anxiety

1:06:23

disorders? Number one

1:06:31

Congratulations,

1:06:36

we will link to that upon a where

1:06:38

else can our listeners find you I

1:06:40

Have a website

1:06:42

that I'm trying to be more engaged

1:06:44

with but it exists It's

1:06:46

a parna comedy comm and then yeah,

1:06:49

I've been so bad about maintaining

1:06:51

a web presence as of late But I

1:06:54

do have a website and I do have an Instagram

1:06:56

a par napkin Get

1:06:58

on get on them.

1:06:59

You can find us probably science.com

1:07:01

is the website You can find us on Twitter at probably

1:07:04

science individually at Andy T Wood

1:07:06

at Jesse case and at Matt Kirshen and if you

1:07:08

want to email us in with any questions comments clarifications

1:07:11

Stories you would like us to cover you can

1:07:13

do that probably science at gmail.com Probably

1:07:16

science comm is also the website where we have our

1:07:18

patreon links Where we

1:07:20

we will do an extra story after this for our patreon

1:07:23

patrons and also We

1:07:25

post links to all the stories we cover all of that kind

1:07:27

of stuff

1:07:27

And if you're not able to

1:07:30

support the patreon, you can also help us

1:07:31

by spreading the word writing nice things about us online We

1:07:33

really appreciate all of that. Also one

1:07:35

other unsolicited plug

1:07:38

But anyone who's in or near New York? You're

1:07:40

about to have a visit a very rare visit from

1:07:43

Ed Byrne friend of the show Ed Byrne During

1:07:45

lockdown but one of my absolute favorite

1:07:48

comics Irish comic based in the UK and His

1:07:50

show which he took the Edinburgh Festival this year. That

1:07:52

was very very highly regarded

1:07:55

and it's I'm really

1:07:57

want to see it At some point is it's meant to be fantastic,

1:07:59

but he's doing It's at the Soho Playhouse,

1:08:01

I think it is, but he's about to do a run in New York. So anyone,

1:08:04

listeners anywhere on the East Coast, go to that. Any

1:08:07

other plugs? Anything else anyone needs to pitch? Not

1:08:10

I. No, man, I don't have a career anymore. What

1:08:13

do you think? And we

1:08:16

will finish up the main episode, but listeners, thank

1:08:18

you so much. And Aparna, thank you for joining. And get Aparna's

1:08:20

book from all the bookstores. Thank

1:08:23

you for having me.

1:08:24

Thank you. Bye-bye.

1:08:30

Thank you. Thank you. Thank

1:08:32

you.