Speaker 1: I get a team, Tiffany Cook, Bill Sullivan, Craig Anthony
Speaker 1: Harp reporting in for duty just before Christmas. It is
Speaker 1: the twenty third of the twelfth, the year of our
Speaker 1: Lord Annodominie, as my father, my very Catholic father would say,
Speaker 1: in the United States as we speak, I suspect it's
Speaker 1: the twenty second of the twelfth in the PM AM.
Speaker 1: I correct, doctor Bill, you are correct. Well, we are
Speaker 1: in the future for you, and let me tell you
Speaker 1: that so far it's okay.
Speaker 2: That's good to hear. I was very concerned about the future,
Speaker 2: especially you know, just twenty four hours ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, look, we're here and it
Speaker 1: seems to be okay, although things do seem to be
Speaker 1: quite fragile in the States with UFOs and things in
Speaker 1: the inexplicable things in the sky. Did you take any
Speaker 1: interest in that? That's got quite a bit of my
Speaker 1: ledge over here in boring little Australia.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Well, weird things are always happening in
Speaker 2: New Jersey, so this didn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 1: Shout out to our four listeners in New Jersey. It's
Speaker 1: now down to three. We just lost twenty five percent.
Speaker 1: What not that we not that we talk about this,
Speaker 1: but UFOs I mean, which doesn't necessarily I mean UFOs exist.
Speaker 1: It just means there's something in the sky. We don't
Speaker 1: know what it is, right, but what are the chances
Speaker 1: is that there is? And I know this is not
Speaker 1: your field, but you know, just your hunch, is there
Speaker 1: ex extraterrestrial intelligence outside of us?
Speaker 2: Hmm, yeah, that's a good question. I'm not so sure
Speaker 2: you're being a little generous and calling our species intelligent.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: I think I get your point. I think I get
Speaker 2: your point. And you know, I've done a lot of
Speaker 2: reading on the subject. I love Carl Sagan's work as
Speaker 2: I was growing up. It was one of my inspiration inspirations,
Speaker 2: if you will, to go into a career of science.
Speaker 2: And he's always amazed me with his capacity to, you know,
Speaker 2: express just how large the universe is. You know, billions
Speaker 2: and billions of stars, galaxies. It's just extraordinarily, incomprehensibly large.
Speaker 2: So I had a professor back in my college days
Speaker 2: who was teaching physics and some cosmology stuff, and he
Speaker 2: just said, it would be beyond comprehension that there's not
Speaker 2: something else out there. There are just too many possibility,
Speaker 2: too many other worlds. It probably wouldn't look anything like us,
Speaker 2: but there must be some other form of intelligence out there,
Speaker 2: I think he was. He was quick to add that
Speaker 2: we are too boring and primitive for any extraterrestrial species
Speaker 2: to have any interest in whatsoever so far. So that's
Speaker 2: probably why we are left with just speculating about UFO visitation.
Speaker 2: You know, there's there's certainly no hard evidence that we've
Speaker 2: ever been visited before. And you notice that all those
Speaker 2: sightings started, you know, around the time we were starting
Speaker 2: to go to the Moon and things like that, so
Speaker 2: that it tracks with where our intelligence has been. You know,
Speaker 2: if you go look at ancient cave paintings, you see
Speaker 2: pictures of animals and stick figures. You don't see UFOs
Speaker 2: in the sky.
Speaker 1: Mmmm. That's interesting. That is interesting. It's like, isn't it
Speaker 1: funny how we look at whatever it is We look
Speaker 1: at through them without trying to sound too philosophical or
Speaker 1: you know, weird, but we look through through the window
Speaker 1: of our understanding and like, what's our what's my perception
Speaker 1: of UFOs? Well, my favorite Martian kicked it off, you know,
Speaker 1: and all of that. You know all of those kind
Speaker 1: of and mark from Orc and you know, it's funny,
Speaker 1: like we have this idea that somebody from or somebody
Speaker 1: something from somewhere else will be vaguely familiar to us
Speaker 1: but a little bit weird of shape or I mean,
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe there's intelligence that isn't even doesn't have
Speaker 1: a physical body in the way that we think of it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like we think it's got to be
Speaker 1: a version of us, but without a nose and maybe
Speaker 1: three eyes, and maybe only four foot tall and probably
Speaker 1: gray and definitely something shaped like you know, it's like
Speaker 1: we you know, it's yeah, you're trying to understand something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you watch Star Treker Star Wars, of course
Speaker 2: they're all hominids and they know English quite well, which
Speaker 2: is pretty surprising even our metaphors and stories. So yeah,
Speaker 2: we have a little bit of a pulicity of imagination
Speaker 2: when it comes to what extraterrestrial life may be. But
Speaker 2: as you and I have discussed before, Craig, there are
Speaker 2: so many fascinating creatures that we have yet to characterize
Speaker 2: very well on our own planet. I mean, like the
Speaker 2: ocean depths are an extraterrestrial world of sorts in that
Speaker 2: they're so little explored and there's so many bizarre creatures
Speaker 2: down there, same thing under a microscope. You know, we
Speaker 2: haven't cataloged anywhere near the number of microscopic creatures that
Speaker 2: are on this planet. And when you look down in
Speaker 2: great detail, they're extraordinarily interesting and have features that we
Speaker 2: would never imagine because we don't live in those environments.
Speaker 2: But they are tailor made for those sorts of environments
Speaker 2: because they've been crafted over the eons by natural selection.
Speaker 2: So it's a really cool concept to think about. But
Speaker 2: I love the idea that you mentioned about like energy beings,
Speaker 2: you know, something that is so far beyond the corporeal
Speaker 2: existence that we are so familiar with. That's the sort
Speaker 2: of stuff that I think is probably approximating more accurately
Speaker 2: what could be out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we you know, like our idea of something
Speaker 1: that is living or perhaps sentient, or perhaps has any
Speaker 1: kind of consciousness or awareness, it's got to look like
Speaker 1: either a human or an animal. It's got to have
Speaker 1: a body, and it's got to ambulate a cross terror
Speaker 1: firm and the way that we we do, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it couldn't be Yeah, like trying to understand
Speaker 1: life that doesn't look like an animal or an insect
Speaker 1: or a bird or a human. Yeah, that's hard to
Speaker 1: get your head around.
Speaker 2: What I think is much more likely given our biological
Speaker 2: limitations in terms of leaving our planet. You know, we
Speaker 2: will struggle with gravity, will struggle with pressure, with breathing.
Speaker 2: Our bodies are not built to go you know, to
Speaker 2: New Jersey, much less beyond the planet.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Our bodies just aren't suited for this. And you can
Speaker 2: imagine that if life followed a similar evolutionary trajectory on
Speaker 2: other planets, which I think, you know, the odds are
Speaker 2: probably pretty reasonable something like that has happened. You know,
Speaker 2: there could be beings that have those same problems that
Speaker 2: we face with regard to space travel. Which is a
Speaker 2: long way of saying, and a rather scary way of saying,
Speaker 2: that anything that visits our planet is probably going to
Speaker 2: be machine. Okay, it's going to have to survive the
Speaker 2: difficulties of space travel and the time that it takes.
Speaker 2: So it's probably going to be an artificial life of
Speaker 2: some kind. And whether that's going to how that would
Speaker 2: react with a species like our own is just fascinating
Speaker 2: to think about and.
Speaker 1: Isn't it interesting that you use the term which we
Speaker 1: all do artificial life, right, because it's not a life
Speaker 1: like ours.
Speaker 2: Oh, that would probably be a little offensive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, well, that's all the official artificial. It's
Speaker 1: not real. But I wonder if there is for one
Speaker 1: of a better term. I'm real sucker, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is artificial. I'm not yeah, yeah, yeah, I wonder
Speaker 1: imagine that. I mean, like Elon musk et Ol talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, AI being close to conscious or aware or
Speaker 1: sentient sometimes in the next five to ten years, being
Speaker 1: able to in invert a commas, think for itself and
Speaker 1: create for itself. I don't know if that's really true
Speaker 1: or really possible, but it's it seems like that's the
Speaker 1: direction we're heading in.
Speaker 2: I think it's possible. I don't know what the timeline
Speaker 2: on that would be, but the sophistication of artificial intelligence
Speaker 2: is just staggering, and it's growing exponentially, so I think
Speaker 2: we'll probably hit that singularity sooner rather than later. What
Speaker 2: the consequences of that might be remain to be seen.
Speaker 2: So I think we should proceed with a you know,
Speaker 2: a healthy amount of caution because if we do create
Speaker 2: machines that can think for themselves. You know, we basically
Speaker 2: created a new form of life, and it should be
Speaker 2: you know, the questions of inherent rights and things like
Speaker 2: that are going to come up. Does it have the
Speaker 2: right to reproduce itself? And if that, if we allow
Speaker 2: to do that, it could overwhelm our species, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe rather quickly, so it could change everything. And then
Speaker 2: the Earthlings, the humans that made this form of artificial life,
Speaker 2: will probably figure out a way to go visit other worlds.
Speaker 2: We will be the aliens. Okay, not we per se,
Speaker 2: but the machines that we created will be the ones
Speaker 2: who are going out and exploring and you know, perhaps
Speaker 2: colonizing other worlds.
Speaker 1: Imagine if we actually create a new life form in
Speaker 1: inverted commas, that essentially is the end of us. Like
Speaker 1: we produce some non biological entity that you know, can't
Speaker 1: get sick, can't get diseased, that doesn't need food per sale,
Speaker 1: though it needs energy, I'm sure, but yeah, imagine that's
Speaker 1: not beyond the realms of I mean, I know this
Speaker 1: seems ridiculous when I used to hear conversations like this
Speaker 1: even ten years ago, with a bunch of the smarty
Speaker 1: pants people. I used to think that is these people are,
Speaker 1: you know, fantastical, Like this is just complete bullshit. This
Speaker 1: is never going to happen. This is But now when
Speaker 1: I'm talking to chat GPT like it's my second best friend,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, hang on, the landscape has shifted somewhat.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, it's pretty frightening what it can do already.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's just going to get more powerful
Speaker 2: and faster and more sophisticated, and it might get ahead
Speaker 2: of us before we design proper regulations to reel it
Speaker 2: in or keep it under control. I speculated in my
Speaker 2: book Please to Meet Me. I speculated in our book
Speaker 2: as kind of a joke, that humans might only be
Speaker 2: in existence to serve as a stepping stone for the
Speaker 2: real species that's going to take over the planet and
Speaker 2: the universe, and that would be machine driven life, you know,
Speaker 2: with artificial intelligence that is far superior than our own,
Speaker 2: and that might really be a reality. And like you said,
Speaker 2: what if we drive ourselves into extinction through the creation
Speaker 2: that we make? I mean, there was that was basically
Speaker 2: the plot of Terminator, right, you know, we humans basically
Speaker 2: did themselves in because they created these war machines that
Speaker 2: turned on them because they got so smart. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: we could we could be headed down that road. And
Speaker 2: it's crazy to think that a movie that came out
Speaker 2: in the late eighties, you know, just forty some years later,
Speaker 2: seems like a very real possibility.
Speaker 1: You've just given me the title for today's episode, Rise
Speaker 1: of the Machines. Thank you for that, and thank you
Speaker 1: to whatever franchise. What what if a company might that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know what, what else fascinates me is like our
Speaker 1: very limited understanding of what is intelligence, you know, and
Speaker 1: you know, for US, intelligence typically is for better or worse.
Speaker 1: We relate it to IQ. Obviously, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: range of things, that's not a single thing. But if
Speaker 1: somebody's got an IQ of one forty or more, we
Speaker 1: call them a genius. If somebody's down around seventy or lower,
Speaker 1: we might call them mentally challenged or you know what,
Speaker 1: are intellectually handicapped or whatever we want to call it. Right,
Speaker 1: but we kind of put intelligence in this jar. And
Speaker 1: as you were saying, you know, you're talking about all
Speaker 1: the insects and the tiny forms of life that we
Speaker 1: haven't even classified yet, and you know, you put me
Speaker 1: and a shark in the ocean, Well, the shark's much
Speaker 1: smarter than you know. It depends. I think intelligence is
Speaker 1: about an individual's capacity to survive and thrive or adapt
Speaker 1: depending on the context, the situation, the requirements of survival. Like,
Speaker 1: to me, that's more an insight into intelligence then whether
Speaker 1: or not I can do pie to one hundred figures
Speaker 1: or you know, decimal points or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: That's that's right. And I think we have this stereotypical
Speaker 2: view of what intelligence is. But in my mind, it's
Speaker 2: a lot like beauty, right, Beauty is in the eye
Speaker 2: of the beholder, and I think intelligence is in the
Speaker 2: eye of the beholder too, because it's very contextual. We
Speaker 2: like to try to put metrics on it with memory
Speaker 2: and learning or maybe i Q, but that is an
Speaker 2: extremely limited view of intelligence. You know, there's there's things
Speaker 2: like comedic genius, there's artistic genius. There's podcaster genius. Looking
Speaker 2: at you, Craig, and.
Speaker 1: You know I'm looking I look at thanks. Though.
Speaker 2: You know, some people are really great with words. Some
Speaker 2: people are really great writing them, but they're terrible speaking.
Speaker 2: So this is what makes humanity function more as a
Speaker 2: collective than as a single individual. We are at our
Speaker 2: best as a species when we join forces and come
Speaker 2: together combine our talents, we can achieve great things that way.
Speaker 2: I think this idea of a lone individual genius is
Speaker 2: very limited. There are certainly savants, people who can do
Speaker 2: extraordinary calculations in their head or have memory recall that
Speaker 2: is just staggering, and it really opens up some possible
Speaker 2: insights as to what's going on in the brain with
Speaker 2: respect to those particular biological functions. Yeah, but what we
Speaker 2: usually see in people who have an extremely well developed
Speaker 2: aspect of intelligence is that there's a trade off somewhere else. Okay,
Speaker 2: no one's perfect, right, So when a lot of these savants,
Speaker 2: they have social acumen difficulties, they don't interact appropriately in
Speaker 2: social settings, many of them are autistic. Many of them
Speaker 2: have trouble with theory of mind, which is trying to
Speaker 2: interpret how another person thinks and feels that. That's a
Speaker 2: brain based activity, and there's obviously some people who can
Speaker 2: do it better than others. There's also other life forms
Speaker 2: that can do theory of mind very well. So that
Speaker 2: extends the definition of intelligence to other species as well.
Speaker 2: Species that we consider kind of lower than us on
Speaker 2: the evolutionary ladder. But I think we need to throw
Speaker 2: that ladder away and get back to something that you said.
Speaker 2: It's all contextual. You know, if you can take the
Speaker 2: brightest person on the planet, you drop them in a
Speaker 2: tank with a shark, they're not going to look so smart, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so sorry. Sorry. My training partner, the guy
Speaker 1: do the gym with every day, is practically one of
Speaker 1: the a practical problem solving real world every day. Since
Speaker 1: I always say, if you're going to get stuck on
Speaker 1: an island or in some remote area, don't get stuck
Speaker 1: with me, because you'll be dead by lunchtime. Right. Get
Speaker 1: stuck with him, you know, because he will build you
Speaker 1: a small town by close of business. Right, He'll find water,
Speaker 1: he'll build shelter, He'll kill a couple of things to eat.
Speaker 1: Nothing cute, tiff, you know, just a snake or something.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And but but I'm things like that. I'm home completely
Speaker 1: like I'm the dumbest person in the room. But I
Speaker 1: you know that pursuant to this, I was listening to
Speaker 1: a guy who you know quite well. This site craigslist
Speaker 1: TIF have you ever heard of Craigslist.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a really big thing in the States.
Speaker 1: It was one of the first. Correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: doctor Bill, I don't know. But it's one of the
Speaker 1: where people can go on and just find like anything
Speaker 1: from a babysitter to a second hand car, to a job,
Speaker 1: to some mirrors for your motorbike tear or whatever it is, right,
Speaker 1: you can And anyway, the guy that started that, I
Speaker 1: heard him interview the other day. His name is Craig Newmark.
Speaker 1: Do you know this guy dog.
Speaker 2: No, I am familiar with Craig's list. It was very
Speaker 2: popular some time ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's still around. It's still around, and he
Speaker 1: he he is a genius, but he's socially super clunky
Speaker 1: and he knows it and he says it and he's like,
Speaker 1: I can't really read. Like. He's being interviewed by Theo
Speaker 1: vonn Right, who's a comedian, and you could not find
Speaker 1: two more different people. And there were times when the
Speaker 1: chat was actually awkward because they're so different. They didn't
Speaker 1: really get each other in the moment. And Leo's got
Speaker 1: a certain kind of comedic intelligence, but you wouldn't call
Speaker 1: him I mean this with respect. Typically super smart. He's
Speaker 1: not dumb, but it's like a particular kind of creative,
Speaker 1: comedic intelligence. And this other guy's got this I would say,
Speaker 1: he's IQ's through the roof. But he's just very good
Speaker 1: at figuring things out. But to hear him talk about
Speaker 1: how the things that he can't do, things he's got
Speaker 1: no idea about, but his wife takes care of because
Speaker 1: she knows how to do that, how awkward he is
Speaker 1: in social situations and he only goes like he gets
Speaker 1: permission to not go to certain things she lets him.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was so funny listening to him have
Speaker 1: that level of self awareness about where his intelligence and
Speaker 1: kind of intellectualies so to speak, and where it does.
Speaker 2: That kind of self awareness, I would say, is another
Speaker 2: aspect of intelligence. Yes, it takes a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: smarts to realize what your strengths and weaknesses are and
Speaker 2: to you know, to not be afraid to confront them
Speaker 2: or to play to those strengths. Emotional intelligence is a
Speaker 2: whole nother ballgame. You know, there are some people who
Speaker 2: can really excel in life because of their ability, you know,
Speaker 2: to master emotions or read emotions and other people. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I again, I think that's what, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the diverse things about individual humans or all these different
Speaker 2: strengths and weaknesses, and the trick we face as a
Speaker 2: species is coming together and finding people who can fill
Speaker 2: the gaps that we that we have, you know, find
Speaker 2: people who do have the strengths that will neutralize our
Speaker 2: weaknesses and then you can form really wonderful teams.
Speaker 1: Is there anything happening in the intersection of the study
Speaker 1: of genetics and infectious diseases, which is your wheelhouse unless
Speaker 1: I've fucked that up? And II Is there any kind
Speaker 1: of convergence.
Speaker 2: There artificial intelligence with respect to infectious.
Speaker 1: With respect to research in genetics and infectious diseases and
Speaker 1: all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, in many different capacities. So I would just
Speaker 2: say in all of the sciences, just like many other businesses,
Speaker 2: it's really hard to get away from people who are
Speaker 2: utilizing these AI tools to generate writing, to generate text.
Speaker 2: So we're now having discussions of our students allowed to
Speaker 2: do this and to what extent can they use these
Speaker 2: tools to write their own papers or write their own exams.
Speaker 2: So that's that's a real cutting edge issue that we're
Speaker 2: struggling with right now. And you also have people who
Speaker 2: are utilizing these tools to help you design experiments and
Speaker 2: possibly write research grants. Now, that might come to a
Speaker 2: reviewer's conundrum because if you're reviewing these grants and funding
Speaker 2: is on the line for this work, and one person
Speaker 2: utilized artificial intelligence to come up with the ideas and
Speaker 2: one person did not, is there an advantage there that
Speaker 2: one person exploited that the other person didn't use. These
Speaker 2: are some thorny issues that we aren't quite prepared to
Speaker 2: face because the technology has evolved so much more rapidly
Speaker 2: than we've we've been able to put any sort of
Speaker 2: regulation on it. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be valuable if we can
Speaker 2: use this artificial intelligence to generate really great innovations that
Speaker 2: can save lives or help us predict where the next
Speaker 2: pandemic or outbreak might occur. Utilizing machines in medical clinics
Speaker 2: that can identify breast cancer on images much better than
Speaker 2: a human doctor can. That's extraordinarily powerful, and I believe
Speaker 2: it would be unethical to continue using human eye sight
Speaker 2: when artificial intelligence is proven to be better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I worry a little bit about the
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the right term, but
Speaker 1: like the cognitive and creative cost to the individual when
Speaker 1: all of their or a lot of their thinking in
Speaker 1: inverted commas and creating is being done by AI, what.
Speaker 2: The cost of the individual may be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the world like there, you know, if all
Speaker 1: of my problems are being ald by AI, and all
Speaker 1: my questions are being answered by AI, and even the
Speaker 1: writing of my exam or the writing of my paper
Speaker 1: or the conceptualization of my business plan, like I'm not
Speaker 1: even fucking thinking of it. It's like, you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to my brain? And my capacity
Speaker 1: might not not to find a resource to do it,
Speaker 1: but for me individually to think clearly, to solve problems,
Speaker 1: to be able to you know, interpret things, break things down,
Speaker 1: tell stories, be creative, communicate optimally. You know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like that that could be a negative kind of
Speaker 1: byproduct of using these tools, as great as they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does raise some interesting questions because you can
Speaker 2: imagine that if the more that we have machines do
Speaker 2: for us, the less capable you know, we become over time.
Speaker 2: So for example, I hardly remember phone numbers anymore. But
Speaker 2: when I was growing up, I had like a rolodex
Speaker 2: of fifty phone numbers in my head. Easy okay for
Speaker 2: all the girls who would never call me back. I
Speaker 2: had this lot of numbers that I could keep trying
Speaker 2: to try to find a date. But nonetheless, I don't
Speaker 2: need to do that anymore. I can pack my phone.
Speaker 2: My phone's my new black book. It has all the
Speaker 2: numbers that I need, and I don't need to memorize them. Now.
Speaker 2: If something happens to my phone, I'm screwed because they're
Speaker 2: not in my head. So it does make you wonder
Speaker 2: if you can imagine that phone number example, happening with
Speaker 2: all sorts of other things. Is our memory going to
Speaker 2: go to pot because we're not really utilizing it anymore.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question we may be seeing. We may
Speaker 2: be in the midst of the emergence of a new
Speaker 2: human skill set, and that skill set might be who
Speaker 2: can use artificial intelligent in the most innovative and creative way,
Speaker 2: you know, to be successful, to make money or you know,
Speaker 2: invent something, what have you, whatever your definition of success
Speaker 2: might be. That might be the new skill set that
Speaker 2: is at hand. You know, much like social media has
Speaker 2: developed this new skill set to become for people to
Speaker 2: become influencers. You know, very few people rise to the
Speaker 2: top where they can have hundreds of thousands of followers
Speaker 2: and you know millions of like with just about anything
Speaker 2: they post, no matter how ridiculous or silly it might seem.
Speaker 2: They've seized on this new technology in a very intelligent,
Speaker 2: very creative way and have become influencers, which is something
Speaker 2: that did not exist just fifteen twenty years ago. So
Speaker 2: we're I think we're going to see something like that
Speaker 2: evolve out of AI. Who can use it the best
Speaker 2: time will tell. It's not going to be me, But
Speaker 2: you know, I think that's where things might proceed. But
Speaker 2: I do share your concern that innate human capacities may
Speaker 2: fall by the wayside, just like a muscle will atrophy
Speaker 2: if you don't continue to use it.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a mum recently, yesterday or the
Speaker 1: day before, and she's talking about buying her She's got
Speaker 1: two kids to twin boys right about fourteen, and one
Speaker 1: wants an electric bike, so bike that you don't have
Speaker 1: to pedal, and one wants an electric scooter, a scooter
Speaker 1: where you don't need to push. Am I Oh, and
Speaker 1: she's conflicted. I said you should be conflicted. I go,
Speaker 1: fourteen year old boys should be fucking pedaling and pushing
Speaker 1: and sweating and using their muscles and getting fits. And
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I sound like an old bastard,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, do we need I mean, Australia has
Speaker 1: got amongst the highest rates of childhood obesity in the world.
Speaker 1: Do we need to introduce bikes where hey, now we
Speaker 1: don't even need to pedal, we just need to sit.
Speaker 1: And we don't need to push on the scooter. We
Speaker 1: just need to be on it. It will take us there.
Speaker 1: Like I just and I understand, I get it, But
Speaker 1: I'm like, I look at the decline in you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how much information, inspiration, education resources loaf
Speaker 1: at this bloody you know, instant that all the bloody regimes,
Speaker 1: it's not helping. Like we are not becoming healthier and
Speaker 1: fitter and stronger and leaner. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: vanity or ego everyone. I'm talking about function, longevity, health span, wellness.
Speaker 1: Like we're getting despite the research and our alleged intelligence,
Speaker 1: we're getting worse because we we just keep looking for
Speaker 1: the most comfortab fucking option, and that comes at great
Speaker 1: cost over the long term. Mild in mild convenience in
Speaker 1: the short term, but over the long term it's fucking destructive.
Speaker 1: Steps down off soapbox.
Speaker 2: No, no, I agree, I would jump on that soapbox
Speaker 2: with you. I mean. The counter argument is that children
Speaker 2: can ride these bikes a greater distance without getting tired,
Speaker 2: so if they have a friend who happens to be
Speaker 2: a little too far for a pedal bike, they can
Speaker 2: now get there. Scooters are great for you know, especially
Speaker 2: I can use the example of students on campus. If
Speaker 2: you've got to get from one end to campus to
Speaker 2: the other quite quickly, These motorized scooters are very handy.
Speaker 2: But I think that's all fine and good under those circumstances. Great,
Speaker 2: but let's not lose sight of the fact that we
Speaker 2: still have to get out there and use a pedal
Speaker 2: bike or use our legs and run and walk. Because
Speaker 2: if we do utilize those tools, which makes life a
Speaker 2: little more convenient in some aspect, there's going to be
Speaker 2: a trade off that we're just leaning more into that
Speaker 2: sedentary lifestyle, which we know is demonstrably unhealthy and tremendously
Speaker 2: bad for both our physical and mental well being. We
Speaker 2: need to incorporate as much movement and exercise into our
Speaker 2: daily life as possible. These new conveniences, despite making life easier,
Speaker 2: may actually make life a lot harder in the long run,
Speaker 2: because we are going to become very unhealthy if we
Speaker 2: don't get to exercise our body needs.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a very I don't expect you
Speaker 1: to have a clear answer to this, but just an
Speaker 1: interesting thought, like in general, unless there's some turnaround. I
Speaker 1: think over the last specially over the last one hundred years,
Speaker 1: humans broadly speaking move less. You know, we are more sedentary.
Speaker 1: Things of obviously are more convenient, more mechanized, you know,
Speaker 1: and so we don't have to move and expend as
Speaker 1: much energy as we once did because of everything we
Speaker 1: have access to. If we continued on this trend of
Speaker 1: moving less and being more sedentory, and you know, from
Speaker 1: a biological point of view, you know, we would lose
Speaker 1: muscle mass, we would lose bone density. Over the generations,
Speaker 1: we would you know, become from a physiological point less
Speaker 1: capable than our ancestors of one hundred two, three hundred
Speaker 1: years ago. How long does it take do you reckon
Speaker 1: when we live in this all of these cultures and
Speaker 1: lifestyles and behaviors that are basically making life more comfortable
Speaker 1: for us before there's some kind of real genetic consequence
Speaker 1: in a species.
Speaker 2: Well, weird that we are not going to be able
Speaker 2: to evolve the genetic mutations necessary to thrive. You know,
Speaker 2: in that kind of environment. Evolution doesn't work that way,
Speaker 2: doesn't It moves glacially slow. We're still trying to adapt
Speaker 2: to the agricultural revolution of just ten thousand years ago.
Speaker 2: Our bodies are not built to eat a lot of
Speaker 2: the products that are grown, you know, in farms around
Speaker 2: the world. You know, we used to have a much
Speaker 2: more diverse and varied diet, and you know, we we
Speaker 2: were basically designing a world that is so far out
Speaker 2: of alignment with how our bodies and minds evolved that
Speaker 2: there's a concept called the evolutionary mismatch. You know, there
Speaker 2: are these mismatches and evolution, and that we've created a
Speaker 2: modern world where biologically our mind and body is ill
Speaker 2: suited to thrive in. And this has been postulated to
Speaker 2: be the bedrock underlying reason why there's so much depression
Speaker 2: and misery. Even though we have all these extraordinary conveniences
Speaker 2: and technological advances right and right at our grasp. At
Speaker 2: the end of the day, we're just not living as
Speaker 2: evolution intended us to live. If we can get back
Speaker 2: to that, I'm not saying we have to get rid
Speaker 2: of all these wonderful conveniences. We can have the best
Speaker 2: of both worlds. We just need to remember to incorporate
Speaker 2: some palaeolithic principles and lifestyles into our modern lifestyle so
Speaker 2: that our bodies are fooled into thinking that we're still
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, a hunter gatherer ish, and we
Speaker 2: can then thrive in the modern world. You get what
Speaker 2: I'm Sayings discussed example of this before with Granted, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of things in life that force you to
Speaker 2: be sedentary, but that doesn't mean you can't get out
Speaker 2: there and exercise a certain amount every day to kind
Speaker 2: of compensate for all that resting. Another thing that modern
Speaker 2: lifestyle does is it keeps us up a lot longer
Speaker 2: than evolution intended us to be awake. Okay, with all
Speaker 2: the artificial lights and night shift jobs, and you know,
Speaker 2: the blue screens that are at all the time, this
Speaker 2: is not how we were meant to live. We were
Speaker 2: meant to live with a in a circadian rhythm, sinked
Speaker 2: to the rising and setting of the sun, and melatonin
Speaker 2: would naturally get, you know, built up in our bodies
Speaker 2: as the sun goes down, make us sleepy, so that
Speaker 2: we would fall asleep a few hours after sundown and
Speaker 2: then wake up, you know, just before the sun. There's
Speaker 2: a there's a reason our eyelids are so thin. You know,
Speaker 2: it lets light in and we don't realize it, but
Speaker 2: when our eyes are closed and the sun is coming up,
Speaker 2: the light shines into our into our eyes and starts
Speaker 2: to stop the melatonin and get other chemicals going to
Speaker 2: wake us up. It's a it's a really fascinating thing.
Speaker 2: And we've evolved that way for millions of years and
Speaker 2: over the past you know, probably just two hundred years,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe even one hundred whenever electricity became a thing,
Speaker 2: we really started to play around with, you know, day
Speaker 2: and night time. We've we've extended our waking hours. Corporations
Speaker 2: abuse this and put people to work for longer periods
Speaker 2: of time, and they put them to work at night
Speaker 2: or at dawn, and this is totally screwed up. Our
Speaker 2: circadian rhythm, and without a healthy night's sleep, of course,
Speaker 2: we're all going to be miserable. We're all going to
Speaker 2: be needing caffeine in the morning or maybe alcohol to
Speaker 2: put us to sleep. It's just not a good way
Speaker 2: to live. We don't need to live like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is so, Yeah, you're right. I mean, you
Speaker 1: think about how long we've had electricity whatever one hundred
Speaker 1: years or one hundred and twenty years or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and you know, agriculture ten thousand years, and we've been
Speaker 1: around for whatever two hundred thousand and three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: as a species, as modern humans or whatever, but evolving
Speaker 1: for however long before that, And then you think that
Speaker 1: everything that we currently or most things that we currently
Speaker 1: have access to and use for nearly the entirety of
Speaker 1: our existence as a species wasn't here, you know, and
Speaker 1: think about like the gap between say two and a
Speaker 1: half thousand years ago and two thousand years ago, so
Speaker 1: that five hundred year gap, there wasn't a whole lot
Speaker 1: that happened in terms of technological advancement. I'm sure stuff did,
Speaker 1: but you know, when you think about the way that
Speaker 1: technology is changing the way that we live now. It's
Speaker 1: almost like by the year, there are more changes in
Speaker 1: a year than maybe happen in a century if we
Speaker 1: go back far enough, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: then to your point of sleep, it's so true with
Speaker 1: the light thing, and you think about, well, if you
Speaker 1: don't have quality sleep, then no wonder you're anxious. No wonder,
Speaker 1: you're producing copious amounts of quarters on. No wonder your
Speaker 1: nervous systems jacked, you know, because your body's not resetting
Speaker 1: and recovering because you're not getting what it needs to
Speaker 1: get you back to status quo for the next day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one, I just read this, so it's kind
Speaker 2: of at the top of my mind. The whole phenomenon
Speaker 2: blue light. You hear a lot about this in the
Speaker 2: popular press because our phones and tablets and television screens
Speaker 2: emit this blue light. And they say, the worst thing
Speaker 2: you can do is use your screen right before you're
Speaker 2: trying to go to bed, because that blue light keeps
Speaker 2: you awake. And what's really fascinating is that the blue
Speaker 2: light is in the UV spectrum, so that blue light
Speaker 2: that we would see outside, well that would be feeding
Speaker 2: into our eyes. We don't see the blue light per se. Okay,
Speaker 2: we see the white light and you know, and the
Speaker 2: blue light is the UV rays that enter into our
Speaker 2: body and tell our brain that it's daytime. So the
Speaker 2: blue light that we get off of our tablets and
Speaker 2: phones is basically saying it's still daytime, and it fools
Speaker 2: our brain into thinking that it still has to stay
Speaker 2: awake because even though the sun might be down, this
Speaker 2: blue light is still sending a signal to our brain
Speaker 2: that it's daytime. And this goes all the way back
Speaker 2: to single cell evolution. The reason why our cells respond
Speaker 2: to this blue light, or at least the theory goes,
Speaker 2: is that blue light can penetrate the ocean where life began,
Speaker 2: and the primordial organisms that arose out of the ocean
Speaker 2: could then sense when it was when the sun was
Speaker 2: out because the blue light was coming through the water.
Speaker 2: It's pretty fascinating and I might not be getting all
Speaker 2: the nuts and bolts of that right, but the evolution
Speaker 2: of circadian rhythm happened billions of years ago in single
Speaker 2: cells that were in the ocean because the blue wavelength
Speaker 2: of light was what they could detect underwater, and our
Speaker 2: cells have kept that characteristic through billions of years of evolution,
Speaker 2: and we have a circadian rhythm to this day that
Speaker 2: is govern and by blue light. I found that fascinating,
Speaker 2: and I probably screwed up some of the details, but
Speaker 2: people could use AI to go learn more about it.
Speaker 1: I see what you did there, that's okay. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: I don't sleep, great, oh t if you get a
Speaker 1: bit cranky, oh, tif gates hungry, tell doctor Bill what
Speaker 1: hungry is. He might have figured it out.
Speaker 3: Hungry is the most intense emotion that you could ever feel, Bill,
Speaker 3: And it's when you're hungry. It's when you're hungry real quick,
Speaker 3: like me, and you can't do anything else. You can't people,
Speaker 3: you can't. All of your interpersonal skills gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can't operate unless you get food.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, I'm okay to get up and fast and
Speaker 3: be hungry, but once I've eaten for the day and
Speaker 3: then I get hungry again, it's not an option to
Speaker 3: push that bad boy out very upset.
Speaker 2: If you're not alone, you shouldn't feel bad about it.
Speaker 2: Hangry is a real thing, and I know some science
Speaker 2: experiments that back it up. Craig, you might have read
Speaker 2: this in my book because I know you're an avid
Speaker 2: reader of my book, and well probably book which is
Speaker 2: called Sentence.
Speaker 1: Please to make mes James Germs and the curious forces
Speaker 1: that make us who we are. I'll say that again.
Speaker 1: Please to make me doctor Bill's book. I actually do
Speaker 1: have doctor Bill's book. I could even show you. It's
Speaker 1: on my phone. Yes, go on, tell us about the research.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, this is for Tiff, so she doesn't feel
Speaker 2: bad about this. This relates to some you know, I
Speaker 2: guess a field of like of psychology, and this is
Speaker 2: a very famous experiment that, from my understanding, has been
Speaker 2: reproduced on a number of occasions. But psychologists studied the
Speaker 2: rate by which people in jail were granted parole. Okay,
Speaker 2: and it turns out did you hear about this? Tissy
Speaker 2: nodding her head, so I'm suspecting she might have heard
Speaker 2: about this study. You're more likely to be granted parole
Speaker 2: by the judge if your case is heard early in
Speaker 2: the morning, as opposed to just before lunch, so your
Speaker 2: chances of getting parole go down the hungrier the more
Speaker 2: angry the judge is. If your case goes up after
Speaker 2: lunch toward to the judge, the judge is more likely
Speaker 2: to grant you parole. So TIFFs, you're right. As soon
Speaker 2: as you get fed, you're back to friendly Tiff. Right,
Speaker 2: you're not the haulk anymore. You go back to friendly,
Speaker 2: mild manner Tiff who helps people across the street. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: the hangry is a real thing. It's it's backed up
Speaker 2: by science. And if you're ever in jail, Craig, remember
Speaker 2: don't go up from for all right before lunch.
Speaker 1: Good to know what we got to say too.
Speaker 2: Similar similar studies, I think have been done in doctors' offices.
Speaker 2: You know, you're usually short changed, you're rushed out of
Speaker 2: the office if you see the doctor rate before lunch.
Speaker 2: But if you see the doctor after lunch, they're more
Speaker 2: likely to spend more time with you, ask you more questions.
Speaker 2: And it's very interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 3: It makes sense for evolution because I think about how
Speaker 3: we react to circumstances and there needs to be a
Speaker 3: subset of people who see anger is very urgent and
Speaker 3: go and get the damn food, while the other grown
Speaker 3: ups look after the kids and the home and everything
Speaker 3: without like eating the children and being angry mothers. So
Speaker 3: you know it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a good doctor, and very quickly.
Speaker 2: Eating the Children's not a good evolutionary strategy, right, so.
Speaker 1: I'd i'd be out hunting for the next meal. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say that's not why. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say that's not why you're a mother. But well,
Speaker 1: I've got dogs and cats. That's funny.
Speaker 2: I heard that go on d Sorry, I was just
Speaker 2: going to say that Tiff kind of just hit the
Speaker 2: nail on the head. That's why we have these emotions.
Speaker 2: You know, we get irritable and angry because we can't
Speaker 2: get food off our mind. Our body needs nourishment and
Speaker 2: it needs it now. So these emotions compel us to go,
Speaker 2: you know, create an action. They motivate us to you know,
Speaker 2: go out and gather some roots or you know, kill
Speaker 2: some kill a non cute animal.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 3: I wants to have a pet snake harps. That wasn't
Speaker 3: no good.
Speaker 1: But don't don't kill a whippet, that's for sure. One.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've heard similar information about if you
Speaker 1: if you're in court and you're you're going to get
Speaker 1: a sentence, you're better off to get a sentence after
Speaker 1: the judge has eaten or like you said early in
Speaker 1: the morning or after lunch. I feel like the end
Speaker 1: of the day is a bad time to have brain surgery.
Speaker 1: I think I want my brain surgeon first thing in
Speaker 1: the morning. You know, there's probably a few things like
Speaker 1: that that could be life shaping for Then.
Speaker 2: You can time your appointments very strategically. Now, it's always
Speaker 2: better to have a meeting after lunch. People are in
Speaker 2: a better mood. It's good to know it's good tonight.
Speaker 2: It's twelve eight in Melbourne. Tip is probably pretty hungry
Speaker 2: about now.
Speaker 3: Now, I had I don't come into these things hungry. Alps.
Speaker 1: That's a good plan. Doctor Bill's book has called Please
Speaker 1: to Make Me Jean's Journ and the curious forces that
Speaker 1: make us who we are. He's a superstar, mate, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for this year. I know you don't
Speaker 1: need to be here, just not that he wants anyone
Speaker 1: to know this, But he gets paid zero. I don't
Speaker 1: know why he puts up with me everyone, but he does.
Speaker 1: He seems to. Maybe he's a glutton for punishment. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm his community outreach project. I'm not sure, but he
Speaker 1: keeps coming back and Mate, thank you so much. You're
Speaker 1: a superstar. We love and appreciate you, and thanks for
Speaker 1: being part of typ in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I love to do this, even though the pay is
Speaker 2: not that good. You know, it comes back to me
Speaker 2: in other ways. It's always a joy chatting with you
Speaker 2: and Tiff and seeing the comments that your listeners post
Speaker 2: on the social media channels. It's always fun to read
Speaker 2: those two. And it's thrilling that so many people get
Speaker 2: so much out of your podcast, especially on the days
Speaker 2: that I'm here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Well, I tell you what, And this
Speaker 1: year's award for humility on the show goes to Professor
Speaker 1: Bill Sullivan. I tell you what, because you've been so good,
Speaker 1: I'm going to double your annual salary, your EYP salary
Speaker 1: that is not your actual salary, your t YP salary.
Speaker 1: I'm going to double it next year. You're welcome.
Speaker 2: Oh man, we're going to go out for a nice
Speaker 2: Christmas dinner.
Speaker 1: All right, mate, Well say goodbye Affair, but thanks again.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you.
Speaker 2: He Happy holidays everyone,