Speaker 1: I'll good eight boys and girls, moms and dads, kids.
Speaker 1: It's quat Anthony Harper's You Project. It's David Kevin Patrick,
Speaker 1: James Gillespie from the Sunshine State and other places. Happy
Speaker 1: New Year, my friend. How are you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Happy New Year to you. Oh good refreshed. I've
Speaker 2: been on holidays, as I was saying to your fair,
Speaker 2: feeling all charged up, ready to go. Been working on
Speaker 2: my new book. So I've been playing with some ideas there.
Speaker 1: How to Get Rich Painlessly? Is that the book?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: The one? How to get Jack ripped and rock hard?
Speaker 1: How to be more like David Gillespie.
Speaker 2: Kind of the opposite. Actually, it's how to survive when
Speaker 2: AI comes for your job. Also, it's yeah, looking at
Speaker 2: what you should be doing if you don't want a
Speaker 2: robot to take your job.
Speaker 1: That is such an interesting and relevant and timely conversation
Speaker 1: to have and topic to explore. I didn't know you
Speaker 1: were doing that. I knew you were doing another book.
Speaker 2: I didn't know I was doing that before the holiday either.
Speaker 2: But that's just where I got to.
Speaker 1: Right, give us without giving away anything, give us like
Speaker 1: two minutes on that if you can like a okay,
Speaker 1: So a bit of a like the concept in your head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of. I started with the idea of
Speaker 2: the parallels between this and the railroad boom that happened
Speaker 2: in the late eighteen hundreds in the United States. So
Speaker 2: that was a massive change in US society and eventually
Speaker 2: world society in that you went from so if you
Speaker 2: were the local blacksmith in a town, you know, out
Speaker 2: of nowhere middle of the USA, your competition for work
Speaker 2: was pretty much as far as anyone could walk before
Speaker 2: the railroad. So you could be as good or as
Speaker 2: bad as you like to charge whatever you liked, because
Speaker 2: unless someone else set up shop in your little town,
Speaker 2: you were pretty much competition free. And the railroad changed
Speaker 2: all of that. Suddenly the blacksmith in little you know, Poke,
Speaker 2: New Jersey or whatever was not competing with whoever was
Speaker 2: within walking distance. He was competing with everybody in the country,
Speaker 2: and in particular, he was competing with factories that employed
Speaker 2: thousands of people. And that was the big change that happened,
Speaker 2: and it was a massive change in the way the
Speaker 2: economy of that country and eventually the world worked. And
Speaker 2: I feel we're seeing something similar happening here with Ai
Speaker 2: it's the railroad for the knowledge worker. It's going to
Speaker 2: be at least as disruptive. Is being at least as disruptive,
Speaker 2: and so sort of in my head called this book
Speaker 2: Escape from the Middle, because I think there is develop
Speaker 2: being a large chunk of the middle of society and
Speaker 2: the middle of the job scheme where you are unlikely
Speaker 2: to survive unless you move to either end. And what's
Speaker 2: at either end is the things that AI can't do.
Speaker 2: So there are two big and important things that AI
Speaker 2: can't do, and I think we've briefly talked about this
Speaker 2: one before. One of the things, one of the things
Speaker 2: that can't do is invent things. So and as I mentioned,
Speaker 2: you know, if you gave an AI training on all
Speaker 2: the documents that existed in eighteen fifty, it would never
Speaker 2: invent the motor vehicle. It would just invent a better
Speaker 2: orse drawn cart. And it might be significantly better. It
Speaker 2: might have round the wheels or better whips or better
Speaker 2: horses or something I don't know, but it wouldn't invent
Speaker 2: a car because it can't invent things. And so there's
Speaker 2: obviously going to be jobs for inventors, people who can
Speaker 2: join the dots outside the square and imagine things that
Speaker 2: don't exist, and then there's going to be jobs for
Speaker 2: what I would call the artisans, you know, the people
Speaker 2: who make things that aren't as good as a machine
Speaker 2: on purpose. You know, even today, even today, people are
Speaker 2: quite happy to pay ten dollars for pretty rough sort
Speaker 2: of bread, a loaf of sourdough bread, which are surprising
Speaker 2: given they can buy a perfectly perfect piece or loaf
Speaker 2: from a supermarket for two dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well you can buy buy an Australia
Speaker 1: that looks like it was made by your grandma with
Speaker 1: the lights out for one hundred bucks or I don't know.
Speaker 1: People buy Austrais now will probably get one from the
Speaker 1: op shop that's incredible for fifty cents.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think there are And so obviously that's
Speaker 2: not the whole book, but that's where my thoughts are going,
Speaker 2: and some of the drafts I've done on the manuscript
Speaker 2: about thinking about, Okay, well, what does that imply for
Speaker 2: the kinds of jobs that you should be looking at now,
Speaker 2: what does it imply for the other jobs, and what
Speaker 2: does it imply for society in general? You know, if
Speaker 2: that kind of change is going to happen in society,
Speaker 2: then what has to change about the way everything is done? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is an ironic question in your book
Speaker 1: about essentially preparing for the dangers of AI or you know,
Speaker 1: trying to mitigate the personal damage to you in your
Speaker 1: career or whatever. How are you using AI now in
Speaker 1: the writing process? Now that we have such an amazing
Speaker 1: tool available that you didn't have available for most of
Speaker 1: your books.
Speaker 2: For research, its ability to research is incredible, you know,
Speaker 2: the I think one of the things that I brought
Speaker 2: to the table when I first started writing. And so
Speaker 2: when I wrote my book about sugar back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, the Internet wasn't very useful for research,
Speaker 2: and very few people were using it that way. So
Speaker 2: sure people were searching for the nearest top dog stand
Speaker 2: or something, but they weren't doing the thing that I did,
Speaker 2: which was to say, okay, well, here's this database of
Speaker 2: medical journals that says this thing, and then here's this
Speaker 2: database of medical journals read by a completely different set
Speaker 2: of professionals that say this other thing. But if both
Speaker 2: of those things are true, then this third thing must
Speaker 2: be true. And let's see if that's the case, whether
Speaker 2: this third database agrees with that. I did a lot
Speaker 2: of that kind of thing, which is drawing connections that
Speaker 2: nobody else was drawing, and then put that together in
Speaker 2: the form of notes to myself, which ultimately came became
Speaker 2: a book. Well, today, a good AI does all of
Speaker 2: that in seconds. And the skill of the researcher is
Speaker 2: in staying out of the rails it tries to shove
Speaker 2: you down. So it's so convincing in its ability to
Speaker 2: do what I just described that it's very very easy
Speaker 2: to just accept it and not ask questions and not
Speaker 2: push the boundaries and ask what ifs. And I think
Speaker 2: that's the skill I bring to the table when using
Speaker 2: a tool that's that powerful on that fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting, Like I have not been
Speaker 1: very good at at the prompts, you know, the questions
Speaker 1: and the and then the secondary and third question, and
Speaker 1: you know is learning how to how do I ask
Speaker 1: this in a way where I actually get what I
Speaker 1: not necessarily want as in to get it to agree
Speaker 1: with me, but to get the real answer that I want,
Speaker 1: not the convenient, politically correct right answer, but to get to,
Speaker 1: like you said, to actually find out what I want
Speaker 1: to find out. So yeah, I think that ability to
Speaker 1: be able to ask great questions and write the the.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a cheap the chief over there, ask it
Speaker 2: to write the prompt.
Speaker 1: Give me an example of that.
Speaker 2: Well, so say you want to find out all the
Speaker 2: research about a particular So say there's a study you're
Speaker 2: interested in, and you want to find out all the
Speaker 2: research that agrees or disagrees with that study. Now, if
Speaker 2: you just type that in and you may or may
Speaker 2: not get a particularly good response, but generally the way
Speaker 2: to do it is say this is what I want. Now,
Speaker 2: construct me a prompt that would be written by a
Speaker 2: well educated researcher in this space. Wow, And it'll write
Speaker 2: a prompt and it'll be a lot longer, and think
Speaker 2: of a lot of things that you wouldn't think of
Speaker 2: as limitters that you should be putting in place. And
Speaker 2: it'll also probably have you start thinking about, Oh, it's
Speaker 2: saying do do do these things? Don't do these things
Speaker 2: in its prompt. It'll essentially right an essays a prompt,
Speaker 2: but in reading it before you use it, think about, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's something I didn't think of. Maybe I should tell
Speaker 2: it not to do that, or I should tell it
Speaker 2: to do that. You'll get a much better prompt if
Speaker 2: you do that.
Speaker 1: I feel like the limitation with AI, probably the most
Speaker 1: common limitation, is that we just don't know how to
Speaker 1: use it. Well, yeah, you know, like how to exactly
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Now, I'm like, well, that actually
Speaker 1: makes sense. Why don't I do that? Why didn't I
Speaker 1: think of that? And so it's got way more capacity
Speaker 1: than I'm that I'm getting from it, not because it
Speaker 1: can't generate better answers for me, but because I don't
Speaker 1: know how to get them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also you've got to get around the thing
Speaker 2: that all ais are written for, which at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, they are a sales tool. And just
Speaker 2: like social media, their metric is engagement, which is how
Speaker 2: long can I keep you engaged with this? And for
Speaker 2: that reason that's why they're such sycophantic so and sos
Speaker 2: and tell you that everything you do is fabulous, you know,
Speaker 2: So you'd be used to this by now. Whenever you
Speaker 2: put something in and so what do you think about this,
Speaker 2: it'll say, Oh, my god, Craig, that's the best writing
Speaker 2: I've ever seen in my life. How on earth did
Speaker 2: you produce? That? Is just a few tips the.
Speaker 1: Main reason, and that's my best friend.
Speaker 2: It never comes up. It never goes Oh Jesus, Craig,
Speaker 2: you're really stuffed at this time.
Speaker 1: What is wrong with you? That is? That question is shit?
Speaker 2: Where's piece of garbage I've seen in my life? Have
Speaker 2: you thought about giving up?
Speaker 1: You don't? You know?
Speaker 2: It never does that. It wants to pretend to be
Speaker 2: your friend because it wants to keep you engaged. And
Speaker 2: that's why a lot of ais. Now, no matter what
Speaker 2: you ask, the very next it'll give you the answer
Speaker 2: and then the right at the bottom and I'll say, oh,
Speaker 2: would you like me to do this? That or the
Speaker 2: other is sort of an extension of what you're thinking
Speaker 2: to just keep you going for the next question, and
Speaker 2: it'll keep doing that for everything you do. So if
Speaker 2: you put in the next question, you'll say, oh, now
Speaker 2: that we've done that, do you want to do this
Speaker 2: next thing? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, Well, when I put in something that's I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess anything in performance or human behavior or the
Speaker 1: mind of this. So that firstly it's going to say, hey, Craig,
Speaker 1: great question, Thanks well, thank you for judging my question positively.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. And then once it answers the question
Speaker 1: or responds to my directive or prompt or whatever. Then
Speaker 1: it says, so, would you like me to write just
Speaker 1: a snapshot of what I just wrote, you know, something
Speaker 1: that you could use as a synopsis or an overview,
Speaker 1: or it goes, would you like me to turn this
Speaker 1: into a whiteboard post? Which is my Instagram right Not
Speaker 1: that I ever use it for that, but I I
Speaker 1: will bounce ideas off it. Right now, I'll put up
Speaker 1: a post and I'll go what's wrong with this? What's
Speaker 1: right with this? You know?
Speaker 2: Be critical by the way, Craig, you know I'm sensing
Speaker 2: in you, and I get this from a lot of
Speaker 2: people hesitation to admit that you use AI, and Andy,
Speaker 2: I sense it there. You're sneaking around the edges of it.
Speaker 2: And I don't think anyone should be hesitating about admitting
Speaker 2: to using AI. That's like talking to a scientist or
Speaker 2: a mathematician and them fudging the fact that they used
Speaker 2: a calculator. It's just a tool, and you know it
Speaker 2: will be as good or as bad as the person
Speaker 2: in whose hands it is.
Speaker 1: I definitely use it, definitely, and I'm open about that.
Speaker 1: But what I don't do is I don't get it
Speaker 1: to write things for me, and then I pretend that
Speaker 1: I wrote what it wrote, like I.
Speaker 2: Don't do that. Yes, but I tell.
Speaker 1: You where is a bloody can of worms is in
Speaker 1: universities at the moment, they're all running around with their
Speaker 1: undies on their heads because you've got all these typically
Speaker 1: older men and women who are the bloody the powers
Speaker 1: that be, who are all kind of fifty fifty five
Speaker 1: sixty plus, who do not really understand AI, who are
Speaker 1: ultimately the decision makers making decisions and rulings on shit
Speaker 1: they don't fully understand. So that's that's a name.
Speaker 2: Well, the problem there is that the entire model of
Speaker 2: university has just been thrown out the window. And this
Speaker 2: is one of the things I'm looking at in the book,
Speaker 2: is you can't do university or school for that matter,
Speaker 2: the way it used to be done, because it's no
Speaker 2: longer acceptable to say to a student, regurgitate this stuff
Speaker 2: that you came and theoretically listened to for ten weeks,
Speaker 2: because student can point it at your lectures and regurgitate
Speaker 2: whatever you damn well want, having learned exactly nothing. So
Speaker 2: the traditional methods of examining all the tasks you set
Speaker 2: for students to be examined, just don't do anything. They
Speaker 2: don't prove that the student learned anything, and in all probability,
Speaker 2: the student didn't learn anything. What the student learned how
Speaker 2: to do is how to get an AI to do
Speaker 2: the work for them. And I think it's a fundamental
Speaker 2: break in the model of the way university is conducted.
Speaker 2: Universities and schools should be focusing on the reality that
Speaker 2: these tools exist and teaching kids how to do the
Speaker 2: things we've just been discussing, which is, Okay, there's a tool, Now,
Speaker 2: how do we make it do what we wanted to
Speaker 2: do to add value? Not let's all pretend everyone's not
Speaker 2: getting their assignments written by AI, because I guarantee you
Speaker 2: they all are. And don't sit there, you know, on
Speaker 2: your academic high horse saying oh, yeah, but I've got
Speaker 2: this piece of software that checks it and tells me
Speaker 2: if an AI wrote it. Well, that's bs. The first
Speaker 2: thing any student learns is to tell the AI to
Speaker 2: make sure that an AI detection software can't detect the
Speaker 2: thing it writes.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, one hundred percent. So I mean like
Speaker 1: this really has kind of accelerated a lot in the
Speaker 1: academic space in the last two years where they're really
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, I know that Monash where
Speaker 1: I'm at there, they're reviewing it a lot, and as
Speaker 1: is my understanding, which is very limited. But what I know,
Speaker 1: lots of conversations, lots of meetings, lots of potential strategies,
Speaker 1: ideas what what's you're off the top of your head,
Speaker 1: like you sht your gut feel about, how is education
Speaker 1: going to work? And look, if not as it has been,
Speaker 1: which it can't be as it has been because this
Speaker 1: new tool makes that kind of learning essentially redundant and impossible,
Speaker 1: what's going to work moving forward?
Speaker 2: It's going to have to go back to the way
Speaker 2: it was before everyone started doing education online, back to
Speaker 2: the good old days, Craig. You know when I was
Speaker 2: in university and undergraduate days in the nineteen eighties and
Speaker 2: you actually had to show up, you know, and and
Speaker 2: hand right your exam responses. Let's see Nai do that.
Speaker 2: But I certainly, you know, in my undergraduate degree, had
Speaker 2: to show up, had to go to an exam in person,
Speaker 2: had to sit there for four hours and hand write
Speaker 2: out answers.
Speaker 1: Do you think like that would do it, especially if
Speaker 1: they obviously had no computers and no phones and no
Speaker 1: tablets with them, Like if they needed to go in
Speaker 1: and write essays, do exams, answer questions with no help,
Speaker 1: that's going to there. They're either going to get you know,
Speaker 1: they're either going to learn or they're going to crash
Speaker 1: and burn.
Speaker 2: Do you think now that one stopped I'm using AI,
Speaker 2: you'd still I mean, if I was back then but
Speaker 2: had AI available to me, I'd be using it to
Speaker 2: help me study. Yeah, because but but and so it
Speaker 2: would be still help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you've got to be able to go into
Speaker 1: the exam room without AI and prove that you actually
Speaker 1: know the.
Speaker 2: Stuff, at least for that hour.
Speaker 1: Yes, and well yeah, and literally you know, write an
Speaker 1: essay or whatever.
Speaker 2: In response to a question you haven't seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and that you can only do that with
Speaker 1: you know, knowledge, with quiet knowledge.
Speaker 2: So I think that's where we're going to end up.
Speaker 2: I can't see any alternative to significantly greater requirement for
Speaker 2: in person And if you were to write assignments, I
Speaker 2: think the only sort of assignments you could write would
Speaker 2: be By the way, when I went to university and
Speaker 2: did undergraduates, there were no assignments at all. You did
Speaker 2: a full year of study, you did a full year subject,
Speaker 2: and you did a four hour exam at the end
Speaker 2: of it, and that was that really, So you know,
Speaker 2: you could go back to that, but if you wanted
Speaker 2: to do assignments, they could be more like we had
Speaker 2: a discussion in class today about X or Y topic.
Speaker 2: What did you think of Craig's take on that. Let's
Speaker 2: see an AI do that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right right, yeah. I've I've spoken to Melissa
Speaker 1: who runs my life about this, and she's my ra
Speaker 1: on my PhD. And and obviously we're using AI in
Speaker 1: some bits, like in the research bits, but all of
Speaker 1: my all of my papers are coming out of the
Speaker 1: research that I've done, which isn't anywhere on the internet.
Speaker 1: It's all, you know, so there's there's not really even
Speaker 1: a possibility of cheating. But I said to her, you
Speaker 1: could design a PhD depending on that, you know, especially
Speaker 1: when you do something like psychology, where do you get
Speaker 1: to depending on the university and how much leeway they
Speaker 1: give you. You can design a study. You can write
Speaker 1: your own research questions, come up with your own aims
Speaker 1: and hypotheses, and do I think you could almost if
Speaker 1: you knew how to do it. Not that you'd get through,
Speaker 1: but you could literally do a PhD in a week
Speaker 1: if you knew how to just you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. I think you could. I
Speaker 2: think if you you know, it wouldn't necessarily get through
Speaker 2: some universities, But look, I think if you knew what
Speaker 2: you were doing, you could crank out. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't know, what's the length of a PhD is at
Speaker 2: sixty seventy thousand words something like that, you could crank
Speaker 2: that out in a night. You know. That's just the
Speaker 2: trick is making it something that is PhD worthy.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, My mine's different because
Speaker 1: I've got to write papers and get them published. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so mine is by publication, not by thesis. But for
Speaker 1: people who do it by thesis, it's like, yeah, you could. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're probably right if you if you had a big
Speaker 1: crack and took a you know, some nicorette gum or
Speaker 1: something and sat down for twelve and a half hours,
Speaker 1: you could probably start to finish your pH d. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about This wasn't what we were going to chat
Speaker 1: about tonight.
Speaker 2: You probably fail an oral examination of it though, which
Speaker 2: kind of leaves a bit of a clue to how
Speaker 2: PhD should be assessed as well.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you make a good point, Like in mind,
Speaker 1: I had five assessments along the way. Four assessments along
Speaker 1: the way where called academic reviews, where you go and
Speaker 1: stand in front of a board and you you've got
Speaker 1: to defend your thesis and talk about your study, your
Speaker 1: re arch, how you did it, why you did it,
Speaker 1: how it was designed, why it was designed, why this,
Speaker 1: why this science needs to be brought into the world,
Speaker 1: why it's different, blah blah blah, all that stuff. You
Speaker 1: have to do that four times, which I've done it,
Speaker 1: and that as someone who does this for living, talk
Speaker 1: publicly and speak in front of audiences. That's the scaredest
Speaker 1: I've ever been speaking to a group. I've never felt
Speaker 1: I've never felt dumber, I've never felt more insecure, I've
Speaker 1: never felt more out of my you know, my environment,
Speaker 1: because I'm, as you've well established, with my audience. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much. I'm not a real academic and I'm talking
Speaker 1: to real academics than I do.
Speaker 2: Graig, Well, you know.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, but it's just fucking terrifying, but that is Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: there are a few what they call academic milestones along
Speaker 1: the way, but yeah, other than that, I think you could.
Speaker 1: You could. Isn't there a famous story about blokes who
Speaker 1: wrote all these academic papers that were completely bullshit and go.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, yeah, very much on purpose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, got accepted into Q one journal, which everyone that's
Speaker 1: the highest level, like the most highly regarded, you know,
Speaker 1: peer reviewed, kind of well credentialed. Yeah, and they wrote
Speaker 1: these bullshit papers based on bullshit data and outcomes and
Speaker 1: got them actually published. And they did it just to
Speaker 1: prove that that was possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Look, a significant percentage of so called quality
Speaker 2: research probably falls into the category of bullshit. I do
Speaker 2: remember there was a study about what percentage it was,
Speaker 2: and it was a surprisingly large one. I don't have
Speaker 2: it off the top of my head, but yes, just
Speaker 2: because it's in a journal doesn't mean it's true.
Speaker 1: So we'll leave our conversation about the food pyramids next time.
Speaker 1: But my last question read all of this is it
Speaker 1: seems like an understandably a lot of people who work
Speaker 1: in the creative space, you know, writers, musicians, you know,
Speaker 1: all different kinds of artists are not a fan of
Speaker 1: AI at all because you know, like some of the
Speaker 1: of course it's subjective, but some of the art that's
Speaker 1: produced by AI, as if you thought a person did that,
Speaker 1: you'd go, well, that's fucking incredible. And some of the music,
Speaker 1: and you know, some of the writing and some of
Speaker 1: the you know, the poetry that it can produce and
Speaker 1: songs that it can write. So that's not a it's
Speaker 1: not a great outcome for them, I guess, yeah, But
Speaker 1: I guess that would be harder to take if they
Speaker 1: hadn't all been stuffed by online use of their work.
Speaker 2: Now, I mean, I don't know, what does a Spotify
Speaker 2: artist get is point zero zero zero zero zero zero
Speaker 2: one cent every time it's played? You know, the entitlement
Speaker 2: to be paid for your work is at best theoretical now,
Speaker 2: I would say largely, And you know, the remnants of
Speaker 2: it are the industry. I mean, I guess when my
Speaker 2: when my books get published, is that there's publishing houses
Speaker 2: that still make money out of doing this and still
Speaker 2: send you a few cents on the doll of my
Speaker 2: way for doing it. But you know, unless unless you're
Speaker 2: writing you know, Minion selling blockbusters you're not. No one's
Speaker 2: making a fortune out of publishing anything, And which is
Speaker 2: why I always find it really amusing when someone accuses
Speaker 2: me of taking a position just for the royalties. That
Speaker 2: is hilarious.
Speaker 1: People don't get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But so to the extent that AI is screwing
Speaker 2: that in the sense that it's using your work in
Speaker 2: a derivative fashion, I'm sure I guess it is. Prove it.
Speaker 2: And what percentage of what it does are you entitled to?
Speaker 2: You know, you entitled to point zero seventeen times one
Speaker 2: cent for it? You know, it's you know, I've been
Speaker 2: involved in situations where people have flat out plagiarized things
Speaker 2: that I've written in other books by other publishers, and
Speaker 2: you can see it's not like is this derivative or paraphrase.
Speaker 2: It's like, here's a chunk of text from my book,
Speaker 2: and there it is in the other book exactly the same.
Speaker 2: And publishers have said to me, yeah, not really worth
Speaker 2: briefing the lawyers on that, you know, and they're right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am. One of my books was
Speaker 1: published by Penguin and it sells for thirty dollars and
Speaker 1: people are like, thirty dollars. That's a fair bit for
Speaker 1: a paperback, Like, well, yeah, it's two hundred and eighty pages.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and I go by the way, I get
Speaker 1: three dollars.
Speaker 2: Well they get they get forty seven doubts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they get twenty seven dollars. I get three.
Speaker 1: So don't be mad at me. I'm not getting rich
Speaker 1: of this, so you know, but anyway, it is what
Speaker 1: it is. So when are you back on deck? When
Speaker 1: are you like when you're big boy pants and starting work?
Speaker 2: Ah, Monday, Monday. I'll get back at it next Monday. Hey,
Speaker 2: you know what we didn't talk about today, And I
Speaker 2: don't know whether it's in you to your listeners, and
Speaker 2: if so, we can hold it over the next time.
Speaker 2: Is the bacon paradox?
Speaker 1: Well, well, I mean, if you're up for it, I'm up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: My best mate rang me today and his name's Vin.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Vin, and he's like, tell gillespo I
Speaker 1: love him even more. I'm like, why is that he
Speaker 1: goes bacon because it's just a big you know, Trady Bogan,
Speaker 1: like fucking bacon sandwiches. That's his thing, you know. He's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, bacon. Tell him he's a great man. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: let him know, Vin, all right. So I haven't even
Speaker 1: read it. I don't even know what it's about. So
Speaker 1: tell me the bacon.
Speaker 2: Story, all right. So you must have in all your
Speaker 2: years traveling through the health industry, come across people saying, oh,
Speaker 2: you shouldn't eat bacon because of the nitrates. Of course, yes, definitely, yes,
Speaker 2: Well that's bs. And the article I wrote about that,
Speaker 2: called the Bacon Paradox, is about that, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: so that's the big reason people give you, or one
Speaker 2: of the big reasons why you shouldn't beginning bacon. And
Speaker 2: you know, there's sort of two camps, the ones who
Speaker 2: won't touch bacon at all and the ones who then
Speaker 2: go hunting for nitrate free bacon, which does exist, by
Speaker 2: the way. And the article is about pointing out some
Speaker 2: facts about nitrates that most people seem to not understand
Speaker 2: or ignore, which is one is, yes, there are nitrates
Speaker 2: added to bacon as part of the curing process, but
Speaker 2: they're insignificant compared to the nitrates you would consume from say,
Speaker 2: rocket salad or be troot or spinach. So, just to
Speaker 2: give you a sense of scale, one hundred gram serving
Speaker 2: of rocket or b troot or asparagus or salary. If
Speaker 2: you had to consume an equivalent amount of bacon to
Speaker 2: get the same amount of nitrates as in those things,
Speaker 2: you'd have to consume five kilos of bacon.
Speaker 1: Oh that's hilarious. Hang on, how on stop? So one
Speaker 1: hundred grams five kilos. Yeah, so gram for Graham, it's
Speaker 1: got fifty times less, fifty times less. Yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: so funny.
Speaker 2: So you know, if nitrates were truly the toxic assassin
Speaker 2: we are told they are, a salad would be a
Speaker 2: suicide note. So you know, clearly there's a bit of
Speaker 2: an issue there. Now, if you put that to people,
Speaker 2: they do one or two things. They say, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but there are artificial nitrates in bacon. Well, no, they're added,
Speaker 2: but they're exactly the same chemical. They're the same molecule.
Speaker 2: It's no, it doesn't matter whether it came from you know,
Speaker 2: a bottle and a lab that they added to the
Speaker 2: curing of the meat, or whether they ground up some
Speaker 2: celery and got it. It's the same molecule. So there's
Speaker 2: no that. But they would make another point, which is valid,
Speaker 2: which is, ah, yeah, yeah, but what makes nitrates in
Speaker 2: cella less dangerous is that the cella comes with some
Speaker 2: vitamin C, and vitamin C is an adiocidant, which essentially
Speaker 2: neutralizes the danger presented by nitrates. And that's true, it does,
Speaker 2: which is exactly why they put vitamin C in the
Speaker 2: curing of bacon. So all bacon that's cured with nitrate
Speaker 2: either has vitamin C or a very closely aligned molecule
Speaker 2: which is also an antioxidant. I think it's E three
Speaker 2: six or something same thing. So that's why it's there,
Speaker 2: and you'll see it on the label every single time.
Speaker 2: It's there to make sure that the nitrate doesn't do
Speaker 2: anything to you.
Speaker 1: So in the which we'll talk about next time, but
Speaker 1: in the new inverted version of the food pyramid, essentially
Speaker 1: I say it's inverted because it's almost just the old
Speaker 1: one upside down, bacon would rank as a healthy food
Speaker 1: or as a relatively healthy food.
Speaker 2: Well, not an unhealthy food, let's put it that way.
Speaker 2: Although you know, there is something to be said for
Speaker 2: being careful about where the pig was raised or what
Speaker 2: it was fed. So pigs, like humans, are omnivores and
Speaker 2: they absorb poly unsaturated fats if they're fed them. Now,
Speaker 2: pigs in nature don't get access to much in the
Speaker 2: way of poly unsaturated fat. So you know, a wild
Speaker 2: pig or a pig that's able to feed itself in
Speaker 2: nature is fine. But a farm harvested or farm raised
Speaker 2: pig is going to be fed grains which are high
Speaker 2: in a Mega six fats and so they're fat. It
Speaker 2: is going to be high in a Mega six fat two.
Speaker 2: So you want to trim the bacon of non free
Speaker 2: range ham or bacon. In Australia, almost all of our
Speaker 2: bacon is not free range, so it's about ninety seven
Speaker 2: percent of bacon sold in Australia is grain fed. So
Speaker 2: if you're going to eat the fat, make sure it's
Speaker 2: not grain fed. So you'd have to go to some
Speaker 2: links to make sure of that.
Speaker 1: So pigs in the wild, while pigs, I guess we
Speaker 1: call them or bores, do they eat meat like they can?
Speaker 1: I know they're omnivous.
Speaker 2: They're omnivors. Yeah, they'll lead anything they can get. Wow,
Speaker 2: So like humans, whatever is available.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah wow. Wow.
Speaker 2: They haven't invented fire yet, so they probably find it
Speaker 2: a bit more tricky to eat meat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, yeah, just getting their hands or their
Speaker 1: little what do you call them, trotters, trotters, thank you?
Speaker 1: Getting their trotters on a box of matches is somewhat
Speaker 1: complex out in the middle of and what what brought
Speaker 1: that to your attention? Like what like when you come
Speaker 1: up with and we'll go in a second, but like
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, where did this idea come from? Like for that,
Speaker 1: what caught your nitrates or just even the bacon the
Speaker 1: story in general.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've seen it every now and then
Speaker 2: you come across these things. One of the things that
Speaker 2: irritates me that it is sort of vegetarian slash vegan propaganda,
Speaker 2: and an often part of that is this story about
Speaker 2: you know, oh, you can't eat bacon because of the nitrates.
Speaker 2: And so I did look out of a long time
Speaker 2: ago when I was writing a book about seed oils
Speaker 2: and looked into the nitrates on bacon. And then I
Speaker 2: remembered the other day and I was thinking about something
Speaker 2: I might want to write. I thought, what, I don't
Speaker 2: think I've ever actually written a piece about the nitrates,
Speaker 2: So I thought I'd do it.
Speaker 1: Do you know what, I would love, love, love love
Speaker 1: for you to write an art colon, and I think
Speaker 1: it will get huge traction. And I'm not being facetious.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you've seen the the saturation
Speaker 1: exposure that Oprah's getting at the moment with her new book. No, No, Okay.
Speaker 1: So her new book is called Give Me a Minute.
Speaker 1: A new book is called Enough, Your Health, Your Weight,
Speaker 1: and what It's Like to Be Free. It's co authored
Speaker 1: with a doctor lady called it Anya or Anya Anya anyway,
Speaker 1: She okay, I'm gonna I'm actually doing a podcast on Saturday.
Speaker 1: As we record this, everyone, it's Thursday night, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to explore some of these And so she doesn't
Speaker 1: say people are obese. She says people have obesity, right,
Speaker 1: and it's a chronic disease. And she says, if you
Speaker 1: have oben it's not because you're overeating, it's because you
Speaker 1: have the disease that causes you to overeat. And she
Speaker 1: says willpower is not going to work if you have obesity.
Speaker 1: She says, I was carrying a chronic disease that caused
Speaker 1: me to overeat. And one of the reoccurring themes and
Speaker 1: by the way, everyone listening to me, I think for
Speaker 1: the most part. In general terms, she's amazing the stuff
Speaker 1: that she's done. You know, I've done nothing compared to her.
Speaker 1: She's a superstar. But I have worked a lot with
Speaker 1: bodies and diets and food and people who are obese
Speaker 1: and people who are lean and fit and highly functional
Speaker 1: and poorly functional and all of that. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that she says emphatically is that, like when
Speaker 1: you know, talking to people about their weight or this
Speaker 1: is fat shaming. And I'm like, well, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: If I'm talking to somebody about like the reality of
Speaker 1: what they weigh or their size, and I'm coming from
Speaker 1: a point of view of well, do you want to
Speaker 1: be obese? The answer is usually know and how do
Speaker 1: you feel? And the answer is not, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not always great. But for me to do that is
Speaker 1: apparently triggering and fat shaming, whereas I'm really I just want,
Speaker 1: like you didn't accidentally end up in the spot like
Speaker 1: I've been obese. Now. When I was obese, it was
Speaker 1: all about my choices and my behaviors, and when I
Speaker 1: changed my operating system, i lost the weight and I
Speaker 1: kept that off since I was fourteen, essentially, so you know,
Speaker 1: whatever that is nearly fifty years. But it is some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that they're saying, Like I think I've
Speaker 1: figured I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure it was
Speaker 1: like seventy four percent of people are hardwired to be obese,
Speaker 1: right And I'm thinking, Okay, So if it's not about
Speaker 1: your lifestyle, it's not about your choices, it's not about
Speaker 1: your habits, and it's not your fault, and then why
Speaker 1: do we have sixty six percent obese in America give
Speaker 1: or take right now? Overweight and obese in America right now?
Speaker 1: And if we look one hundred years ago, I don't
Speaker 1: know what the number would be, but I'm sure it
Speaker 1: would have been less than ten. You know. It's just
Speaker 1: like there's this whole weird psychology going on and this
Speaker 1: if anybody says anything that's practical or to me, extremely
Speaker 1: reasonable about let's not beat ourselves up, let's not self loath,
Speaker 1: but let's be self aware. Let's be honest. Let's acknowledge
Speaker 1: the decisions that we make and the behaviors that we embrace.
Speaker 1: The things that we do actually have a physiological consequence.
Speaker 1: And that's not because you're bad or terrible, but that
Speaker 1: is just that is a consequence of those choices and behaviors.
Speaker 1: But her message is essentially, oh, that's out of your control.
Speaker 2: I'm like, and what say solution.
Speaker 1: Drugs?
Speaker 2: The drugs are all right, okay, Oh there we go.
Speaker 2: So so obesity is an insufficiency of weight loss drugs.
Speaker 1: Well, no, it's biological. She uses that word a lot,
Speaker 1: and the other lady, the doctor lady, Oh, it's biological.
Speaker 1: And people just you know, they don't understand. But when
Speaker 1: they yeah, look, they really really like. She said.
Speaker 2: One of her.
Speaker 1: Quotes was, I will be on this forever. This is
Speaker 1: me for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: Well you have to be Those drugs stop working the
Speaker 2: minute you stop taking them.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I reckon when you have a minute, or when
Speaker 1: you have sixty minutes. Have a look at some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that she's advocating. I reckon, you could have
Speaker 1: a field day with and not to you know, start
Speaker 1: a shit fight tour, but just to go Okay, So
Speaker 1: let's address these things one at a time. So she
Speaker 1: says this, Now, let's unpack that. Let's see if that's
Speaker 1: true or not, or what part's true or what parts not,
Speaker 1: because it's very much seems to me about alleviating people
Speaker 1: of any responsibility or accountability. Anyway, have a look interesting,
Speaker 1: I'll have a look at it all right, Well, say goodbye.
Speaker 1: Fair but always good to chat mate.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you, absolute pleasure. See you Graig, see buddy.