Speaker 1: Hey, folks, this is a little bonus episode that I
Speaker 1: originally filmed as a video for my YouTube channel as
Speaker 1: part of a series of these mini documentaries I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do once a month. And if you're hearing this
Speaker 1: right now, it means that you're not listening on Spotify,
Speaker 1: which means I can't upload the video on whatever podcast
Speaker 1: platform you are listening on. So you can either go
Speaker 1: to the link in the episode description to watch this
Speaker 1: as a video, or you can stick around and I
Speaker 1: have edited a version of this video that works to
Speaker 1: listen to as just audio. Okay, And with that context given,
Speaker 1: let's play the thing. Would you rather be a human
Speaker 1: or a gecko?
Speaker 2: Human? For sure? Why would you rather be a human?
Speaker 2: The human experience? I mean, would you rather be a lizard?
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, I guess huh, Well.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it, right, because like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of suffering I think that comes with like just
Speaker 1: being conscious.
Speaker 2: We're the only animals that like, like know we're going
Speaker 2: to die.
Speaker 1: You get on this, Oh yeah, we're the only animals
Speaker 1: that know we're gonna die. It's an interesting burden that
Speaker 1: the human race suffers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we get way cooler stuff because of it.
Speaker 2: That is true.
Speaker 1: I got invited to the opening of a new gecko
Speaker 1: zoo that these two guys are running out of a
Speaker 1: basement in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It also happens to be right
Speaker 1: next to the Museum of Bones. This was shortly after
Speaker 1: I experienced an existential crisis that sent me spiraling into
Speaker 1: my own brain thinking about death and consciousness and the
Speaker 1: meaning of existence. As I looked at the lizards, I
Speaker 1: thought about the blissful ignorance that comes with being a
Speaker 1: dumb animal with no thoughts. They live a purely objective
Speaker 1: life of eating, sleeping, and mating. We do all that
Speaker 1: stuff too, but we have this added layer of consciousness
Speaker 1: that brings with it both higher highs and lower lows
Speaker 1: than that of a lizard. It made me think about whether,
Speaker 1: if given the choice, would most people prefer to keep
Speaker 1: the high highs and low lows of being human or
Speaker 1: would they rather experience a more stable baseline as a lizard.
Speaker 2: Would you rather be a lizard or a human?
Speaker 1: I want to be a lizard.
Speaker 3: I want to be a covid animal with no emotions,
Speaker 3: well cared for. I'm yeah, e books, it's just hard
Speaker 3: power here for humans, poverty, hunger, unemployment, and also when
Speaker 3: at a hyper capitalistic society and everything's basically spectacle and
Speaker 3: as time grows one gets tired of it.
Speaker 4: Humans are probably the least moral of the animals. They
Speaker 4: start wars, they they do crimes, they do things that
Speaker 4: animals don't. You know, they we don't we'll get into politics.
Speaker 4: We don't want need to get in politics. But you know,
Speaker 4: humans are in way corrupt, right, whereas animals are very
Speaker 4: instinctual and they don't have to deal with those kinds
Speaker 4: of things because they're intrinsically simple or at so they're
Speaker 4: the big scale problems that humans face are not are
Speaker 4: not always present on TV and being like oh shit,
Speaker 4: that's our new president or oh shit, that's going on
Speaker 4: in the Middle East or something. You know, Geckos are
Speaker 4: very simple in that way, and I wish I had
Speaker 4: a gacko brain.
Speaker 1: Is there anything at all that you would miss about
Speaker 1: humanity if you were a lizard, I.
Speaker 3: Will miss like the process of studying and acquiring knowledge
Speaker 3: and also making things.
Speaker 2: With my hands.
Speaker 1: And do you feel as though the process of acquiring
Speaker 1: knowledge and making things and whatnot you would give it
Speaker 1: all up.
Speaker 2: To be a lizard.
Speaker 3: Just I'm okay with blissful ignorance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just living in my own little world.
Speaker 1: And you would acquire that, but at the cost of
Speaker 1: all the gifts that your human consciousness gives you.
Speaker 3: Again, like I said before, one gets tired of being sentient.
Speaker 1: It's true. Being sentient can be tiresome, and it's made
Speaker 1: even more difficult by the fact that we're constantly inundated
Speaker 1: with an infinite amount of information about the flaws and
Speaker 1: corruptions of our species that the lizards are blissfully unaware of.
Speaker 1: But I did talk to a lot of people who
Speaker 1: believe that despite all the crazy shit it comes with,
Speaker 1: sentience remains worth it. What kind of cool stuff do
Speaker 1: you like about being a human?
Speaker 4: Video games, good food, the ability to travel more than
Speaker 4: like a five mile radius?
Speaker 2: What about art too? Do we know any animals that
Speaker 2: have art? I guess like there's like funny dog videos
Speaker 2: and stuff. Yeah, but the dog isn't taken the video.
Speaker 2: That's true. Would you guys rather be a human or
Speaker 2: a lizard?
Speaker 1: When you stare at the lizard and you see how
Speaker 1: it like as like an absent mind, does that ever
Speaker 1: look appealing to?
Speaker 2: Just have no thoughts. No, honey, no, do you enjoy
Speaker 2: the quality of your thoughts?
Speaker 4: I do?
Speaker 2: What kinds of things do you normally think about it
Speaker 2: throughout the day. We might respect money, but if.
Speaker 1: You were a lizard, you wouldn't have to think about
Speaker 1: money ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 1: I was getting a little tired of talking about existential crap,
Speaker 1: so I took a break to go to this room
Speaker 1: where they had drinks and snacks. It was a good
Speaker 1: exercise of my human agency. What was his name again, Richie, Ritchie.
Speaker 1: Richie said that he wished he had a lizard brain.
Speaker 1: That's like a that makes a joke. Well, there is
Speaker 1: this desire to have a brain that is totally objective.
Speaker 5: What he meant, essentially is that sometimes having a simpler
Speaker 5: life is a lot easier. With geckos, it's very repetitive,
Speaker 5: they're very habitual. So you know, when he said that,
Speaker 5: he just means that simplicity sometimes isn't a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Do you ever have times where you genuinely do wish
Speaker 1: that you had like a simple lizard brain and you
Speaker 1: didn't have to deal with all this shit?
Speaker 5: No, because if I had a simple lizard brain, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't be able to do this. With every struggle comes
Speaker 5: a lesson. With every struggle comes to newfound knowledge about something.
Speaker 5: You know, there's no such thing as success without struggle.
Speaker 5: That's called luck. That's not success. So being a human,
Speaker 5: it has his ups and downs. With the ups or
Speaker 5: I get to live out a dream.
Speaker 1: I appreciated that this man used his higher human consciousness
Speaker 1: to embrace struggle and find a purpose that he would
Speaker 1: not give up to become a lizard, even if that
Speaker 1: purpose ironically involves lizards.
Speaker 6: Limbers have a beautiful existence. But at the same time,
Speaker 6: do they know they exist?
Speaker 7: As humans were innately aware of our own consciousness, Like,
Speaker 7: look at this guy.
Speaker 2: You think he knows where he where?
Speaker 7: This little man is right now that he's sitting on
Speaker 7: someone's hand coseplaying as a giant gig day gecko.
Speaker 1: No, do you think that lizards are happier because they
Speaker 1: don't know that they exist?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 6: Because Dandrew's literally just here. If you're here and you
Speaker 6: don't know that tomorrow is gonna bring sad? Is what
Speaker 6: tomorrow is gonna bring? Any and what's smallw is gonna
Speaker 6: bring anything? This makes you automatically happen.
Speaker 1: Do you think humans can develop the braining of a
Speaker 1: lizard in that sense of like trying to always be
Speaker 1: in the present.
Speaker 2: You can try what.
Speaker 6: You might have to get like motom eyes or something,
Speaker 6: because how are you gonna stop yourself from thinking about
Speaker 6: their future or even the past. The past and the
Speaker 6: future always hants us. So that's part of even human.
Speaker 6: But that's the beautiful point about being human. I love
Speaker 6: knowing that I'm here. It's beautiful that we actually know
Speaker 6: we have a past.
Speaker 2: Let me know we have a future.
Speaker 7: We are aware of our own existence, and that's both
Speaker 7: scary yet beautiful.
Speaker 1: You would take the beautiful curse over the ignorant lizard stuff.
Speaker 2: A million a million funds in the paints.
Speaker 1: I liked this perspective that the knowledge we have of
Speaker 1: our own existence is a gift to be appreciated rather
Speaker 1: than a weird, scary thing to be burdened with. It's
Speaker 1: a choice of how you want to view it. Would
Speaker 1: you rather be a human being or a lizard?
Speaker 2: Take a human more freedom?
Speaker 1: Do you think consciousness is more freedom or more restrictive? Right,
Speaker 1: because a lizard has like freedom from a lot of
Speaker 1: the kind of difficulties the humans have.
Speaker 2: You know, true, all you gotta do is eat and poop.
Speaker 2: That's it, right. Do you ever envy that lifestyle or
Speaker 2: would you still want to be a human? I think
Speaker 2: i'd be a humor. I could drive, Yeah, you can't
Speaker 2: drive as a lizard. Yeah, you can't drive as a lizard.
Speaker 1: Have you traveled any places recently that you really liked
Speaker 1: that you couldn't have gone to if you were a lizard?
Speaker 6: New Mexico it's kind of far, especially from here to
Speaker 6: get down there, and it travel a whole year, that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would take a whole year. It's a walk
Speaker 2: as a lizard from year to New Mexico.
Speaker 1: I guess the lizards don't even want that because they
Speaker 1: don't even lizards don't even know that New Mexico exists.
Speaker 4: Nah.
Speaker 2: Is there anything about being a lizard that you envy
Speaker 2: that you wish you could? Uh? Who you could do?
Speaker 2: Who she could be?
Speaker 1: Lizard?
Speaker 5: Ah?
Speaker 1: I don't know, to be honest.
Speaker 2: Never thought about that. I guess you don't have to
Speaker 2: think about it. I'm good the way I am no lizard.
Speaker 1: After the event, I journaled on my phone about my
Speaker 1: conclusion from these interviews. While the human experience can be
Speaker 1: very challenging. It can be improved by having purpose, appreciating
Speaker 1: the little things I feel like. I read that Redemption
Speaker 1: two would be one of the reasons for me why
Speaker 1: I would want to be a human instead of a lizard.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there you go. If that's all it.
Speaker 1: Is, choosing to view the bigger things as beautiful instead
Speaker 1: of scary, maintaining good quality of thoughts, and going to
Speaker 1: to New Mexico. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I would also choose to remain a human. It is
Speaker 1: an honor