WEBVTT - All We Know About Guessing 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:03.640 Hey, everybody, stuff you should know is going on tour. 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:08.200 Do do do one of the deeds, my friend. Okay, 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:11.959 So starting August eighth in Toronto, that's in Canada. We're 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.400 gonna be at dan Fourth Music Hall. And then Chicago, 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:16.840 we're gonna be there the next night, August nine, at 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.040 the Harris Theater at Chicago. We want to see your faces. 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.079 Step it up, Step it Up. Vancouver or the Vote 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.400 Theater September. That's gonna be a great show, I think, 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.800 don't you. It's gonna be a great one. And then 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.000 in Minneapolis at the Pantageous Theater where we've been before. 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.839 It's lovely September. Yeah, and then we're gonna swing down 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.840 to Austin. It's gonna be during Austin City Limits, although 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.400 it has nothing to do with Austin City Limits. Will 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.559 be there October ten, yes, and then we're going to 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.320 Lovely Lawrence, Kansas go Jayhawks on October eleven. Then, hey, 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:49.840 if you're in Kansas City or anywhere in that area, 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.480 this is your chance. Get in your car. Yeah. Uh, 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.320 if you are anywhere near Brooklyn, well, then you should 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.440 go to the Bellhouse October. Will be there all three 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:02.480 nights and finally we're gonna wrap it up here in 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:05.160 Atlanta at the Bucket Theater on November four for a 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.240 benefit show where we are donating all of the money's 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.360 to Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta and the National Down 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.440 Syndrome Society. Yep. So for all this information again visually 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.800 and for links two tickets, just go to s Y 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:24.919 s K Live dot com. Welcome to Stuff you Should 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:35.360 Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:39.480 to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.840 Jerry's over there in the corner. Everybody puts Jerry in 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:47.080 a corner, but you shouldn't, uh, and this is stuff 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.280 you should not. She's the opposite of baby. Jerry's back. 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:54.960 She was back from the Mall's how where she's been? Yeah? 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.680 I remember we we said that she was at the mall. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.480 She was buying a house. She's doing all sorts of stuff. Okay, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.280 but she's back now and things are normal again. Yeah, 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.520 she was at the beach and she's now eating in 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.239 front of me. What I ate about an hour ago? 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.000 Do you want to throw up? Nor do you want more? 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.560 I don't. It's it's this weird in between. I'm drawn 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:18.960 to the smell, but I'm also full, so I'm kind 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:25.040 of like, yeah, oh man, what a life. I know eating? 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.519 Who needs it? Right? Me? I do too? I love eating? 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:34.120 Love it. You know what else? I love? What? Really 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:43.320 good magic? Like illusions? Well where does uh? What do 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.480 you mean? Because that could mean two different things. Well 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.040 let me tell you, um, So I went, you mean, 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.280 and I went to New York. Recently we saw this show. 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.160 It's called in and of itself. It's a one man 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.680 stage magic I guess you could call it that illusionist 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.760 show by a guy named Derek del Guadio. That's how 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.480 you say his last name. I strongly recommend anyone go 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.359 see this show. It's it's um I think they extended 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.480 it through the rest of the year, but it's it's 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.320 like a kind of his life story. It told like 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:18.360 through these different um these different acts, and like just 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.920 the the stuff he's doing is not like, oh man, 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.359 that rabbit came out of nowhere, nothing like that. It's 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.359 all much more psychological than that. But the the basis 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.480 of it is that this guy must be just one 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.560 of the better guesters walking around today. He's just good 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:36.560 he's also like a card shark. It's just a really 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.480 neat show. It's really original and different. But just to 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:45.160 see somebody do something to where they probably are guessing, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.960 but they're doing such an amazing job at it that 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.640 it just appears to be magic. That's one of my 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.520 favorite things in the world to see, like when he 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.080 talks to people and like think of a number, except 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.720 obviously more fun and complex than that. Yes, yeah, And 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.280 I don't want to give any of it away. I 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:03.040 don't want to give any bit of it away. Like 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.360 for anybody who's going to go see it, everyone should 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.600 go into it fresh. But um but yeah, just just 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.520 after you see it, go back and listen to this 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:15.080 episode again and you'll be like, oh, yeah, totally now. 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.039 I think the deal a lot of times with that 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:23.200 situation is powers of suggestion, correct. I don't know. I 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.839 don't know, man, I don't know if that's what this 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.279 guy's doing or not. No, he's not doing like cold 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.080 readings or something like that like John Edwards. No, no, no, 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.039 nothing like that. But powers of suggestion in that if 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.599 you you can lead someone to to think of a 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:43.280 certain thing that they then guess I guess, So get 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.960 it didn't even mean that, but that kind of dives 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.960 into what we're talking about, which is guessing in general. Um, 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:55.120 there's this whole like what like science really doesn't have 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.599 any idea about how we make guesses. All we know 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:02.880 is that we are capable of making guesses, and that 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.400 we make guesses almost constantly, and that like our our 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.880 brain is basically set up two guests, Like our construction 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.400 of reality is a series of guesses, most of which 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.919 pan out to be right, but then can also be 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:20.600 terribly wrong, which is what optical illusions prove, you know. Yeah, 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.359 and uh, I found this. I thought it was going 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.800 to be more interesting than it was initially when I 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.840 picked this one out, so I was a little disappointed. 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.000 And then we found like other supplemental stuff that kind 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.279 of helped it. But in the end it felt a 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:38.240 little unwieldy. But I think that's just because of the 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:43.320 nature of the topic, Like there isn't a concise beginning, middle, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.200 and end to this kind of topic, you know, no, 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:51.080 because again science is pretty well stumped, like even and 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.360 sometimes Chuck, if you'll remember, these can be our best episodes, 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.120 like unless the ones where there's just like a clear 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:02.400 cut completely understandable neat explanation are great. And then on 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:04.840 the other end of the spectrum like this one, the 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.920 ones where science is just kind of like maybe this 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.160 is it. I don't know, this could be it, those 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.360 are usually pretty good too, So this could this one 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:17.360 has has potential. Alright, that's my that's my estimation. Well, 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.640 I thought it was interesting that in our very own 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.440 house stof Works article and they started talking about um 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.800 the in days of yr with starting with took took 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.800 and you know, basically up until the point where we 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.479 could like you know, measure things or prove things, like, 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.200 there was a lot of and there's still a lot 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.920 of guessing going on, but like guessing was a daily 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.800 survival tactic. That's how that's how we learned. Should I 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.560 go this way and fall off a cliff, you know, 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.000 I'm gonna take a guess? Or should I eat this thing? 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.320 Will it kill me? Or like in the case of 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.839 Lewis and Clark, I remember, um Clark estimated, and you know, 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.960 there's guesses and we'll it in different types of an 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.479 estimation is a kind of a guess, even if it's 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.560 informed and well reasoned. In Clark's case, of course, he estimated. 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.480 I think he's only off about forty miles when they 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:15.800 got to the Pacific. Uh, oh really, I don't remember that. Yeah, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:20.000 he he estimated four thousand, one sixty two miles off. 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.000 He's off by forty I mean that's remarkable. Yeah, but 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.080 it wasn't a wild guess. It was Clark being a 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.840 very smart dude who probably took copious notes. Not probably, 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:34.520 he definitely took copious notes. Um, but I don't know. 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.559 I just never really thought about guessing back in those days. 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.120 Could you know you could? You could end up a 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.360 bad guest means the end of view, Yes, But if 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.360 your friends were standing around watching you guess that that 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.360 um lizard over there wasn't poisonous and you can just 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:52.480 go ahead and eat it raw and then you keel 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:56.160 over and die, they learned from your bad guests. One 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.400 for the team very much. So yeah, that's before the 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:04.040 universal edibility test. Man, you were just have you been 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.560 going through the archives or something? No, but I wrote 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.240 that article back then, So that one stuck with me 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.960 because you know, I mean, we're I thought you were too. 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:18.400 I'm cursed with that new information in old information getting 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.680 squeezed out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, So should we get into this. 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.720 I guess, So, I'm not I don't mean to do this. 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:30.720 I'm sorry what saying. I guess it's pretty commonplace, but 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.760 it does kind of under underscore just how much we 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.560 do guess in our lives, you know. Yeah, here's all right, 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:38.040 let's go ahead and start it with the brain then, 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:40.760 because while you're correct in saying that they don't know 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:46.440 the the pathways necessarily of a guess, um, all different 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.839 kinds of all different parts of the brain, not all 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:51.880 the parts, but many different parts of the brain are 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.520 at work, which makes a lot of sense when you 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.920 think about what different kinds of guesses can entail, whether 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.640 you're guessing someone's age or guessing you know, because that 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:07.560 involves like, you know, recognition with your eyeballs or a 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.880 memory of someone else who was a certain age who 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.360 looked like that, like you're you know, recall, Uh, there's 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.400 all different parts of the brain they're lighting up whenever 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.400 you're guessing something. Yeah, they think that it's a global, 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.360 a global phenomenon, right, like brain brain ely global, Yes, 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.480 exactly right. So, um, there's like some region of your 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.000 brain that specializes in the particular task at hand. The 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.640 thing you're guessing about, whether it's say like volume or 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.040 like you said, someone's age. UM, that region of the 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.120 brain that that has to do with say numbers, UM 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:48.400 would light up. I think it's the um parietal uh 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.319 anterior gyrus or something like that that lights up when 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.040 you're trying to guess someone's age based on how they look. 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.800 But then that that's just one right using the wonder machine, right, 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:04.760 but that it's just one functional part of the whole 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.320 process that the brain is going through. They know that 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:12.000 it's there's a number of different regions that are operating 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:16.080 at any given point in time when you're making a guess. 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.920 But they still can't say, well, if somebody's guessing this, 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.000 this is what's going to happen. Here's the here's the 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.000 cascade that's going to go through the brain. We haven't 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.079 reached that point yet. Yeah, they think that, um, if 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.440 you're guessing about a visual object or subject, then your 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:36.439 frontal lobe and occipital lobe or at work numerical quantities 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.079 like how many uh jelly beans are in that jar. 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.200 That's kind of the common thing they mentioned that like 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:46.360 that still happens. Is that still a thing. Um, you know, 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:53.320 who is a jelly bean jar guessing champions. My wife is, yes, longstanding, 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:58.200 her special reasoning is is outstanding. Well. Spatial reasoning and 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.920 numerical quantities are a big part of trying to guess 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.920 the quantity of something into something right, And and so 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.480 if you, if your brain is kind of specialized in 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.200 that manner, um, you are probably going to be better 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.960 at it than somebody whose brain is not right. So 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.959 Umi would beat me every time. My spatial reasoning is horrific. Right, 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.520 But um, I'm really good at recognizing faces, so I'm 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.800 probably better at at guessing the someone's age based on 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:34.080 their face, um or possibly how they're feeling based on 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.679 their facial expression, than she might be. That's a whole 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.400 like I didn't even think about that being part of guessing. 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:45.960 But the emotional thing of guessing, uh yeah, like someone's feelings, 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.240 what they're thinking like that, that's a whole different thing 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:51.720 than guessing jelly beans in a jar, which is different 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.880 than guessing someone's age. It's like all lumped into guessing. 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.319 It's really more varied than I ever considered, right, And 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.440 so with with um, well, let's talk about the different 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.680 different types of guesses you might make that. So I 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:06.280 think what you just kind of did, Chuck, was you 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:13.360 divided um guesses into um like buckets. The two buckets. 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:15.559 I'm trying to decide what the buckets would be called, though, 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.120 So one bucket would be UM just kind of work, 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.280 working knowledge, and the other would be say, like emotional, right, Like, so, 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.520 how many jelly beans are in a jar? Would that 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.960 be in the working knowledge bucket? What somebody's feeling based 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.520 on your guests, based on say their facial expression, that's 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:39.640 that's emotional um or or intellectual. Yeah, that's right, intellectual 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.840 or emotional buckets. Bam just carved him up. But I 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.080 think those are kind of like the two categories you 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.679 can put guesses into. Even though you can break types 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:53.839 of guesses down further. Yeah, and uh, breaking them down further. 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.160 You have your wild guesses. This is when you have 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:01.480 no information, no outside input whatsoever. And you know, you 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:03.800 often say, this is just a wild guess. If I 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:08.560 had to guess, yeah, you're saying here, listen to me, 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.319 I can speak, has no basis in factor reality or 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.320 anything like that. Then you have your educated guests, which 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:17.160 is in the middle, and that's when you have a 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.480 little bit of information. Uh. There's a military term that 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.720 I had never heard of called swag, which stands for 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:32.679 um stuff. We all get no scientific uh wild ass guessing, 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.679 which is like a guestimate. But it's a military term 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.599 by all accounts. Uh. Most people say it started in 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.320 Vietnam with General Westmoreland. Um. And you will hear military 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.480 people say swag, And that's when you know, I've got 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.160 a little information. I'm not just wild guessing here. This 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:54.720 is a ballpark educated guess, right, but it's still less 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.160 than an estimate. That's where we have a lot more information. Yeah, 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.520 not just a lot more information it you're you're pretty 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.199 familiar also with the topic that you're you're guessing at 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.640 as well. Right, So Lewis and Clark, I think both 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.920 of them, Um, we're surveyors, So they would have had 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.520 a lot of training as far as you know, judging 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.960 distance goes. They would have had some information to put together. 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.560 So Clark coming up with, you know, with an estimate 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.320 of how why the continent is and just being off 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.680 by forty miles, like you said, that's remarkable. But if 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:31.760 you had had one of us do it, it would 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.320 have been a wild guess. So it has to do 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.280 with the the training, the expertise really UM, and then 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.960 the amount of information you have. That's that's what an 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.600 estimate is. Yeah, and you may not even know that 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.480 you have information stored away in your brain that you're 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.920 recalling when you're trying to hazard a guess on something. 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.680 You might just be uh, you might think it's a 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.840 wild guess, but you're really kind of picking out something 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:01.200 that happened in your past maybe, right. Or another way 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.240 to look at it is that um is intuition, which 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.640 is um. From what I understand, intuition is kind of 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.920 its own category. But if it's most closely related to 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.520 any type of those three guess as we just mentioned, 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.160 it would be an estimate. And it comes from years 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.760 and years and years of training UM or exposure to 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:26.200 whatever you're guessing at to the point where your guesses 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:28.960 don't even seem like guesses. It just seems like for 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.600 knowledge of what you're about to do. Yeah. Like I 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.680 used to be really really bad at guessing crowd sizes, 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:42.000 but through our live shows, I've gotten pretty good at 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.240 it because when you go to these theaters, you know 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.360 how many people are in there, and then you stand 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.240 in front of that many people, and if you do 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.040 that enough times, I can now say, like, you know, 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:52.800 when people when I'll go to a show or something, 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.640 they'll be like, how many people you think this place holds? 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:56.360 I used to be let's see, like I have no 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:58.400 idea I know, but now you say, you know better 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.760 around eight or nine hundred people, and you're probably pretty 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.120 close within forty miles all back. And that's just because 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:09.160 of exposure and learning, right, And that actually brings up 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.480 a really good point that you can actually get better 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.840 at guessing. And we'll get into that right after this break. 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:39.760 How about that, Chuck, right mm hmmmm. Alright, So Chuck, 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.480 you said that, um, that you got better at estimating 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.760 crowd sizes by just performing at our live shows. Right, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:51.400 So you were terrible at it before, but just from 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.760 from exposing yourself to it, going out on stage and 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.200 exposing yourself to crowds that you could judge the size 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:08.880 of Um, and everybody clapped yeah, Nelson happointed and laughed. Um, 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.840 you you got better at it. And when it comes 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:18.679 to especially but probably both but especially intellectual guesses intellectual 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:22.440 bucket guesses, UM, you can train yourself to get better 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.439 at it. And part of that is making a guess, 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:30.920 getting um, pretty much immediate feedback, and then learning from that. Yeah, 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.240 like you're wrong, this is what the answer is. It's 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.920 like anything else exactly. Do that enough if you're gonna 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.919 get better at it. Yeah. Um. And there's this pretty 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.919 interesting um I guess. That was interesting little kind of 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:48.200 sidetrack that the author of the Guesses article, Aliah Hoyt Um, 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.720 and I have to say, no, it's Aliyah, it's not Alicia. No, 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:57.760 it's Aliyah. There's no say not only is the c silent, 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:03.119 it's not there, it's invisible. So Aaliyah hoyt my hats 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:06.120 off to her because doing supplemental research for this, there 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.959 are not a lot of people who are coming up 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:15.800 with really substantial stuff about guesses. It's like it's barren. 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:20.000 It's probably the least amount of research I've ever encountered 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.439 in all of our almost thousand plus episodes. So the 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.040 fact that she put this together, my hats off to her. 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.000 But a sidetrack she takes is to teach the reader 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.560 how to um get better at guessing. A jar full 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.800 of jelly beans. Yeah, well that was exciting. I mean 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.159 that oh yeah, yeah, because always, I mean, my method 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:46.639 was always to pick out a smaller area, like the 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:51.479 bottom inch of the jar, count as many as I 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:55.120 could and estimate that and then multiply that out. That's 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:59.879 actually a great technique. Well, I don't know, I haven't 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.720 has jelly beans in a jar since I was probably twelve, 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:05.760 But that was always my method, which has a little 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:08.720 there's a little bit of method to it, but it's 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:12.399 definitely not as good as as this one. Okay, So 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:16.480 so this one it sounds a little more complex than 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.119 than it actually is. But if you say, if you 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:22.520 look at a jar and it's filled with jelly beans, 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:27.240 you can say, um, that jar is the volume of 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.600 that jar is say a court Okay, But then you 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.199 kind of wanted to begin with sure, right, But you 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.320 can learn, right, you can just look around, Like here's 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:39.800 the point. If you want to get good at guessing 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:42.359 jelly beans, it just takes a little bit of work. 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.920 Most people would walk up, say a million jelly beans, 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.480 and they're off by like nine thousand. They're like, well, 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.840 I'm terrible at guessing jelly beans. I'm going to sleep 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.240 for the rest of my life. But if you want 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.399 to get good at guessing at jelly beans. All you 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.000 have to do is poke around, learn a few things, 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:00.879 and then you can basically apply those every situation. And 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:02.760 one of the things you would need to learn is 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.159 how to judge the volume of the container to start. 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.800 So that's one part, right yeah, which you know most 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:10.959 people would do that that by comparing it to like 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.200 a milk jug or a two leader bottle or something 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.240 like that, right, But in this case to get a 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:19.600 really accurate estimate, you would want to know specifically, say 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:24.720 how many ounces a container held, correct um. And then 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.399 another thing you would probably do if you started researching 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:31.520 guessing jelly beans and jar on the internet, um, you 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.240 would you would run across some research that found that 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:41.440 if you have uh, spherical objects in a jar, they 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.760 typically take up about if you fill the thing up, 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:49.880 they take typically take up about sixty of actual volume 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.280 of the jar. And that's if it's they're just randomly dumped. Right. 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:57.640 So if you come across a jar and you say, um, 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:03.399 and it's filled with like perfectly round um, okay, perfectly 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.560 around bouncy balls, right, um, you can say, well, those 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.240 are spherical and they're taking up about six of the 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:13.560 jar so all I have to do is figure out 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:17.800 the um the basically the size of each of them 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:23.879 ball right, and then divide it by the volume, and 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.760 then bam, you just guessed how many are in there, 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.240 and you're probably pretty close to right. So this all 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.320 sounds mind numbing. I've got a little um, a little 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:36.040 trickle blood coming out of my ear right now. But 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.000 you can the whole point, and you can train yourself 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:44.840 to make better guesses, to estimate better. That's the whole point. Yeah. 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.560 And if it's a non sphericle, by the way, like 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:51.680 if it's peanuts or something like that, or ice cubes, 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:58.560 not disgusting circus peanuts. Oh man, that conjures up so 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:03.760 many memories. Did you like those? Well? I think I 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:05.440 might have when I was a kid, but I haven't 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.480 had one in forty years. But I still remember the 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:11.200 taste you me just had something. She says, they still 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.560 hold up, and I'm like, I didn't like him, then 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:15.439 I'm not gonna like him now. Well, they hold up 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.480 for you in a bad way, right right, Yeah, exactly. 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:20.360 So I know, I know I'm not supposed to yuck 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:25.600 anyone's young, but yuck. So uh, if it's circus peanuts. 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:30.040 Let's say, Um, that would be between fifty and of 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:33.440 the space, not sixty four. Yeah, So, uh, what is 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.320 you me's method? Did you ask her? She says she 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:42.000 just kind of knowsh So she's a precock exactly. She 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.119 she shaves her head once a while and lays around 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:46.800 in a vat of liquid. Wow, that would be see, 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:50.200 I would that would scare me if that would if 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:52.040 that was my wife's answer, if she just like kind 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:54.760 of walked by and said I just know, right, yeah, 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.320 I would be like, well, what else do you just know? Yeah? 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.600 She's kind of unstoppable too. You have no idea how 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.320 many calves we've won at county fairs in the last 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:09.520 year alone. Our house is overrun with them. Um. All right, 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.159 So that's just guessing volume of a thing and a 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:16.720 thing that's an it's intellectual guessing, right, But you can 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:19.760 train yourself to guess better. What's really up for for 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:24.520 questioning is whether you can train yourself to get better 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:28.520 at the other bucket of guessing, emotional type of guessing. 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.040 Right where you're walking around and you are interacting with 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:35.520 other people and you're making judgments about how they're feeling. Right, 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:39.480 then about what they're thinking, right then what their motives are. Um, 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.080 you know, how how well they're actually listening to you 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:46.240 all of these things right, It's part of our interaction 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:51.399 with other people. And there's something that UM two researchers 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:56.400 called X and took great combo that back in established 0:23:56.400 --> 0:23:59.119 this kind of field of inquiry in which they were 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:01.359 trying to it to the bottom of what they called 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:06.600 empathic accuracy, which is how accurately we can we can 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:10.680