Living By the Books | AJ Jacobs on Writing Methods

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[00:01:08] I'm going to do research on the Bible. Instead of just researching something and writing a book, which I consider to be kind of boring,

[00:01:14] he has a completely different way of exploring a topic.

[00:01:19] And it turns out, and not by accident, it turns out that this is the formula for writing a best-selling millions of copies kind of book.

[00:01:28] And it's an interesting way to live life.

[00:01:30] And what I mean is, AJ really lives what he's writing about.

[00:01:34] So when he wrote his one of his early books, The Year of Living Biblically,

[00:01:38] he lived for a year literally word by word as the Bible would suggest he lives.

[00:01:46] Well, I'll let AJ describe it and we talk about it in this episode.

[00:01:50] But in the Year of Living constitutionally, which is about to come out,

[00:01:53] he lives the life of someone around in 1790 living the Constitution word-for-word.

[00:02:01] Like applying to be a pirate with the Congress,

[00:02:04] something which was an article one of the Constitution if you didn't have him to know.

[00:02:08] And meanwhile other books he's had is like he,

[00:02:12] my life as an experiment where everything was an experiment.

[00:02:15] So he, for instance, he outsourced arguments with his wife to an outsourcing agency in India.

[00:02:22] So this turns out to be not only a fascinating way to live a very curious and adventurous life,

[00:02:29] but again, as I said earlier, turns out to be a great formula for writing a bestselling book.

[00:02:35] A kind of formula AI can't really compete with.

[00:02:38] I will add.

[00:02:39] But first I want to hear about AJ's method, the AJ method of living a life of experience

[00:02:47] and using that to create stories, adventures, and of course, bestselling books.

[00:02:53] And he's a very funny guy.

[00:02:54] So how he incorporates humor into that.

[00:02:57] And then next week we're going to do a whole episode, fascinating episode,

[00:03:02] the year of living constitutionally.

[00:03:04] Because there's so many issues about the Constitution I didn't know about

[00:03:07] and so much information about the Constitution I didn't even know about.

[00:03:12] I used to think I've read it, but turns out I hadn't.

[00:03:15] So first off though, the AJ method on writing his own unique brand style of bestseller

[00:03:23] and living a life of adventure.

[00:03:31] AJ's podcast and he's not your average host.

[00:03:34] This is the James Altiger show.

[00:03:45] AJ Jacobs once again back on the podcast.

[00:03:48] AJ, I'm so excited to have you here.

[00:03:50] I am so excited to be here.

[00:03:52] I was a hermit for like a year working on a book and I have emerged.

[00:03:56] You were a hermit.

[00:03:57] You literally not only didn't return my calls, you didn't return like your wife called me looking for you.

[00:04:04] You didn't return anyone's phone calls.

[00:04:06] It's true.

[00:04:07] It's true.

[00:04:08] I just saw her again after a year and she looks good.

[00:04:11] She looks good.

[00:04:12] Like much of that time when you're writing, is it because you're not writing

[00:04:16] and so you can't do anything in life until you write again?

[00:04:21] Because you got a kind of writer's block or is it just you're just head down,

[00:04:25] working nonstop, finishing the book?

[00:04:28] Well my projects, as you know, like I go all in.

[00:04:33] They are fully immersive.

[00:04:35] So it's like an 18 hour a day job.

[00:04:39] And this one is about puzzles, as you know.

[00:04:41] So I was, it's such a huge topic.

[00:04:44] I could spend 10 years doing it, but I just, I was able to cut it down to two years.

[00:04:48] But I basically all I did was hang out with weird, delightful, eccentric,

[00:04:55] puzzle people, some of the smartest people in the world and just did puzzles

[00:05:00] and try to hear their crazy stories.

[00:05:04] I visited the CIA to see one of the great unsolved puzzles.

[00:05:09] Wait, why did the CIA have one of the great unsolved puzzles?

[00:05:13] Well they have it's called cryptos.

[00:05:15] Have you ever heard of cryptos?

[00:05:17] It's this sculpture that was created 30 years ago by this eccentric sculptor.

[00:05:25] And he created it for the CIA.

[00:05:28] It's in the middle of their headquarters and it's got 2000 letters on it

[00:05:33] and it's got like characters.

[00:05:36] And they, they're a secret code.

[00:05:39] And no one has been able to fully solve the code.

[00:05:43] Even the CIA, which makes me a little nervous to be honest.

[00:05:46] So wait, who made this for them?

[00:05:48] It was a sculptor.

[00:05:50] He teamed up with an X CIA cryptographer.

[00:05:53] But it's this incredibly, it's one of the great unsolved puzzles of the world.

[00:05:58] And I was able to get access to the CIA headquarters.

[00:06:02] And I didn't sneak in that one.

[00:06:04] But so I got to see it up close.

[00:06:07] I don't want to spoil the ending, but I did not solve it.

[00:06:11] You know, there are thousands of people obsessively working on solving this code

[00:06:17] for the last 30 years.

[00:06:19] It's like the Zodiac killer code.

[00:06:21] That's another famous one.

[00:06:22] How do they know it's solvable?

[00:06:24] Well that's a debate.

[00:06:26] They have solved three of the four codes.

[00:06:29] So there are, there are four messages.

[00:06:32] And one of the messages is like some, it basically says there's a treasure buried somewhere,

[00:06:39] possibly on the CIA grounds.

[00:06:41] And then another is like a mysterious poem about shadows and light.

[00:06:47] But there are some people who say this guy is just messing with us.

[00:06:51] Like he's a troll that is like they're never going to solve it.

[00:06:55] So okay.

[00:06:56] So your book is going to be, it's coming out in April.

[00:06:58] We're not going to talk about the book so much today.

[00:07:00] We're going to talk about it in April, but the book is called The Puzzler.

[00:07:02] One man's quest to solve the most baffling puzzles ever from crosswords to jigsaws to the meaning of life.

[00:07:08] I also appreciate that you have a chapter on chess puzzles.

[00:07:12] The whole art of chess composing is a field unto itself.

[00:07:16] Like even, you know, people who never even play the game get obsessed with composing chess puzzles.

[00:07:22] Vladimir Nabokov, the famous author of Lolita was a master chess composer.

[00:07:27] You mentioned a mutual friend of ours who does chess puzzles.

[00:07:31] Cyrus Lactawalla.

[00:07:32] Lactawalla, awesome man and another he's more of a friend of yours than mine.

[00:07:38] But I know him a little as Gary Kasparov came over and he's an okay chess player.

[00:07:44] He's I've heard of him.

[00:07:46] He's not bad.

[00:07:48] Yeah, it was extraordinary.

[00:07:49] I mean he, well, he was actually he insulted my chess board.

[00:07:54] That was the first opening move.

[00:07:56] I think you had a cheap chess board.

[00:07:58] Yeah, he said what is this cheap chess because it was, you know, it had plastic and but then he's like, no, I grew up in Soviet Union.

[00:08:06] I'm used to cheap chess board.

[00:08:08] So it's okay.

[00:08:09] Yeah, he gave me an out.

[00:08:11] Yeah, he gave me an out.

[00:08:13] Your CIA puzzle reminds me.

[00:08:15] Have you ever heard of the Sakata Reddit puzzle?

[00:08:17] Oh yeah.

[00:08:18] Yeah, I looked into that.

[00:08:19] I didn't do a chapter on it, but I love that.

[00:08:22] That's another one.

[00:08:23] I wonder if there's like another book here like mysterious huge unsolved puzzles and not just any unsolved puzzle.

[00:08:30] Like these are unsolved puzzles that millions of people have tried to solve.

[00:08:34] And it's also related to, you know, if you think about it all of mathematics is like giant unsolved puzzles.

[00:08:41] Like is there a way to factor prime numbers quickly?

[00:08:45] For instance, is a giant unsolved puzzle.

[00:08:47] Right.

[00:08:48] Yeah, that's a great point.

[00:08:49] And I mean, like that's part of the book is that life is an unsolved puzzle and there are so many, so many challenges out there.

[00:08:58] But yet cryptos is a they're their lists on the Internet of like the top 10 unsolved puzzles and cryptos is always in there.

[00:09:04] The Voynich manuscript has taken up like, you know, Mark Zuckerberg has taken up millions of hours of our lives.

[00:09:12] But I think the Voynich manuscript has taken up about as many because it's been called.

[00:09:18] What's the Voynich manuscript?

[00:09:20] It's this mysterious manuscript from the Middle Ages filled with all these mysterious symbols.

[00:09:25] And people have been puzzling over it for centuries and, you know, using quantum computers, using everything they can to throw at it.

[00:09:36] And no one has been able to crack it every every like three months.

[00:09:39] There'll be an article I saw the Voynich manuscript and then it turns out the guy is full of crap.

[00:09:46] But yeah, I mean, who doesn't love like it's so it's so tantalizing this idea that you can be the one to finally solve.

[00:09:57] And sometimes it happens like sometimes that's what's amazing is when you actually have someone who solves a puzzle like the Zodiac.

[00:10:05] The Zodiac Puzzles Cyphers were just solved last year.

[00:10:09] What are the Zodiac Cyphers?

[00:10:11] I have to figure you've been immersed in like puzzle culture for the past couple of years.

[00:10:16] What's the Zodiac puzzle?

[00:10:18] The Zodiac was a serial killer in the 70s.

[00:10:21] The Zodiac serial killer, they made a movie about him a few years ago and he left a bunch of mysterious coded notes filled with symbols to the cops.

[00:10:32] He would send all these taunting letters and not all of them have been cracked.

[00:10:37] But just last year, using this new computer program, they cracked one where it was basically like a childish like, you know, I hope you're looking for me.

[00:10:47] You can't find me.

[00:10:49] So yeah, that is another big one that people love to devote their lives to trying to figure out.

[00:10:58] Why do you think I mean, OK, wait, I don't we'll get into all of this when we actually do a podcast about the book.

[00:11:06] Because the book's coming out in April.

[00:11:08] And but I do want to ask you kind of about some interesting experiences you've had while creating this book.

[00:11:14] And I also have an idea for you.

[00:11:17] You know, when I had Will Shortz on the podcast and Will Shortz, of course, is the famous New York Times crossword puzzle editor.

[00:11:23] And the New York Times is arguably the most famous crossword puzzle in the world.

[00:11:27] And he has hundreds of books that he's quote unquote written about where he just says as crossword puzzle after crossword puzzle.

[00:11:36] And he also has Sudoku, he has Ken Ken and you write about these things in your book.

[00:11:40] You should create your own line of puzzle books now.

[00:11:45] I love that idea.

[00:11:47] I mean, James, you always you're such a better businessman than I am.

[00:11:51] I don't know about that.

[00:11:52] Yeah, you've probably never gone broke.

[00:11:54] I've gone broke on business.

[00:11:55] I might go broke again.

[00:11:56] Who knows?

[00:11:57] So yeah, but you're gonna make good at making money and then going broke.

[00:12:02] You don't just go broke.

[00:12:04] First you make a few million, then you go broke, then you make it again.

[00:12:08] And you're always giving me business ideas of how to monetize my books.

[00:12:13] And I'm always too lazy or scared or confused to do it.

[00:12:20] But this time, I think I got to take you up on it.

[00:12:23] You're right.

[00:12:24] I'm gonna launch the puzzler franchise.

[00:12:27] How about I find someone to do the puzzle books for you and just have your name on it.

[00:12:34] And maybe you could write an intro to each one.

[00:12:36] You don't even, well, Schwartz doesn't even do an intro to each one.

[00:12:38] So I love that.

[00:12:39] I will find someone to make the puzzle books for you and you just can self publish them

[00:12:44] or you can find a publisher, whatever you want.

[00:12:46] That's nice.

[00:12:47] You just split it 50-50 with this person or company or whatever.

[00:12:50] All right.

[00:12:51] I'm in.

[00:12:52] One of my best known articles was called My Outsource Life, which I wrote like 15 years ago

[00:12:58] where I hired a team of people in India to do everything for me.

[00:13:02] Including arguing with your wife.

[00:13:04] Including arguing with my wife.

[00:13:05] So I should be an expert in outsourcing and delegating.

[00:13:09] But ironically after, you know, even though that article was an awesome experience,

[00:13:15] I'm just not good at it.

[00:13:17] So you're gonna, yeah, you're gonna teach me or delegate someone to teach me.

[00:13:21] Well, the thing is, the thing is like when if someone says to you, oh, you should do this

[00:13:26] and probably people say that to you all the time.

[00:13:28] Oh, AJ, you should write a book about blah, blah, blah.

[00:13:30] You probably get like tense, like, oh no, I have enough things to do.

[00:13:34] Now they're giving me more things to do.

[00:13:36] And when you did the outsourcing article, it was a little bit of a humorous article.

[00:13:40] Like you literally, when you started arguing with your wife,

[00:13:42] you would call up this outsourcing firm in India.

[00:13:44] It's funny.

[00:13:45] And so maybe it doesn't, maybe it hasn't occurred to you to relieve this business tension

[00:13:49] you sometimes have or business anxiety with outsourcing,

[00:13:53] particularly because outsourcing itself could often be work.

[00:13:56] Like you have to find someone, but I will take care of that for you.

[00:13:59] You can outsource immediately right now to me.

[00:14:02] All right, done.

[00:14:03] I will take care of it.

[00:14:04] You're gonna have a hundred books within the next two years.

[00:14:08] And you'll be generating income every single month from every single one of those books.

[00:14:14] I will do it for you.

[00:14:15] God bless you.

[00:14:16] All right, done.

[00:14:17] It is done.

[00:14:18] What's the book called?

[00:14:19] The puzzler, right?

[00:14:20] Right.

[00:14:21] Okay, we're gonna make a brand out of the puzzler.

[00:14:23] Oh, you're the best.

[00:14:24] Thank you.

[00:14:25] All right.

[00:14:26] I'm done.

[00:14:27] Part one.

[00:14:28] All right.

[00:14:29] Puzzler Sudoka.

[00:14:30] All right.

[00:14:31] Let me know when they're out.

[00:14:32] So, and you know, I'll tell you where to send the checks and that's great.

[00:14:36] All right, done.

[00:14:37] And then so moving on your story about the CIA puzzle reminds me,

[00:14:44] I had quite a few guests on this podcast that have all independently told me this story where,

[00:14:50] like let's say it'll be like a thriller writer or there's been some other examples,

[00:14:55] like a puzzle type of person.

[00:14:57] But let's say this has been told for me like, and J as well about by four or five guests,

[00:15:02] they've all, they're all part of some group organized by the government,

[00:15:06] like in the mid 00s, like 2007, 2008 to come up with scenarios for how the US could be

[00:15:13] attacked or destroyed or whatever.

[00:15:16] And so it's, it reminds me a little bit like that there's this group and again,

[00:15:20] some of them I've interviewed, but they won't, this group's been gathered to sort of solve

[00:15:26] the puzzle of how the US could be attacked.

[00:15:29] And I always ask them, of course, well, what did you come up with?

[00:15:31] But they're not allowed to tell me.

[00:15:33] Yeah.

[00:15:34] You don't want to give people the ideas that I've heard of that.

[00:15:37] I've never been to that.

[00:15:38] But yeah, I've heard like they get Hollywood producers to like come up with these

[00:15:43] crazy scenarios of, you know, what action movie, what sci-fi movie could actually

[00:15:49] happen and how can we prevent it?

[00:15:51] So, yeah.

[00:15:53] If the people who organize that are listening, I want an invite.

[00:15:57] I'm ready.

[00:15:58] I've got plenty of ideas, but I won't act on them.

[00:16:00] Not gonna act on them.

[00:16:01] By the way, you and I earlier were talking about, you know, fiction ideas.

[00:16:05] This is a fiction idea.

[00:16:06] You're in this group of the government's top secret, you know, puzzlers or whatever.

[00:16:12] And it's made up of thriller writers, Hollywood directors,

[00:16:16] crossword puzzle masters, chess masters, whatever.

[00:16:20] And they're getting killed off one by one.

[00:16:23] Oh, that's good.

[00:16:24] And then because one of them has the, I don't know why you have to figure out

[00:16:29] why is the premise sounds interesting.

[00:16:32] So I like that.

[00:16:33] I like that.

[00:16:34] All right.

[00:16:35] So also, let me answer this.

[00:16:37] Like, and this is unrelated to the topic of the book, but of the puzzle masters

[00:16:42] that you have met, you know, in the table of contents, you talk about

[00:16:45] Sudoku, you talk about chess, you talk about riddles and Japanese puzzle

[00:16:50] boxes, math puzzles.

[00:16:52] Was there a common characteristics of people who are masters of solving

[00:16:56] puzzles?

[00:16:57] I think so.

[00:16:58] I mean, it's what I argue is that puzzles are an amazing way to train you

[00:17:05] how to think.

[00:17:06] And there are five or six characteristics that make people great thinkers.

[00:17:14] And you talked about one, well, you talked about many, but one in

[00:17:19] particular and in your most recent book was about the experimental

[00:17:23] mindset that you've got to try all these hypotheses.

[00:17:27] You got to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.

[00:17:30] So that is a lot about the puzzle mindset.

[00:17:34] So, you know, you're given a logic puzzle, you know, turn it upside

[00:17:40] down, try, try every, you know, if you're given like a wooden box

[00:17:46] puzzle, like spin it, throw it against the wall.

[00:17:50] Sometimes that can break it, but everything.

[00:17:58] Take a quick break.

[00:17:59] If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it.

[00:18:02] I mean so much to me.

[00:18:03] Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast.

[00:18:06] Email me at Altatradgemail.com and tell me why you subscribed.

[00:18:36] And the new season of The Kardashians starring The Kardashians, of course.

[00:18:40] And Grand Cayman, Secrets in Paradise, the sizzling new reality show

[00:18:45] set in the tropical Caribbean.

[00:18:47] It's all new and it's streaming now on Hulu.

[00:19:11] I think it's more creative.

[00:19:15] You know, you got to know some facts, you know, you got to know

[00:19:18] like that gravity exists and that if you throw up a ball is going

[00:19:22] to come down.

[00:19:23] But to me, the real creative geniuses are the ones who come

[00:19:27] up with novel ways to solve problems.

[00:19:30] And you don't need a huge amount of knowledge for that.

[00:19:34] I mean, I talked about this in my book on the encyclopedia

[00:19:37] because I read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z as my

[00:19:41] first book.

[00:19:42] Actually, I'm a book to know it all.

[00:19:44] God bless you.

[00:19:45] And I knew every, like I knew way too much.

[00:19:48] You know, I would just spout random fat.

[00:19:50] My wife would charge me $1 for every irrelevant fact I inserted

[00:19:55] into conversation.

[00:19:56] But that doesn't necessarily make you smart.

[00:19:58] Applying those facts in a creative way, I actually love this quote.

[00:20:02] I don't know who came up with it.

[00:20:04] Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable.

[00:20:10] Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.

[00:20:15] Now I just learned some wisdom.

[00:20:17] Now you did that know before.

[00:20:19] Well, also I'd like to, I'd like to attack my own that

[00:20:24] that quote because why don't, why shouldn't you put tomatoes

[00:20:27] in a fruit salad?

[00:20:28] That's another example of rule.

[00:20:30] Like why, why should we follow that rule?

[00:20:33] So yeah, I, I,

[00:20:34] In solving like, let's say you're playing a game of chess is,

[00:20:38] you know, one of the keys to creativity in chess is to look

[00:20:42] at, look at the move that normally everyone would have

[00:20:45] said that moves impossible.

[00:20:47] Right.

[00:20:48] And so starting with the impossible is often a good way

[00:20:52] to lend itself into creativity.

[00:20:56] But related to this, are puzzles a good way to exercise

[00:21:00] creativity or do you need the creativity first?

[00:21:02] Like, can you get more creative through the process of

[00:21:05] solving puzzles?

[00:21:06] I definitely think I mean, it's,

[00:21:08] I think it's helped my mind a ton.

[00:21:11] And one of the, you know,

[00:21:14] one of the things I think that makes a good thinker is

[00:21:18] not falling in love with your hypothesis.

[00:21:21] So being very flexible, being open,

[00:21:24] being able to change.

[00:21:26] And there are a bunch of new books that talk about this

[00:21:29] like the Scout mindset by Julia Gailiff.

[00:21:32] She's a great guest, if you haven't had her on or Adam

[00:21:35] Grants think again, but it's all,

[00:21:38] it's all about not having motivated reasoning.

[00:21:40] So being open and, and that you need.

[00:21:43] Like I know you don't love crossword puzzles,

[00:21:45] but this is, let me give you an example.

[00:21:48] It was a, the clue was for a nine letter word and

[00:21:52] it was, it was the result of a bad trip.

[00:21:57] And I got in my mind, it's a flashback like an,

[00:22:01] like an acid flashback.

[00:22:03] That's it.

[00:22:04] And I wouldn't let it go.

[00:22:05] I wouldn't let it go and it was screwing me up

[00:22:07] and it took me two hours to finally figure out,

[00:22:10] no, it's face plant.

[00:22:11] The result of a bad trip is face plant.

[00:22:14] And what do you need?

[00:22:15] I don't understand.

[00:22:16] Well, if you trip, you fall on your face.

[00:22:18] It's a face plant.

[00:22:19] Ah, ah.

[00:22:20] Not an LSD trip.

[00:22:21] So I fell in love with my hypothesis.

[00:22:25] I wouldn't let it go.

[00:22:26] I didn't have the flexibility of mind and that screwed me.

[00:22:30] And I think that's in life too.

[00:22:32] If you don't have the, if you are like,

[00:22:34] if you have a business and you say that my business is,

[00:22:37] you know, making, making lamps,

[00:22:40] but it's not going anywhere and you need to pivot.

[00:22:43] You have to have that flexibility of mind saying,

[00:22:46] oh, it's not lamp.

[00:22:47] It's sconces.

[00:22:48] That's what's going to make me millions.

[00:22:51] Yeah.

[00:22:52] Being able to be super flexible about pivoting and business is

[00:22:54] critical.

[00:22:55] Like I remember one time,

[00:22:56] I won't get into the weeds of the story,

[00:22:58] but I had, I had an opportunity.

[00:22:59] I thought to make millions of dollars,

[00:23:02] but I couldn't get this idea to work.

[00:23:05] So I said to myself, okay,

[00:23:06] just sell this asset that I have that I thought could

[00:23:09] make millions,

[00:23:10] but I could sell it for super cheap and make like $100,000.

[00:23:13] And I did that instead in the next day,

[00:23:15] I had $100,000 instead of trying to spend the next few years

[00:23:18] trying to make millions.

[00:23:19] And I was able to reinvest that money and so on.

[00:23:22] Like you have to do the things that would never have occurred

[00:23:26] to you normally and are again completely the opposite of your

[00:23:29] original plan,

[00:23:30] but you always have to be willing to do the opposite of your

[00:23:32] plan.

[00:23:33] Yeah, I love that.

[00:23:34] Can I tell you my favorite pivot from history?

[00:23:37] Yes.

[00:23:38] I learned about in the encyclopedia.

[00:23:39] It was this guy named Thomas Welch.

[00:23:42] And he was like in the early 1900s and he was,

[00:23:46] he was really into prohibition.

[00:23:48] Like he thought alcohol was evil.

[00:23:50] So he invented this non-alcoholic wine that they could serve

[00:23:55] at churches for communion.

[00:23:57] It turned out no one wanted now non-alcoholic wine at

[00:24:01] churches,

[00:24:02] but his son took over and was like, well,

[00:24:04] what have we just renamed rebranded it as grape juice

[00:24:09] and sold it to kids and as like a little snack treat juice.

[00:24:16] And like that took off and that was how Welches came about.

[00:24:19] But if they had stuck to the original non-alcoholic wine,

[00:24:22] there would be no Welches.

[00:24:24] This type of story is common in business.

[00:24:26] Like for instance, Purell that they hand you now every

[00:24:29] time you work on a plane to disinfect your hands.

[00:24:32] Well,

[00:24:33] that was originally created as a cleaner for semiconductor

[00:24:35] chips.

[00:24:36] And then just more and more people stopped,

[00:24:38] started stopping by the inventor's desk to say,

[00:24:41] hey, can I have some of that cleaner?

[00:24:42] I want to just like clean my hands.

[00:24:44] And so that became the product.

[00:24:46] Oh, that's good.

[00:24:47] Or what about Botox?

[00:24:49] You know, Botox was invented as a treatment for

[00:24:52] crossed eyes and lazy eyes.

[00:24:54] Really?

[00:24:55] Yeah.

[00:24:56] And it's still,

[00:24:57] it still can be used for that.

[00:24:59] But you know,

[00:25:00] obviously that's not the main use.

[00:25:03] Do you feel like you've become more creative through

[00:25:05] the process of making this book because you've seen so many

[00:25:07] puzzles?

[00:25:08] Absolutely.

[00:25:09] Yeah, I really,

[00:25:10] I think they are the opposite of a waste of time.

[00:25:13] They are,

[00:25:14] you're wasting your time if you're not doing puzzles.

[00:25:16] That's what I'm glad to hear you say that because I always

[00:25:19] get worried like, oh, I've played so much chess lately.

[00:25:21] I'm worried that it's a waste of time as opposed to like,

[00:25:25] I don't know, writing a novel or something.

[00:25:27] But all right.

[00:25:29] Now I'm a little more confident in that.

[00:25:31] Where were some of the places you went all over the

[00:25:33] world doing research for this book?

[00:25:35] Where were some of the places that you ended up?

[00:25:38] Yeah, I went to Spain and participated in the World

[00:25:43] Jigsaw Puzzle Championship.

[00:25:46] Did you win?

[00:25:47] Which was hilarious.

[00:25:48] We did not win.

[00:25:49] We represented the USA and we embarrassed our country.

[00:25:52] I'm afraid to say it was my family and I,

[00:25:54] my sons and my wife and I.

[00:25:57] So we were like trounced by Russia.

[00:26:00] Those people are unbelievable.

[00:26:03] Like how many pieces were in the puzzle?

[00:26:05] It was eight hours and you had four giant jigsaw puzzles

[00:26:09] of about one to 2,000 pieces each.

[00:26:11] And how quickly did they finish?

[00:26:14] They finished all four puzzles in three and a half

[00:26:18] hours, which is amazing.

[00:26:20] Like I could barely move my hands that quickly,

[00:26:23] even if I knew exactly where to place the pieces.

[00:26:26] But they are just, you know, they're remarkable.

[00:26:29] And they had strategy.

[00:26:31] You know, you think jigsaw puzzles, is there really a strategy?

[00:26:35] Yeah, yeah, there's fun.

[00:26:37] There's like you got to sometimes switch from colors

[00:26:41] to the shapes.

[00:26:42] Like, and they had one person who was a specialist in the

[00:26:46] colors of the sky, like the monochromatic sky and ocean.

[00:26:51] Like those can often mess you up.

[00:26:53] So what I love is that whatever the topic,

[00:26:57] you know, chess or mazes or jigsaws,

[00:27:01] like there are people who are so passionate and so knowledgeable

[00:27:05] and so just obsessed that it's just a joy.

[00:27:11] It's just a joy to see.

[00:27:13] And how long did it take you to solve?

[00:27:16] Did you solve any of the puzzles in the eight hours?

[00:27:19] We did. Thank you very much.

[00:27:21] We solved one of the four puzzles and it took us six

[00:27:24] hours. And then we started on the other and then it ended.

[00:27:27] So I remember as a kid, a basic strategy would be just

[00:27:30] separate the edges, the corners and the inside.

[00:27:33] And then the inside you could, you know,

[00:27:35] you could separate by the colors because you know,

[00:27:37] oh, this is a human.

[00:27:38] This is a house.

[00:27:39] This is the sky.

[00:27:40] Did you do any strategies like that?

[00:27:41] Like just like the one of puzzles 101.

[00:27:44] Oh yeah.

[00:27:45] I mean, edges, edges usually are good,

[00:27:48] but it depends on the puzzle.

[00:27:50] Like the, you know, your professional puzzlers will tell

[00:27:52] you sometimes that's not good.

[00:27:55] I'm actually working on a puzzle right now where all of the

[00:27:59] edges are white, but all of the inside has these very

[00:28:03] striking colors.

[00:28:05] So in that case, you can separate them,

[00:28:07] but don't do the border first.

[00:28:09] Start with the colors.

[00:28:10] That's another big lesson is always like find the toe

[00:28:13] hold, find what is the easiest way in?

[00:28:16] What's the weak spot and then attack it from there.

[00:28:20] So, what other places you went to?

[00:28:24] You mentioned to me earlier something that sounded really

[00:28:28] interesting about long, long-term anism.

[00:28:30] What does that mean and where did you find out about it?

[00:28:32] Well, that is a, that's not a relate,

[00:28:35] which is good because my publisher will kill me for

[00:28:37] talking too much about puzzles.

[00:28:39] But this was the most fascinating conference I've ever

[00:28:43] been to on no exaggeration.

[00:28:46] And it was about a month ago.

[00:28:47] It was in England and it was with about 200 of the

[00:28:51] smartest people I've met.

[00:28:53] And I don't know why I was invited,

[00:28:57] but I was happy to be there.

[00:28:59] And it was called, the group is called Long View.

[00:29:02] And it's sort of sci-fi meets humanitarian work.

[00:29:09] So the idea is the future could be very,

[00:29:15] very good or it could be very, very bad.

[00:29:19] It's, you know, it could be a dystopia.

[00:29:22] Like the dystopias are a real possibility.

[00:29:25] So let me back up a second and ask you,

[00:29:27] like you were invited, were you invited to speak

[00:29:30] or just attend?

[00:29:32] There were no speakers.

[00:29:33] It was all just meetings.

[00:29:35] So you had experts in pandemics and biosecurity

[00:29:41] and nuclear war and AI.

[00:29:45] AI is something that they're very concerned about,

[00:29:48] like robots taking over, which sounds funny

[00:29:52] and like Hollywood, but, and it won't look

[00:29:56] like the Terminator if it happens,

[00:29:58] but it is a real threat.

[00:30:00] Like this is not something that we should take lightly.

[00:30:03] So the idea was how can we try to not just think

[00:30:09] about ourselves, but think about our 17th great-grandkids?

[00:30:13] And how can we convince other people that this is something

[00:30:17] that they should do because it's a hard sell.

[00:30:19] Like, you know, if you, if you see a commercial for,

[00:30:23] you know, a kid in Africa who doesn't have enough

[00:30:27] to eat or has a disease like you are,

[00:30:30] that is viscerally, of course you're going to give money.

[00:30:33] Of course you're going to like feel remorse

[00:30:37] and guilt and you're going to try to make their lives better.

[00:30:41] But how do you get people to care about someone

[00:30:45] who's not born yet, who you can't see,

[00:30:47] who won't be around for another 10,000 years?

[00:30:50] That is a huge challenge.

[00:30:53] Well, what are some of the issues that people

[00:30:55] are worried about for like 100 years from now?

[00:30:57] And by the way, was there ever a time

[00:30:59] when people were not both worried about dystopia

[00:31:05] and at the same time another group of people were also saying,

[00:31:09] no, it's going to be heaven on earth in 100 years?

[00:31:11] Well, that is a great point.

[00:31:13] That is a great point.

[00:31:15] The argument here is that we might actually be

[00:31:18] in what's called a hinge century,

[00:31:20] that we might be in the most important 100 years

[00:31:23] just because of the rate of technological change

[00:31:29] has gotten faster and faster

[00:31:31] and it is just startlingly fast.

[00:31:33] And that AI, if it happens,

[00:31:35] if you get generally a gelized AI

[00:31:38] where it's actually something that we create

[00:31:43] that can think like a human,

[00:31:45] that is going to be the biggest technological change in history,

[00:31:49] like bigger than cars, bigger than computers.

[00:31:53] So yeah, I guess there are a few things

[00:31:55] that they think about.

[00:31:57] One is nuclear war, which is to me so baffling.

[00:32:01] Like we were obsessed with it in the 50s and 60s.

[00:32:04] We had things, you know, PSAs saying with a turtle saying duck

[00:32:09] and cover get under your desk.

[00:32:13] And then in the 80s, we had this terrifying mini series,

[00:32:19] what was it called?

[00:32:21] About the end of the world.

[00:32:23] And now there's still, we can still blow up the world

[00:32:28] a thousand times when no one talks about it.

[00:32:31] It's so crazy to me.

[00:32:33] Maybe they've gotten a lot more serious about tracking

[00:32:37] the old Soviet Union nuclear weapons

[00:32:40] and there's less nuclear material

[00:32:43] or like weapons grade radioactive material

[00:32:46] in order to make a nuclear bomb

[00:32:48] but arguably your point about technology is relevant here

[00:32:51] which is that it's probably easier to make a nuclear weapon now

[00:32:54] than it's ever been before.

[00:32:56] I mean, I'm not an expert but according to these people

[00:32:59] that I was with, yeah, we should not be letting up our guard

[00:33:03] about this.

[00:33:04] We should be instituting systems that make it really hard

[00:33:07] to obtain this material and to launch it.

[00:33:10] And what's crazy?

[00:33:12] This one, James, blew me away is all these stories

[00:33:16] of the near misses of how the world almost blew up

[00:33:21] and that are totally under publicized.

[00:33:24] Like, do you know the story of Petrov?

[00:33:26] This was in the 80s and he was a Soviet army officer

[00:33:31] who was in charge basically of greenlighting

[00:33:36] a nuclear retaliation on the United States.

[00:33:40] And one day on his radar it showed that there were

[00:33:44] five missiles from the United States coming.

[00:33:47] And if he had followed his instructions,

[00:33:50] if he had done what he was supposed to do,

[00:33:53] he would have told the head general to launch a retaliatory strike.

[00:33:59] But he just had this feeling like, well, maybe it's a mistake,

[00:34:03] maybe it's...

[00:34:04] And thank God he didn't do it and it turned out

[00:34:07] it was a mistake that there was some weird light reflected.

[00:34:11] But I...

[00:34:12] There's a movement to start something called Petrov Day

[00:34:15] where every...

[00:34:16] I think it's September 24th.

[00:34:18] We remember how close we gained to ending the world

[00:34:22] because we just take it for granted that

[00:34:26] we haven't had a nuclear war and there's never going to be a nuclear war.

[00:34:30] But this is still around. This is a huge deal.

[00:34:33] So what's another near miss?

[00:34:35] Were there other ones?

[00:34:37] Oh yeah, there was a bunch.

[00:34:38] There's one with a submarine that...

[00:34:40] It just so happened that one of the Soviet...

[00:34:44] It always serves to me to say, but I'm sure there were American problems too.

[00:34:48] We're better at keeping it secret.

[00:34:50] Exactly.

[00:34:52] So yeah, there are several near misses and it's terrifying.

[00:34:57] Actually, how do we know that Petrov story is true?

[00:35:00] Like why did they put out a press release?

[00:35:02] Petrov saved the world by not launching a nuclear attack.

[00:35:06] Well, we didn't know about it for years.

[00:35:08] It was just...

[00:35:09] Yeah, it was very recently, a little before he died,

[00:35:13] that it was released.

[00:35:16] I forget who uncovered it, but someone interviewed him and he told the story.

[00:35:35] You like to watch new stuff, right?

[00:35:38] Well, go to Hulu and see what's new,

[00:35:40] because Hulu has new stuff all the time.

[00:35:43] Like Vanderpump Villa, the new Daki drama starring Lisa Vanderpump

[00:35:47] where first class luxury meets world-class drama,

[00:35:51] a new season of The Kardashians starring The Kardashians, of course,

[00:35:55] and Grant Cayman, Secrets in Paradise,

[00:35:58] the sizzling new reality show set in the tropical Caribbean.

[00:36:02] It's all new and it's streaming now on Hulu.

[00:36:06] After the end of a good fight, you deserve a nice cold reward.

[00:36:10] Madella, you put in the Alps the Enrich, the Tough Labor

[00:36:13] because you know the bigger the fight, the better the reward.

[00:36:17] Madella, the Mark of the Fight.

[00:36:19] Frequent responsibly, be reported by Crown Airport, Chicago, Illinois.

[00:36:24] So how many nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union

[00:36:27] are not accounted for at the moment?

[00:36:29] Like, are they missing nuclear weapons?

[00:36:31] Great question. I wish I were more of that.

[00:36:34] You know, that's why I went to the conference as someone who could get the word out

[00:36:40] about how we should be thinking about the future.

[00:36:43] And also, I just want to stress, it wasn't all doom and gloom.

[00:36:47] Like, the idea is the future could be the most amazing,

[00:36:51] it could be like heaven on earth.

[00:36:53] It could be, you know, no one has to work.

[00:36:56] You just do what, you know, you follow the creative bliss.

[00:37:00] You do puzzles all day. You play chess.

[00:37:03] You know, it could be... We can't even imagine how good life could be.

[00:37:08] It's almost like saying to, you know, an ape,

[00:37:12] imagine if like you had all the bananas you could eat.

[00:37:16] Yeah, but you couldn't explain to an ape

[00:37:19] imagine that there are movies and our TV, you know,

[00:37:25] the ape just couldn't comprehend it.

[00:37:27] We cannot comprehend how good the future could be.

[00:37:31] So part of it is getting that point across

[00:37:34] and part of it is avoiding that we blow each other up.

[00:37:37] Now, but it does seem that technology evolves roughly at the same pace as the problems.

[00:37:44] So for instance, a classic example which I've mentioned on this podcast before,

[00:37:49] it's actually mentioned in the book, I think, Super Freakonomics,

[00:37:52] when horse manure, around the year 1900,

[00:37:55] horse manure was so big in New York because everybody traveled with horses

[00:38:00] that they had to shovel out like, I don't know,

[00:38:03] 20 inches of manure that covered all the streets in the entire city every single day

[00:38:08] and dump it over to New Jersey or the ocean or whatever.

[00:38:11] And of course, the development of cars was a technology that,

[00:38:15] like everybody, the environmental disaster of 1900 was that horse manure

[00:38:19] was going to bury the world.

[00:38:21] And suddenly though, cars were invented and that solved the problem.

[00:38:26] And so in general, it seems like technology has kept pace with problems in,

[00:38:32] you know, like overpopulation, oh, we created GMOs

[00:38:36] to feed the extra two or three billion people that exist.

[00:38:40] Even climate change, like solar power has been improving exponentially.

[00:38:44] Nuclear fusion, if we ever switch to that would provide clean energy

[00:38:48] for thousands of years easily.

[00:38:50] So coming out of this conference, what do you view as a real problem?

[00:38:54] And also talk about what the AI problem is.

[00:38:56] Sure.

[00:38:57] And I love your point.

[00:38:58] I love your point.

[00:38:59] I think that is generally true,

[00:39:02] but there is absolutely no guarantee that that will continue,

[00:39:05] that we'll have our solutions.

[00:39:07] And I would say that I think the environmental,

[00:39:12] I'm not sure that we have the technology yet

[00:39:17] or the political will to stop that from being a real catastrophe.

[00:39:23] I hope we do.

[00:39:24] But anyway, yeah, the AI, the idea is that it wouldn't be the Terminator,

[00:39:29] it wouldn't be robots, it wouldn't be like a Will Smith movie.

[00:39:33] But the fear is that we create these AIs that are so smart

[00:39:38] and that their goals are not aligned with human goals

[00:39:44] and that that could be a disaster.

[00:39:46] And let me give you one of the most famous fables in AI

[00:39:50] when people think about how AI could go wrong.

[00:39:54] Suppose you programmed an AI to,

[00:39:58] and you gave it the goal of making paper clips

[00:40:02] and said, make as many paper clips as you can.

[00:40:06] It's a self-learning so it becomes smarter and smarter

[00:40:10] as it starts this goal to make paper clips.

[00:40:13] Well, it's not going to just stop at making a paper clip factory.

[00:40:17] If it has unlimited resource, if it has this intelligence,

[00:40:21] it can figure out a way to hack into the grid,

[00:40:24] hack into the internet.

[00:40:26] It's going to start shipping all metals in the world

[00:40:32] to itself to turn those.

[00:40:34] It's going to harvest humans to turn them into paper clips.

[00:40:38] It's going to send rocket ships off to other planets

[00:40:41] so that you can get materials to turn paper clips.

[00:40:44] So the idea, the worry is that we will not be able to stop.

[00:40:50] Once we give it a goal,

[00:40:52] that goal has unintended consequences that we can't even imagine.

[00:40:56] Yeah, so that's interesting.

[00:40:58] So obviously you could program something in

[00:41:01] that you could put boundaries or limits on it.

[00:41:04] And then there's, do you remember Isaac Asimov's

[00:41:07] iRobot series?

[00:41:09] Didn't he have rules for robots

[00:41:12] that they could never break certain rules?

[00:41:14] So there were three laws of robotics.

[00:41:17] A robot may not injure a human being

[00:41:19] or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.

[00:41:22] A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings

[00:41:26] except where such orders would conflict with the first law

[00:41:29] and a robot must protect its own existence

[00:41:31] as long as it doesn't go into conflict

[00:41:34] with the first or second laws.

[00:41:36] So in your situation, the AI would break all three of those rules

[00:41:39] which seem like basic rules you would program

[00:41:41] into any super powerful AI.

[00:41:44] Right, and I do think, I mean that's the goal

[00:41:47] of these people who are in the long termist movement.

[00:41:50] That's the name of it, long termism is to figure out

[00:41:53] how to program these things in really safely.

[00:41:56] But it's not so easy.

[00:41:58] I mean imagine if you tell a five year old

[00:42:02] to stop adults from stealing his toys.

[00:42:08] So he sets up some blocks

[00:42:11] and says okay, no one can get over the blocks.

[00:42:16] So we're kind of like, if we get a computer,

[00:42:19] if we have this computer who gets smarter and smarter

[00:42:23] then they're gonna be like the adults.

[00:42:25] They're gonna figure out a way, whether it's bribing the child

[00:42:29] whether it's getting the, just stepping over the blocks

[00:42:32] or getting a bulldozer to mow down the block,

[00:42:35] whatever it is, they might be able to find a way around it.

[00:42:40] So I mean as Moff is right,

[00:42:43] we got to figure out a way to program this in.

[00:42:46] Because AI could be amazing, it could make the world,

[00:42:49] like I said, it could, you would never have to have

[00:42:52] a crap job again, like you would never,

[00:42:55] there would be no such thing as a maid or housekeeper

[00:42:59] that AI would do it, they would take care of it.

[00:43:02] Yeah, I mean what are the other bad possibilities from AI?

[00:43:07] And I agree there are many,

[00:43:08] I've talked about this with other guests before,

[00:43:11] but I'm curious what came up in this conference.

[00:43:14] Well one example that really resonated with me

[00:43:17] is because it's not sci-fi, it exists, it happened,

[00:43:20] which is YouTube.

[00:43:22] So YouTube has the algorithm that they want to recommend

[00:43:27] videos that you will click on.

[00:43:30] And so that's the only, that was the goal of this algorithm

[00:43:35] like present you with other videos

[00:43:37] that you're gonna click on and like.

[00:43:39] Unfortunately in reality what happened is

[00:43:42] if you watched a video about, I don't know,

[00:43:47] that maybe NASA didn't land on the moon,

[00:43:52] then it's gonna recommend, hey, you think that's something,

[00:43:56] you should look at this, the earth is really flat.

[00:43:59] And that the government has been keeping this from you.

[00:44:03] And that has spread misinformation and disinformation

[00:44:09] everywhere.

[00:44:10] We have a thriving flat earth community

[00:44:13] that we didn't have 20 years ago because of this insanity.

[00:44:17] That's really interesting because obviously,

[00:44:22] presenting you with videos that are gonna be harmful to you

[00:44:26] goes against Asimov's first law of robotics,

[00:44:29] but how would you have programmed it in?

[00:44:32] There's no real way because the only way,

[00:44:35] okay, there's a sort of human way of programming

[00:44:38] and there's an AI way of programming it.

[00:44:40] So the AI way is called deep learning

[00:44:42] where the AI figures things out on its own

[00:44:45] but the human could say, could decide what's harmful or not

[00:44:48] but now we have that problem with censorship

[00:44:51] on all the social media platforms

[00:44:52] when the humans are deciding what to put into the AI

[00:44:56] that's considered harmful.

[00:44:58] But if the AI decides it, how would you do it?

[00:45:00] You'd have to see, okay,

[00:45:02] what videos make someone blood pressure consistently rise up?

[00:45:06] Let's avoid those videos.

[00:45:08] So like anything that makes them fuel this addiction

[00:45:12] to conspiracy theories is gonna make your blood pressure go up,

[00:45:15] your anxiety go up, your cortisol go up and so on.

[00:45:18] So maybe there's some way it could learn

[00:45:20] based on body states before and after watching a video.

[00:45:25] It could learn what's bad,

[00:45:26] what will increase your life and what will decrease your life.

[00:45:29] So too much cortisol will probably decrease your life.

[00:45:31] You need cortisol because you need to be able to react to danger

[00:45:35] but if it's too much, if your body feels like it's constantly in danger

[00:45:39] that'll lead to heart attacks and strokes and so on.

[00:45:42] So I wonder if there's an AI way to learn

[00:45:45] what videos are good or bad for you?

[00:45:47] Well yeah, it is bad.

[00:45:49] That's why these people are there

[00:45:51] to wrestle with these deep questions

[00:45:53] and I'm not an expert.

[00:45:55] I was brought in just to give my thoughts on communication.

[00:46:00] There's some amazing people that you should have on the podcast

[00:46:03] like Will McCaskill and Toby Ord are both philosophers at Oxford

[00:46:08] who think about this stuff all the time.

[00:46:11] But yeah, even that what you presented is very hard.

[00:46:14] How do we define what's good and bad?

[00:46:17] Because you can imagine doing an AI that said,

[00:46:19] your job is to recommend videos that lower cortisol level

[00:46:24] but then it becomes through deep learning,

[00:46:28] it becomes smarter and smarter

[00:46:30] and eventually it's got you on an operating table

[00:46:33] taking out your amygdala to get rid of all your cortisol.

[00:46:37] So it's a deep problem.

[00:46:41] Luckily there are people thinking about it

[00:46:44] but we need tons more of creative, courageous people

[00:46:49] looking into these massive problems.

[00:46:52] And I'd recommend people watch or re-watch

[00:46:55] the podcast I did with Kai Fuli who wrote a book called 2041

[00:46:59] that explores all of these issues in a fictional setting

[00:47:02] of what could occur 20 years from now

[00:47:05] because of AI, because of genomics

[00:47:07] and because of all sorts of things

[00:47:10] that he predicts in that book.

[00:47:12] It's really fascinating

[00:47:13] and it sounds like he would have been an excellent addition

[00:47:15] to this conference.

[00:47:17] What else did you guys talk about?

[00:47:20] Well, there are, you know, pandemics.

[00:47:25] How do we prevent another one that's...

[00:47:28] and how do we prevent human-made pandemics?

[00:47:32] You know, it's not clear what really happened

[00:47:35] with this pandemic but in the future

[00:47:38] it'll just get easier and easier to create horrible pandemics.

[00:47:41] I met one great guy who is working on...

[00:47:46] his idea is, you know, we spend billions of dollars

[00:47:50] fireproofing our buildings.

[00:47:52] Shouldn't we spend some money pandemic-proofing our buildings?

[00:47:57] Like if our buildings and houses had better air filtration

[00:48:02] this pandemic would have been so much better.

[00:48:05] Like this pandemic does not spread outside.

[00:48:09] If we can get the same level of air being recycled

[00:48:14] inside as outside, this would...

[00:48:16] we would not have had...

[00:48:18] it would have been a minor problem,

[00:48:24] not this massive world-stopping problem.

[00:48:26] Is that true that pandemics don't spread outside?

[00:48:28] What if you're at like an outdoor wedding

[00:48:31] that... I mean weren't they worried initially

[00:48:33] that outdoor weddings were super spreader events?

[00:48:36] Yeah, you shouldn't take my...

[00:48:38] definitely look at the statistics from the CDC

[00:48:42] I mean my understanding is that it is much, much harder.

[00:48:47] It still can spread outside but this...

[00:48:49] and it depends on the virus but this particular variant

[00:48:53] that we're dealing with now is much, much harder

[00:48:58] to spread outside than it is inside.

[00:49:01] Yeah, so okay, I'm not so much worried.

[00:49:03] Like obviously I'm worried about pandemics

[00:49:05] because they kill a lot of people.

[00:49:07] COVID there's... I don't know how many deaths

[00:49:09] but it's a huge number.

[00:49:11] But a pandemic probably can't destroy the world.

[00:49:14] It can't kill everybody because once it starts killing people

[00:49:18] that the virus ends with the person who's dead.

[00:49:21] So if it kills very quickly,

[00:49:24] like Ebola kills people very quickly,

[00:49:26] Ebola doesn't really spread worldwide.

[00:49:29] It's a very localized virus when it comes out

[00:49:32] because everybody who can transmit it dies right away.

[00:49:35] I think the thing about COVID was that

[00:49:37] you don't exhibit symptoms for about 10 days

[00:49:40] so you're able to transmit it.

[00:49:42] So maybe, I guess maybe the perfect...

[00:49:45] and you know, the viruses that spread the most

[00:49:48] are the ones that have no symptoms at all.

[00:49:50] Like we all have thousands of viruses in our body right now

[00:49:53] but they just didn't exhibit any symptoms

[00:49:55] and those probably spread to everybody in the world.

[00:49:57] So there's some spectrum there

[00:49:59] but I wonder maybe the perfect storm of viruses

[00:50:02] if you could create a virus where there's no symptoms

[00:50:05] for 200 days and then suddenly within one day you die.

[00:50:09] That is a terrifying thought

[00:50:11] and I will say, like you said

[00:50:13] it may not cause human extinction

[00:50:16] but it could do so much damage that it would be catastrophic

[00:50:20] and set us back thousands of years

[00:50:22] and we would be living in sort of a societal collapse

[00:50:26] like you see in the movies

[00:50:28] and that is one of the other big topics was this idea of lock-in.

[00:50:31] How do we avoid locking into a society

[00:50:34] that is really bad like an authoritarian lock-in

[00:50:37] where it becomes so hard for...

[00:50:41] you know, the American Revolution was good

[00:50:45] and you know, the fact that we beat the...

[00:50:48] Why?

[00:50:50] Why is it good?

[00:50:52] Yeah. I think this is one of those things we assume

[00:50:54] as a good move

[00:50:55] Well we can talk about that on our upcoming podcast

[00:50:59] Good or Bad

[00:51:00] Oh yeah.

[00:51:02] And it is a fascinating issue whether

[00:51:04] like maybe we should have taken Canada's route

[00:51:07] but regardless of putting that aside

[00:51:09] the fact that we were able to wage a successful revolution

[00:51:13] against England

[00:51:16] that is not a given in the future

[00:51:18] when you've got an authoritarian government

[00:51:22] that controls all, you know, that has massive power

[00:51:26] so how do we avoid that?

[00:51:28] How do we keep democracy safe?

[00:51:30] Well let me ask you a question

[00:51:32] how do you even know what's insidious about authoritarian governments

[00:51:36] like whether it's Soviet Russia or Venezuela under Chávez

[00:51:41] or you know, there's hundreds of examples

[00:51:45] it's very... or Nazi Germany

[00:51:47] it's very insidious because at first

[00:51:50] everyone's excited for the new leadership

[00:51:53] the new leadership says everybody should have everything

[00:51:57] and we're going to bring us into a new dawn

[00:52:00] everyone's going to have everything they ever wanted

[00:52:02] and of course bad things happen

[00:52:06] you know, under Mao Tse Tsung who was very popular

[00:52:11] very popularly brought into, you know, became the leader of China

[00:52:14] and of course he killed 40 million people

[00:52:17] similar to Stalin, similar to what Hitler did

[00:52:21] and how do you know when authoritarianism is creeping up?

[00:52:26] So for instance in the US last year

[00:52:28] every single business in the country was shut down for months

[00:52:32] causing maybe a million small businesses to go bankrupt

[00:52:37] and many people to commit suicide, have depression

[00:52:41] and all of this was maybe a good thing

[00:52:43] because it prevented... maybe it saved millions of lives

[00:52:46] because COVID didn't spread

[00:52:48] and then it was authoritarian and what wasn't even in that scenario?

[00:52:52] That's a big question and I don't have all the answers of course

[00:52:56] but I would say one safeguard is making sure

[00:53:00] that we limit misinformation and disinformation

[00:53:03] which is, you know, I thought when the internet came

[00:53:06] I was like oh my god this is it, this is the solution

[00:53:09] everyone is going to have access to all the correct knowledge

[00:53:14] but of course it went possibly the opposite way

[00:53:19] where we have access to all the bad knowledge

[00:53:22] all the incorrect knowledge

[00:53:24] and the incorrect knowledge is more exciting

[00:53:26] you know, it's much more fun to think that

[00:53:29] you know a bunch of Mafiosa and Cubans united to kill JFK

[00:53:33] than it was just this one loser with a bad haircut

[00:53:36] so yeah I... but I think that what...

[00:53:40] that is one safeguard against authoritarianism

[00:53:43] is just trying to make sure that we have institutions

[00:53:48] that are self-correcting and that provide real information

[00:53:53] in context and that admit when they make mistakes

[00:53:58] because authoritarians never admit that they made any mistakes

[00:54:02] But I wonder if like when in US history has a president

[00:54:06] and I'm just... I'm playing the devil's advocate

[00:54:08] but like what in US history has a president ever admitted

[00:54:11] he made a mistake?

[00:54:13] That's a good question I gotta look back

[00:54:17] I don't have it off the top of my head

[00:54:19] my sense is that Obama sometimes

[00:54:22] and I think with the Bayes suit he said he made a mistake

[00:54:26] but I do think there were times when he admitted he made a mistake

[00:54:30] but it's a good question

[00:54:32] I think also that is...

[00:54:35] that's why I think science is the best route to knowledge

[00:54:39] because it is self-correcting

[00:54:41] a good scientist will change their mind

[00:54:45] they will look at the evidence

[00:54:47] and not all do and it's... you know science can be corrupt

[00:54:51] and refuse to admit they're wrong

[00:54:53] but good science is to me a whole different level of knowledge

[00:54:59] of epistemology

[00:55:01] That's a great point because if you look again at this past year

[00:55:04] because we didn't know that much about COVID in the beginning

[00:55:07] science did change its mind several times

[00:55:10] about what specifically is not that important

[00:55:13] but I noticed A. people were... started mistrusting science

[00:55:19] when they would change their mind

[00:55:21] so kind of people need to be a little bit more knowledgeable

[00:55:23] about what it means to be a skeptic

[00:55:25] and how most good science comes out of being skeptical of bad science

[00:55:29] so science isn't always 100% correct

[00:55:32] like you say it's self-correcting

[00:55:34] and policy and public opinion have to acknowledge that

[00:55:38] you can't make a policy based on one set of scientific facts

[00:55:41] and then see those facts change as new discoveries develop

[00:55:45] for instance in the beginning of the pandemic

[00:55:47] we were told not to wear masks that it wouldn't be a big deal

[00:55:50] now we were told that for many reasons

[00:55:52] maybe not some scientific but then it became clear

[00:55:54] you have to wear a mask to avoid... to best avoid transmission

[00:55:58] so okay and then I was talking to one person

[00:56:01] who's an expert on the Constitution

[00:56:03] and he's in the Constitution says we're all entitled to life, liberty

[00:56:07] and the pursuit of happiness

[00:56:09] or maybe it was even the pursuit of property

[00:56:13] I forget but...

[00:56:14] Well that's the original that's John Locke's version

[00:56:17] Yeah so but this person pointed out that life comes first

[00:56:20] and then things like property come after that

[00:56:24] so that's the lockdowns could be constitutionally justified

[00:56:27] because it helped... the scientific argument was that it preserved life

[00:56:31] but then you have to really start to ask

[00:56:33] well how much life did it preserve

[00:56:35] and how much life did it destroy?

[00:56:38] like because in New York City right now as we're speaking

[00:56:41] you can't have elective surgeries

[00:56:43] because people are worried about the Omicron variant

[00:56:46] it's much more transmissible

[00:56:48] but I don't know if it causes death or causes even a sickness

[00:56:51] no one's said

[00:56:53] so we kind of have to weigh things

[00:56:56] but now if you block elective surgeries

[00:56:59] well now you're blocking...

[00:57:02] what's it called when you open up the body

[00:57:05] to see if they have cancer? I forget

[00:57:08] Biopsies?

[00:57:09] Yeah yeah now you can't have biopsies

[00:57:11] because that's considered elective surgery

[00:57:13] so some people might die because of this policy

[00:57:15] even if nobody's dying from the Omicron variant

[00:57:18] I think somehow even that process

[00:57:21] has to be self-correcting

[00:57:23] now maybe you should ban elective surgeries now

[00:57:25] I'm not saying one way or the other

[00:57:26] maybe the Omicron variant is the worst thing

[00:57:28] that's ever happened in the world

[00:57:30] but everybody has to understand

[00:57:33] how to weigh the pros and cons

[00:57:34] and I'm afraid people just don't know what that means

[00:57:37] we've never been taught statistics in school

[00:57:40] we learn trigonometry or geometry

[00:57:43] or I don't know linear algebra

[00:57:45] which is useless for daily life

[00:57:47] but basic statistics is incredibly useful

[00:57:49] and we're never actually taught that in school

[00:57:51] most people aren't taught that

[00:57:53] I'm not going to weigh in on the COVID stuff

[00:57:58] because I haven't studied enough to know

[00:58:00] you know I am very pro-mask and pro-endors anyway

[00:58:05] I am very pro-endors just in life in general

[00:58:08] and I have no argument when someone wants me

[00:58:11] to wear a mask I'll wear a mask

[00:58:13] I have no... you see people on airplanes

[00:58:15] get into fights like just relax

[00:58:17] and fly in the air and get to your location

[00:58:20] but I do want to agree with you 100%

[00:58:23] about statistics that to me is so crucial

[00:58:27] we under... you know we focus on the one

[00:58:31] cute girl in the well which is terrible

[00:58:35] she fell down a well that's terrible

[00:58:37] but let's also keep in mind the hundreds of thousands

[00:58:40] of people whose lives are endangered by malaria

[00:58:43] and there's actually a quote

[00:58:45] one of my favorite philosophers Bertrand Russell

[00:58:47] said a quote and he didn't actually say these exact words

[00:58:51] but I like it better the way that

[00:58:54] he supposedly said it which was

[00:58:56] he said the mark of a truly advanced person

[00:59:02] is that they can look at a column of numbers

[00:59:06] and weep which is very hard to do

[00:59:09] statistics do not resonate emotionally

[00:59:12] like I said you know the picture

[00:59:14] of the cute girl down the well

[00:59:16] that resonates emotionally

[00:59:18] but reading a statistic like you know

[00:59:21] 500,000 people per year die of malaria

[00:59:24] that does not resonate emotionally

[00:59:26] but we should fight that

[00:59:29] we should try to make it resonate emotionally

[00:59:31] and that's why I love what you said

[00:59:34] about statistics we've got to teach

[00:59:36] more statistics in schools

[00:59:38] Well you make a good point because you look at evolution

[00:59:40] I mean for most of human

[00:59:43] the existence of humans

[00:59:45] we didn't know how to count further than 10

[00:59:48] and but we did communicate information

[00:59:52] generation after generation through storytelling

[00:59:55] so our brains are built for stories

[00:59:57] and not necessarily numbers

[00:59:59] but I just wonder why do they decide

[01:00:01] that the standard curriculum in schools

[01:00:03] would include trigonometry but not probability

[01:00:05] when probability is how we make

[01:00:07] almost every decision in our lives

[01:00:09] oh my goodness

[01:00:11] you should create like a curriculum

[01:00:13] so with math I would say

[01:00:15] you need to learn everything you need to do

[01:00:17] up until you get good at probability and statistics

[01:00:19] so that means no calculus

[01:00:21] no trigonometry

[01:00:23] no advanced algebra

[01:00:25] probably very little geometry actually

[01:00:27] unless you want to be like a construction

[01:00:29] you know builder or whatever

[01:00:31] or an architect

[01:00:33] but everybody needs to learn probability

[01:00:35] which is not taught in any grade school

[01:00:37] I love that idea

[01:00:39] What would you teach in science?

[01:00:41] Well I would teach

[01:00:43] like you said the scientific method

[01:00:45] just knowing that

[01:00:47] it's not perfect

[01:00:49] but it is the best way

[01:00:51] and

[01:00:53] I love but yeah

[01:00:55] the probability is huge

[01:00:57] let's teach our kids

[01:00:59] I want to pick it

[01:01:01] well think about it before the scientific method

[01:01:03] you need to learn probability

[01:01:05] you need to know what's significant

[01:01:07] when a control group acts one way

[01:01:09] but the test group acts another way

[01:01:11] is it meaningful? Well you only know that through statistics

[01:01:13] or what if you're not using a control group

[01:01:15] like with COVID now it's too early

[01:01:17] to have a real control group

[01:01:19] and test groups so you have to look at a population sample

[01:01:21] which is a different type of scientific method

[01:01:23] and you have to understand what statistically

[01:01:25] significant means there

[01:01:27] What would you teach in history?

[01:01:29] In history?

[01:01:31] Well I would teach

[01:01:33] the world history through

[01:01:35] several different lenses

[01:01:37] so you can look at history

[01:01:41] through

[01:01:43] class warfare

[01:01:45] you can look at history through

[01:01:47] race but you can also look

[01:01:49] at history through

[01:01:51] medical advances or sickness

[01:01:53] or you can look at history

[01:01:55] through

[01:01:57] technological advances

[01:01:59] and lifespan

[01:02:01] and so there are many ways to look at history

[01:02:03] it should not be a

[01:02:05] single prism

[01:02:07] that we say. Yeah you're right

[01:02:09] for the past 20 or 30 years

[01:02:11] there's been a kind of popular type of

[01:02:13] book like you ever

[01:02:15] see the book Salt? Yeah I love that

[01:02:17] book yeah. So that's looking at history

[01:02:19] through the use of

[01:02:21] world history for the past 5000 years

[01:02:23] through the use of salt

[01:02:25] and Stephen Johnson

[01:02:27] has got a lot of books like this

[01:02:29] about air conditioning. If you look at the history of air conditioning

[01:02:31] you could describe the entire

[01:02:33] history of urbanization

[01:02:35] and technological

[01:02:37] advances in the US because

[01:02:39] you couldn't literally work in the south

[01:02:41] or have skyscrapers in the south

[01:02:43] until there was air conditioning

[01:02:45] Oh I love that. Well

[01:02:47] and then the other thing is one that you mentioned earlier

[01:02:49] like the horseman or I

[01:02:51] would stress just how

[01:02:53] terrible the past used to be

[01:02:55] it was not you know the good old days

[01:02:57] they were not good they were

[01:02:59] dangerous, violent,

[01:03:01] sexist, smelly. So we've got a lot

[01:03:03] of problems now

[01:03:05] as I've said you know we're facing

[01:03:07] some serious problems

[01:03:09] but we should gain confidence

[01:03:11] from looking at history to see that

[01:03:13] we can make progress and

[01:03:15] progress can be a real thing

[01:03:17] we can stop suffering

[01:03:19] so that would be another big

[01:03:21] because sometimes people read

[01:03:23] history and it's like

[01:03:25] oh humans are so terrible

[01:03:27] let's just give up

[01:03:29] So what fully impressed you

[01:03:31] about this long termism

[01:03:33] conference? What's your biggest takeaway

[01:03:35] how has your life improved

[01:03:37] by going to this conference?

[01:03:39] Well there's a phrase

[01:03:41] that was used for one

[01:03:43] of the meetings that I

[01:03:45] moderated. I wish I'd come up with

[01:03:47] the phrase but it was

[01:03:49] the phrase is the opposite

[01:03:51] of cold and calculating

[01:03:53] you know how people say

[01:03:55] so cold and calculating.

[01:03:57] Warm and calculating

[01:03:59] let's all be warm and calculating

[01:04:01] why should compassion

[01:04:03] and logic and statistics be at odds?

[01:04:05] No we can

[01:04:07] be compassionate

[01:04:09] and the fact is that if humans

[01:04:11] exist, if humans exist

[01:04:13] as long as the average mammalian

[01:04:15] species exists then we are

[01:04:17] at the very very

[01:04:19] start and we

[01:04:21] have had just a tiny

[01:04:23] percentage of humans to come

[01:04:25] there are billions, trillions

[01:04:27] of humans in the future

[01:04:29] and it's our responsibility

[01:04:31] to try to look out

[01:04:33] for them you know it's

[01:04:35] I call it the golden rule is

[01:04:37] to treat your neighbor

[01:04:39] as you would have your neighbor

[01:04:41] treat yourself but the titanium

[01:04:43] rule in my opinion

[01:04:45] because titanium is kind of futuristic

[01:04:47] is treat your future

[01:04:49] neighbor treat your descendants

[01:04:51] like you would have them

[01:04:53] treat you and that can mean

[01:04:55] you know 100 years or

[01:04:57] 1000 years whatever so

[01:04:59] that's it to me it was just

[01:05:01] an amazing way of looking at the world

[01:05:03] and and bringing in full

[01:05:05] circle obviously the question

[01:05:07] what could go wrong

[01:05:09] and and if it could go wrong how to

[01:05:11] solve it and what could go right over the next

[01:05:13] 100 years these are huge puzzles

[01:05:15] and you need a puzzle like mind

[01:05:17] and that kind of creativity

[01:05:19] like everyone says oh we're going to just

[01:05:21] continue to improve and ai is going to be

[01:05:23] great and quantum computing is going to be

[01:05:25] great and nanotechnology is going to be great

[01:05:27] if you just say that and don't look at

[01:05:29] the opposite and at least consider it

[01:05:31] you could be in trouble like nanotechnology

[01:05:33] could run amok and create

[01:05:35] you know every atom like

[01:05:37] computer could create another atom like

[01:05:39] computer to or they could create two atom

[01:05:41] like computers which could create two more

[01:05:43] and it goes on until it covers the entire

[01:05:45] planet with atomic size

[01:05:47] computers and we all die in seconds

[01:05:49] so even though nanotechnology

[01:05:51] is great for fashion and

[01:05:53] computing and all these other things

[01:05:55] could cause problems

[01:05:57] excellent I love the full circle

[01:05:59] because I totally agree we got to

[01:06:01] approach it like the

[01:06:03] the most important puzzle ever

[01:06:05] and and do you look long term in your life

[01:06:07] or do you think about what's like right

[01:06:09] now you have a book coming out in April the puzzler

[01:06:11] or do you look beyond that

[01:06:13] in your life that is an awesome question

[01:06:15] I don't really look

[01:06:17] long term in my life as much

[01:06:19] as I I try to now

[01:06:21] when I'm thinking of

[01:06:23] doing good you know

[01:06:25] it's not just

[01:06:27] doing you know

[01:06:29] there are a lot of problems now

[01:06:31] but let's also give some

[01:06:33] thought to the problems yet to come

[01:06:35] so

[01:06:37] I will say it has changed

[01:06:39] the way I think about probability in

[01:06:41] my life because I do like

[01:06:43] you said I try to incorporate

[01:06:45] probability you know we often

[01:06:47] think something is going

[01:06:49] to happen or is it you know it's very

[01:06:51] black and white but when my wife says

[01:06:53] you know what time will you be home I'll be

[01:06:55] like there's a 70% chance

[01:06:57] I'll be home at around 6 30

[01:06:59] and that you know she rolls her eyes

[01:07:01] she's 99% chance she's

[01:07:03] annoyed by that but I think we've all

[01:07:05] got to start thinking in probabilities

[01:07:07] because that is

[01:07:09] going to make the world a lot better

[01:07:11] but the unfortunate thing about

[01:07:13] what you just did although it's probably

[01:07:17] when we when humans

[01:07:19] assess probabilities without actual data

[01:07:21] we tend to be wrong most of the time

[01:07:23] so you ever read Philip Tetlock's work

[01:07:25] on forecasting oh yeah

[01:07:27] I love he is a hero of the

[01:07:29] long-termist movement

[01:07:31] yeah because basically he says almost everybody

[01:07:33] who makes forecast

[01:07:35] for a living is wrong almost all the

[01:07:37] time right but the but the

[01:07:39] upside is you can be trained

[01:07:41] to be a better forecaster and there are

[01:07:43] these super forecasters who use

[01:07:45] these various tricks to

[01:07:47] to figure out

[01:07:49] probabilities that are better than the

[01:07:51] so-called professionals excellent

[01:07:53] topic for a podcast actually

[01:07:55] I mean how to be a super forecaster

[01:07:57] well AJ

[01:07:59] a there's some takeaways one is

[01:08:01] we're going to get you

[01:08:03] 200 puzzle books by AJ

[01:08:05] Jacobs within the next year or so

[01:08:07] we need to develop a new academic

[01:08:09] curriculum that focuses on quality

[01:08:11] of life instead of just the same standard

[01:08:13] curriculum that we've had for the past 200 years

[01:08:15] and

[01:08:17] I think understanding skepticism

[01:08:19] vis-a-vis long-termism

[01:08:21] could help really solve

[01:08:23] problems in society like again

[01:08:25] you know and I think it was in 1972

[01:08:27] someone wrote a book that said

[01:08:29] the England won't exist anymore

[01:08:31] because of overpopulation

[01:08:33] and you know by 1970

[01:08:35] by 1980 they said this and of course

[01:08:37] that didn't happen and

[01:08:39] people are making forecasts about the end of

[01:08:41] the world every decade

[01:08:43] since the 50s or 60s

[01:08:45] whether it's nuclear war or climate change or whatever

[01:08:47] and almost every forecast has been wrong

[01:08:49] although to your point which I think is correct

[01:08:51] the rate of technological

[01:08:53] change cannot

[01:08:55] be ignored now it there will

[01:08:57] that's what makes this time different

[01:08:59] because there was before 1900 there was

[01:09:01] not really

[01:09:03] technological change like for a thousand years

[01:09:05] things stayed the same

[01:09:07] but now everything

[01:09:09] is changing and the faster

[01:09:11] things change the faster there's

[01:09:13] more technological changes because computers are getting

[01:09:15] faster and faster and they're able

[01:09:17] to sequence genomes faster

[01:09:19] which means we could start cloning which means

[01:09:21] we could who knows what else

[01:09:23] like everything is growing exponentially

[01:09:25] so

[01:09:27] it's all to say we've got to be careful

[01:09:29] and maybe

[01:09:31] spend time studying puzzles

[01:09:33] more definitely

[01:09:35] and buying my book when it comes out in April

[01:09:37] yeah well we'll have you on in April to talk

[01:09:39] about puzzles and maybe you'll give us some

[01:09:41] puzzles as well

[01:09:43] love it

[01:09:45] alright thanks so much AJ thanks for coming on again

[01:09:47] thanks James I loved it

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