00:00:00
Good morning, John. Here in my notes app
00:00:02
list of video ideas, nestled between
00:00:04
ranking Irish road signs and will
00:00:07
computers ever suffer lies a little
00:00:09
video called am I cigarettes? Which you
00:00:11
stole from me. But of course, I forgive
00:00:13
you for two reasons. One, I've stolen a
00:00:15
ton of stuff from you. And second, you
00:00:16
did a better job of that video than I
00:00:18
would have, not least because I have
00:00:19
never smoked a cigarette. I was so
00:00:21
scared of addiction as a kid, which is
00:00:23
kind of wild considering how I use the
00:00:25
social internet. But we're going to talk
00:00:26
about that. So, you finished your video,
00:00:28
which I liked a lot, without any
00:00:30
solutions, and then you just like kind
00:00:31
of dumped that on me. Well, John, you
00:00:34
know, I've got thoughts. So, a quick
00:00:36
summary, the idea basically is that the
00:00:38
social internet might really be quite
00:00:39
bad for people. And at some point, you
00:00:42
transition from you using it to it using
00:00:44
you, the way that cigarettes are
00:00:46
basically hacking a human to become a
00:00:48
person who uses them, which is just an
00:00:50
amazing business model for some rich guy
00:00:52
and a terrible outcome for everyone
00:00:54
else. But is this a good metaphor? Is
00:00:56
the social internet cigarettes? And
00:00:58
since I live so much of my life here and
00:01:00
make so much of my content for people
00:01:02
here, is it worse than that? Am I the
00:01:05
cigarettes that are being sold by the
00:01:07
rich guy? So, having this metaphor not
00:01:09
just be like a thing in my notes app,
00:01:10
but something that I spent a little bit
00:01:12
of time with. I do think it's probably a
00:01:14
dangerous metaphor. I think it's a
00:01:15
simplifier. I like simplifiers, but you
00:01:17
always have to ask what the
00:01:18
simplification obscures. And in this
00:01:20
case, I think a lot. I think it would be
00:01:22
very easy and it would get a lot of
00:01:23
views to have a video that's called like
00:01:25
we don't use Tik Tok, Tik Tok uses us.
00:01:27
And that is sometimes true and it might
00:01:29
even result in positive outcomes to make
00:01:31
a video like that because I think we
00:01:32
should be thinking about this stuff
00:01:33
more. But I think I've landed on a
00:01:36
better metaphor that I'd like to share
00:01:38
with you. But in the way of Vlog
00:01:39
Brothers where nothing is simple and we
00:01:41
have to imagine everything complexely,
00:01:42
it takes a little bit of time I think to
00:01:44
build the case. Well, so I'm sure that
00:01:46
some people argue that cigarettes
00:01:48
provide some utility to humans. And I
00:01:50
assume almost all of those people make
00:01:51
money selling cigarettes, but this is
00:01:53
definitely BS. A world where nicotine
00:01:55
had simply never evolved would be a
00:01:57
better world with less suffering. But
00:01:58
the thing that is like the core of the
00:02:00
social internet isn't nicotine. It's not
00:02:03
like an addictive chemical that provides
00:02:05
no benefit except for making you
00:02:06
addicted to it. The thing that is at the
00:02:08
core here is information. It's content,
00:02:11
for lack of a better term. And I love
00:02:13
content. I love books and music and art
00:02:16
and cat videos and video essays and
00:02:18
podcasts about the history of the
00:02:19
Supreme Court and dumb videos about
00:02:22
baseball statistics even though I never
00:02:23
watched baseball. So, cigarettes cannot
00:02:25
be positive, but I think information
00:02:27
obviously can be which is why this
00:02:29
metaphor I think cannot lead us towards
00:02:31
solutions. It isn't a good enough
00:02:32
metaphor. And so, here's my different
00:02:34
metaphor. Let's talk about food. Food
00:02:37
definitely good. Definit like nobody
00:02:39
wants a world without food. And for most
00:02:41
of human history, the problem was not
00:02:44
enough access to food. And honestly, I
00:02:46
don't mean most of human history. I mean
00:02:47
all of human history up until extremely
00:02:49
recently, malnutrition has likely played
00:02:51
a role in more human deaths than any
00:02:54
single pathogen or weapon. Scarcity of
00:02:57
calories has been the human story for
00:02:59
basically the whole time. Like the whole
00:03:01
time. The first American generation that
00:03:03
for the most part did not have to worry
00:03:04
about getting enough food is still
00:03:07
alive. Up until the 1940s, food
00:03:09
shortages were common. In the 1930s,
00:03:11
they were extremely common. In the
00:03:12
1880s, it was unimaginable that they
00:03:14
wouldn't happen. So, we've moved from
00:03:16
scarcity to like ultraabundance. At this
00:03:18
point, we kind of have too much food.
00:03:20
And now, we're in a society where
00:03:22
companies compete to create the most
00:03:24
delightful and engaging and inexpensive
00:03:28
food possible, which it turns out is way
00:03:30
better for you than malnutrition, but
00:03:33
also creates other problems. If the
00:03:35
calories are cheap and they're designed
00:03:37
to hack your brain into not realizing
00:03:39
you've consumed them, you will eat more
00:03:41
food and it makes sense that companies
00:03:44
would optimize for that. If you got a
00:03:45
product on the grocery shelf and there's
00:03:46
a product right next to it that tastes
00:03:48
better and that people like more, that's
00:03:50
a big problem for you. That's the
00:03:51
competition happening on the grocery
00:03:53
shelf. So, it makes sense that companies
00:03:54
are optimizing for that. And it makes
00:03:56
sense that I would have a hard time not
00:03:57
eating more food than I need while
00:03:59
simultaneously not actually getting all
00:04:01
the fiber and vitamins and proteins I
00:04:03
need because they're not optimizing for
00:04:05
delivering everything I need to be a
00:04:07
healthy person. They're optimizing for
00:04:09
what I'm going to buy. I want a
00:04:10
Nashville hot chicken all the time,
00:04:12
every meal. But important, very
00:04:15
important, a hot chicken sandwich isn't
00:04:17
cigarettes because cigarettes are just a
00:04:19
way to get nicotine into your body while
00:04:20
a hot chicken sandwich is mostly food.
00:04:23
Now, Coca-Cola, I probably shouldn't go
00:04:25
on this digression, but I'm more on the
00:04:26
fence about sugar waters. If the food is
00:04:29
just 20 lollipops dissolved in bubbly
00:04:31
water, that's calories, but it isn't
00:04:34
really food. And perhaps I would prefer
00:04:36
a world where we just had never thought
00:04:37
of the idea of sugary drinks. And yes,
00:04:39
that includes juices. Juice is soda.
00:04:42
This is my biggest take. Juice is soda.
00:04:43
My point is, there was a time, and it
00:04:45
was a very long time, when we did not
00:04:47
have enough food. And now we don't just
00:04:48
have an abundance. We kind of have too
00:04:50
much. And we have companies competing to
00:04:52
make food that is both cheap and super
00:04:55
tasty, hyper palatable they call it. The
00:04:57
result is a lot of people with fairly
00:04:59
unhealthy relationships with food and
00:05:02
health problems that we've never had to
00:05:03
deal with before. And the question has
00:05:05
been, how do you solve this? And for a
00:05:07
long time, we had the exact wrong idea.
00:05:10
We thought that if you gave people
00:05:11
information about how many calories were
00:05:14
in Doritos, it would make them
00:05:15
healthier. If they knew what they were
00:05:17
doing, they would do it less. And this
00:05:19
is wrong. Nutrition is complex and no
00:05:22
one has any idea how many calories they
00:05:24
need to eat or how many calories they
00:05:26
eat. Keeping track of that and I've
00:05:28
tried is like a full-on hobby. Like it
00:05:30
has to be like your first or second
00:05:32
priority after work. We know that we did
00:05:35
this and we know that it hasn't worked.
00:05:38
I don't think the solution is to deeply
00:05:40
understand the chemical and caloric
00:05:41
content of a Dorito. And I think that
00:05:43
everyone who studies this would agree
00:05:44
with me. I'm not saying anything
00:05:45
revolutionary here. It turns out that
00:05:47
the solution is mostly avoiding food
00:05:49
that has been designed to be extremely
00:05:51
tasty. Because when you don't do that,
00:05:52
it's very hard to not overeat food. But
00:05:55
unsurprisingly, this is difficult. And
00:05:56
not just because Doritos and Pop-Tarts
00:05:58
taste so good and cost so little. It's
00:06:00
hard because having too much food is a
00:06:02
very new problem. Like, we are not set
00:06:04
up for it. We do not have cultural
00:06:06
structures to deal with it. Also, and I
00:06:08
know this is a hard thing to
00:06:09
internalize, but we don't have as much
00:06:11
agency as we would like to think. I
00:06:13
really like the elephant writer metaphor
00:06:15
where like our bodies are the elephant
00:06:17
and our consciousness is the person like
00:06:19
driving the elephant. We all have many
00:06:21
situations where we've realized that we
00:06:23
would like to go somewhere but the
00:06:24
elephant doesn't want to go that way and
00:06:26
it simply will not. We just can't in
00:06:27
that moment stop ourselves from saying
00:06:29
the mean thing, from making the bad
00:06:32
decision, from finishing the burrito
00:06:34
even though you are stuffed full of
00:06:35
burrito. But luckily we're cultural and
00:06:37
we build cultural tools when we have to.
00:06:39
It just takes a long time. It takes a
00:06:41
while for us to get good at worlds that
00:06:43
are fundamentally differently shaped
00:06:45
than the ones we used to live in. The
00:06:46
way that we get better at things when
00:06:48
things change isn't entirely clear, but
00:06:50
it does seem to happen with food. Part
00:06:51
of that is definitely going to be
00:06:52
cultural change, like just having a vibe
00:06:55
around ultrarocessed foods that feel
00:06:57
kind of gross or a little cringe, like
00:06:58
something that you would not allow in
00:07:00
your home. I was raised on Pop-Tarts. I
00:07:02
have not had a Pop-Tart in a long time.
00:07:04
I've never stopped wanting Pop-Tarts,
00:07:06
but I have not had one in a while. And
00:07:07
with food, for people who are already
00:07:08
deeply affected, we now have amazing
00:07:10
pharmaceutical tools. From what I can
00:07:12
see, GLP1 agonists are basically miracle
00:07:14
drugs. Like, I know people will argue
00:07:16
with me about that, but it is really
00:07:18
great that we have these tools. But I
00:07:19
think that the long-term solution will
00:07:21
just be a turn away from foods that are
00:07:23
engineered to hack our brains and like a
00:07:25
feeling that I don't want to deal with
00:07:27
them, like I don't want to give them
00:07:28
that power over me, and a turn toward
00:07:31
foods that are just better for you, that
00:07:32
are more foodshaped, you know? Now,
00:07:34
that's not easy. And again, I do think
00:07:36
that this isn't just about like hyper
00:07:37
palletability being engineered by
00:07:39
chemists. I think there's lots of food
00:07:41
that's very tasty that isn't
00:07:42
ultrarocessed that also has this
00:07:44
problem. It's just like too good. And
00:07:46
we're humans. We're animals. It is hard
00:07:48
to deal with this. But I think that the
00:07:49
positive consequences of solving this
00:07:51
problem are too large that we won't get
00:07:53
there. And I hope that you have followed
00:07:54
the metaphor here because I am now going
00:07:56
to open it up for you. For the last
00:07:59
millions of years of human ancestral
00:08:01
existence, we didn't just live in a
00:08:03
world of food scarcity. We lived in a
00:08:05
world of information scarcity. You can
00:08:07
make the case that the last generation
00:08:08
that had to worry about too little
00:08:10
information is still alive today and
00:08:12
they are my parents. And now we live in
00:08:14
a world of information abundance. Almost
00:08:17
as if there's too much information. And
00:08:19
definitely the people who package up
00:08:21
information to sell it to you are
00:08:23
competing with each other to make that
00:08:25
information more hyper palatable. And in
00:08:27
many cases the process that makes the
00:08:29
information hyperpalatable also makes it
00:08:32
worse for you. It makes it easy to only
00:08:35
consume information that you like.
00:08:37
Information that hacks your brain into
00:08:38
consuming more of it. Information that
00:08:40
doesn't contain the vitamins and the
00:08:41
fiber and the protein that your brain
00:08:42
needs to have a functional, useful model
00:08:44
of the world that helps you thrive in
00:08:46
your environment. There's lots of like
00:08:48
empty calories which I think are mostly
00:08:50
fine. Like I love myself a video of a
00:08:52
guy getting hit in the nuts just after
00:08:54
he got hit in the nuts. But there's also
00:08:56
stuff that's definitely actively
00:08:58
harmful. the trans fats and sugary
00:09:00
beverages of the information world, the
00:09:02
outrage bait, the conspiracy theories
00:09:04
that alienate you from your communities.
00:09:05
And just like with the nutrition labels
00:09:08
situation, I think it's very easy to
00:09:10
think the solution to this problem is,
00:09:12
oh, we just need to educate people on
00:09:14
what's good and bad and they'll make
00:09:16
better decisions. And I think that's
00:09:18
wrong. I think that it's a good part of
00:09:20
it, but on its own, you will never get
00:09:22
someone to fact check a fact that they
00:09:24
agree with. Like the only time the red
00:09:27
flag gets raised for the vast majority
00:09:29
of people is when the information seems
00:09:31
wrong. So when it seems right, why would
00:09:33
someone check the fact? You can't check
00:09:35
every fact that you come across on the
00:09:36
internet, you come across 600 of them an
00:09:38
hour. There's too much. And unlike food
00:09:40
where like you make a Dorito and then
00:09:42
you try and sell Doritos to everybody
00:09:43
with the internet, we can design an
00:09:45
individual personalized Dorito for every
00:09:47
single person. And that Dorito can
00:09:48
gather information about what they like
00:09:50
and it can morph and change along with
00:09:52
that person's interest to make sure that
00:09:54
it's always hyper palatable specifically
00:09:56
for that person. And as they fall down a
00:09:58
misinformation rabbit hole, that Dorito
00:10:00
can keep changing shape until it's worse
00:10:02
and worse for you as long as it keeps
00:10:04
you eating Doritos. This is wild. It's
00:10:06
hard. This is very scary. But it's not
00:10:08
cigarettes because the Dorito is still
00:10:10
food. It's still information at the
00:10:12
core. It isn't just an addictive
00:10:13
compound. At the core, it is
00:10:15
information. It is something that can be
00:10:16
valuable or can be harmful. So, I would
00:10:19
not prefer to just live in a world where
00:10:21
it was never invented. I mean, there are
00:10:23
days, but I bet during the Reformation
00:10:25
there were lots of people who felt that
00:10:26
way about books. This is hard and some
00:10:28
of the smartest people in the world are
00:10:30
employed designing Doritos that will be
00:10:33
more and more appealing to you. But I
00:10:34
also think that we as biological
00:10:36
entities and cultural entities are just
00:10:38
at the part of this where we suck at it.
00:10:40
And I've actually seen signs that we
00:10:42
could maybe be getting better, though
00:10:44
it's hard to tell. But we've gone from
00:10:46
millions of years of ancestral
00:10:47
information scarcity, which by the way
00:10:49
could definitely kill you back then, to
00:10:51
the first era of information abundance.
00:10:53
And a nice thing here is that we have a
00:10:55
great metaphor in food. And what have we
00:10:57
learned from food? Companies will do
00:10:59
everything they can to make things that
00:11:01
are very appealing, even addictive. We
00:11:03
have less control than we imagine that
00:11:06
we have. And giving your agency away a
00:11:08
little bit can be fun and rewarding, but
00:11:10
giving it away completely isn't just
00:11:12
damaging to you and your ability to
00:11:14
flourish is kind of cringe. Like nobody
00:11:16
brags about the start of their second
00:11:18
hour on TikTok. What worked with
00:11:21
cigarettes and I think what is working
00:11:23
some with food is shining a light on the
00:11:27
people who want to manipulate us.
00:11:28
There's this TV advertisement that was
00:11:30
on in Florida when I was a kid where
00:11:32
there's this guy dying in the hospital.
00:11:35
Maybe I'll just play it for you. I'm
00:11:36
going to describe it, but if I can find
00:11:37
it, I'll just play it for you. There's
00:11:38
this guy dying in the hospital and
00:11:40
there's these all these like suits
00:11:42
around him like like professional
00:11:43
businessmen around him and they're
00:11:45
saying, "Oh no, like how are we going to
00:11:47
replace this guy?" Like he was our
00:11:49
greatest most loyal customer. And then
00:11:51
the camera like pans to a young person
00:11:54
in the hallway of the hospital. That to
00:11:56
me is the best messaging. That's what we
00:11:58
need. We need to understand that the
00:12:00
people and the platforms and the foods
00:12:02
that are very good at hacking your brain
00:12:05
and taking away your agency and the
00:12:07
creators and the leaders who alienate
00:12:09
you from reality so that they can keep
00:12:11
control over you that keep you scared of
00:12:12
everything, angry at everything, feeling
00:12:14
superior to everyone. Those people are
00:12:16
the businessmen in that hospital room.
00:12:18
And there are a lot of people, a lot of
00:12:20
people who have ended up damaged by
00:12:23
those people. and they will always
00:12:25
always want more customers. And I do
00:12:27
think that eventually we will see that
00:12:28
stuff not just like junk food that's
00:12:30
like Doritos are good sometimes, but as
00:12:32
so manipulative and cringe and like
00:12:35
imagining us as tools to be used. I
00:12:38
think that we'll eventually see that. I
00:12:40
just think it's going to take a long
00:12:41
time. John, the social internet isn't
00:12:43
cigarettes. It is food. And a lot of
00:12:45
it's junk food. And a lot of it's worse
00:12:47
than junk food. It isn't just Doritos.
00:12:49
It's making us sick. But a lot of it is
00:12:51
nutritious. We have to get better at
00:12:54
being able to identify which is which,
00:12:56
but it's going to take a lot of time.
00:12:57
And I do think there are ways to speed
00:12:58
that time up. Like I remember how
00:13:01
successfully we decreased smoking in
00:13:03
America. There are things we can do,
00:13:04
things we can shine a light on, but I
00:13:06
think that the stories have to be much
00:13:07
simpler than here's how you do fact
00:13:10
checks and have good information
00:13:11
literacy. It has to be a simple story of
00:13:13
people trying to manipulate us into
00:13:16
being their tools despite the fact that
00:13:18
it's going to make our lives worse.
00:13:19
That's what we have to think about.
00:13:21
simple stories. And this was not a good
00:13:23
video for simple stories. I'll say
00:13:25
that's not really my area of expertise
00:13:27
all the time. There's definitely a TLDDR
00:13:29
version of this video that's more
00:13:30
effective. And I leave that up to
00:13:32
everyone else. John, I'll see you on
00:13:34
Tuesday. Also, completely unrelated, the
00:13:36
Awesome Socks Club Warehouse has too
00:13:38
many socks in it right now. We always
00:13:39
buy a few extra and then we have too
00:13:41
many. And we solve this problem in a
00:13:42
bunch of different ways. One, we give
00:13:44
them away to charity. We've given away
00:13:45
over 50,000 socks. I mean, 100,000 if
00:13:47
you count both of them. But we also sell
00:13:48
them as mystery socks. If you could
00:13:50
choose the size, but you don't know the
00:13:52
cut or the design you're going to get,
00:13:54
and we'll send you a bunch of them. Your
00:13:55
feet need socks. You're going to have to
00:13:57
buy them anyway. You might as well buy
00:13:58
them from a place where all the profit
00:14:00
gets donated to charity. We're selling
00:14:01
these at a pretty substantial discount.
00:14:02
I was planning on uploading a different
00:14:04
video today, and the coupon code is look
00:14:06
at this graph, which would make sense if
00:14:08
it were that video, but John, then you
00:14:10
made me make this video basically. So,
00:14:12
instead, the coupon code is the same.
00:14:15
So, look at this graph. coupon code,
00:14:16
you'll save an extra $5 off the already
00:14:18
steeply discounted mystery socks.
