1 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,880 Nicholas, it's great to have you on the episode. 2 00:00:20,880 --> 00:00:22,320 Really, really excited about this. 3 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:24,440 I've been consuming your content. 4 00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:27,680 Oh, have you ever since ever since Rory, I was raving on 5 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:29,560 about yours. Like whenever Rory gets excited, 6 00:00:29,560 --> 00:00:31,360 I get excited. Whenever I get excited but I get 7 00:00:31,360 --> 00:00:34,000 he gets excited. Rory is a very generous man, so 8 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:36,360 you have to you have to exercise care. 9 00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:38,920 He's he. I'm late for this interview. 10 00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:42,280 He's been incredibly gentlemanly, making me feel as 11 00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:45,280 if it's entirely normal to turn up half an hour late for things. 12 00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:46,840 And. I'm mortified. 13 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:49,640 But anyway, well, you've got some creatives on the podcast. 14 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:52,160 So we tend to be very, very understanding. 15 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:54,480 That's correct. That's the whole entire process. 16 00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:57,280 But you know what, We'll just get straight into it. 17 00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:00,440 So for our guests that don't know who you are, it'll be great 18 00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:03,120 for you to give a bit of a summary of, like yourself, the 19 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:05,120 work you've been doing, and we can start to dive into some of 20 00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:07,200 the bottlenecks that you've been experiencing along the way. 21 00:01:07,240 --> 00:01:10,040 OK, good. So I am. 22 00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:14,320 Let me tell a little story is that my father was an economist. 23 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:18,520 My brother and I tried very hard not to be economists and we both 24 00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:23,560 failed. And But I'm a kind of roving 25 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:30,160 economist and I've spent 30 odd years thinking about public 26 00:01:30,160 --> 00:01:34,320 policy, economics, the inadequacies of economics. 27 00:01:34,320 --> 00:01:38,000 And I've spent the last five years feeling intensively 28 00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:41,000 looking at the inadequacies of our democracy. 29 00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:46,960 And I've been asking very simple questions and looking at things 30 00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:51,840 in a very simple kind of way. And when you do that, and you do 31 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:53,720 sometimes it pays some dividends. 32 00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:58,280 And you, you come to think that you understand certain things 33 00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:02,120 that are simple, but that people are missing and you try and 34 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:05,800 point it out to them and they tell you you're wrong a lot of 35 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:08,360 the time. Because it takes a while to to 36 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:12,600 kind of decompress and to see some of the things that some of 37 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:18,000 the deep structures in, in the systems that we're all part of 38 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:19,600 and. When you ask these simple 39 00:02:19,600 --> 00:02:21,520 questions, do people give you simple answers? 40 00:02:22,240 --> 00:02:26,960 No, no, no, because what happens is that we are as as is natural 41 00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:29,040 and appropriate. We're acculturated. 42 00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:33,600 You know, we look at that thing over there and we see a chair 43 00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:35,880 and that's what it is. But it's also a bunch of other 44 00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:38,240 things. It's plastic, it's wood, it's, 45 00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:42,480 it's, it's there. And, and so if you look at 46 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:49,120 something and you start and you start think, you start asking 47 00:02:49,120 --> 00:02:54,240 yourself why isn't this thing working the way everyone says it 48 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:56,280 should work? Is it? 49 00:02:56,280 --> 00:03:00,560 Is the fact that everyone is preoccupied with how a thing 50 00:03:00,560 --> 00:03:04,320 should be actually part of the reason why it's not that way? 51 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:10,200 So how you categorise a thing automatically then induces kind 52 00:03:10,200 --> 00:03:14,040 of biases and habits of thoughts exactly simply as a simply as a 53 00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:16,240 product of the categorisation. Exactly. 54 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:21,360 But if a thing is a planet, you might not have a very strong 55 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:26,640 idea of what a planet should be. But if a thing is a politician, 56 00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:31,520 you have a strong idea that this politician is a politician, is 57 00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:34,600 in the House of Commons, and they're doing the wrong thing 58 00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:36,800 and they should do the right thing. 59 00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:39,000 And so you can go one of two ways. 60 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:42,640 You can go the way that most politics goes, which is to wag 61 00:03:42,640 --> 00:03:45,480 the finger and say should, should, should, should, should, 62 00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:49,720 should, should, or well, why isn't he doing the right thing? 63 00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:53,840 Are there things about the way we've set this up that means 64 00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:55,440 that it's not doing the right thing? 65 00:03:55,480 --> 00:04:01,520 And one way to think about our political system, one way to 66 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:07,200 think about left and right is that is to ask the role of the 67 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:10,960 ask the question, what is shoulding doing here? 68 00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:16,279 What is the desire to look at something and say you should be 69 00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:18,680 not the way I see you, but some other way? 70 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:24,120 And so I would say that the left do shooting all the time, yes. 71 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:27,680 And the right do suck it up. Mm hmm. 72 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:31,440 That's the way it is. And they just don't understand 73 00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:35,440 each other in that way. But the right, I think the left 74 00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:42,200 have really got themselves rather unmoored through the 75 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:46,280 woke, the the, the woke adventure and all that sort of 76 00:04:46,280 --> 00:04:50,000 stuff, which was endlessly shooting and shooting and 77 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:55,200 shooting and shooting. And then we say that trans women 78 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:58,640 are women. Therefore someone self 79 00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:02,880 identifying as trans, born a man, gone through puberty as a 80 00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:06,840 man, goes to a male prison either sorry, goes to a female 81 00:05:06,840 --> 00:05:12,520 prison and they have been convicted of a of a sex offence. 82 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:15,080 You know, that's just completely nuts. 83 00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:20,480 And what's happened to society because just like this podcast, 84 00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:24,360 I, I really like the ability for people that even if you don't 85 00:05:24,360 --> 00:05:28,040 have the same views, you can at least have a conversation around 86 00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:30,560 something. What's happened in society where 87 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:34,320 everybody's kind of like gone to their direction and they've 88 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:37,120 stuck to their guns and not willing to cooperate and have a 89 00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:39,080 conversation? What's happened there? 90 00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:45,760 What's happened is that for the past 250 years we've set up 91 00:05:46,040 --> 00:05:50,960 everything that matters to us and our society as a competition 92 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:52,760 between for and against everything. 93 00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:58,120 So the very terms left and right, where do they turn up in 94 00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:02,240 the French Revolution, where where you sat in the assembly 95 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:04,800 meant whether you were for or against. 96 00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:11,320 So everything we have, even when it's brand new, like where did 97 00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:14,760 COVID come from? A few months people go by and 98 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:16,680 they're kind of actually curious. 99 00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:22,240 And then somehow it gets assured, it gets an or, it gets 100 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:27,400 an ideological orientation, which is absurd for the question 101 00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:31,360 of where did a virus come from to acquire an ideological 102 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:34,200 connotation. We can do it in months, we can 103 00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:36,880 do it in weeks. And that's what we did, and 104 00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:38,080 that's what we do with everything. 105 00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:44,200 And so we can't really. And so everyone participates in 106 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:47,080 discussions as if they already know the answer. 107 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:52,640 It's very interesting. I mean, the the distinction I 108 00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:55,000 always make is do you want to win an argument or do you want 109 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:56,160 to solve a problem? Yeah. 110 00:06:56,480 --> 00:06:58,360 Yeah. Because if you think about 111 00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:02,760 probably the worst influence on British politics is the PPE 112 00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:05,880 degree at Oxford. In fact, Oxford in general. 113 00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:09,720 I would, I would extend it even more broadly and say that 114 00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:14,000 effectively it's three to four years training in argumentation 115 00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:18,720 and therefore the consistency of your rationale is more important 116 00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:23,320 than the consequences of the implementation of that idea. 117 00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:25,720 OK. And that, I mean, it always 118 00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:28,280 interests me partly because what's quite interesting about 119 00:07:28,280 --> 00:07:31,440 the advertising industry is I always joke about this in most, 120 00:07:31,440 --> 00:07:34,240 in most areas of decision making, rationality is the gold 121 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:35,400 standard. And I always argue in 122 00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:37,560 advertising, it's the bronze standard. 123 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:40,200 That makes sense, but it's a bit boring. 124 00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:41,600 Can we do something a bit better? 125 00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:45,600 And it's always been interesting because it's a different way to 126 00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:48,520 think, because most people are thinking in a way which is as 127 00:07:48,520 --> 00:07:52,720 long and as you can create a kind of internal consistency to 128 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:55,880 your model, therefore the model is valid and you should 129 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:59,440 therefore apply it very widely regardless of the consequences. 130 00:07:59,960 --> 00:08:02,640 And I I think argumentation and This is why I'm occasionally 131 00:08:02,640 --> 00:08:05,120 seen as kind of anti rationalist, because I think 132 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:07,600 rationality is often quite a low bar in many. 133 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:10,000 Ways but you are. But you're associating 134 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:14,040 rationality with very much with this idea of having it out 135 00:08:14,040 --> 00:08:15,920 between two sides. Yes. 136 00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:18,960 What do you And so if we're trying to work out something 137 00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:23,200 that we don't know much about, well, you might arrange yourself 138 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:27,080 into two sides, but then you will also be both aware that you 139 00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:29,120 of all the things you don't know. 140 00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:34,080 And so anyway, so, so an argument or discussion is, is an 141 00:08:34,080 --> 00:08:37,360 ecology of shared things and contested things. 142 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:43,240 And so it isn't the. So I would say that simply 143 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:48,680 imagining that a discussion which is a debate between two 144 00:08:48,680 --> 00:08:52,680 people who disagree with each other, simply imagining that as 145 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:56,000 a paradigm of rationality, is irrational in. 146 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:03,760 Itself in itself, because we. Have to be able to feel towards 147 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:07,320 the truth together. And, and, and sometimes I'll say 148 00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:10,280 say no, no, that's, I don't think that's right. 149 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:13,160 You might say no, no, it is right. 150 00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:16,440 And then we might say right, OK, well, we, we've come to an 151 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:18,720 impasse there. Let's go look somewhere else. 152 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:20,840 Or is there another way of looking at things? 153 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:23,440 They're all those, they're all those things. 154 00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:27,680 And in our universities we teach that. 155 00:09:27,680 --> 00:09:32,320 We teach overconfidence in what we know, all this kind of stuff. 156 00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:35,720 Also, there's a weird thing which is the urge to be 157 00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:40,120 singularly right. The byproduct of that is you 158 00:09:40,120 --> 00:09:43,680 automatically reduce the solution set, because if if you 159 00:09:43,680 --> 00:09:47,480 have a large solution set that requires subjective judgement, 160 00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:52,680 intuition, and actually probably debate and discussion, and you 161 00:09:52,680 --> 00:09:56,280 will actually inform your own opinions as a byproduct of that 162 00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:58,160 discussion. If you want to be right. 163 00:09:58,160 --> 00:10:00,840 Right now what you do is you limit the number of variables. 164 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:04,200 Typically as an economist, you'll create it as a trade off 165 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:07,080 between two things, with a single optimum somewhere in 166 00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:09,640 between. Or if you're a politician, you 167 00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:12,240 will engage in what I call peremptory framing. 168 00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:18,560 So you will say, as Tucker Carlson said to somebody in the 169 00:10:18,560 --> 00:10:25,680 military. So tell us how tell us how your 170 00:10:25,680 --> 00:10:28,880 policy of, of not discriminating, not 171 00:10:28,880 --> 00:10:34,440 discriminating against gay people will help us in win a 172 00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:38,520 battle in Iran. Well, it won't do that. 173 00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:40,360 It's not that's not it's function. 174 00:10:40,360 --> 00:10:43,920 It's the, the, the, the there are, you know, this is these are 175 00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:46,600 these are human beings. There's a lot of things to think 176 00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:50,440 about, but you can frame it in a particular way that you look 177 00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:53,240 silly defending. What we need is more gay 178 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:58,880 soldiers, you know that they're just different things and so 179 00:10:59,840 --> 00:11:04,680 huge amount of politics. Think of the 2 terms, pro-life 180 00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:07,000 and pro-choice. Well, those are peremptory 181 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:10,000 framings. What they're saying is you 182 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:13,240 couldn't possibly, you know, could you, could you be anything 183 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:15,720 but pro-choice? Could you be anything but 184 00:11:15,720 --> 00:11:19,200 pro-life? And so the whole point of this 185 00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:23,440 manoeuvre is to foreshadow is, is to forestall the possibility 186 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:27,400 of debate. So it's it's, it's a crazy, it's 187 00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:28,640 a. Very interesting example of 188 00:11:28,640 --> 00:11:31,640 where debate comes to a better answer. 189 00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:35,080 And I, I, I've, I've funnily enough, this is where marketing 190 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:38,920 slightly helps because interestingly, in marketing, you 191 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:41,960 know, every individual is a potential market. 192 00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:46,720 So you have to be interested in everybody to some extent if you 193 00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:48,160 want to actually grow your business. 194 00:11:49,160 --> 00:11:51,360 And this was one I think that happened in the UK, which was a 195 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:57,480 discussion on the on effectively taxation of taking airline 196 00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:01,800 flights. And it started off framed in, 197 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:05,200 yes, we should tax every flight people take. 198 00:12:06,040 --> 00:12:09,120 No, we shouldn't. And eventually I think there was 199 00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:12,240 some sort of effectively deliberative democracy took 200 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:13,880 place. And they took a representative 201 00:12:13,880 --> 00:12:16,560 sample of people and they arrived at what was actually a 202 00:12:16,560 --> 00:12:18,760 very clever reframing of the whole question, which is 203 00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:22,200 basically everybody's got the right to their fortnight in 204 00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:25,480 Tenerife, OK? But if you fly in as an 205 00:12:25,480 --> 00:12:29,160 individual more than a certain number of times a year, then 206 00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:31,800 there should be a kind of sliding scale of how much tax 207 00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:34,720 you pay on your flights, which is completely different, if you 208 00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:36,280 like. It's sort of squaring the circle 209 00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:40,080 between more tax, less tax. It's taxed differently. 210 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:43,360 Now one of the things I said to Transport for London is the 211 00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:47,880 whole policy of the, what is it? The, the, the effectively 212 00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:50,480 there's this clean area, area where if you've got an old 213 00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:53,400 diesel car, you've got to pay, what is it 1520 lbs or something 214 00:12:53,400 --> 00:12:57,160 every time you drive into more or less into, into even outer 215 00:12:57,160 --> 00:13:01,240 London. And my only argument was, look, 216 00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:05,200 there's a huge difference between 100 people paying 20 lbs 217 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:08,840 once and one person paying £20 a hundred times. 218 00:13:08,840 --> 00:13:11,840 If you're a nurse, you've got an old diesel, you've got no choice 219 00:13:11,840 --> 00:13:15,240 but to drive into work at 5:00 in the morning, OK, charging 220 00:13:15,240 --> 00:13:17,720 that person 2000 lbs is ridiculous. 221 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:20,600 And there needs to be some sort of capping system. 222 00:13:21,560 --> 00:13:25,360 You know, Amazon Prime, you, you know, if you pay £150 and then 223 00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:28,440 you're exempt for two years and then you've got two years to 224 00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:31,760 replace your car. And this very, very crude 225 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:36,160 effectively, I suppose one of the things I think Gary 226 00:13:36,160 --> 00:13:37,960 Stevenson, I don't know if you've come across Gary's 227 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:41,800 economics, kind of one of the points he makes, which I think 228 00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:44,480 is a totally valid criticism of mainstream economics, is the 229 00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:48,000 single representative agent model, which is you optimise for 230 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,640 a single average person. And it's assumed therefore that 231 00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:55,360 you've optimised for everybody, which becomes, I think, less and 232 00:13:55,360 --> 00:14:00,320 less successful in a world where of its nature, people are just 233 00:14:00,320 --> 00:14:02,160 more different in their circumstances. 234 00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:06,040 And so, you know, I've, I've always thought that optimized 235 00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:10,160 for the average is a fundamental flaw of economics that, you 236 00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:12,840 know, you, you, you know, essentially one of the points 237 00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:15,840 Gary makes is it doesn't really capture inequality, of course, 238 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:19,720 because you can have six people becoming monumentally wealthy. 239 00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:22,760 And as far as an economist is concerned, the economy is doing 240 00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:23,880 great. Yeah, yeah. 241 00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:26,720 They always say that there's no one more dangerous than an 242 00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:29,080 intelligent person with a fixed mindset, right? 243 00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:31,720 Because they'll stick to their guns and they'll bullshit their 244 00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:33,520 way through and say you have smart things. 245 00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:36,840 This is a. This is a great point that 246 00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:40,960 Alexander Solzhenitsyn makes, which is he says, you know of 247 00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:44,680 all the villains in Shakespeare, about 200 people are killed. 248 00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:49,760 But in the modern world, the villains have got ideology and 249 00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:52,520 10s of millions of people get killed. 250 00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:55,320 Oh, wow. And then going back to the whole 251 00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:58,320 conversation, everybody thinks that it's one or the other, but 252 00:14:58,320 --> 00:14:59,800 really it's not an all conversation. 253 00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:02,680 It's an and conversation and no one ever considers the and 254 00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:04,920 because people are not looking to actually solve the problem. 255 00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:08,040 It seems like it's more linked to people's identity now. 256 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:09,400 Yeah, yeah. So it's like. 257 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:14,720 Like I remember when I was at I was at sixth form and I think it 258 00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:19,520 was the time when Nick Clegg that that that almost like 259 00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:24,240 political run was happening. And I was, I was Labour, right? 260 00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:28,240 And I said, OK, But then if I actually just like made my 261 00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:31,080 answers based on the policies that I believed in, what would I 262 00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:34,280 actually end up being right. But then because I put it into 263 00:15:34,280 --> 00:15:37,840 my identity that I'm part of a party, it's almost like blindly 264 00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:39,800 you have to choose one side or the other, right? 265 00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:40,080 That's. Right. 266 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:44,800 And then what you do is you surely your opponents and you 267 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:47,720 make excuses for your own side and you go, yeah, yeah. 268 00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:52,400 Well, he he, you know, didn't answer the question in in, in 269 00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:57,120 Prime Minister's Questions, but that was because, you know, if 270 00:15:57,120 --> 00:15:59,480 he'd done that, then they would have done this really unfair 271 00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:02,640 thing to him or whatever. And yeah, so. 272 00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:08,400 So this is the same ability to get away from the facts with 273 00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:12,280 with spin effectively sort of self spin saying they should 274 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:13,800 have done this, they should have done that and. 275 00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:17,040 It seems like why? Why is the world's 'cause it was 276 00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:21,240 already a little bit like that ten years ago, tennis or so 277 00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:24,200 years ago, It's become even more polarizing now, right? 278 00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:26,720 It's almost like, and I think Rory talked about this in the 279 00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:30,640 last episode, that if you're moderately left or moderately 280 00:16:30,640 --> 00:16:32,640 right, it's almost like no one listens to you. 281 00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:35,600 That's right if you're far one end or far the other side. 282 00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:37,240 You're much more. I'll tell you the brute. 283 00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:40,640 I'll give you the answer to your question in one answer, in one 284 00:16:40,640 --> 00:16:45,040 word. Entertainment much more 285 00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:51,280 entertaining to run a story about some extreme view, some 286 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:57,240 extreme event. So that's that's the bias and it 287 00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:00,960 then becomes a tool of political combat. 288 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:07,920 So you'll pick some completely crazy, some some crazy 289 00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:13,319 proposition from among your opponents that's that's 290 00:17:13,319 --> 00:17:14,160 political. Combat. 291 00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:17,079 There's another thing too, which I don't think anybody's remarked 292 00:17:17,079 --> 00:17:22,040 on, which is when you introduce prohibition, OK, in, in, in the 293 00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:26,079 United States, no one bothers with beer anymore, OK? 294 00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:28,800 Because what the Hell's the point of smuggling beer? 295 00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:30,560 It's massively high in volume, OK? 296 00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:34,600 Similarly, if you watch Narcos, they were basically cannabis 297 00:17:34,600 --> 00:17:37,560 smugglers, OK? And they suddenly go, look, if 298 00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:39,400 we're going to take all this risk of getting something 299 00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:42,480 through the American border, we might as well pack the truck 300 00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:45,840 with cocaine rather than cannabis because it's a high 301 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:49,960 intensity product, OK? Similarly, not many bootleggers 302 00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:53,320 bothered opening a brewery. It was all high, high strength 303 00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:54,120 spirits. Yeah. 304 00:17:54,120 --> 00:17:56,960 And similarly, if you're in a world where you're not allowed 305 00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:59,920 to make a mildly politically incorrect joke. 306 00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:01,720 Yeah, you might. As you said, you end up with 307 00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:02,640 Andrew Tate. Yeah. 308 00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:04,960 OK. Andrew Tate is the cocaine or 309 00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:06,680 the bootleg gin. Yeah. 310 00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:07,560 Of. Yeah. 311 00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:09,160 Incorrect opinion, you see. Exactly. 312 00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:10,640 Because it's. I suppose. 313 00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:14,280 You know Nick Quinta is the. Current, it's kind of might as 314 00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:16,000 well be hanging for a sheep as a lamb. 315 00:18:16,120 --> 00:18:18,440 So if you, you know, if you're, if you're actually going to 316 00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:21,840 transgress and there's no distinction made between mild 317 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:23,600 transgressional and extreme transgress. 318 00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:25,840 Yeah. Well, yeah. 319 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:29,320 Well, the color rage baiting now, right, yes, and and and 320 00:18:29,320 --> 00:18:32,760 there's somebody that obviously like specialized in in digital 321 00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:35,560 marketing, et cetera, et cetera. You recognize that you need to 322 00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:40,320 do a lot to almost like set yourself apart in the doom 323 00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:42,440 scrolling era, right? So you have to do something that 324 00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:44,440 jumps out at people. And then people feel something. 325 00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:50,360 And I feel like we're so hung up or we're so drained in dopamine 326 00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:53,800 excess that it seems like we will not only want. 327 00:18:53,920 --> 00:18:55,920 To experience a dopamine and adrenaline. 328 00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,400 So it seems like we don't only want that in our digital lives, 329 00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:00,280 but also in our physical lives as well. 330 00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:03,320 And unless something hits a particular note, it almost like 331 00:19:03,560 --> 00:19:05,360 doesn't register in people's minds. 332 00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:07,760 And is that one of the things that you think are? 333 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:09,240 Yeah, sorry. Yeah, 1. 334 00:19:09,360 --> 00:19:11,200 Of you that you think are influencing that. 335 00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:15,600 Yeah, I think our our see sometimes people, someone like 336 00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:20,680 Ian Mcgilchrist will say this is Western and it is Western, but 337 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:25,160 it's now a Western institutionalised in this, in 338 00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:30,880 these adversarial structures. And it's so it makes it harder 339 00:19:31,240 --> 00:19:34,520 to represent the centre. The centre is boring. 340 00:19:34,600 --> 00:19:41,880 The centre is not. The centre is not as immediately 341 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:43,880 you. You can't cut through quite as 342 00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:46,880 easily. You can't be completely right as 343 00:19:46,880 --> 00:19:49,320 a centrist, can you? It's all a kind of bargaining 344 00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:51,320 thing. Yes, and I'm intrigued by this 345 00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:54,760 as an enthusiastic Georgeist because of course one of the 346 00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:58,760 reasons Georgeism never takes any root is that it's inherently 347 00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:03,520 contradictory in that it's incredibly free market in terms 348 00:20:03,520 --> 00:20:06,120 of the fruits of people's labour's effort. 349 00:20:06,360 --> 00:20:09,840 Or indeed, imagine. And it's socialistic with 350 00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:12,680 relation to what you might call, well, typically land, 351 00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:15,720 historically land, you could extend it actually to scarce 352 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:17,280 resources like fossil. Fueling. 353 00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:19,520 Yes, indeed. OK, things with rent. 354 00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:21,560 So. So it was almost a religious 355 00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:24,160 distinction which I think people understood in the 19th century, 356 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:28,680 which is that land and oil are actually the creation of God. 357 00:20:29,120 --> 00:20:31,800 And therefore the proceeds from those things should be 358 00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:36,520 reapportioned fairly because the value of your land is as much to 359 00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:39,520 do with the that's of your neighbors as it is of your own. 360 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:42,800 But I think in the 19th century they probably had a kind of 361 00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:45,800 religious way of understanding this, which is why Georgism went 362 00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:48,480 very big. I mean, you could extend it also 363 00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,000 to, I mean, Facebook or something if you wanted to. 364 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:53,360 You could just say, okay, there's a kind of gorgeous 365 00:20:53,360 --> 00:20:56,920 approach to the web and that certain behaviours become 366 00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:02,000 essentially so habitual that the ownership of that behaviour 367 00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:04,720 becomes a kind of extractive rent seeking activity. 368 00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:07,040 And it, it's stop, it's shit of occasion. 369 00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:09,960 It stops being value creation. You, you go from being a 370 00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:12,720 property developer to being a slum landlord effectively. 371 00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:16,760 But the gorgeous thing is interesting because it's always 372 00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:19,880 difficult for it to take seed because it requires people to be 373 00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:22,840 both at the same time. Left wing in, in relation to 374 00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:25,960 certain forms of economic activity and right wing in 375 00:21:26,120 --> 00:21:29,320 relation to others. But it's, I mean, I think it's 376 00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:32,320 actually inherently beautiful for that reason, because it 377 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:36,240 takes what is what appears to be a contradiction and says, well, 378 00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:39,640 it you know, the extent to which you deserve to keep the fruits 379 00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:44,400 of your fruits of your labour entirely depend on the social 380 00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:46,240 contribution that your labour makes. 381 00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:48,920 Yeah. So, yeah, it reminds me of a of 382 00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:51,320 of a philosopher. He was a scientist, then an 383 00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:53,960 economist, then a philosopher guy called Michael Polani. 384 00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:55,920 Who, Yes, of course. Who? 385 00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:58,960 Genius man? Well, he was very so he was a 386 00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:03,160 liberal, he was a friend of Friedrich Hayek's and a strong 387 00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:06,000 free market guy. But he also thought that Keynes 388 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:09,040 was right and which he was in my opinion. 389 00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:14,520 And what he then did was he designed a system that would be 390 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:18,640 Keynesian at the same time as leaving, as focusing the 391 00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:23,080 interventions of government as tightly around what Keynes had 392 00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:26,320 identified as the problem, which is the flow of money around the 393 00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:27,240 economy. Got it. 394 00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:30,920 And what had happened with Keynesianism is that it had 395 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:35,640 picked up a lot of left wing baggage, a lot of the idea that 396 00:22:35,640 --> 00:22:40,000 these that, that for more state investment, more state 397 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:45,160 supervision of investment and stuff like this, more labour 398 00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:48,480 market regulation. And, and so Palani designed this 399 00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:54,960 system, which would be very, very free market, but would toss 400 00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:58,680 money into the economy when it needed to be tossed in and suck 401 00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,680 it back out when it, when it, when it was time to suck it out. 402 00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:05,760 So, so that's that's another exact that number took off 403 00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:07,520 either because you sort of have to. 404 00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:09,440 You have you have to ride two horses. 405 00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:11,480 Well, well, that's well, well, that's right. 406 00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:17,160 And so the right was successful at pedal their their wares by so 407 00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:21,000 someone like Friedrich Hayek raised his money from the owners 408 00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:25,920 of capital and labour was much keener on Keynesian policies, 409 00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:31,480 which came with a bunch of other which came with a bunch of other 410 00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:35,720 accoutrements of the left. So there's a. 411 00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:36,640 That's a. That's a. 412 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,520 That's an analogy in macro. He was also interesting wasn't 413 00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:41,240 he? Because he was an early AI pet 414 00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,720 pioneer if I'm right. Irani. 415 00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:46,280 Because he invented this whole concept of tacit. 416 00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:49,040 Well, that's that's exactly exactly. 417 00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:55,280 But but yeah, he, he was, he came up with a, a much more 418 00:23:55,280 --> 00:24:03,400 general way to show, to show this, yeah, that the the way in 419 00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:07,160 which once you get a degree of complexity, you cannot govern 420 00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,800 from the centre. And he in fact designed this 421 00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,800 model. It was a, a plywood model. 422 00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:16,960 And he showed that if you connect up all these all these 423 00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:22,640 planks to calculate and then you stretch this thing that you've 424 00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:27,040 bolted together, if you had to to calculate all the changes in 425 00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:30,440 angles at the centre, you'd be calculating forever. 426 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,120 Whereas you just pull it. And The thing is a big analogue 427 00:24:33,120 --> 00:24:35,080 computer and works it all works it all out. 428 00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:37,960 Anyway, that's AI don't know whether I've explained that. 429 00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,360 Oh, so the the literally the. Interconnectedness is 430 00:24:40,360 --> 00:24:43,880 incalculable effectively, but that if you do the the the 431 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:45,600 reality will calculate. Itself. 432 00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:47,000 It will calculate itself obviously. 433 00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:49,640 That's about, it's a bit like the three body problem or 434 00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:51,320 something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 435 00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:54,280 But it's easier to do it than it is to try and predict it. 436 00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,720 And it's a much. Better, I think it's a much more 437 00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:02,200 general illustration of this point that you can't govern 438 00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:06,960 complex systems from the centre, than Hayek's argument, which was 439 00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,720 much more tied with the price economics. 440 00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,680 And prices. And then business people ended 441 00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,960 up being the heroes and, and I don't know how that's going 442 00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,000 right now, but talking about heroes. 443 00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:23,160 We're talking about superheroes before the the podcast started 444 00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:26,240 and there's a famous quote from while he was from 2 face in 445 00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,320 Batman that said you either die hero, you live long enough to 446 00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:30,520 become the villain. Right? 447 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:32,400 I see which. Is which is why. 448 00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:37,760 Right, which is why I've always said that sometimes the the, the 449 00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,960 value of being central, but a little bit to one side is that 450 00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,000 you also think about what does the world need right now? 451 00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:49,920 Because sometimes the world needs optimism or like like free 452 00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:51,760 thinking on the other side. And sometimes you need to almost 453 00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:53,840 like go back to your conservative views, right? 454 00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,880 So I think that, but then people don't think about it that way, 455 00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:00,480 don't take, they go, go outside themselves to think what does 456 00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,880 the world need right now? What kind of leadership do we 457 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,320 need right now? And let's pivot to that for this 458 00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,080 season, because everybody always thinks that something is like a 459 00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:10,840 forever decision. It's not a seasonal decision. 460 00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,280 And do you why do you think that people don't consider it that 461 00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:19,280 way? All I can say is what we've 462 00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:24,600 already said, which is that memes travel in extremes. 463 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,880 There you are. That's a nice rhyme for you if 464 00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:28,840 you want to. Yeah. 465 00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:31,800 If you want to get velocity on these things, you make them 466 00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:38,480 simple and forever and tribal and left and right whoever. 467 00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,120 What are the memes trying to? Remember what? 468 00:26:43,120 --> 00:26:47,840 Scales, OK, pointing scale. And by the way, there there was 469 00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:52,800 a healthy number of Brexiteers who were whose motivation was 470 00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:56,080 essentially localist. In other words, they believe 471 00:26:56,080 --> 00:27:00,040 that decisions should be taken by people who actually get to 472 00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,120 experience the consequences of those decisions close to the 473 00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:04,320 point where the decision was made. 474 00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,160 And I've got friends who are in local politics, OK, and they say 475 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,560 it's not actually very partisan, most of the discussions in local 476 00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:13,360 politics and nothing to do with left and right. 477 00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,320 It's they're practical. Where do we put this incinerate? 478 00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,320 That's right, OK. And very occasionally there may 479 00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,560 be a political angle to it, which is obviously the left wing 480 00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:28,200 people want in the pot area. But broadly speaking, they solve 481 00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:29,920 problems through intelligent debate. 482 00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:34,400 And actually, I would also argue that if you look at polarisation 483 00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,000 and the kind of weird woke thing, it doesn't. 484 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,160 Really. Exist in provincial or remote 485 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,160 areas. So this is the strangest thing. 486 00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:44,960 Is a New York friend during COVID. 487 00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:47,840 It's very interesting. So, so universities. 488 00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:50,800 Can maintain it, the level of weird intensity that makes it 489 00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:51,520 possible. Yeah. 490 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:55,040 And very large cities like New York or London will maintain it. 491 00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:55,680 Yeah. Yeah. 492 00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,560 When I move. When I move to Kent, you know, 493 00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,160 blessed decision in my opinion. Charlotte to Kent, one of the 494 00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:02,080 first. Things I do is I go to. 495 00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,000 One of these county fairs, OK, yeah. 496 00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:05,240 And there. Are three. 497 00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:08,960 Stalls at the County Fair and there is literally, I'm not 498 00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,080 making this up, the RSPB bird charity, right? 499 00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:18,240 A stall selling Jost sticks run by hippies and a stall selling 500 00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,560 shotgun cartridges and hunting equipment. 501 00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:25,280 And having moved from London, who the hell was the idiot who 502 00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,560 put these three people together, these three standards together? 503 00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:29,880 Because it was just comical, right? 504 00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:33,600 And they went closer. They were making each other cups 505 00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:37,000 of tea. And a friend of mine left New 506 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,440 York. I'm I'm actually basically a 507 00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:42,920 provincial advocate. I think that urbanization and 508 00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,040 gains to agglomeration. The idea that economists have 509 00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,240 forced us all to believe that the future of humanity is living 510 00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:51,640 in ever greater population densities. 511 00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:53,160 They only that that was something. 512 00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,760 They came up with about 30 or 40 years ago and they were telling 513 00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:58,480 they were saying the opposite before that. 514 00:28:58,480 --> 00:28:59,880 Yeah, I'm. I'm basically. 515 00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:03,200 You know, I I want to leave this urban movement, you know, mock 516 00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,320 Tudor homes. Everybody's gonna Norma. 517 00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:07,520 Yeah, actually, Australia, basically. 518 00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,080 You like a bit of space, don't you? 519 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:13,200 Yeah, well, no, because we're the. 520 00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,600 Most urbanised country, but on the other hand, your. 521 00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:18,320 Cities are in North, not those sucker cities. 522 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:19,800 Yeah, yeah. But absolutely. 523 00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:21,520 Huge. But. 524 00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,800 The funny thing was this friend of mine left New York and he 525 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,200 moved somewhere in Montana and the local Co-op which is 526 00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,320 slightly more upmarket than I think that it is new. 527 00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:33,280 I like the Co-op. In the UK. 528 00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,840 The local cop was entirely run by transgender hippies. 529 00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:40,520 The clientele of the local Co-op was people who turned up in 530 00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:44,680 pickup trucks with gun racks. There was, and he. 531 00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,120 Comes from New York and he just cannot understand what's 532 00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:49,760 happening. But these people Co exist 533 00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:53,160 completely. A Texan friend who just goes 534 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,960 basically, you don't get riots or anything of the kind. 535 00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,680 And because he said very simple, we're all Texan. 536 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:01,760 Yeah, OK. So the Texan. 537 00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:06,160 Less basically effectively overrides any other differences 538 00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:08,280 you may generally experience because you've got your own 539 00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:10,560 identity. And I wonder about this because 540 00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:15,400 the media are we effectively allowing our debate to be 541 00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,240 dominated by something. And this is my big question, 542 00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:22,320 which is why I won't get into very woke debates about trans 543 00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:25,320 issues on either side. Yep Yep Yep is simply the 544 00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:27,000 opportunity cost. Well, you would. 545 00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:29,320 You basically will be misunderstood. 546 00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:31,280 I mean the the people will wilfully. 547 00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,440 Misunderstand what I built on wilful. 548 00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,480 Misunderstanding in both directions or confected outrage? 549 00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,200 And it's it's no. Fun. 550 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,160 It's absolutely no fun. It's If you are hated for what 551 00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,360 you believe and people understand what you believe, 552 00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,560 that's one thing. Being hated because people don't 553 00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:50,160 understand what you believe? Wilfully misunderstanding. 554 00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:51,840 You know, really, really. Really. 555 00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:52,720 Yeah. What's the point? 556 00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:55,640 Of that, everyone's wasting their time and everyone's upset 557 00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,520 and. Actually, my, my contention 558 00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:03,280 would be that in provincial settings, OK, generally when you 559 00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,320 have lower population density and the same people encounter 560 00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,080 the, you know, the same people, one thing is you can't become an 561 00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:13,800 absolute bore, OK? You can't on social media, you 562 00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,800 can be a single issue fanatic where you talk about nothing but 563 00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,440 Brexit. Who's that philosopher guy? 564 00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:21,720 AC Grayling? OK, you go to his Twitter feed 565 00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,520 and there hasn't been anything other than an anti Brexit tweet. 566 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,320 And I'm kind of going, look, mate, can we just have a kitten 567 00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:29,800 falling off a skateboard, please? 568 00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:33,160 You know, crying out loud, you couldn't do that in a pub 569 00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,240 setting because you'd basically be known as Boring Dave and no 570 00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:37,960 one would talk to you. So let me. 571 00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:40,760 Let me I had this thought about. I think we should just re 572 00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:42,600 provincialize. I think you just don't move, 573 00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,160 move back to the country. We'll rewild it. 574 00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,520 Everybody has a bit of space, you know, We'd all be happy, you 575 00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:50,720 know? So E Kent, nationalism, That's 576 00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:52,800 me. That's very grand. 577 00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:54,400 And I'm not. I don't. 578 00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,240 None of my thoughts are grand in the sense that I'm not. 579 00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:02,720 I'm not recommending any large scale social engineering, Rory, 580 00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:08,600 but just a few weeks ago I was thinking, but do you remember, 581 00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:10,160 Rory? You may well do. 582 00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:14,280 Do you know the So the Royal Society founded in this town, 583 00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:18,160 London in 1660, and it had a motto in Latin. 584 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:19,880 You remember what it is? Oh, crikey, yeah. 585 00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:25,560 It's nullius. Yeah, nullius in verba. 586 00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,160 Except nothing. By word. 587 00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:35,240 And the idea was that all there were all these people around who 588 00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:39,560 thought that angels dragged the planets around the sky. 589 00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:41,560 Why? Well, because Aristotle said so. 590 00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:44,400 Now, I don't know whether Aristotle said that, I think he 591 00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,640 didn't, but he said that they had, that planets have AT loss 592 00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:51,880 and they're following their T loss or their purpose or their 593 00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:56,080 end in life and so on. And there was this incredible 594 00:32:56,080 --> 00:33:00,720 idea that we've got that we've actually got to actively get 595 00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:06,880 that out of our system and we've got to try to accept only what 596 00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:13,040 our experience tells us works. And I'm thinking Nulis and 597 00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:17,080 Verba. Well, I think the, I think the 598 00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:21,720 motto of our systems of politics and governance in the cities, 599 00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:26,400 not in the country is omnia in verba. 600 00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,520 And I don't know whether that Latin is correct. 601 00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,240 It is, yeah. But everything's in words. 602 00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,520 Yeah. And, and and there is one 603 00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,400 institution in our governance structure which isn't like that. 604 00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,280 And it actually brings up this question that we've talked about 605 00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:48,400 before, which is tacit knowledge, knowledge that is not 606 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:52,240 articulated, and possibly because it cannot be articulated 607 00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:55,040 how to ride a bicycle. How to ride a bicycle? 608 00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:59,800 How to come up with the next word I am assembling in this 609 00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,720 sentence that is done with tacit knowledge? 610 00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:08,120 I have no fucking idea how I do it, but there it is. 611 00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:17,120 And that is, according to some people, including me, the most 612 00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,719 important thing, the foundation of our knowledge. 613 00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:24,440 Not explicit knowledge, but how do we learn to walk? 614 00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:27,120 How do we learn to talk? How do we learn to ride a 615 00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:29,800 bicycle? How do we learn to interact? 616 00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:34,800 All these things are flush with tacit knowledge, but our 617 00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:38,840 political system is a meme driven political system. 618 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,199 But in the counties, yeah, that's not how people think. 619 00:34:42,199 --> 00:34:45,320 And in a jury, that's not how people think They think. 620 00:34:45,639 --> 00:34:47,120 You know, I like that, that person. 621 00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:49,080 I trust them. I trust them. 622 00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,239 They're they're they're not playing to the gallery. 623 00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:52,440 They're not giving me a hard time. 624 00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:57,080 They, they heard what I said and they, they, you know, the last 625 00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,240 time they heard what I said and they agreed with me. 626 00:34:59,240 --> 00:35:00,760 This time they're disagreeing with me. 627 00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,040 I think I'll try and figure out why. 628 00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,560 And that's not there in our political system. 629 00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:12,520 It's not there in our our media system. 630 00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:18,560 You can't, you've got to be extremely articulate, very 631 00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,720 quick, very succinct and determinative. 632 00:35:22,720 --> 00:35:27,640 If you're asked a question, if you so imagine saying as a 633 00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,960 politician, and this is an actual quote, imagine you're the 634 00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:37,000 treasurer of a country and a journalist says, when will this 635 00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:40,200 recession end? And you say your guess is as 636 00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,600 good as mine. Well, you've lost a job. 637 00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:46,080 You, you within a week, you will be out of your job for telling 638 00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:49,480 the truth. And that's, that's, that's the 639 00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,520 world of Omnia in verbs. That's really interesting. 640 00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:57,080 Because I saw a quote online that basically talked about the 641 00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:02,480 fact that whoever it was convinced us to leave the 642 00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:06,280 village and then to buy it back at a premium, right? 643 00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:08,640 So that's effectively how society worked. 644 00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:12,960 You had people around you, your family support, and then you 645 00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,480 have to go to a completely different location, be by 646 00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:21,200 yourself and go into this rat race so that you can just buy 647 00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:24,880 the village back of a higher premium, which is effectively 648 00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:28,240 what happens, right? And and. 649 00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:30,240 Not only. Are you on your own? 650 00:36:30,240 --> 00:36:34,360 Not only you have to buy it for a premium, you also are a sheep 651 00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:37,840 towards the mentality and the attitudes of what happens within 652 00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:40,280 that location. Yeah, which is super, super 653 00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:42,960 interesting. But I I just feel beautiful 654 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:44,080 phrase. I've never occurred to him. 655 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,600 That is exactly what's happened. That's exactly what happens. 656 00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:49,440 Yeah, right. You're just by leave when you. 657 00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:50,840 Leave. You're forced to leave the 658 00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:53,160 village and then go and buy it back in a premium is an 659 00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:54,320 extraordinary way of looking at this. 660 00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:56,120 That's how society. Is right. 661 00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:58,840 So they make They convince us that we need these things. 662 00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,200 They convince us that we need to embody this identity. 663 00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:06,200 They convince us that we need to that the films like there's so 664 00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:11,680 many films like Wolf of Wall Street and Sex in the City and 665 00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:16,880 all these things that glamorize just like city business person. 666 00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,600 Like even I would say people like Gary Vaynerchuk, who I love 667 00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:21,800 so much from what he's done for my career. 668 00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,920 He got me on this hustle train to want to be super productive 669 00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,480 and on everything and consume everything. 670 00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:32,960 But, but I think that as people now start to almost like unwire 671 00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,080 and unplug from the Matrix, like I like to say, and are starting 672 00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,800 to spend more time on God's green earth, we're now starting 673 00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:41,920 to think for ourselves a little bit more. 674 00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,560 I think that the sensationalism that's happening on social 675 00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:46,760 platforms, a lot of people are talking about the great like 676 00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:48,600 unplug. That's already starting to 677 00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:49,720 happen. It's starting to happen amongst 678 00:37:49,720 --> 00:37:53,120 the younger audience already. They're starting to realize that 679 00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,440 this is not where the vibe is. Very interesting thing. 680 00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,080 When you work in advertising, one of the things you start to 681 00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:02,400 notice is the things that are advertised unconsciously without 682 00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:04,720 anybody needing to pay any money to do so. 683 00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:09,320 And one of them is that, you know, urban urbanism is 684 00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:12,280 wonderful. Suburbia is dreadful and small 685 00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:15,840 minded and provincial and the countryside is full of Hicks. 686 00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:18,440 You know, that's an absolutely common media narrative. 687 00:38:18,720 --> 00:38:21,680 Of course, the other narrative, which is extraordinary when you 688 00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:25,000 look at it, I'm not joke about things like the worst treated 689 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,920 thing in the world by the media is undoubtedly the underground 690 00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:31,040 car park. I, I, I, I was giving a talk 691 00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:33,480 last week in a Norwegian underground car park. 692 00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:34,840 They've obviously dressed it up a bit. 693 00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:37,600 And I joke that, of course, this is to me, the most dangerous 694 00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:39,200 place in the world. Because if you watched a lot of 695 00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,440 Scandi noir, yes, there is never a film scene set with an 696 00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:44,520 underground car park without someone being killed. 697 00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:46,880 OK. So underground car park, the 698 00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:50,120 actual data on, you know, crimes committed to underground car 699 00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:51,800 parks is probably quite forgiving. 700 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:53,160 Yeah. But the other one, which 701 00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:57,680 astounds me because it went on for 50 years, was that rising 702 00:38:57,680 --> 00:38:59,720 property prices are a good news story. 703 00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:04,720 And that was sold to everybody, you know, so that literally now 704 00:39:04,720 --> 00:39:07,800 people have a mentality which is if I spend money on rent, it is 705 00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:11,520 completely wasted. If I spend money on property, it 706 00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:14,920 is an investment, a completely bifurcated idea. 707 00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,280 Now, never mind the fact that if you just invested some of the 708 00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,560 money you weren't spending on a mortgage, you know, you might 709 00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:23,560 get a better return, or the fact that most of your mortgage is 710 00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,160 actually going to the bank in the shape of interest payments 711 00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:28,600 over 20 years. But that has created this 712 00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:31,200 literal framing where, Oh no, no, if you're renting, you're 713 00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,080 just pissing money out the wall, for example. 714 00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,480 But then also there's a whole. Conversation around opportunity 715 00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,600 cost, right? Because because you're now have 716 00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,560 a mortgage and you're planted in one place, what can't you do? 717 00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:42,760 What can't? You do. 718 00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:44,200 Right. I think people don't talk about 719 00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,400 and if you live in the house, it's not really an investment 720 00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:49,480 because you're spending a lot of money to uptake the house. 721 00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:51,640 It's only if somebody else is paying for it, that's an 722 00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:52,800 investment. I think there's a lot of 723 00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:54,960 narratives that's just been put out there. 724 00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:56,000 Absolutely right. Yeah. 725 00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:57,920 Yeah, that, that, that everybody. 726 00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,400 Has just assumed to be like factual and the way that it is 727 00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:06,200 right that the whole you see that with now with the crypto 728 00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:09,160 kind of like space. So the buyer, the dip buy high 729 00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:12,040 sell low, all this kind of stuff that's happening, but a lot of 730 00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:15,200 it is just about adrenaline. Even though they say this in 731 00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,760 theory, as soon as they see something going to the moon, 732 00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,920 everyone buys it anyway. It's really interesting we're 733 00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:24,040 talking about. The meme error right now and 734 00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,080 Trump has his own coin when he started intervening in the 735 00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,200 middle. East in a deeply, you know, 736 00:40:29,240 --> 00:40:32,400 irrational and random way. OK, it was primatology. 737 00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:34,800 It wasn't rationality. The only thing I said to my 738 00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:38,360 wife, I said it's not like all the rational people have solved 739 00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,120 this problem and. That was my only. 740 00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:45,080 Defence, which is occasionally if something, if a problem, 741 00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:48,040 proves itself. Ideology proof, Rationality 742 00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,640 proof. Actually going in and doing 743 00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,920 something completely random is probably not all that crazy. 744 00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:55,320 Yeah, no, no, I'm. I'm. 745 00:40:55,320 --> 00:41:00,120 Not that critical of Trump's, of what Trump's done externally 746 00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:03,080 anyway. That could be read in lots of 747 00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:04,480 different ways. You'll get. 748 00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:06,440 Misrepresented here. Oh, yeah, exactly. 749 00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:09,040 Massive megaphat. Nicholas Grudd? 750 00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,040 Yeah, that's exactly. Don't worry. 751 00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:13,080 Yeah, dear idea. Oh man. 752 00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:15,120 But. Talk about countries and running 753 00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:16,880 countries. Yeah, you obviously talked about 754 00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,880 the fact that GDP is not the only way to measure the the 755 00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,680 quality of how a country is doing at that given moment in 756 00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:25,280 time. What are some of the other ways 757 00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,240 or whether some of the other symptoms that people should be 758 00:41:27,240 --> 00:41:29,920 looking at to be able to measure the current state of a country? 759 00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,680 Because right now in the UK, as soon as you talk about what's 760 00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:35,240 happening, I was like, it's a bad times, isn't it? 761 00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:37,320 That's the narrative that's going on around. 762 00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:40,480 But is it really bad times? What's happening? 763 00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:42,200 It'll be great to get you up well. 764 00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,280 Yes, I've spent a fair bit of time on the question of GDP. 765 00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:51,000 It's a very Bobby Kennedy in 1968 said this famous thing, 766 00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:57,720 which is the GDGDP, measures how many guns we make, landlines 767 00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:00,240 contribute. To GDP weapons all the thing. 768 00:42:00,240 --> 00:42:03,680 Anything that is run through the economy contributes to GDP. 769 00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:08,160 How much we love our children, the the quality of our 770 00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:10,760 relationships, none of that in GDP. 771 00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:14,680 And so he summarizes this by saying, in other words, GDP 772 00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,040 measures everything in life except what's most important. 773 00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:21,040 Now that's a good meme. And I'm, you know, good luck to 774 00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,920 him because I think it was a very important thing to say. 775 00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:31,000 And we are a civilization that's been overrun by a material, a 776 00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:36,800 craze for material things. However, then there are people 777 00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:41,480 who point out that GD, if you go on a holiday or spend it on your 778 00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:46,840 education, GDP tells you that you're equally rich after you've 779 00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:49,800 spent that money, which is not true because if you build it 780 00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:53,560 into your education, then you have more, you have more assets 781 00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,400 to work with when, when you've, when you've done that. 782 00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:59,360 That's one example, although not if everybody else does the. 783 00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:01,200 Same thing. Well, so we've created a 784 00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:04,840 bottleneck here in education, which is we told everybody that 785 00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,000 the roots to success. Well, yeah, yeah, but you're 786 00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,400 framing. Education as a positional good, 787 00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:11,440 which it is, Yeah, which it is, but it's. 788 00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:13,280 Also, it's also an absolute good. 789 00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:17,480 I completely, exactly exactly. And then there are things like, 790 00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:20,160 I think the university of. Cambridge is a positional good, 791 00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:23,680 and I think that YouTube Premium is an absolute good, actually. 792 00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:28,440 OK, right, Nicely put. Yeah, yeah. 793 00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,800 And, and one way to think about this, and it's a very important 794 00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,840 thing which economists haven't got anywhere near really, is 795 00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:38,200 that I actually haven't. There must be some studies of 796 00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,720 this, but I think our world is becoming more and more and more 797 00:43:41,720 --> 00:43:46,160 saturated with positional goods. And positional goods are this 798 00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:50,560 madding thing that have an infinite capacity to spend 799 00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,680 money. And, and as you race up the 800 00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:57,000 chain, you get no more welfare. So as you spend more and more 801 00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:01,920 money on more and more exclusive brands, you don't you don't get 802 00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,120 complicated. I would argue, OK, that there 803 00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:06,760 are two kinds of positional goods. 804 00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:07,320 No. OK. 805 00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:10,560 So no, no, no, no. There are positional goods which 806 00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:12,640 ultimately end up as absolute goods. 807 00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,280 So my, my yeah, yeah, yeah. So my grandparents were the 4th. 808 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,080 Family in Wales to own a dishwasher. 809 00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:19,520 It cost, that's right. It cost an insane amount of 810 00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:21,920 money, that's right. But they were providing early 811 00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:25,600 stage funding for the dishwasher breaks, anti skid breaks. 812 00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,240 Yeah, you've got exactly in. Luxury cars and then. 813 00:44:28,240 --> 00:44:30,920 They, they, you know they, they. They then become available to 814 00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:32,480 everyone. And it's not true of handbags. 815 00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:34,040 Is it? It's emphatically not true, and 816 00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:35,480 it's. Not true of real estate. 817 00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:36,960 Which is more and more important than that. 818 00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:38,880 You're right. Increasingly less true of 819 00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:42,000 education, which is your point. So the computer was a position. 820 00:44:42,240 --> 00:44:45,320 I mean, you know, that's, yeah, the most thing staff education 821 00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:47,400 wasn't. Nearly as much of A positional 822 00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,360 good 100 years ago as it is now, so particularly in the United 823 00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:52,880 States. Well, this is, I think, Scott. 824 00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:56,200 Galloway's point, which is the ultimate luxury goods brands 825 00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:59,360 Aunt Louis Vuitton, it's actually Ivy League university, 826 00:44:59,920 --> 00:45:02,800 which are creating art of now the other the the condition. 827 00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,880 I think that makes it clear which is, which is artificial 828 00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,040 scarcity. So if you're artificially 829 00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:10,960 limiting the quantity of something, you've got a 830 00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:13,400 positional well. No, but there's a real estate is 831 00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:16,480 not artificial scarcity, but it's natural scarcity. 832 00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:20,560 And so so. Scarcity with status driven 833 00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:24,440 competition, that's a positional good and that's making us less 834 00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:26,240 well off there is there are some. 835 00:45:26,240 --> 00:45:31,160 Good things to consumerism as a positional good, which is in a 836 00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:35,240 consumerist society, a good plumber has a better car than a 837 00:45:35,240 --> 00:45:38,400 bad doctor. If you have a status system 838 00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,200 which doesn't have the consumerist element, OK, 839 00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:45,760 Arguably your status is kind of fixed by your level of 840 00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:49,120 educational attainment age 23, a bit like it is in it always has 841 00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:51,200 been in France. OK, the first question, 842 00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:54,160 literally someone could be 50 in a French business and they're 843 00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:56,800 appointed CEO and the first question everyone asks is where 844 00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:00,400 do they go to university like? That's relevant. 845 00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:03,520 You know, 30 years later, OK, they're, oh, they're going to 846 00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:06,760 the Achilles administration. Fantastic, right? 847 00:46:07,240 --> 00:46:08,480 They must be absolutely brilliant. 848 00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:12,760 And so there's an element to me which actually supports a level 849 00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:16,480 of consumerism in the sense that it is at least attainable by 850 00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:20,080 everybody, OK. Whereas other forms of status, 851 00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:24,240 particularly if they're conferred by credentialism early 852 00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:25,840 in life, strike me as a bit dodgy. 853 00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:26,800 Totally. Yeah. 854 00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:28,600 So. Nicholas, we've come to the 855 00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:31,240 time. I wish this was longer. 856 00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:33,800 I know I loved listening to We will have to. 857 00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,120 Continue and I'll just we can continue it online. 858 00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:38,960 I'll just. Here from the other side of the 859 00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,960 world, like Zordan and. Here's my point now. 860 00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,120 Martin Wolf in. The FT describes Nick as the 861 00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:45,720 best economist you've never heard of. 862 00:46:45,720 --> 00:46:49,000 Yeah, I also explain why he's the best economist, which is 863 00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:52,840 that Australian economists are a bit like Australian fauna that 864 00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:55,160 you've evolved in isolation, Right. 865 00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:57,040 So, you know, if you see what I mean. 866 00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,400 If you'd if you'd grown up in the United States, you would 867 00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:02,560 have ended up as a Chicago School economist or a Harvard 868 00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:05,040 economist. But being in Australia or New 869 00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,440 Zealand, you're sufficiently remote for evolution to take 870 00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,320 really interesting and new forms. 871 00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:14,160 You see, I genuinely believe that about a lot of Australian 872 00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:16,840 intellectual life. It's really, really interesting 873 00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:21,200 because actually precisely for the same reasons that, you know, 874 00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:23,200 Australian wildlife is really interesting. 875 00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:26,240 I hear we had a. Technical malfunction here. 876 00:47:26,240 --> 00:47:29,560 We've missed something actually, and we got over there. 877 00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:37,320 Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. 878 00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:44,840 Happy birthday, dear Rory. Happy birthday to you. 879 00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:48,520 I will pretend to blow the candle gun. 880 00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:52,360 The cameras are still. Rolling terrific cake I've ever. 881 00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:53,880 Seen in my life. I mean, you're trying to kill 882 00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:56,960 me. Feeder, basically a feeder. 883 00:47:57,440 --> 00:47:59,280 That is fantastic. Thank you very much indeed.