Malcolm Gladwell Returns

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, expert son, expert.

[1] I'm Dan Rathers, and I'm joined by Mr. Mous.

[2] Hi, Mr. Gladwell.

[3] Today we have our old friend.

[4] He's not our old friend.

[5] He's a newer friend, but he's our friend.

[6] He's like our legit friend.

[7] I know.

[8] I email with him, and I feel so flattered every time.

[9] I don't, but I'm gonna.

[10] You gotta get into cars.

[11] That's the only thing he's really interested in me about in his defense.

[12] Malcolm Gladwell, of course, is bestselling author and co -founder of Pushkin industries.

[13] That's the noise they make.

[14] Oh, yeah.

[15] I love that noise.

[16] That's a great song.

[17] Yeah, it is.

[18] Yeah.

[19] He has many books that I've loved, The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David Goliath, talking to strangers.

[20] He has a new season of our favorite podcast, revisionist history.

[21] It's out right now.

[22] And this season has a really wonderful premise.

[23] It's all about experiments.

[24] Yeah, it's really, really good.

[25] It's so fantastic.

[26] And he was fantastic.

[27] I'll be curious to listen to know how much car stuff stayed because we did probably 75 minutes on cars and god bless mr mouse uh she was there's some in there still there's a bit of it okay there's just the right amount okay please enjoy malcolm gladwell wondery plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now join wondery plus in the wondery app or on apple podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[28] He's an object to be.

[29] He's an optoexper.

[30] I forget about this part of your relationship.

[31] The car.

[32] You're going to hear a lot about it because Pushkin has a car podcast now.

[33] So we actually have a reason.

[34] That's not all your cars out there.

[35] I was looking through the collection.

[36] Did you look up there?

[37] Do you see the wagon?

[38] I saw the wagon.

[39] I saw the AMG.

[40] And then the Roadmaster wagon.

[41] The Hellcat was up there.

[42] The Lincoln, the diesel truck.

[43] The 444 SS.

[44] truck's not here, the 1990.

[45] I'm down to four.

[46] Too bad I didn't park in the driveway.

[47] You'll like this.

[48] Monica could care less about cars.

[49] When we met, she drove a handsome Prius.

[50] In fact, it might even be in the driveway.

[51] I think someone else is driving it now.

[52] Yeah, Prius C. That's such an East L .A. cliche right there.

[53] It is.

[54] It is.

[55] Prior to that, she had a Honda CRV.

[56] I didn't pick the Honda.

[57] Yes, that was a hammy down.

[58] So two Christmases ago, I guess, at this point.

[59] Yeah.

[60] I got her at AMG C -43.

[61] It's really...

[62] What do you think of that?

[63] Nice.

[64] I like the move.

[65] I think that suits Monica.

[66] I think that's the direction she wants to go.

[67] Not ostentatious.

[68] Thank you.

[69] But it says someone's taking her car seriously.

[70] Powerful?

[71] It's a beautiful little package.

[72] It is.

[73] I got no problem with that.

[74] I think it perfectly represents who she is.

[75] Powerful as hell.

[76] Smaller.

[77] Tons of get up and go, but not in your face.

[78] It's more like, oh shit, why did that car just drive by me that?

[79] Yeah, elegant.

[80] Dax's thought went into that.

[81] Yeah, it was really a nice, thoughtful, extremely kind gift.

[82] I thought about it for quite a while, and there were things that I personally would want to buy.

[83] I encourage you to do this, to buy a car for somebody.

[84] Yeah, I did.

[85] Oh, you did?

[86] Tell me. Yeah, tell me. Bought a car for my brother.

[87] Let's play a game.

[88] Tell me a little bit about the brother.

[89] I would love to take a guess at what you bought.

[90] He looks like the Jamaican half of the family.

[91] Big guy.

[92] Okay.

[93] Expressive, outdoorsy.

[94] Loves mechanical things, builds things, builds furniture, cooks.

[95] He's the kind of guy you want on the desert.

[96] In the 80s, we would have said a man's man. He's a man's man. Yeah.

[97] In the grand tradition of our father has a bit of a lead foot, I'll say.

[98] Okay, great.

[99] He appreciates speed.

[100] So there's a certain amount of power that's involved.

[101] So those are my hands.

[102] I'm going to give you five guesses.

[103] Well, hold on.

[104] I need a couple more details.

[105] Does he have a family?

[106] Yes, but grown.

[107] I'll tell you this.

[108] It's not a two -seater.

[109] Okay, great.

[110] I just wanted to rule that out.

[111] Okay.

[112] And you guys are from Canada.

[113] Oh, yeah.

[114] Lives in Canada.

[115] Yeah.

[116] And he's still there.

[117] Still there.

[118] That is relevant.

[119] Okay.

[120] This is going to be my first guess, an X -5.

[121] Oh, my God, you're so good.

[122] No, but...

[123] Almost got him an X -5?

[124] You're very good.

[125] Wow.

[126] What does that even mean?

[127] A BMW X -5.

[128] Oh, okay.

[129] He's a Mennonite, and the Mennonites are averse to ostentation.

[130] You need under the radar X -5, the Q -5.

[131] No, no, you're getting too far afield.

[132] You had it, except you were a level above.

[133] The Audi Q -5 would be one step below.

[134] You had it with X -5.

[135] Still a BMW, then.

[136] I don't think an M5's less ostentatious, but hold on.

[137] That's not my guess.

[138] That's not my guess.

[139] You're overthinking it, Dax.

[140] You had it.

[141] First of all, it should have been the X -5.

[142] It should have been.

[143] It should have been.

[144] I couldn't pull it off.

[145] Listen, here's how my family works.

[146] We once bought my mother a television, which she did not own until she was in her 80s.

[147] We bought her the standard 48 -inch.

[148] She sent it back, saying, quote, what would my neighbors think?

[149] Oh, wow.

[150] Okay, so I can't go X -5, but I can go.

[151] You can go X -4.

[152] Even that's too flashy.

[153] X3, X3.

[154] Okay.

[155] I tell you why I didn't go X3.

[156] I got nervous that you said he's a very big man. Oh, he's not that big.

[157] Okay.

[158] Why that's tiny?

[159] Well, it's smaller than the X5.

[160] But I'm really worried that we're boring Monica to tears.

[161] I love it.

[162] I love it.

[163] I really want to know the color.

[164] That's what I care about.

[165] It was that beautiful dark blue that BMW does with the kind of calf interior with the dappled seats.

[166] I got her the dark blue with the beautiful kind of brownish, sad.

[167] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that.

[168] That's the combo.

[169] You know what I'm seeing out here?

[170] I see all these take -on sport terizmos.

[171] That's the most beautiful car ever seen in my life.

[172] I'm seeing a ton of them around L .A. The Porsche take -on with the kind of shooting break.

[173] Yeah.

[174] That is it gorgeous.

[175] I agree.

[176] That is the only electric car I have entertained the notion of owning is the T -Camp.

[177] First, we interviewed him, and he was like, you will like electric if you drive that car.

[178] I'm like, I still won't like it.

[179] Then I reviewed one on top of you.

[180] I was like, this car is.

[181] It's perfect.

[182] It's a great car.

[183] It came to your house, right?

[184] Yep.

[185] First, I had a little two -week loner.

[186] Yeah.

[187] This was after we interviewed Bill, and he talked about the car.

[188] And then two weeks later, this car arrives in the driveway, and Carly and I were like, I think Bill gave him tax a car.

[189] We really thought that.

[190] Okay, Malcolm, do you ever have preposterous fantasies like that when you know billionaires?

[191] Because I know a handful at this point, and I do sometimes have these preposterous fantasies.

[192] They might give me something insane.

[193] Have you ever let yourself think that would happen?

[194] I don't know.

[195] You do two.

[196] I know one, but he's more frugal than I am.

[197] You know, because it's chum change for them.

[198] Yes.

[199] Let me paint a scenario for you.

[200] It's plausible.

[201] You go to one of their houses.

[202] I don't know.

[203] It's on Martha's Vineyard.

[204] Wherever it's at, they're worth $30 billion.

[205] And you just fall in love with it out there.

[206] And they enjoy your company.

[207] And there's a lot down the street.

[208] It's a tiny lot.

[209] He wouldn't want to live there.

[210] And he thinks, listen, Malcolm, I got that lot.

[211] You want it.

[212] No biggie.

[213] That seems feasible to me. You think that's the route to being gifted a few million dollars.

[214] No, that's never happened to me. You know, fingers crossed.

[215] Yeah.

[216] I'm hoping one of my friends late develops into a billionaire.

[217] Pulls a rabbit out of a hat.

[218] Well, Dax is on his way.

[219] It could be you.

[220] We should make a billionaire pack right now, live.

[221] Well, here's the pack, and it'll be binding because it's in public.

[222] As all public conversations become binding, if I hit a billion dollars, pick your car right now.

[223] I'm not getting you a 60s AC COBRA and you're preposterous.

[224] A current production model.

[225] Yes.

[226] Oh, okay.

[227] And this is a pact.

[228] This is binding.

[229] Okay, I got it.

[230] I got it.

[231] Okay.

[232] It's boring.

[233] Is that okay?

[234] Yeah, it's to make you happy.

[235] Mercedes EQS.

[236] That's the new big electric one?

[237] Yeah.

[238] Okay.

[239] Have you driven it?

[240] No. But I got car service to the airport yesterday and usually they just send like an escalade.

[241] I don't know why.

[242] The guy shows up in a new escalade.

[243] And I was like, holy mackerel, this is like living a dream.

[244] I was like, this is keep driving.

[245] So I was sitting in the back and I was feeling like a plutocrat.

[246] And so that just made me think, maybe what I want is one of those EQSs.

[247] I've had the same experience.

[248] It's generally in Europe.

[249] And when an S class shows up, I immediately am Arthur from the 80s movie.

[250] It's a little thrill.

[251] And I hate being driven in any other car.

[252] But when I'm in those, I'm astounded by how quiet it is back there.

[253] And you don't get motion sick.

[254] in it?

[255] Let me say this.

[256] When you buy one of those, you get an ironclad guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen when you're in a vaccine.

[257] There's a reason you're paying a preposterous amount of money for this car.

[258] And everyone is wondering right now, what is the cost?

[259] Oh, my God.

[260] I don't know at the top of my head.

[261] I have to imagine those are a plus.

[262] I'm not buying one.

[263] No, yeah, I'm buying one for you.

[264] What am I getting you?

[265] Yeah, exactly.

[266] Great.

[267] So basically, this is my thought presses.

[268] Well, I wouldn't buy this for myself.

[269] I might buy something more expensive than this.

[270] But this is too mundane for me. It doesn't excite me enough, but I want it.

[271] So that's kind of the criteria.

[272] Have you seen that they're coming out with the Escalade V?

[273] Oh, yeah, of course.

[274] It's the Swan song.

[275] It's over.

[276] Cadillac's going fully electric.

[277] They only have two more years of it being gas.

[278] It's a grand finale because they've decided to supercharge the Escalade to make it obnoxious.

[279] Have you seen this?

[280] Well, I've seen pictures, not in real life.

[281] It's bananas.

[282] It's so stupid.

[283] And I really want it.

[284] I want the CT4 v. Blackwing in manual.

[285] Same thing.

[286] The Swan song, it's such a fantastic automobile.

[287] Yes, I agree.

[288] Dax, I'm beginning to feel like you and I spend such an inordinate amount of time day -driven about automobiles.

[289] I know.

[290] What would we be able to accomplish if we freed up this time?

[291] I'm becoming aware now of just how much is frittered away on the internet.

[292] Oh, I'll hit you at the best.

[293] So yesterday, I was in Nashville, and I was with my childhood best friend.

[294] We bought a piece of property there, so we're going to live on the lake at some point.

[295] in Nashville.

[296] Oh, wow.

[297] And I'm there with my best friend.

[298] So I say to him, we need matching 90s Cadillac DeVille's.

[299] There's just no two ways about this.

[300] Like if I moved in Nashville, he and I both need like 2003 DeVilles with cream interior in the whole nine yards.

[301] So I get on Craigslist.

[302] Some gentlemen selling, I don't know why, two, buy them both for 5 ,500.

[303] Not the one we wanted, but a DeVille, late 90s, he has two of them.

[304] One in green, one in white.

[305] Believe it.

[306] me, if I had a garage down there, I would have owned those.

[307] $5 ,500 matching Buddy's cars.

[308] Oh, my God, this was so good.

[309] So what I'm telling you, though, is that we spent at least two and half hours on the bed, and we shot each other at Craigslist ads.

[310] Do you covet?

[311] For me, it's 90s.

[312] Like, I'm assembling all these cars.

[313] I love in the 90s.

[314] It's 70s.

[315] So when I was 13 years old, I wrote away to every car company in the world and got brochures, with the exception of the Russian Zill.

[316] That's the only one I didn't get.

[317] And so I still have all those.

[318] and I still worship all of the cars of that era.

[319] So the 70s BMWs, the Citron SM, which was a joint production between Maserati and Citrin, all those marks from...

[320] The preposterous air suspension.

[321] Oh, my God.

[322] Once again, Monica, I apologize.

[323] I see Monica...

[324] She's going to edit it all.

[325] She's just letting us that fun.

[326] Now I'm just thinking about, well, are you guys going to move there permanently?

[327] I've moved on to, yeah.

[328] Oh, no, no, no. Well, when I'm old.

[329] Like 90?

[330] Yeah, 95.

[331] You'll take them that long to build the house.

[332] I mean, look at what's going on.

[333] track record.

[334] How does it take that long to build a house?

[335] Oh, we don't know.

[336] I might have already told you this, but there's a saying in AA, which is expectations are resentments under construction.

[337] I find it to be very true.

[338] That was really lovely.

[339] So I've never allowed myself to imagine when this house is going to be done.

[340] And it saved me so much frustration.

[341] I happen to love building sites, though.

[342] Every time I've built something, I have derived more pleasure from the process.

[343] It's the four -year -old boy in me, poking around and see what they did from last.

[344] time and asking him all kinds of questions.

[345] Yeah.

[346] Do you have a persona when you talk to them?

[347] Like, he'd try to let them know you know some stuff.

[348] Well, I learned this to my dad.

[349] My dad, who was a very smart man, but he had very specific areas of specialty.

[350] He knew about gardening.

[351] He knew about math.

[352] He was a mathematician.

[353] Yeah.

[354] And he knew about the Bible.

[355] On everything else, he just deferred.

[356] If you weren't talking about those three things, he just assumed you knew more than he did.

[357] So he would just ask questions.

[358] He had inverse Dunning Kruger effect.

[359] So here's a man we know with a Ph .D. many times over, you had great friendship with our next -door neighbor who was a Mennonite farmer, which means he had no electricity, probably had a fourth -grade education.

[360] They would chat for hours.

[361] The fact that there was this imbalance between their level of kind of intellectual sophistication never was an issue.

[362] Yeah.

[363] Just because my father recognized this guy knew an awful lot more about farming than he did.

[364] I just thought it was the most beautiful.

[365] I tried to adopt that with my contractor.

[366] Yeah.

[367] Which is, this is your world, dude.

[368] I'm just here to enjoy it.

[369] I'm doing this little project on my house.

[370] I said, how hard is it going to be to dig the foundation.

[371] He goes, foundation will be easy, but everything else will be hard.

[372] Oh, wow.

[373] Ominous.

[374] I thought that was fantastic.

[375] It was like, it was like coming clean.

[376] Oh, the foundation's the easy work, my friend.

[377] What a lovely way to look at the world.

[378] It's great.

[379] Everyone has something to offer.

[380] It reminds me to you, and I bet you thought of this.

[381] We had a guest once that said he sees genius everywhere.

[382] And I, to a large extent, agree.

[383] A man or a woman who can walk into a space and all there is is a bunch of raw material.

[384] And then they have something in their mind and then they execute that.

[385] I find to be as dazzling as nearly any other thing.

[386] Or people who can find joy in things that you would normally find joy.

[387] That's also a kind of genius.

[388] Yeah.

[389] Yeah.

[390] Okay.

[391] We might just have to do a stand -a -load episode that no one will listen to.

[392] It's just about cars.

[393] Anyways, anyways.

[394] I'm busy that day.

[395] Yeah, you don't have to be part of it anyway.

[396] We'll just let it run.

[397] So season seven of revisionist history is out.

[398] And anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge fan of revisionist history.

[399] Also, such a good name for a podcast.

[400] It is.

[401] I have loved every single season so much.

[402] And then I now got an advanced link for this season, and I'm almost done with it.

[403] This is really the highest compliment I can give to anybody.

[404] When I'm enjoying their work, and it goes from enjoying to feeling less than, to resentment and anger, and I hope you die.

[405] That's the pinnacle.

[406] Like, if you make me feel terrible by myself, you've bullse -eyed it.

[407] So I'm listening to it.

[408] I'm just like, this fucking show's so good.

[409] God, Malcolm's so charming.

[410] Oh, he's so well researched.

[411] The production, but I'm like, God, fuck.

[412] I don't know if I can do that.

[413] Oh, come on.

[414] I think that too, and I listen.

[415] I'm like, we've got to get a show like this.

[416] Our shows are so bad.

[417] Yes, it makes me hate our show.

[418] And it makes me hate myself.

[419] And that, my friend, is as much as I can give you.

[420] I'm inspired to work much harder or something, which is a great feeling.

[421] That's a nice way.

[422] I would never have thought you felt that way.

[423] There are all kinds of complicated things bubbling below the surface with you.

[424] Oh, my God.

[425] Oh, absolutely, sure, sure, sure.

[426] Do you ever have that feeling?

[427] I mean, like, competitively, you ran.

[428] There's many times I'm sure you've observed people doing a thing you loved and are quite good at in some capacity.

[429] And then you recognize, oh, and there's another level to it.

[430] Let me return the compliment in last season of revisionist history.

[431] We rewrote the ending to The Little Mermaid, and we had you come in and play, who were you?

[432] You were King Troy.

[433] I was the boyfriend.

[434] Oh, right, right, right, right.

[435] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[436] We rounded up Glenn Close, Jody Foster, Britt Marling, and Daxe, to play these various roles.

[437] Dax was on Zoom, all of them was in the studio, and several things happened.

[438] First of all, I don't know actors well, so I am dazzled when they turn it on.

[439] Yeah.

[440] Dax comes in, and the entire room is on the floor laughing.

[441] So he's on the Zoom.

[442] He's like a thousand miles away.

[443] It wasn't even when you were doing your part.

[444] You were just kind of riffing, and you were doing your acting self.

[445] And I was like, holy mackerel.

[446] Like there's a whole level there that I would never have imagined existed and I got to see it.

[447] We would play the tape.

[448] We were laughing about it for days.

[449] Oh my God, that makes me so happy.

[450] I tried to tell you.

[451] I don't think in that moment, oh my God, I could never do that.

[452] I think in that moment, how insanely lucky am I that I could ask you to do that?

[453] And you would just turn it on for me?

[454] I just felt like a kid who just got given the biggest gift of Christmas.

[455] I've had that feeling too because I've directed a few movies and I've had a couple of really brilliant people get to do it.

[456] For me, and I think how on earth am I this lucky?

[457] You're absorbing that person's talent because it's your project.

[458] And it's a very interesting feeling.

[459] Do I deserve this?

[460] Am I worthy of this?

[461] I have always just felt insane gratitude when that's happening.

[462] Like, wow, look at these people caring about this thing I thought of.

[463] Yeah.

[464] It's a great feeling.

[465] But you could have the same thing about Malcolm.

[466] You listen and you're like, oh, my God, I can't do that.

[467] And it's so amazing.

[468] And I get to have a relationship with this genius.

[469] I definitely have that.

[470] When I hear how great you are and I'm like, oh, And I get to communicate with this human being on my trip through planet Earth.

[471] But I think I even owned it during that little recording session.

[472] I'm an approval junkie.

[473] And if you put Jody Foster in front of me, I've never met her.

[474] I'm not going to meet her.

[475] That's the time I'm going to meet Jody Foster.

[476] I'm going to try everything I have to wow you.

[477] I want you to remember this fun day we had together.

[478] It's just so fun.

[479] That was insane.

[480] That was one of the greatest days of my life.

[481] Oh, I'm so happy to hear that.

[482] It was like I was surrounded by the Chicago Bulls of 1993.

[483] Oh, my God.

[484] Okay.

[485] So this season, though, this season is incredible.

[486] In general, the season's about experiments.

[487] Correct.

[488] Natural experiments, what if experiments, thought experiments, and then things I call magic wand experiments, which are the made up ones.

[489] And the first two episodes are solely about magic wand.

[490] So I have this subversive idea or thought or agenda.

[491] And I want you to be just a micron away from critical mass where you go, oh, I got it.

[492] So my question is, if you do have any subversion, Do you ever actually want it expressed?

[493] I could imagine not.

[494] Yeah.

[495] I don't think of myself as being fundamentally subversive.

[496] I guess I would describe myself as being mildly mischievous.

[497] Provocative, mischievous.

[498] Yeah, kind of.

[499] Playful.

[500] A little bit.

[501] Yeah.

[502] That's why we love you.

[503] I want people to hold ideas lightly and to hold things lightly.

[504] Because when you hold them lightly, then I feel like it's easier to learn.

[505] It's easier to pick things up and discard other things.

[506] It's easier to play with things.

[507] Evolve.

[508] Yeah.

[509] Yeah, so what I don't want is for people to think that I'm banging a drum.

[510] Of course not.

[511] And I'll go even further and say, you can actually not have an agenda and yet always have an agenda.

[512] Because by virtue of what you're interested in is your agenda, for me it is at least.

[513] It's like I'm only drawn to topics because I have an interest in them and I have an interest in them for some reason.

[514] I don't know that I can escape my agenda in some weird way, even if I don't have an explicit agenda.

[515] But wait, what was it in the episodes that made you ask this question?

[516] Okay.

[517] So in order, you ask five social scientists or different professionals, what magic wand experiment they would want to do.

[518] And so the magic wand experiment is basically you have unlimited funding.

[519] You can manipulate everything on the planet to run this.

[520] Yes.

[521] And there's no ethics.

[522] There's no nothing.

[523] This is just we want an answer to this.

[524] And this is what it would take to get that answer.

[525] And I have a magic wand.

[526] So what would that be?

[527] And so the first one is great.

[528] My wife and I were listening to it together on the way home from the airport.

[529] I don't want to ruin too much of the episode, and I also want to lay out...

[530] You can give away the first one.

[531] Okay, okay.

[532] The first one is she would like to cut off all the penises of the boys that are born.

[533] Not all.

[534] Some set that will be in the experiment, she will cut the penises off these boys that are X, Y. And then she will attach them to a set of girls that are born who are X, X. Attach the penises.

[535] Yes.

[536] And you won't.

[537] be able to know the difference right from the outside so the parents will have absolutely no way to even steer the nurture aspect of it because they'll believe they're raising a boy and they'll believe they're raising a girl and she wants to study them till about five years old she says and she wants to see if in fact her theory is basically that the little girls with penises will take to survival practice washing babies keeping them hygienic feeding them caring for them.

[538] The girls, now girls that were born boys, will be throwing things across the room and tackling each other and inventing weapons.

[539] If they fall into the stereotypes of gender.

[540] Her point is your baby's born, it's a boy, but she says from the very, very first moment the child comes out, you are led to falsely believe it's a girl.

[541] Right.

[542] So you raise that child as a girl.

[543] And she wants to know, does it make any difference whatsoever what the parent thinks their child is?

[544] Yeah, that is fascinating.

[545] That is fascinating.

[546] She believes it makes zero difference.

[547] It just does not matter.

[548] You can dress the child you think as a girl up in pink dresses and put bows in the hair.

[549] She will find an object and make a weapon of it.

[550] She will go to construction sites.

[551] She will.

[552] She'll love transportation devices.

[553] We left at that one really hard.

[554] But it is, as someone who just became a parent for the first time.

[555] Yes, congratulations.

[556] Congratulations.

[557] Thank you.

[558] It's super, super, super interesting to the thing, I'm doing a set of things to this human being in the belief that I am fundamentally shaping her.

[559] Maybe all she's really responding to is the most basic expressions of love.

[560] Yes.

[561] And affection.

[562] There's nothing specific that I'm doing that makes a wit of difference.

[563] It's just like, am I feeding her, am I hugging her?

[564] Yeah.

[565] Does she have a warm, quiet place?

[566] Is the attachment happening successfully?

[567] But that's not nothing.

[568] I think a lot of new parents might do all the things right, all these extra things, but the affection and saying I love you, those things go by the wayside and it's kind of important to know it should be reversed.

[569] Yeah.

[570] I've come to distill my parenting belief down to almost a single principle, which is if I assume there's a huge likelihood they'll try to marry their father, I better act like the boyfriend I want them to have.

[571] Oh, good modeling.

[572] I want to set the example of who I hope they'll go out and find.

[573] Someone that listens to them that concentrates on what they're saying, that treats them seriously.

[574] That is affectionate to them.

[575] It spends hours on cars .com.

[576] Well, I got a nine -year -old that rides a dirt bike as a razor.

[577] Yeah, so she's en route to that.

[578] That is a lovely, parsimonious definition of what good parenting looks like.

[579] Thank you.

[580] Because it can go counterintuitive as well.

[581] I'll say to my wife, oh, yeah, I'm actually not going to indulge that because I don't really want her with a dude that would indulge that.

[582] I don't think a dude that would indulge that would have any self -respect of his own.

[583] I'd want the dude to have boundaries and know what's respectful.

[584] It's not all just, I'm going to do these things because I want this guy.

[585] It's also, no, no one has to sit by you while you have a 75 -minute cryover not getting ice cream.

[586] You're free to have that.

[587] I'm not telling you not to, but I won't be a party to it.

[588] As preparation for those two magic wand experiments, there's a website I love called Marginal Revolution, which is done by this guy named Tyler Cowan and who's a brilliant economist.

[589] It's like the Wonk's Playground website.

[590] And so I asked Tyler if I could post a question on his website.

[591] He said, yes.

[592] So I posted the question of, tell me your magic wands.

[593] If you could wave a magic wand and you could get rid of all ethical, logistical laws of nature constraints, what experiment would you like to have?

[594] And so there was like 300 answers from smart people from around the world.

[595] Insane numbers of the magic ones people came up with were about one of two things.

[596] Diet.

[597] Yeah.

[598] Uh -huh.

[599] And parenting.

[600] Which was so weird to me because there's almost no two things that we think more about.

[601] and have more direct experience with.

[602] And yet, those are the two things we have the most outstanding questions over.

[603] Even if you're a nuclear physicist, you'll probably spend more utiles and time thinking about your diet and your children.

[604] Yeah.

[605] Yeah, you'll care more about that.

[606] Well, there's no definitive answers about either of those two things.

[607] It's so weird.

[608] I do magic ones.

[609] Another magic one in that episode was a friend of mine, Adam, who's a psychologist.

[610] You really wanted to find out whether social media is good or bad.

[611] So we wanted to have, basically, you raise one set of kids until 30.

[612] I think he even said, map it out 50 years, yeah, yeah.

[613] Where all they have is a Blackberry.

[614] They can only do email with their phones.

[615] And the other half get the full iPhone with everything on it.

[616] The platinum package.

[617] What was amazing to me about that one was we've given everyone one of these iPhones loaded up with 17 million things and we have no idea what the consequences of it are because, you know, there's a school of thought.

[618] His argument was, look, there are psychologists out there who think that the effect of social media on kids is profound and permanent and terrifying, as well as a group who think, whatever.

[619] Yeah.

[620] But the idea that we jumped into this and we don't know.

[621] Do you not believe there are questions that don't have answers?

[622] I think that does not have an answer.

[623] Well, from the vantage point, probably in 200 years, it'll have an answer.

[624] No, because I think for this boy, it will be good and for that person, it will be bad.

[625] Like, it's hard to say.

[626] Here's one specific thing.

[627] Remember whether he would end to this or not that he told me that.

[628] It's a really interesting part of this.

[629] He said, okay, here's one of the arguments.

[630] And maybe there's an answer to this.

[631] Normally, so it's 1970.

[632] There's no phones.

[633] I'm seven years old.

[634] I'm playing with my seven -year -old friends.

[635] And I do something that is antisocial.

[636] I say a mean thing.

[637] I steal someone, something.

[638] I push someone.

[639] What happens is there are immediate consequences in the moment.

[640] The other person pushes back.

[641] The boy that I punched punches me. The girl that I said something nasty to me shouts at me, right?

[642] I get feedback.

[643] And that's the way I learn how to be.

[644] social in the world, that I'm getting really rich feedback from my environment that's telling me when I've crossed a line.

[645] And his point is, if you transfer all of that interaction online, the feedback's not rich anymore.

[646] You can be a complete jerk to someone online.

[647] You're not going to get pushed or punched or yelled at.

[648] And you say, the kind of social learning that occurs in that kind of vacuum is going to be very different.

[649] I would love to know whether that's consequential.

[650] Well, right.

[651] And then also there's like a bigger, broader question above that, which is they're going to live in this world.

[652] We're perfect little machines at learning all the social cues we need to learn to get the things we want.

[653] So is it even relevant?

[654] See, because he even says there's some studies that already say that they have diminished facial recognition for emotion and reading people because of it.

[655] So for me, that's bad, clearly.

[656] I want to be sitting with you and talking to you.

[657] That's the future I desire.

[658] But if I'm going to live in the metaphors, I don't know that it's relevant.

[659] And that feels very dystopian to me, but I don't know.

[660] There's a million thoughts that stem from that.

[661] This is such an old man conversation.

[662] We're like lamenting our loss.

[663] I learned in this, which I was delighted, is I, too, didn't have TV.

[664] I feel like that makes us so weird.

[665] Yeah.

[666] You have no TV until when?

[667] What happened was we just lived too far out from Detroit.

[668] Rabbit Ears wouldn't get you anything.

[669] And my mom was broke.

[670] So we had like a 13 -inch black and white with no reception.

[671] So I got to see TV at Friends House.

[672] And then once a month I go to my dad's and he had a, setup but in general i didn't know what the fuck anyone's talking about but mind you i'm a huge tv junkie as an adult so it's not like it got me anything i love tv we had none and i would watch it like you sporadically at friends houses it taught me all kinds of interesting things not the least of which is faking it right so i just developed ways of understanding so i could discuss the brady bunch even though i had never seen the brady bunch right and i can remember even we would watch cartoons sometimes at school at lunch hour just was so foreign to me. I had no interest in them because it just seemed weird.

[673] Why would I want to watch the Flintstones?

[674] But I kind of like forced myself to because I was aware this was a language that I needed to learn.

[675] It was like another class for me as opposed to.

[676] Yeah, right.

[677] Interesting.

[678] Yeah.

[679] That's a skill from a lot of people who feel on the outside.

[680] I've had that too.

[681] Faking it for sure.

[682] In a religious sense, I feel like I was always like, I understand what everyone's talking about here and I didn't.

[683] Yeah.

[684] I had that as well.

[685] I want to know your Magic One.

[686] Is that in the show?

[687] My Magic One is in the show.

[688] I got to say my Magic One, but let's just say in Episode 2, I come up with my own name Magic One, which is sort of nuts, deliberately nuts.

[689] As soon as I start listening to Episode 1 and I learned the premise, I was one of those two.

[690] My very first thought is, we don't know what you should eat.

[691] I don't think there's an answer for what we should eat.

[692] I think at some point in time, you'll get your genome mapped and it'll tell you what you should do.

[693] But the complete lack of science or consensus around anything involving us is maddening.

[694] When it comes to exercise, diet, mental health, all these things.

[695] We're the hardest to study thing in the universe.

[696] We can study stars 10 billion light years away much better.

[697] Because what variable, I don't know what you did on the way over here.

[698] You did a catrillion things other than drink that coffee.

[699] And a catrillion thoughts.

[700] Correct.

[701] Went to all time.

[702] Oh, you did.

[703] Did you love all time?

[704] Did you love it?

[705] I always love all time.

[706] You're a return customer.

[707] One of my hangs when I come to Los Angeles.

[708] Oh, my God.

[709] What do you get?

[710] What's your order?

[711] Got the crispy rice.

[712] Got the crispy rice with the two eggs.

[713] I've gotten more on diet.

[714] I've sort of given up in a sense that I just know you should eat as little sugar as you can, as many vegetables as you can.

[715] And generally speaking, you should eat less than you want to eat.

[716] I'm with all that.

[717] I am not into sugar.

[718] And for arthritic reasons, I don't fuck with gluten.

[719] Dax is a trial and air system.

[720] I haven't really learned anything from the outside other than I don't do something for two months, see how I feel.

[721] That's where we're at.

[722] Just are left to experiment on your own body to figure out what the hell's going on, what works for you?

[723] It's probably the case that the answer is so different.

[724] To go back to your point earlier, Monica, that some of these questions are unanswerable.

[725] They're probably only answerable if we go on a case -by -case basis.

[726] And I was reading this really interesting article the other day that was talking about cancer treatment.

[727] And after years and years and years and years, they're really, really, really marginal gains.

[728] all of a sudden, in like the last year, they're like flat out curing certain kinds of cancers that they never thought they would cure.

[729] And the reason is we finally turn the corner where we're just customizing treatments for people's individual tumors.

[730] And I sort of feel like maybe that's the best way to think about things like diet and exercise, that it's foolish to be looking for these broad rules.

[731] There just has to come a point where we sit down with Monica and Dax and Malcolm when we say, this is what you need to do.

[732] Yes.

[733] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[734] We've all been there.

[735] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[736] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[737] like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[738] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[739] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[740] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[741] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[742] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon music What's up guys?

[743] This is your girl Kiki And my podcast is back with a new season And let me tell you, it's too good And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest Okay, every episode I bring on a friend And have a real conversation And I don't mean just friends I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on So follow, watch and listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app Or wherever you get your podcast Back to children, I think it's laughable.

[744] There's children advice books because we have two now in their opposite.

[745] And I've had to do opposite things to get either of them to brush their teeth.

[746] Describe how they're opposite.

[747] Lincoln wants to be perfect.

[748] She's the eldest.

[749] She's the oldest.

[750] It's pretty standard for oldest child.

[751] Yes, she wants to be great and perfect at everything.

[752] And I just need to get out of her way.

[753] If anything, my full job is to tell her how much I love her when she fucks up.

[754] That's my only fear for her.

[755] The other one, and here's my armchair, Thurian.

[756] The other one was born into a situation where about seven to 800 times a day she got rejected by her older sister.

[757] So for her rejection is like, bring it.

[758] She doesn't care.

[759] I'll sum up in one story exactly who she is.

[760] She would not stop leaving her room.

[761] This is a few years ago.

[762] She was three, I think.

[763] We had friends over.

[764] I tried every method in the world.

[765] It's two hours past your bedtime.

[766] You got to stay in bed.

[767] I finally lose it.

[768] I take her from her room into my bathroom where all of her Paw Patrol toys are.

[769] in the tub because she plays with them every single night and i grab them all and i throw them all in the trash can and i said you see this trash can if you come out of your room one more time this trash can goes to the outdoor trash can and there's no coming back from that and she goes daddy you missed one i was like oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh you got owned by your three owned and i've been in that moment oh this technique will never work with her the consequence she eats it up give it to me It's like wartime.

[770] That's like, you know, military strategy.

[771] Oh, you thought you had leverage?

[772] No, no, that's my leverage.

[773] Yeah.

[774] I'll burn this whole house down to disobey you.

[775] Don't you get that yet?

[776] That's kind of awesome.

[777] She's the best.

[778] She's the greatest.

[779] What's your magic wand, Dax?

[780] Oh, wow.

[781] For the first five were ones I would, I mean, they'd be at the top of my list for sure.

[782] One's a twins thing, of course.

[783] Like, identical twins are so fun.

[784] I didn't know the history of this, but these Colombian twins, this is so fascinating, Monica.

[785] A set of twins in rural Columbia, a set of twins, both identical and Bogota.

[786] One of the rural babies comes down to a hospital in Bogota to get some procedure.

[787] They swap that baby with one of the other identical twins.

[788] Now you've got two twins in the rural area that think they're fraternal twins.

[789] And the same for the city -dwelling twins.

[790] And then at some point, the hillbilly twins move down to the city.

[791] They get a job as butchers.

[792] Someone comes in and is like, Javier, how are you?

[793] and the guy's like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[794] They discover this.

[795] That is so sad.

[796] I mean, it is impossible.

[797] They're all best friends.

[798] They're born in the same day.

[799] Understand, two sets of identical twins.

[800] Grandma takes one of the kids from the sticks into the city of her procedure.

[801] Hospital screws up.

[802] This is not.

[803] What?

[804] Fast forward 21 years.

[805] That is crazy.

[806] They all show up in Colombia.

[807] Exactly.

[808] Javier?

[809] What are you doing here?

[810] Javier?

[811] Who's Javier?

[812] She's like, you're Javier.

[813] No, I'm not.

[814] Like, oh, boy.

[815] Then shows him a picture.

[816] And he's like, oh, my God, that's me in different clothes.

[817] The odds of this happening are incalculable.

[818] No, yeah.

[819] You can't fathom that this happened.

[820] It couldn't have happened.

[821] I did 23 and me for the first time, and I get my results back and I sign on.

[822] I see Malcolm Gladwell, boom.

[823] And then one line over, identical twin.

[824] With the initials, A, B. I'm like, no identifying information.

[825] What?

[826] And I'm like, holy, are you kidding?

[827] Now, so here's what goes to my mind.

[828] One, my mother is an identical twin.

[829] Two, when my mother had me, I was the third of three.

[830] My family had just moved to England.

[831] My mother had three children under the age of four.

[832] She had no help whatsoever.

[833] They were living in a tiny house outside of Southampton and England.

[834] My dad was at work the whole time.

[835] And she was a Jamaican in a foreign country.

[836] It's the 60s.

[837] A black woman in Jamaica, married to a white guy.

[838] I mean, I cannot imagine how hard.

[839] So I think, oh, my God, what if my mom has two?

[840] twins, and she turns to my father and says in the hospital, I can't have four children under the age of four.

[841] I can't do it.

[842] I can only keep one.

[843] And they've been keeping this.

[844] And so I completely freak out.

[845] You're the Schwarzenegger in this scenario.

[846] I completely freak out.

[847] I go to my friend Charles.

[848] I tell him this whole story.

[849] And we're both saying, like, would my mother really have told you at some point?

[850] So then I call another friend of my Michael says to me, who's in a no nonsense.

[851] He goes, come on, Malcolm.

[852] You're not Brad Pitt, but you're recognized, are you trying to tell me there's someone else who looks exactly like you walking around.

[853] That really is a good point.

[854] Some guy driving an Uber in Vancouver.

[855] So then we call 23 and me and say like, what's going on here?

[856] And they go, oh, when we were starting out, we went to a whole bunch of conferences and we would just get everyone to spit in a cup because we needed data.

[857] He said, you must have spat in a Cup in 2005.

[858] That's you.

[859] Oh, my.

[860] You're your own twin.

[861] Yeah.

[862] Oh, my.

[863] But for 24 hours, I couldn't sleep.

[864] I was like, oh, my God.

[865] How can my mother keep this from me?

[866] My mother's like 90.

[867] I was like, I can't tell her, can I?

[868] Right.

[869] Let her die with the secret.

[870] I can't say I busted you after all these years.

[871] Also, your mother, who herself was an identical twin.

[872] And who's incredibly close to her sister.

[873] Right.

[874] Well, they all are.

[875] Malcolm.

[876] You didn't have to say that.

[877] That's true.

[878] No identical twin would have deprived.

[879] It's like the cornerstone of their life.

[880] No, but there's some reality in not being able to care for children.

[881] Well, certainly, but just of all the people.

[882] But, Dax, that's why it was so horrifying.

[883] I know how hard that is, and she did it, apparently.

[884] It looks like, Mom.

[885] Your mom's a gangster in that scenario.

[886] You know, it's really funny.

[887] We all did ours at the same time, and Kristen did it too.

[888] And we're all getting our results and we're sitting in the living room and people are going through.

[889] And will you do, Kristen?

[890] We're all looking at her stuff, and she's like, huh, I have Braca.

[891] Oh, my God, are you serious?

[892] I have early onset Alzheimer's.

[893] I have, what was the last one?

[894] Parkinson's.

[895] And she's saying it like that.

[896] And then she goes, oh, I'm 40 % Polish.

[897] I thought I would have been 60 % Polish.

[898] On to the next thing.

[899] Oh, I'm someone who likes coffee.

[900] I do like coffee.

[901] We're devastated.

[902] Here's my wife and her best friend.

[903] We're like, you're going to be dead in an hour.

[904] She's not even thinking twice about that.

[905] She didn't give a fuck.

[906] She was misreesome.

[907] Reading the thing.

[908] She was just reading all the categories.

[909] But she believed she'd found all that out.

[910] If you wrote a scene in a movie, that's not how the person responds to those.

[911] It was incredible.

[912] What a thing to witness.

[913] Quickly, back to your 23 of me, did you have any wishes or fantasies that did or didn't come true?

[914] I wanted to be really high in the Neanderthal thing.

[915] Oh, I see.

[916] And I wasn't at all.

[917] And I was so bummed.

[918] There's a family legend that we are related to Colin Powell.

[919] And when I first interviewed you, I think I brought that up.

[920] I really just wanted to find out whether this was true.

[921] You would then be related to Pete Wentz from Fallout Boy, his great uncle is Colin Powell.

[922] By the way, Colin Powell, a huge car guy.

[923] Is he really?

[924] Did you not know this?

[925] No. So a friend of mine knew him really well.

[926] His hobby was fixing up 1970s Volvos.

[927] Oh, wow.

[928] And he would put ads in the paper because he just liked to get as many years possible.

[929] Of course.

[930] And when he was head of the Joint Chiefs, do you know where the Joint Chiefs live?

[931] No. There's a base, I think it's called Fort Myers, right outside of Washington, D .C., on the Virginia.

[932] Virginia side.

[933] It's on a hill, an incredible view of downtown D .C. And it's a series of these unbelievably beautiful Victorians, all built at the turn of the century.

[934] On this ridge, overlooking the Potomac, the trucks would come with these broken -down volvo's, and they'd shop at Fort Meyer.

[935] They just know they were delivering to a C. Powell, right?

[936] Is Mr. Powell here?

[937] And out comes colon out of this, you know, wearing his, like, uniform, and they unload the Volvo 240 in He is a car guy if that was his kink.

[938] That's a deep cut to be into restoring 70s volus.

[939] There's a couple real sexy ones, by the way.

[940] What is it?

[941] Underneath.

[942] That's my magic wand.

[943] The car thing's very specific to people.

[944] And what is the thread?

[945] Do you know why you're in love with cars?

[946] I think I have a sense of why I am.

[947] I don't have a good answer.

[948] I imbue the identity of the vehicle when I'm in it.

[949] It's like the only way I can infuse something else into my identity.

[950] I don't put on clothes and feel a certain way.

[951] But when I see a Mustang of a certain era and I think about getting behind the wheel, I am now that.

[952] I'm this athletic, competent thing that will do the things I want it to do because it's not human.

[953] You turn the wheel this way.

[954] It always does the same thing.

[955] There's this control.

[956] You click into this identity when you shut the door on a 3 .0 or whatever the thing is.

[957] For me, it's like a way to teleport into identities almost.

[958] And I had not thought about the psychoanalytic implications of this until very recently.

[959] But as a child, I grew up in a little, very sleepy farming town in southern Ontario.

[960] As we've discussed, not dissimilar to the little area of Michigan where you grow up.

[961] Right.

[962] I felt very strongly I did not belong there.

[963] I was happy there, but I realized this was not where I belonged.

[964] And I would make these giant maps of imaginary places that were extraordinarily detailed.

[965] They would be huge.

[966] It would be, you know, six feet by four feet.

[967] It was a fantasy about a world to escape to.

[968] Yeah.

[969] So cars for me were the mechanism of escape.

[970] Same way that airplanes are.

[971] There has never, ever been a airplane that I haven't gotten on to when I didn't have a little thrill when I stepped from the jetway onto the...

[972] I always had that moment where I was like, this is amazing.

[973] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[974] Going someplace.

[975] This may take me to the place where I'm going to feel like an insider.

[976] Doesn't matter where...

[977] And the idea that there are endless numbers of ways you can get to that place.

[978] I rented a little Mustang.

[979] Great car.

[980] weren't you thinking about buying one you emailed me yes the fancy one i like to know that i'm part of his checkback by the way he'll like is this crazy it's not useful to email you about things because you always say yes you're like yeah yeah yeah if you had your way i would have 25 cards you want you to do well and i hit a billion you'll have 26 electric Mercedes in your driveway i have the armchair theory oh hit me for people who want answers for things i think both of you are like that searching for answers.

[981] Hey, you have a lot of questions.

[982] Cars and knowing everything about the car, which you guys both do in the details and the this and all these long names, it's like...

[983] All these long names.

[984] Monica weighs in on cars.

[985] But this is why I'm so not that...

[986] I really see describing two dudes that are into Dungeons and Dragons, by the way.

[987] But it's not that dissimilar in that you can know everything there.

[988] Like, it's something that you can actually know.

[989] You can know the names.

[990] You can know the parts.

[991] You can know what's this and this.

[992] And there's no questions.

[993] They're not tricky humans.

[994] So I was trying to think recently, why do I like doing my podcast?

[995] There's a number of reasons, but one is it is a creative activity that has a series of built -in constraints.

[996] I can't go longer than 40 minutes.

[997] I have six months a year to do it.

[998] I have 10 shows.

[999] The 10 shows all have to meet certain criteria.

[1000] They have to be broadly entertaining.

[1001] They can't just be Malcolm doing this.

[1002] Can't be this.

[1003] Talking about.

[1004] And cars are similar.

[1005] The great thing about cars is the constraints.

[1006] It's why I don't like super fancy cars.

[1007] They don't have any constraints.

[1008] Somebody makes a great car for $30 ,000.

[1009] My hat is all.

[1010] I love that.

[1011] That's interesting to me. Books have very few constraints.

[1012] You can go on forever.

[1013] Like a Revisious History episode, it's just so interesting to think through what I'm allowed to do, what I can get away with, what I can't do.

[1014] You like the creative box.

[1015] I like the box.

[1016] The last three episodes of this season are all about this crazy experiment.

[1017] Very little has ever been written about it.

[1018] It's called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

[1019] It's during the war, this researcher at University of Minnesota, so many people are starving in Europe.

[1020] And he realizes we don't know anything about how to nurse people back to health from malnutrition.

[1021] So he's like, what I'm going to do is I'm going to gather together 36 men and I'm going to starve them basically for six months.

[1022] And then I'm going to nurse them back to health.

[1023] And I'm going to figure out what works.

[1024] and what doesn't.

[1025] And so 18 of the men then leave this record, these tapes where they talk about what happened to them.

[1026] They leave them in the library of Congress, and the tapes had never been played.

[1027] We found them.

[1028] So we did all these episodes around these tapes.

[1029] It's insanely interesting.

[1030] I was just rewriting one of the episodes this morning.

[1031] I could write a book about this.

[1032] I'd go on forever.

[1033] But no, I have to tell the entire story of this in three, 40 -minute episodes.

[1034] Not four.

[1035] Four will be too much, but I couldn't do it in one.

[1036] I think I can get away with three, I think.

[1037] The story had to fit.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] And it's that kind of making it fit that's interesting.

[1040] Cars are all about making the solution fit.

[1041] Can't be a million dollars.

[1042] Yeah, it's all these restraints.

[1043] All these restraints.

[1044] That's so funny you frame it in that way because of course, if you just look around my fleet, I was punk rock.

[1045] I didn't like the rules.

[1046] I didn't like the mores.

[1047] I didn't feel like I fit there.

[1048] So everything I own is what should be a very slow, shitty car.

[1049] A 67 link and a 94 viewer Roadmaster, a 1980 Zephyr station wagon, and I'm like, fuck you.

[1050] This thing's going to blow away every M5, and it's going to handle better on an auto cross track.

[1051] I'm like, let me show you what this car can be.

[1052] I want to take the underestimated car and make it a Goliath.

[1053] Like, that's my own kink.

[1054] You want to begin with a set of extraordinary constraints.

[1055] The car is 30 years old.

[1056] The car has 180 horsepower.

[1057] It's like a terrible handler.

[1058] But that's you.

[1059] You're just making cars that are you.

[1060] Yeah.

[1061] And then I think Malcolm's weird kink is also being fulfilled.

[1062] He loves a Volkswagen Golf GTI.

[1063] I get it knowing what he's horny for in his creative life.

[1064] This car can't cost more than $23 ,000 new.

[1065] It has to handle.

[1066] It has to break.

[1067] It has to accelerate.

[1068] It can't have a eight -cylinder.

[1069] It's starting with all these Achilles.

[1070] You know, when young people who are interested in writing ask me for advice, on a specific project, my first question is always trying to figure out what are the constraints on the project?

[1071] How long does it have to be?

[1072] Who is the audience?

[1073] Basically, what can't it be?

[1074] So we can clarify what it is.

[1075] Which must have made it all the more maddening when I sent you the thing I wrote recently.

[1076] It's 12 pages long.

[1077] Where would that go?

[1078] It's too long for an essay.

[1079] It's too long for an op -ed.

[1080] It wouldn't fit anywhere.

[1081] And I'm like, what are your thoughts on this?

[1082] I loved that.

[1083] Did you see it, Monica?

[1084] No, you said you were going to show it to me, and you never did.

[1085] I can't figure out what it is.

[1086] What I did do immediately is I acknowledged and got rid of all the conversational parts, all of basically me preaching.

[1087] Yeah, Dax sent me this essay that he wrote.

[1088] Mostly because I mentioned you in it, and I thought, well, I had better send it to you.

[1089] And I was thrilled to bits.

[1090] What I liked was your voice is so appealing on the page.

[1091] The parts where you come through are just fantastic.

[1092] I tried to get rid everything but that.

[1093] Yeah.

[1094] Going back to this question of constraints, you don't need more than that.

[1095] If there is a voice there that's appealing, that's all that's necessary.

[1096] We don't need a hundred things to be accomplished in one piece of writing.

[1097] This is a problem of mine.

[1098] So, yes, if I were to make an analogy of music, if you're Bob Dylan, that's plenty.

[1099] You can have that voice.

[1100] If you write these songs, you don't need a bunch of instrumentation.

[1101] That's great.

[1102] I get overwhelmed with how many things everything could be.

[1103] Like your last three episodes, you say it, that could be a book.

[1104] There's got to be part of you that's pursuing that in the back of your mind for two days.

[1105] You suffer from that where it's just like an explosion of ideas, and if not contained, it'll go nowhere.

[1106] Yes, exactly.

[1107] It's funny, this issue comes up again in another episode this season.

[1108] I do an entire episode on Will & Grace.

[1109] Oh.

[1110] What interests me about Will and Grace is that it's the last of the truly popular sitcoms made in the old regime, the four big networks.

[1111] The last time you could do a sitcom and get...

[1112] 28 million viewers or something.

[1113] Yeah, exactly.

[1114] Before everything gets broken apart.

[1115] The plus was you got a large...

[1116] audience.

[1117] The negative was everything had to be run through the network.

[1118] It wasn't like Netflix letting you do whatever you want.

[1119] Everything had to be very broadly appealing.

[1120] So what I did is I talked about all of the sacrifices, concessions, compromises, constraints that the original Will & Grace was created under.

[1121] And then talked about why I thought the result was better than if they had been given carte blanche.

[1122] Yeah.

[1123] Yeah.

[1124] It wasn't what I started out wanting to do.

[1125] I had a different and I did in the beginning.

[1126] But I sort of went back and I interviewed everyone who was involved with Will and Grace.

[1127] And all they talked about was this paradox of, in the end, how liberating the constraints were.

[1128] Jimmy Burroughs, the legendary sitcom director, the guy who did cheers, he gets brought in to direct Will and Grace.

[1129] Why?

[1130] Because Jimmy Burroughs is going to keep it on the straight and narrow.

[1131] Yeah, yeah.

[1132] And why is Eric McCormick cast as Will?

[1133] Because he's not Carson Cressley.

[1134] He's got to look and sound like a straight guy.

[1135] And it's got to be a corporate lawyer.

[1136] We can tell jokes about sex, but now it really tell jokes about sex.

[1137] And what is the result?

[1138] The result is a show that reaches a huge slice of America, watches that show and realizes, oh, gay people are just normal.

[1139] Yeah, exactly.

[1140] Maybe a little funnier than us, but...

[1141] And gay marriage gets legalized.

[1142] There is a connection.

[1143] I'm convinced of this.

[1144] I'm convinced...

[1145] This country does a turnaround on gay marriage that is so unprecedented.

[1146] There's never been a turnaround like this on a major social issue.

[1147] It is will and grace.

[1148] Yeah.

[1149] And it's because they started out with the intention that we want the show to be as appealing to the hip 25 -year -old in Manhattan as it is to the 48 -year -old living in Ames, Ohio.

[1150] To the twin in Northern Columbia.

[1151] To the twin in Northern Columbia.

[1152] And doing that episode, it's one of my favorite episodes of the whole season, we have to be very careful when we struggle against constraints.

[1153] We need to also recognize the value of those constraints.

[1154] I have a couple famous examples I always like to give because it rears its head in show business all the time.

[1155] Howard Stern worked for 25 years or something on terrestrial radio with the FCC on his back.

[1156] And then when they went to serious and they could do everything they thought they had wanted to do for 25 years, they did it for a minute.

[1157] And it was like, oh, this isn't nearly as good.

[1158] And I can tell they knew and they self -corrected.

[1159] It's like it found a zone, which was R minus, but it wasn't this thing they fantasize about.

[1160] And in fact, that thing didn't really work.

[1161] Yeah.

[1162] So we're great friends of Adam Grant.

[1163] He's been on a few times.

[1164] We adore him.

[1165] You adore him.

[1166] Oh, yeah.

[1167] Got to hear you guys, I guess we'd call it debate.

[1168] I don't know.

[1169] Who was doing who's.

[1170] I listened to both.

[1171] I heard you with Adam and then Adam with you.

[1172] And there was this great, great moment where he was about his new book.

[1173] And he was basically critiquing you and saying that many of your books end up negating one another.

[1174] You change your mind across books.

[1175] Which was ironic because the thrust of his current book he was promoting was about exactly that being flexible.

[1176] Being open.

[1177] which was glorious.

[1178] You mentioned it earlier about having a loose hold on your ideas, which I like.

[1179] I haven't finished it.

[1180] But my very favorite moment of season seven is definitely you lane out in simplest terms.

[1181] There were some whistleblowers for the opioid epidemic.

[1182] And it came in the way of triplicate scripts that were being used in some states.

[1183] And if you look at the data, the states with triplicate scripts had half the fatalities or overdoses that the states without them.

[1184] Well, what does that mean?

[1185] So it's in the 30s, and it's adopted by a handful of states around the country.

[1186] We make a list of all the most problematic medications, painkillers, things like that.

[1187] And he says, if you're a doctor and you want to prescribe one of those painkillers, you have to fill out a prescription in triplicate.

[1188] The first copy goes to the patient to take to the pharmacist.

[1189] The second copy gets mailed to the state.

[1190] The third copy the doctor keeps in his or her office.

[1191] So there's a permanent record of every time you prescribe a painkiller.

[1192] I see.

[1193] So what that means is the doctor is aware.

[1194] of if I'm going to start prescribing these to anyone who walks in the door, then wait a minute, there's a record of what I'm doing.

[1195] There's some accountability.

[1196] So doctors think twice.

[1197] Now, only a handful of states in this country adopt this.

[1198] But what we discover years later is the states that did have a opioid overdose problem that is a fraction as bad as the states that don't.

[1199] So it's this weird little bookkeeping thing that ends up saving.

[1200] And it's an experiment that was run in the theme of experiments.

[1201] it was run without anyone being the architect of it.

[1202] It just so happened to unveil itself as an experiment.

[1203] You had X amount of states.

[1204] But about 30 % of America was living in those states.

[1205] And so parallel to learning this, you're also learning about this person that the writers at the Washington Post interacted with often who would bring stories and was obsessed with certain things.

[1206] And the person, by all accounts, sounds like, was a rough hang.

[1207] It's a nudge.

[1208] And comprehensive.

[1209] So if he wanted you to write something, he would send you reams of data.

[1210] And generally speaking, people would be fatigued and they would just pitch it in the trash.

[1211] And so, unfortunately, one of the things this guy was very passionate about and spent a lot of energy trying to get the media to cover was this triplicate script issue.

[1212] And this is in 91, I think.

[1213] Or the opiate epidemic.

[1214] So this guy, this Washington fixture.

[1215] Sid?

[1216] Sid Wolf.

[1217] I was working for the Washington Post as a health and science reporter.

[1218] I was covering all of this world.

[1219] And there was a guy who ran a think tank, Lobby group in Washington, who was the bane of our existence.

[1220] He'd call you every day.

[1221] He'd load you up a story.

[1222] He's like a Ralph Nader type.

[1223] He was a friend of Ralph Nader's.

[1224] And his great passion was that everyone should have triplicate prescriptions.

[1225] Why?

[1226] Because they will prevent you from having doctors prescribing too many painkillers.

[1227] This was before the oxycontin.

[1228] And we were like, you know what?

[1229] I can't deal with this guy.

[1230] We would just throw everything he'd send us in a time.

[1231] Drug paranoia.

[1232] Everything he said turned out to be true.

[1233] Here I was in a position as a young reporter of great authority.

[1234] The person who covered in those years who covered that for the Washington Post was like a big deal.

[1235] And I just ignored the whole issue.

[1236] The episode's all about me thinking back about, well, what went wrong with me that I didn't have an open mind on something that turned out to be incredibly comfortable?

[1237] He talks to him.

[1238] This is 30 years ago at this point, 31 years ago.

[1239] And Malcolm's like, I didn't listen to you and I was wrong.

[1240] And I blew it.

[1241] Ooh, that's a lot to carry.

[1242] That's great.

[1243] Over time, the things that I've been most blown away with is when someone is honest about all their failings, that to me is like Superman stuff.

[1244] When people are honest about the tragedies in their lives and their mistakes, my biggest heroes are those people.

[1245] So like to have this little moment within this really, really well -constructed, well -research, to have you just take an hour to go, boy, did I shit the bed?

[1246] boy was I full of myself, or whatever it was, is just so refreshing and wonderful.

[1247] That's my favorite part.

[1248] Thank you.

[1249] If you establish from the beginning in your contract with your audience that that's what we're doing, we're holding ideas lightly, and we're open to what people have to say, and we will be changing our mind, then it becomes much easier down the line to do that.

[1250] We don't talk enough about what our implicit contract is for people who tell stories with our readers or our listeners.

[1251] There is always a contract.

[1252] You don't have to spell it out, but you've always made a deal.

[1253] There's a deal with armchair expert.

[1254] Yeah, yeah.

[1255] You guys have made a deal.

[1256] A lovely deal, I would say.

[1257] And we need to think very carefully about what are those terms that we're establishing because they will dictate how much honesty you're allowed to pursue.

[1258] How many mistakes are you allowed to admit to?

[1259] I mentioned in another episode, this podcast I love called This Week in Virology, which is like the nerdiest.

[1260] Of course you love it.

[1261] It's all these virologists who get together and they like, talk about what's cool in virology this week?

[1262] Sure, sure, yeah.

[1263] The sexiest new virus.

[1264] They have a contract.

[1265] It's a great contract.

[1266] Their contract is we, by design, have an open mind.

[1267] We're in the business of learning new things about the thing we love most, which is virology.

[1268] So every week, we're going to, like, look at a study, and if it says something that contradicts what we thought previously, we're going to say, this is new.

[1269] That's their contract.

[1270] This is all about moving forward.

[1271] We're not holding to our guns from 20 years ago when we got our PhDs.

[1272] It's a really refreshing contract.

[1273] It is, I hope, of the many different directions that all the many pendulins are supposed to be swinging currently.

[1274] I do hope the one that we diminish is, and I get it, we're attracted to certainty, we're attracted to things that are definitive, it makes us feel safe.

[1275] But I've got to say our conclusion, our shared conclusion, we've interviewed 450 people, 225 of them were intellectuals of some variety.

[1276] Which category am I in?

[1277] Am I in the...

[1278] You're a nice hybrid.

[1279] You're a celebrity and an intellectual.

[1280] We can put you on Monday or Thursday.

[1281] It's a very small group.

[1282] You make it very easy for us.

[1283] But I'm inclined to ask myself like, well, what have I learned?

[1284] I've talked to some of the smartest, greatest people on the planet.

[1285] And what I've learned is nobody knows a fucking thing.

[1286] I mean, that's literally my conclusion.

[1287] For certain.

[1288] It's like every single thing is a spectrum.

[1289] It's a percentage.

[1290] Some folks got it like 76 % correct.

[1291] summer in the 40s, that is what I will walk away from this experience with, which I'm glad about because I have to acknowledge for myself that at my best day, I might be 75 % right about something.

[1292] I think it's like a good thing to walk away with.

[1293] And it leaves it open for that, you know?

[1294] I see the appeal of you going, no, I was right when I said that, however many years ago.

[1295] I don't want to lose trust with my reader.

[1296] I think if anyone talks to enough smart people will realize, oh, we're all in the proverb in the room with the elephant.

[1297] and I've got a flashlight and you've got a candle, whatever.

[1298] There's an episode of this season that's all about, I wrote about it in Outliers, my obsession with the relative age effect.

[1299] What are the advantages that come to being the relatively oldest in your class?

[1300] So I have a whole episode on the list.

[1301] And at one point, we go to the University of Pennsylvania, and we have a class full of seniors, and we run them through these exercises to get them to think about the effect of the month they're born in.

[1302] It was really interesting.

[1303] I wrote a draft of it, and we did a table read of the draft, as we often do.

[1304] And there was something wrong with the ending.

[1305] I couldn't put my finger on it.

[1306] And then the discussion in the room, it clarified it.

[1307] The ending was a violation of our contract.

[1308] Oh.

[1309] And the reason was, I went to these college seniors at Penn, had them do all this kind of stuff.

[1310] It was an act of mischief.

[1311] And they were complicit in the act of mischief.

[1312] I made them all wear these numbers on their chest, and they had to guess what the number was, and I didn't give them any hints.

[1313] And I just recorded all of the ways in which I tried to figure out what was going on.

[1314] In the first draft of that episode, I made fun of them for not figuring it out.

[1315] Not made fun.

[1316] I criticize them for not figuring out the answer to the puzzle.

[1317] And then I realized, no, I can't do that.

[1318] That's not my contract.

[1319] They willingly came.

[1320] They signed up to be part of the fun and the mischief.

[1321] I can't turn around and diss them.

[1322] Other shows have a different contract.

[1323] That's not what we do.

[1324] We completely rewrote the ending.

[1325] But I felt ashamed that, wait a minute, I can be seven seasons in the revision's history, and I still don't entirely understand the game I'm playing here.

[1326] It's why I was so grateful for everyone else in the room who was like, wait a minute, Malcolm, what are you doing?

[1327] Yeah.

[1328] It's comedians who I feel need to be most alert to these implicit contracts.

[1329] If I'm going to stand in front of someone for an hour or 45 minutes and provision number one is I'm going to make you laugh, one of the hardest of all things, for 45 minutes, which is insane.

[1330] Yeah, yeah.

[1331] Right?

[1332] If I'm going to pull that off, we have to have a shared understanding of the ground rules here.

[1333] Yeah.

[1334] What I'm going to do and what I'm not going to do.

[1335] It's when you wander outside that lane that it all starts to fall apart.

[1336] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1337] You should definitely do a book on comedy.

[1338] I'm sure you've thought about it.

[1339] There's such great examples right now.

[1340] Like, again, the contract that Chappelle has with people.

[1341] Dax, I wanted you to do this.

[1342] You wanted me to be a part of a podcast.

[1343] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1344] No, an audiobook.

[1345] Oh, an audiobook.

[1346] We're doing an audio book with your old co -star Lake Bell, my good friend.

[1347] Yes.

[1348] And Lake's doing an audio book with Pushkin right now that's all about voices.

[1349] Can I just say it's so brilliant.

[1350] Oh, right?

[1351] Because she's like an audiophile.

[1352] She's obsessed with people's voices.

[1353] And you are too, right?

[1354] She's like Shaquillo Neal.

[1355] And I'm like the kid on the playground.

[1356] Okay.

[1357] But she could do every voice, understand every voice.

[1358] We did a table read of it.

[1359] It's so amazingly good.

[1360] And then I interviewed her for a chapter just about sexy baby voice.

[1361] Which is one of your favorite subjects I want you to do one like that That just talks about comedy When it works, why it works When it doesn't work I cannot get over the fact About how generationally specific comedy is And how you can listen to someone Who was thought of as being riotously funny in 1960 And you're like, wait, what?

[1362] There's a couple that transcend There's a couple And that's even more interesting Prior will be funny in 2350 Yes You know who I'm obsessed with at the moment is Dick Gregory I don't know, Dick Gregory was the Dave Chappelle of the early 60s.

[1363] Oh.

[1364] But bigger in the way that you would be bigger in the 60s, right?

[1365] Because media is so much smaller.

[1366] If I'm not mistaken, when he wrote his autobiography in the early 60s, he sold 10 million copies.

[1367] Oh, wow.

[1368] So imagine.

[1369] No one sells 10 million copies.

[1370] Have you watched the Carlin documentary?

[1371] He's someone, and I hate to say this.

[1372] You don't like him.

[1373] I want to be very explicit about this because this is one of my pet peeves.

[1374] He does not work for me. Even as I say that I am aware that.

[1375] there are many people who know way more about comedy than I do, who love him.

[1376] And so I'm aware that my opinion here is of little value.

[1377] I feel the same way about Norman McDonald.

[1378] He doesn't work for me, but everyone I respect thinks he's a genius.

[1379] Right.

[1380] So I will tell you, my favorites prior.

[1381] I would not watch a George Carlin special as a fan of his comedy.

[1382] The documentary will make you absolutely obsessed with him.

[1383] And I appreciate, because now I can figure out exactly why people love him.

[1384] You know what I'm saying?

[1385] He's not my flavor.

[1386] I don't like grape.

[1387] But now I understand, and he's brilliant.

[1388] The fact that all of his memes are now as relevant as they've ever been.

[1389] A few days ago, there's a clip of Carlin that's going around about a board.

[1390] For Roe v. Yeah, it's like he was so ahead of his time or something.

[1391] That are pretty amazing.

[1392] I wasn't wild about the packaging, but whatever.

[1393] You would totally love it.

[1394] I really recommend you watch it.

[1395] My problem with him, and this could be totally wrong, It's a general problem I have with a certain kind of comedian.

[1396] I need my comedians to be joyful.

[1397] I need that sparkle that Chappelle has when he's about to do some little bit of mischief.

[1398] Very playful.

[1399] And Chris Rock, even when he's being quite didactic, he's having fun.

[1400] And you can sense the kind of higher purpose in the back of his head.

[1401] I need that.

[1402] And if I don't see that little sparkle, I can't.

[1403] So Dick Grabbred, who dies two years ago, or maybe last year, I saw some random YouTube.

[1404] He's at a church, tiny church.

[1405] Clearly somewhere in the south.

[1406] He's in his 80s.

[1407] This wasn't taken long ago.

[1408] And he's giving a kind of impromptu hour long.

[1409] It's not a routine.

[1410] It's so brilliant.

[1411] He's taking all of the kind of rhetorical tropes of the black church.

[1412] And he's adding all of the kind of rhetorical tropes of black humor.

[1413] And he's layering them on top of each other.

[1414] And it's so masterful.

[1415] And even as he's doing it, I'm aware that because I'm not a member of that tradition, I'm missing 80 % of it.

[1416] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1417] But even the 20 % of it.

[1418] I'm getting is like, oh my God.

[1419] Yeah.

[1420] They tell you this story about once years ago seeing Jesse Jackson in his prime at the NWACP.

[1421] I once went to an NWACP in convention when Jesse Jackson was a really big deal in national politics.

[1422] And it's the first time I'd seen him speaking to an exclusively black audience.

[1423] And all of a sudden, he was free to do stuff that he would never have done in a mixed audience.

[1424] And he was so brilliant.

[1425] When he's in his in group, he can suddenly be somebody else.

[1426] Yeah.

[1427] That experience of being able to watch someone in their in group.

[1428] It's so beautiful.

[1429] So privileged.

[1430] Okay.

[1431] So back to your subversion.

[1432] I don't know if that's a word, your subversiveness.

[1433] I'd say it's a part of the contract even.

[1434] So I'm glad we covered the ground we covered.

[1435] Part of the contract with you is you're a mystery.

[1436] And I have to imagine it's intentional.

[1437] We don't know your politics.

[1438] And what's funny is I try to run a similar racket.

[1439] I'm openly a liberal.

[1440] I'm also very critical of my party more than I am the right.

[1441] But I guess I want the most amount of people to be able to get to the thing I care most about, which ultimately is not politics.

[1442] You can be really flawed and be worthy of love.

[1443] That's what I care about, right?

[1444] Well, you know, because you read the thing I wrote.

[1445] So you're a mystery.

[1446] And of course, because you're a mystery, I am just salvating it, figuring out what you are.

[1447] It's great fodder.

[1448] It's part of the reason I'm so interested in you.

[1449] It's like, when I'm reading your books, I'm like, does he have it?

[1450] What is his angle?

[1451] Does he have an angle?

[1452] You know, I love it.

[1453] I shan't try to dispel it or reveal it.

[1454] I do think it's curious that four of the first magic wand experiments, if you just break them into a sentence, one's about trans issues, one's about race, one's about obesity, if we could say it that bluntly.

[1455] But let's just say those three topics are nearly untouchable.

[1456] When we got home from listening to my wife and I, I said, this motherfucker figured out how to talk about these three things in a way that is impossible to take a position against.

[1457] but it's all right there for you to have a conversation the second you hear it you don't have to comment on that but that was my conclusion about you're not commenting is a great end because keeping the mystery alive I just thought oh okay I think I feel what's happening and I like it it feels like you're really on a path of discovery and not an agenda you're not coming in to teach you're coming in to learn is what it feels like when you read yeah I don't think you're like a conclusionist I don't think you're trying to ultimately levy a verdict, again, say nothing.

[1458] I think you're saying, no, no, all topics will be talked about, whether you like it or not.

[1459] And you're going to like it, actually.

[1460] When you're by yourself in your room with your loved ones, do you talk politics?

[1461] No. Okay.

[1462] I think what you're getting at is that I have tried to limit the amount of things about which I feel truly passionately.

[1463] For example, I can think in the last two years of.

[1464] an incident in the news where I was so angry that I had to leave the house.

[1465] I tweeted like 15 times.

[1466] You can actually find it if you look at my Twitter.

[1467] But it wasn't a political thing.

[1468] It was there are a very small number of core things.

[1469] I believe that people deserve forgiveness.

[1470] Yeah.

[1471] I believe that no one should be judged for their worst moment.

[1472] And I believe that it's okay to be uncomfortable in the world.

[1473] They're all connected those things.

[1474] And when I feel they're violated, those are the only instance.

[1475] is where I get angry.

[1476] That's implicit in the contract.

[1477] I think people who listen to revisionist history are happy to explore so -called hot -button issues because I'm not judging anyone.

[1478] Yeah.

[1479] I'm not holding the idea strongly.

[1480] I'm...

[1481] You're juggling them.

[1482] Yeah.

[1483] Yeah, I'm just saying this is something worth thinking about and entertaining.

[1484] You're just shining a flashlight, really.

[1485] It's not sticky.

[1486] I think people understand that it's real.

[1487] I see the sincerity and I cherish it and I would like to protect it.

[1488] and hope it keeps going.

[1489] So everyone should listen to season seven of revisionist history, the best podcast available in the world.

[1490] Before you leave, your car show.

[1491] Yes.

[1492] Called the car show with Eddie Altman, yeah.

[1493] I don't know Eddie Alterman.

[1494] How did you come upon?

[1495] Used to be editor of car and driver.

[1496] Oh, okay, okay.

[1497] And still the interim editor.

[1498] Car guy of the longstanding Detroit guy.

[1499] And what is the way into it?

[1500] Because I think you and I have even pondered this collectively.

[1501] Like, how do you do a car show?

[1502] He wants to make a list of the most socially.

[1503] important cars of the last hundred years.

[1504] Oh.

[1505] So he has a fantastic episode on the minivan.

[1506] Why is the original Chrysler of minivan such a mind -blowing automobile?

[1507] We drive around once we do this whole thing about which family car should I be buying as a way of exploring this because we drive the greatest current minivan, which is the Kia Carnival.

[1508] We're trying to figure out, does that make more sense?

[1509] That's not the best minivan, but I understand.

[1510] Everyone's got to that.

[1511] It's a really, really wonderful show.

[1512] Fun.

[1513] I must listen to it.

[1514] And I want you to know that in season two of Top Gear, which comes on July 1st, We have a minivan -only race on an Oval Track with a Formula One champion.

[1515] Jensen Bunsen.

[1516] Oh, wow.

[1517] Yeah.

[1518] The reigning Indycar champ and a NASCAR driver and us three hosts.

[1519] And we have a Ford Aerostar.

[1520] Uh -huh.

[1521] We have that crazy.

[1522] Oh, vintage ones.

[1523] Race what you brought.

[1524] I'm forgetting the manufacturer, but there was a mid -engine minivan at one point.

[1525] The Aerosar's rear wheel drive with a stick shift.

[1526] There's an Astrovan.

[1527] There's a Honda Odyssey.

[1528] that's the ringer.

[1529] I'm happy to announce here that I lapped everyone.

[1530] What were you driving?

[1531] The Odyssey.

[1532] It was a cheat.

[1533] Malcolm, so much fun.

[1534] I can't wait till you have another season so you have to come back and sell your wares.

[1535] I adore you.

[1536] Monica, this is really fun.

[1537] Thank you.

[1538] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1539] Thanks, love.

[1540] I come by it honestly, as you see.

[1541] I think she comes by it honestly.

[1542] genetically it's that fiery labo blood with some shepherd modeling what it was happening you want rob I was like oh this is dachshund sister oh boy oh gosh okay well that was about my sister almost getting a fight in softball that's what that chuckle was about Speaking of?

[1543] Yeah, speaking of.

[1544] Well, not speaking of that.

[1545] Okay.

[1546] So we had a guest on just now.

[1547] Yeah.

[1548] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1549] And that's a ding, ding, ding.

[1550] Okay.

[1551] Because today this morning, there was a video on Instagram of Malcolm crying.

[1552] I saw that.

[1553] Malcolm Gladwell?

[1554] Yeah, this is for Malcolm.

[1555] But there was a video of him crying?

[1556] Yeah.

[1557] He's being interviewed.

[1558] And he cries, and he didn't cry on our show.

[1559] Did you spray?

[1560] No. I liked it.

[1561] What was the, what was he talking about?

[1562] He's just kind of emotional.

[1563] About what topic?

[1564] You don't even know.

[1565] I don't think the clip showed.

[1566] I think it was just, he's cut immediately to him.

[1567] Okay.

[1568] I think he gets choked up when he's saying something like, kind of like if you're not contributing or if you're not here to do something, what's the point?

[1569] Uh -huh.

[1570] So he says that and I think he's crying maybe then and then something else.

[1571] I don't know.

[1572] It's all edited together.

[1573] It's hard to tell.

[1574] Anyway, I'm going to listen.

[1575] Well, I guess that's a duck, duck goose because I was watching, what was I watching?

[1576] It might have been a YouTube clip as well where they showed a commercial.

[1577] Oh, maybe it's Formula One.

[1578] Oh.

[1579] I'm just trying to think what I watched, where I would have seen a commercial.

[1580] But I saw a commercial, and it was for General Motors saying that they're going to be going to like 23 electric models by such and such date.

[1581] And the premise of the commercial is like, do you have one for me?

[1582] Are you making one for me?

[1583] Is all these different people?

[1584] And then they cut to Malcolm.

[1585] What the fuck?

[1586] Spam risk.

[1587] Oh my God.

[1588] They cut to Malcolm's in the commercial.

[1589] Oh my God.

[1590] I know.

[1591] And he said, do you have one for me?

[1592] I thought it was going to.

[1593] And then I was like, he did have one.

[1594] Then I was like, was that a plant?

[1595] Was that an in episode ad?

[1596] Payola.

[1597] What?

[1598] Well, because he was in a GM commercial.

[1599] And when we interviewed him, he said he wanted a GM electric car.

[1600] No, he said he wanted a Mercedes.

[1601] Oh, opposite of payola.

[1602] Yeah.

[1603] And I don't know.

[1604] Payola means.

[1605] Betrayola.

[1606] Payola was a thing that would happen with disc jockeys on radio stations where the record companies would behind the scenes pay them to play certain songs.

[1607] Called Paola and it was made illegal, but of course it still happens.

[1608] Oh, wow.

[1609] Okay.

[1610] It is also a dog.

[1611] Can I have one of those left?

[1612] Oh, thank you.

[1613] That's a lot.

[1614] Yep, she went 12.

[1615] She's limping.

[1616] Carly's back.

[1617] She's limping.

[1618] She twisted her ankle, unrelated to the fiasco on the softball field.

[1619] And yet she still managed to bring 36 Diet Coke's in her arms to the attic.

[1620] Put your hands together.

[1621] Yeah.

[1622] Put your hands together for Carly Renee.

[1623] That is also, well, I thought you were going to say it was a duck, duck, goose, because you saw that commercial and they're going electric and then you cried.

[1624] Because of electric?

[1625] Yeah.

[1626] No. You know, I'm in this precarious situation.

[1627] I think it came up on the episode, which is like I, I am fully for every car becoming electric.

[1628] That's obviously the best case scenario.

[1629] I just don't like it.

[1630] Of course.

[1631] Yeah, I'm accepting of it, and I'm going to miss it, and I'm enjoying the last days of internal combustion.

[1632] I think that's great.

[1633] It was a hell of a ride, internal combustion.

[1634] It had a hayday.

[1635] Yeah, like 150 years.

[1636] Okay, speaking of that, my first fact is how much is the Mercedes EQS?

[1637] Oh, right, because I'm now obligated.

[1638] to buy him one, should I ever figure out how to make a billion dollars?

[1639] That's right.

[1640] The MSRP.

[1641] Okay.

[1642] Manufacturers is a repel price.

[1643] From 104, 350 ,000.

[1644] Okay.

[1645] Wait, wait, 104 to 350 ,000?

[1646] No, 104 ,000.

[1647] Oh, okay.

[1648] 104 ,000.

[1649] That's commonly how we say it.

[1650] I don't know how to say number sometimes.

[1651] Yeah, yeah.

[1652] I think when you're writing a check, do you have to really think about it?

[1653] You know, you Like write the number, 3 ,260.

[1654] Exactly.

[1655] Do I write 3 ,260 or do I write 3 ,000?

[1656] $3 ,260 and 0 over 100 dash.

[1657] Remember when my dad taught me that?

[1658] Speaking of, my dad is earthing now.

[1659] All right, this is a fun update.

[1660] He's out in the yard.

[1661] God, I want to visual this.

[1662] Do they have any, like, ring cams or anything I can get the password to?

[1663] I'm just not sure.

[1664] I want to see him out there doing it.

[1665] Me too.

[1666] Do you think he's killing a nice cold beer?

[1667] No, I think he's standing.

[1668] there and not wearing shorts wearing pants but then holding the pants up wait wait he's not he's in his underpants no like i think he's out there but he's wearing pants instead of shorts but he doesn't want the pants to hit the ground so he's holding his pants up the cuffs yeah making him clam dingers he didn't exactly he didn't say that's what he's doing but that's what i i know him yeah dad yeah you'd be best to guess yeah but it seems adorable and for people that don't know what earthing is which i don't You stand barefooted on the earth.

[1669] Yeah, and it's about like the electrical charge.

[1670] So that's one thing that he, you know, I'm on speakerphone with my mom and my dad.

[1671] And he's said, I earth now.

[1672] I'm into earthing.

[1673] I was like, no, I haven't heard how long have you been doing that?

[1674] He said like a week.

[1675] Yeah, and but he's really into it.

[1676] He just ordered a mat.

[1677] Now there's like mats and stuff.

[1678] My mom is like, that's boo -boo.

[1679] He's being rational about it.

[1680] He's like, look, I don't know if I believe in it, but it's not her going to hurt.

[1681] I'm like, yeah, great.

[1682] It's enjoyable to stand bare footed.

[1683] Yeah.

[1684] Bare feet in the grass.

[1685] I'm imagining he's in grass.

[1686] Yeah.

[1687] Does he ever get into dirt?

[1688] And then he's going to clean his feet.

[1689] How does that work with a mat then?

[1690] Right.

[1691] So that's something about, well, I tuned out.

[1692] Because he's saying engineering stuff and I'm like, I don't.

[1693] About electrical charges and this and that.

[1694] Exactly.

[1695] And then because my mom then was like, I don't think that's true.

[1696] Like in the middle of that, she said, I don't think that's true.

[1697] And then he said, well, it is.

[1698] Scientifically with electrical charge or whatever, I think he feels extra connected to it because he knows about that stuff.

[1699] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1700] Anyhow, so it made me think of you because you sometimes on vacation walk without your shoes on for miles and miles.

[1701] I try to walk barefoot in every city we go to.

[1702] Yeah.

[1703] Not because I have an earthing premise.

[1704] Inadvertently, you do.

[1705] Maybe you feel more connected.

[1706] Well, I always say I'm picking up all the local microbes so that I can handle whatever comes at me. Sure.

[1707] I don't really believe that.

[1708] It's just novel.

[1709] It makes me, like the walk Eric and I took in London is the most memorable of all the walks I took because I was barefoot.

[1710] Yeah.

[1711] But you felt energized.

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] There is some curious aspect to it.

[1714] I have to acknowledge.

[1715] My dad would probably say it's about.

[1716] I can't wait.

[1717] Well, when you updated me on this, I said, well, great, now he and I have two hobbies we share.

[1718] Yeah.

[1719] Earthing and arguing with you.

[1720] We did get in an argument.

[1721] On that same call?

[1722] Yeah, because I misunderstood.

[1723] He understood him.

[1724] Okay.

[1725] That's enough sometimes.

[1726] That's all it takes sometimes.

[1727] Yeah.

[1728] What did you think he said?

[1729] Okay.

[1730] What did he say?

[1731] It's also relevant to this show, kind of.

[1732] I guess Stern had Bradley Cooper on.

[1733] Oh, okay.

[1734] And on that episode, Stern says, if Trump runs again, I'm going to run.

[1735] Okay.

[1736] And will you be my VP?

[1737] And he said yes.

[1738] Okay.

[1739] And then he's like, we're going to get a lot of the female vote because of you and blah, blah.

[1740] So that was this whole conversation, I guess.

[1741] I didn't hear this, but then my dad is like, you know, we're talking politics on this call.

[1742] Yeah.

[1743] I misunderstood because he says something about Howard Stern.

[1744] And then what it sounded like my dad was saying was that Bradley was going to be Trump's VP.

[1745] Okay.

[1746] And that he said that on Stern.

[1747] Okay.

[1748] And I was like, no. And he was like, that's what he said.

[1749] And I was like, that is wrong.

[1750] And I was like kind of yelling at him, you know.

[1751] Like he had done with your mother and the electrical charges.

[1752] Exactly.

[1753] Yeah, Apple didn't fall far from the tree, if it even fell.

[1754] Apple's still on the tree.

[1755] Still connected to the tree.

[1756] Anyway, so then I realized what he was saying, still I'm like, well, that's still not going to happen.

[1757] But also.

[1758] Still a bit.

[1759] Yeah, still a bit.

[1760] But anyway, if they do run, they got my vote.

[1761] As a female.

[1762] I think both of them have a very rude awakening headed their way.

[1763] If they're exiting their current life to become the VP and the president, I don't think they realize what a downgrade this is going to be.

[1764] I think hourly enjoyment.

[1765] They're both very into human rights and philanthropy and they're doing it, okay, maybe, and they're doing it for us.

[1766] Stern supports a cat hospital.

[1767] That's what he does.

[1768] That's his big cause.

[1769] Is a cat rescue.

[1770] Okay.

[1771] That's nice.

[1772] So I don't know if you could say he's like super philanthropic.

[1773] And that's really because his wife.

[1774] Death is very interesting.

[1775] Yes.

[1776] Most of you can say he's a good husband.

[1777] I think, is what you could say.

[1778] That's nice.

[1779] I just wanted to be clear on the extent of the philanthropy.

[1780] And I just don't, Cooper and I have never talked about his philanthropic endeavors.

[1781] Maybe there's many.

[1782] I just don't know.

[1783] Okay.

[1784] I'm going to assume they're both really philanthropic.

[1785] Well, really, what they're doing, though, they're saying we're going to take one for the team here.

[1786] If Trump runs, all right, I guess we'll put our hats in the ring here.

[1787] It's hard to date when you're the vice president, I imagine.

[1788] Oh, I think you have so much time.

[1789] Oh, as the vice president.

[1790] Yes.

[1791] Yes.

[1792] Very ceremonial position.

[1793] Where does the VP live?

[1794] I don't know.

[1795] In the garage, like above the garage of the White House?

[1796] I don't know.

[1797] Do they get housing?

[1798] Yeah, of course.

[1799] Ding, ding, ding.

[1800] He said Fort Myers is where the Joint Chiefs live.

[1801] Looks like that's right.

[1802] Oh, wow, we got that one right.

[1803] Yeah.

[1804] Okay, good.

[1805] Oh, because he was telling the story about the guy who worked on all of these.

[1806] He collected, oh, I can remember, a bizarre old card.

[1807] Oh, Volvo.

[1808] Yeah.

[1809] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1810] Oh, and then I was thinking post -talking to him.

[1811] I can't imagine any of you even made it into the cup, but when we were talking about Volz, and I said, you know, they did make one that was kind of similar to 3 .0.

[1812] And I think I remember that it was the V -70.

[1813] Oh, God.

[1814] And it's probably not even in there.

[1815] But if it is in there, I think the V -70 was the one I was thinking of.

[1816] Okay.

[1817] Did I ever tell you about CR Vulvas?

[1818] No, CR Volvas.

[1819] Yes.

[1820] So in college, my friends and I got really into rock band.

[1821] And you drove a CR -Volvas.

[1822] in college.

[1823] I did.

[1824] I drove a CRV.

[1825] My other friend drove a CRV.

[1826] And then the third girl drove a Volvo.

[1827] Okay.

[1828] So then our name, our band name for rock band was CR Volvas.

[1829] Oh my God.

[1830] Wasn't that great?

[1831] Who's not going to that show?

[1832] False advertising.

[1833] I doubt anyone's Volvo would be out on display, but.

[1834] I don't know.

[1835] We got drunk a lot.

[1836] We did play, spend the bottle.

[1837] Oh.

[1838] Oh, okay.

[1839] Would you go back to college?

[1840] Yes.

[1841] Was it your favorite time of life?

[1842] I really like a lot of aspects of this time of my life.

[1843] So it would be hard for me to go back.

[1844] But you had the most amount of fun that seems like.

[1845] I had so much fun in college.

[1846] You did, didn't you?

[1847] I really did.

[1848] Yeah, I think maybe that's where you want to be.

[1849] And also I just love a college campus.

[1850] Like, I just love it.

[1851] Absolutely.

[1852] You have six different people to get approval from.

[1853] Like it's already scheduled.

[1854] You're going to get grades.

[1855] My teachers.

[1856] But I...

[1857] A lot of heavy drinking without any worry about the long -term effects.

[1858] That's true.

[1859] Yeah.

[1860] But I also, you know, it's a little bit rose -colored glasses.

[1861] When I think about that time, I also had a lot of anxiety during that time.

[1862] Obviously, I forget the parts that sucked.

[1863] Like, I forget, like, finals.

[1864] Yeah.

[1865] Sometimes it's helpful when you're, like, rose -colored glass zine to take the time to remember what someone's breast smelled like.

[1866] Breast smelling?

[1867] Breast.

[1868] No. I've never smelled breasts having a smell.

[1869] Have you?

[1870] Recommend it.

[1871] No, I mean, I've sniffed to them, but I've never, breasts don't have a smell other than what their neck would have.

[1872] Well, unless they're sweaty.

[1873] We're producing milk.

[1874] Oh, sure.

[1875] Great point.

[1876] That's going to have a smell.

[1877] Yeah.

[1878] Oh, interesting.

[1879] Sweet, sweet smell.

[1880] Did I tell you, Armandhammer, is, sending me all kinds of stuff.

[1881] Are they?

[1882] I'm not shocked.

[1883] That's payola.

[1884] Oh, it's not payola.

[1885] They don't have to pay.

[1886] They didn't, they weren't paying me. Well, no, now they are.

[1887] Now they're paying you in paste.

[1888] And I'm asking them to pay me more.

[1889] I want to be their, I want to be their spokesperson so bad.

[1890] They couldn't find a better person higher than you because your teeth are so fucking white.

[1891] Thank you.

[1892] The product's working so well.

[1893] I love, you know, when I got that sinus infection, I think it was because I had to use Cress that week.

[1894] Oh, that's insane.

[1895] to say.

[1896] Crush does not cause sinus infections.

[1897] I want to be very clear about that.

[1898] The Arminhammer keeps my immunity high.

[1899] Because it's always fighting the taste of the toothpaste?

[1900] No. There's peroxide.

[1901] It's really keeping my mouth very clean.

[1902] And Crest, bleh.

[1903] Careful what you're saying.

[1904] I use Crest.

[1905] Well, I had to use it for a week.

[1906] Cress send me some whitening toothpaste.

[1907] I use the fuck out of it.

[1908] I had to use it because I forgot my toothpaste, and they gave me the crest at the hotel, and I had to use it for four days.

[1909] And when I came back, I had ulcers all over my mouth, and I had a huge sinus infection.

[1910] Oh, boy.

[1911] Okay.

[1912] Well, that's completely unrelated.

[1913] You know what we're going to need to do now.

[1914] Taste test.

[1915] Yeah.

[1916] Oh, no. I mean, it's so easy.

[1917] That is one you can pass.

[1918] It's so easy.

[1919] It's so clearly that baking soda and peroxide taste.

[1920] It's so clean tasting.

[1921] Now, you might think crest is like, I wouldn't be a good thing.

[1922] spokesperson for Cress because my teeth aren't dramatically white.

[1923] They're fine.

[1924] They're nice.

[1925] But let's just be honest.

[1926] They're not dramatically white.

[1927] But when you consider that I drink coffee, diet Coke, and chew tobacco, they're insanely good looking.

[1928] They're really great.

[1929] And in the commercial, I'd have to say, I'm a sometimes tobacco user and all the time coffee drinker.

[1930] And these aren't terrible.

[1931] Thanks Cress Whiteny.

[1932] I know, but now you're - Is that a good commercial?

[1933] It's great.

[1934] Do you want to do another take?

[1935] Yeah.

[1936] Will you give me a direction?

[1937] This time, can you do it as if tomorrow the world is ending?

[1938] Action.

[1939] Wait, I need one second to process that note.

[1940] I'm doing it as if the world's ending tomorrow.

[1941] Okay.

[1942] I thought you were going to say Indian accent.

[1943] Oh, my.

[1944] Rob.

[1945] He's so triggering.

[1946] He is.

[1947] This is job.

[1948] He's a poker.

[1949] Rascal.

[1950] He's a rascal.

[1951] Action.

[1952] Let's go flats.

[1953] I'm a sometimes tobacco user.

[1954] I get madder now.

[1955] And I drink coffee and I'm going to drink all of it.

[1956] But I'm going to also keep these things as dull and averagely white as I can with crest whitening toothpaste.

[1957] Enjoy it while you can.

[1958] Now I improvved a lot.

[1959] I used my words instead of my acting ability, but that's what I do.

[1960] It's okay.

[1961] That's why we hired you.

[1962] We know what we're getting.

[1963] You know you're not an actor.

[1964] You're more but just a writer.

[1965] No, you're a great improviser, and you did great.

[1966] Great job, thank you.

[1967] Oh, it's too late.

[1968] The world's over.

[1969] Speaking of sweet Diet Coke, plowing through one right now.

[1970] It does seem like you're going a little backwards on my caffeine.

[1971] I hadn't been.

[1972] Last week, I was doing good.

[1973] I was still one coffee a day.

[1974] And up until yesterday, because for Kristen's birthday, I had her cast over from Good Place for her birthday.

[1975] That's nice.

[1976] And four o 'clock, I was exhausted.

[1977] I was like, I'm not to be able to host this party.

[1978] And I allowed myself to have a second cup of coffee.

[1979] And then this morning I woke up exhausted.

[1980] And I allowed myself to have two.

[1981] So you're right.

[1982] I'm on backsliding a little bit.

[1983] But I'm also optimistic that I'll get it under control.

[1984] I know how to do it.

[1985] That's also fine.

[1986] Now I know how to do it.

[1987] I think that's fine.

[1988] What you do is you don't have the second one.

[1989] All right.

[1990] I figured it out.

[1991] That's, yep.

[1992] Good place.

[1993] Thanks.

[1994] Welcome, Clay.

[1995] I just wanted to let you know that.

[1996] Your wife, Shell, with The Good Place, watch it with Sasha, Malia, Michelle.

[1997] We love it.

[1998] Yeah, you love it.

[1999] He loves it.

[2000] Since 1962, this brick and granite house, quarter six, has, quote, come with the job of the chairman of the joint chief of staff.

[2001] Okay.

[2002] So they get a big old mansion.

[2003] That makes sense because I was like, how do they afford mansions?

[2004] Okay.

[2005] Oh, are we allowed to?

[2006] say savant.

[2007] We covered that last time.

[2008] Right.

[2009] And we said yes.

[2010] Yes, we can.

[2011] Okay.

[2012] Ding, ding, ding.

[2013] Yes, we can.

[2014] Mosasha.

[2015] Mollia.

[2016] Masha.

[2017] Okay.

[2018] Um, Malsasha.

[2019] Oh, my God.

[2020] Lillia?

[2021] Oh, my God.

[2022] Did Dick Gregory sell 10 million copies of his autobiography in the 60s?

[2023] Okay.

[2024] Also, the title of his autobiography is the N -word.

[2025] Like literally, it says, The N word?

[2026] No, it's the N word.

[2027] Okay, okay.

[2028] Sold 7 million copies.

[2029] Well, if he would have changed it to the N word, maybe 10 million.

[2030] Maybe because people might have felt like they were allowed to read it.

[2031] Yeah.

[2032] I wonder, but it's written by a black.

[2033] Yeah, he's black, yeah.

[2034] Okay, so that's fine.

[2035] It's definitely fine.

[2036] It's definitely fine.

[2037] I guess I would feel interesting walking down the street with it under my arm, like out loud.

[2038] Because if you didn't know the author, you would think I might have some kind of white power book under my arm.

[2039] I would think that.

[2040] I'd probably put the inward on the inside facing my abdomen, had I not a bag.

[2041] They not provided me with a bag, which is common nowadays.

[2042] They like to charge you 15 cents.

[2043] Fuck you.

[2044] You'd probably take the jacket off.

[2045] Wrap it around the book.

[2046] Right.

[2047] And then put it under my arm.

[2048] Inside out.

[2049] Wrap it around.

[2050] Yep.

[2051] Okay.

[2052] Okay.

[2053] What was Malcolm upset about and tweeted?

[2054] Remember he says like he doesn't really get upset.

[2055] He said he did and then he said you could probably find it because on Twitter, and then I did.

[2056] Did you?

[2057] Yeah.

[2058] How far back did you have to go?

[2059] Far, remember, that's why I found out he couldn't swim.

[2060] Oh, right.

[2061] Well, that's not what you found out, again, to reiterate.

[2062] You don't know that.

[2063] That's true.

[2064] Okay, so there was a woman named Alexi McCamond, and she, I guess, worked for Teen Vogue.

[2065] She worked for Cond de Nast, and she left there, and I think was pushed out.

[2066] Because she had passed tweets that were negative.

[2067] Okay.

[2068] Oh, this is your finally, we talked for so long I didn't even, this is about Malcolm's tweets he was upset about.

[2069] Okay, okay, okay.

[2070] So that's the backstory, is that a gal was let go because of some past tweets?

[2071] That's right.

[2072] And then so Malcolm posted that and then he wrote, I'm curious to know what the new age cutoff is for, quote, youthful indiscretions.

[2073] Okay, then he just has like, a lot.

[2074] Then he let it rip.

[2075] He did.

[2076] He dipped his toe in the water with that, and then he rolled up his sleeves.

[2077] He said, he got to earthen.

[2078] He said, regarding the Alexei McCormant case, the criminalization of black adolescent behavior is one of the bedrock principles of American racism.

[2079] White people get a childhood and the privilege to make mistakes in the name of moral development.

[2080] Black people don't.

[2081] Now we're talking.

[2082] Roll them up.

[2083] Malcolm, roll them up.

[2084] Question for Condé Nass H. Have they also scrutinized the childhood statements of their white editors?

[2085] Another question for Condé NastHR.

[2086] Do they think that there is a meaningful distinction between adolescence and adulthood?

[2087] Another question for Condé NastHR.

[2088] Coming hot and fast now.

[2089] I once wrote a really stupid essay on Joe McCarthy as a 17 -year -old.

[2090] Should I have disclosed it when I was hired by the New Yorker?

[2091] Absolutely.

[2092] Another question for Condé NasHR.

[2093] What message do they think it sends to the readers of Teen Vogue that something dumb you say as a teenager can ruin your career?

[2094] Will Teen Vogue be addressing this issue?

[2095] Another question for Kahn and SHR.

[2096] Do they have a formal position on the process of adolescent moral development, or are they just reading their Twitter feed?

[2097] Another question of Kavanaugh -SHR.

[2098] What is the cutoff age for dumb things said in childhood?

[2099] 15, 13, are we accountable for offensive Halloween costumes worn in middle school?

[2100] Another question.

[2101] If they don't believe there is a meaningful distinction between adolescence and adulthood, will they now be shutting down Teen Vogue?

[2102] Oh.

[2103] Another question.

[2104] Do they believe that people can meaningfully apologize for past misdeeds?

[2105] If not, why not?

[2106] If so, what does an acceptable apology under their rules look like?

[2107] I don't know.

[2108] I'm dying to know what she's sad now.

[2109] Of course.

[2110] I looked it up already.

[2111] What was it?

[2112] Hold on.

[2113] I'll bring it back out.

[2114] Oh, do I have it up?

[2115] She's black, I'm assuming, because he said, okay.

[2116] It was, it says because of racist and homophobic tweets.

[2117] Let's see.

[2118] Okay, one of it says, give me a two out of ten on my chem problem, cross out all of my work, and don't explain what I did wrong.

[2119] Thanks a lot, stupid Asian T .A. You're great.

[2120] Okay.

[2121] Now Googling how to not wake up with swollen Asian eyes.

[2122] Okay.

[2123] So she really took aim at Asians.

[2124] Outdone by Asian.

[2125] Hashtag what's new.

[2126] Those are the ones I see.

[2127] Okay.

[2128] Well, I get the theme of them.

[2129] Right.

[2130] She was obviously in college.

[2131] feeling probably underwater, sounds like.

[2132] She got a D. Yonner thing, what she gets?

[2133] Here's two out of...

[2134] Two out of ten.

[2135] Look, she sucks at chemistry.

[2136] That's not.

[2137] That's not the T .A .'s fault.

[2138] It is not.

[2139] I am not here to say what she did is not racist.

[2140] It is.

[2141] Right.

[2142] Like, those are offensive tweets.

[2143] I just, even in reading them, was like, ugh.

[2144] Like, that's bad.

[2145] Sure, sure.

[2146] Now, that's not really the question.

[2147] It's, are you allowed to redeem yourself in the world, in life?

[2148] Should you be fired over that?

[2149] From something you did in college, can you grow and learn?

[2150] I think, yes, of course.

[2151] We all do.

[2152] But do I think she should feel regret over those?

[2153] Yes, I do.

[2154] Oh, yeah.

[2155] It just made me think, like, I was trying to imagine a potential apology from her and what it would sound like.

[2156] And I think anything short, what would the apology be that you would?

[2157] Because I know like what the AA one would be.

[2158] I know what the four -step version of this would be.

[2159] Now I'm guessing a lot about her, but I would say I felt very less than.

[2160] I didn't feel smart enough to be where I was at.

[2161] And I looked at these Asian students that seemed to be able to do it.

[2162] and I was jealous of them and angry and scared.

[2163] And so I said mean things about them.

[2164] I don't feel that way anymore.

[2165] And I can see clearly that that's what I was doing.

[2166] Because in the absence of that, then it's just like, do you carpetly hate Asian people?

[2167] Because if you carpently hate Asian people, there's not really an apology for that.

[2168] I guess I can see someone saying like, oh, you hated us and now you don't hate us.

[2169] I wouldn't buy it if there was no motivation to hate.

[2170] and then identifying why you were motivated to do that and recognizing it and I'm no longer going to blame other people when I've, you know.

[2171] I think that's great.

[2172] I would love to hear that.

[2173] And then what I want to hear is, and I'm sorry that my actions caused harm.

[2174] Right.

[2175] It is not okay for my beliefs, my life experience to cause you harm.

[2176] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[2177] I guess what I'm arguing is that maybe sometimes when apologies fall short as they do.

[2178] yeah like i don't know if you've been i watched almost none of this capital six hearing i happen to catch it and it was showing outtakes of trump making a statement about trying to he was supposed to basically condemn those people and he just is unwilling to do it and he gets like a little bit of it out did you see that whole thing i'm not going to say that again i already said i'm not saying that about them you know it's like really it was crazy but again that would that would be an apology that fell very short he he wasn't upset that they did that he loved it of course Right.

[2179] Yeah.

[2180] And so I guess I'm just saying like what apologies work.

[2181] Yeah.

[2182] Yeah.

[2183] Because if we're going to ask like we're going to ask publications to accept apologies, then I guess the next question is like what constitutes an appropriate apology.

[2184] Yeah.

[2185] And I think I'm just putting it out there that for me, I would need to really know what led you to that point.

[2186] Because that's your only hope of preventing it again is knowing the steps that led to you tweeting that.

[2187] Yeah.

[2188] Not just, now I love Asians.

[2189] I'm sorry.

[2190] No, I don't think it's that, but I think, I just think there has to be a, I now realize my actions affect other people.

[2191] And I'm more aware of that in life now.

[2192] And I want to adjust that now.

[2193] But see, even in that apology, I now realize what it says is back then she didn't realize that?

[2194] She didn't.

[2195] Like when she, no, she didn't realize it was ever going to get read by an employer.

[2196] She put it into the public sphere But she probably didn't think This could like really cause someone some harm Well that's true But she must have known no one that was Asian That read that would be stoked about that Yeah probably So that's my thing is like you knew it then too You're saying now I know it but you knew it then too So now why do I trust you?

[2197] Because you knew it then as well Now you know it again But because you're losing your job So that's to me why I want the other layer It's like I don't think when people People say, I know it now.

[2198] It's like when someone's screaming the N -word in these things, like, you didn't know.

[2199] You knew.

[2200] And you wanted, you were angry at them.

[2201] And so you wanted to hurt them.

[2202] Why did you want to hurt them?

[2203] How are you going to not want to hurt them again?

[2204] You know, I just need a little more.

[2205] Yeah, I get that.

[2206] I get that.

[2207] I guess I just wonder, like, if you're a marginalized person, I think hearing the backstory of the person who did it is like, great.

[2208] Sounds like an excuse?

[2209] I don't know if it sounds like an excuse.

[2210] It just sounds like, cool.

[2211] You do your work.

[2212] Yeah.

[2213] But this is fucked up and I need you to have some real acknowledgement that it is.

[2214] Absolutely.

[2215] And please do your work so that that does not happen again so that you feel whole.

[2216] So that, you know, of course.

[2217] Like let's just say like let's talk Mel Gibson.

[2218] Okay.

[2219] We're here.

[2220] Okay.

[2221] If you remember, he was on the side of the road, he had been pulled over for drunk driving, he talked about the officer's name sounding Jewish, then went on this tirade that fucking Jews this, fucking Jews that, says all the step.

[2222] But what he says, the most important part of that was, you guys are responsible for every war that's ever been had.

[2223] That's a very important detail.

[2224] Because that's not someone who, because I've done this.

[2225] like I'm mad at you and I want to hurt you right now and I look at the first thing I think you might be insecure about and I try to hurt you with it.

[2226] That's one thing.

[2227] To know the very specific ideology behind anti -Semitism tells me he was actually an anti -Semite.

[2228] Right.

[2229] It's not name calling for the sake of hurting the person in the moment.

[2230] It's like, oh, wow, you actually believe that.

[2231] And that's troubling.

[2232] So now when I say, sorry, I need to really know Wow, you believed that a few years ago, and now you don't.

[2233] What happened?

[2234] That now you don't think they cause, you know what I'm saying?

[2235] Yeah.

[2236] These little subtle details, I think, are what we pick up on, even if we can't articulate it or put our finger on it.

[2237] But it's like, it's why some apologies hold water and some don't.

[2238] Yeah.

[2239] I also think a lot of it has to do with how you've conducted yourself post, you know, like, what have your action's been since then?

[2240] How do you treat other people now?

[2241] And that became, this will be very unpopular, people hate me for saying this, but that was a little bit of my thing with the Kavanaugh case was given the account that I'm hearing right now, it is very curious to me that there's never been anything since that time.

[2242] Oh, I totally disagree with that.

[2243] I think, I mean, well, if he said, yes, I did that, yes, I'm very sorry.

[2244] Yes, I felt deep remorse and I've never done anything like that.

[2245] Again, that's something to consider.

[2246] He didn't do that.

[2247] He didn't, he didn't.

[2248] He didn't.

[2249] He never.

[2250] Well, he said it didn't happen the way she says it's happened.

[2251] Right.

[2252] He just denied.

[2253] So, but I also.

[2254] But there were no other.

[2255] But I totally, no. You don't care about that.

[2256] I think people can treat one person a horrible way and treat other people.

[2257] I think someone who decides to rape somebody once, probably, I don't know if that's one -off behavior.

[2258] I really think that's part of a lie, like a societal lie that traps.

[2259] often women into feeling crazy.

[2260] I want to be clear so everyone knows where I stand.

[2261] I was actually inclined to believe that both of the people that were talking, neither were lying.

[2262] I just want to make it clear.

[2263] I believed her.

[2264] And I believed him.

[2265] I know that's not very unpopular thing to say, but I do believe people leave situations having completely different opinions of what happened.

[2266] Well, he's also never voted for anything that's like pro -women.

[2267] No, I hate the guy.

[2268] Yeah.

[2269] Let me be clear.

[2270] I hate the guy's politics.

[2271] Yeah.

[2272] But the question was, was he a rapist?

[2273] Will he molest people?

[2274] Well, that's not.

[2275] I don't know about us getting into that.

[2276] I just, I think the, can you be someone who hurts one person and then not hurt again?

[2277] I think a lot of people think that.

[2278] Like, I know that was a big thing in the Johnny Depp case was like, but nobody else who's, but he's been in a relationship.

[2279] I think that's relevant.

[2280] You don't think so.

[2281] I think about what David Sedaris said about his dad.

[2282] He's like, he treated.

[2283] me a very specific way.

[2284] He didn't treat my brothers and sisters that way.

[2285] He didn't treat the guy who stayed at.

[2286] Right.

[2287] So there are dynamics and relationships that can cause personalized behavior.

[2288] I think it's possible.

[2289] I concede it's possible.

[2290] I don't think it's the norm.

[2291] I think if someone's racist once, they're generally probably, I don't many people drop the N -bomb once.

[2292] I bet they say the N -word.

[2293] I don't think there's like a one day they did.

[2294] I bet they generally say it.

[2295] Yeah, but I'm talking more about, like, abuse.

[2296] Like, they didn't dislike Asians on one day.

[2297] They disliked Asians.

[2298] Yeah.

[2299] I mean, I mean more sexual abuse, emotional abuse, those types of things are not necessarily across the board.

[2300] And it's why sometimes with these, like, in a lot of these, like, Me Too cases, it was hard because other people would be like, well, no, he didn't do anything to me. And I was a woman in there.

[2301] Well, I think I saw more often Every one of these cases That I'm aware of that made headlines There's multiple accusers I think the pattern was that these people That did this stuff Did it to a lot of people Yeah I'm not saying it can't happen Yeah I'm just saying I think the norm is Guys who are like that are like that I think it can be dependent Humans are very variable Yeah Yeah Well that was good That was a little bit Good dance because Malcolm loves to dance Even though he does He's the dozen on to swim.

[2302] He's the doesn't want to swim.

[2303] And he is the captain of dancing.

[2304] Yeah.

[2305] Fun dancer.

[2306] Great dancer.

[2307] All right.

[2308] I love you.

[2309] I love you.

[2310] And I love Malcolm Gladwell.

[2311] I love that he comes on the show so often.

[2312] Me too.

[2313] It's so flattering.

[2314] All right.

[2315] Love you.

[2316] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[2317] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app.

[2318] or on Apple Podcasts.

[2319] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.