Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Tim Minchin: "Arty Farty Echo Chambers"

Transcript

Tim Minchin: "Arty Farty Echo Chambers" · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and it's one thing to dabble
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  in dangerous ideas.
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  When you're a podcaster whose Metier is having uncomfortable conversations with provocative
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  people but when you're a public figure who wins awards and makes big movies and sells
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  out arenas and stadiums and has to please a lot of fans.
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  The threat of public shaming for expressing a provocative point of view is all the more
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  intense.
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  Tim mentioned has straddled this for decades now he's one of the most successful creatives
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  in Australia.
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  I make no secret about the fact that I think he's an absolute genius and I love his work
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  I love his music and I love his comedy.
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  You probably know him best as the writer of the lyrics and the music to Matilda the
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  Musical which has been running on the West End for 13 years at one more Olivier Awards
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  which is Britain's Tony Awards than any other show in history at the time that it won them.
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  It was on Broadway it was nominated for a bunch of Tony's it was in the year that Kinky
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  Boots was on and so Kinky Boots won unfortunately nonetheless it's been wildly successful it
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  was turned into a 2022 movie which my kids love.
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  There's a book of it's a main song when I grow up and this is just one feather in the
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  cap of the many that Tim mentioned has to his name he went on to also do another musical
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  of Groundhog Day which won Best New Musical at the Olivier's was nominated for like seven
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  Tony Awards as well and he's done a lot of television he co-wrote and started an Australian
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  TV show called upright but really he's best known in Australia as I think a cultural
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  commentator sort of whimsical almost national jester who will call us out on our inconsistencies
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  and provokers and makers think his shows as I said can sell out stadiums and arenas just
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  him and a piano or him with a big band at the Opera House as the case may be and usually
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  does music and comedy or musical comedy is about to hit the United States for his first
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  tour in the US in a little while so if you're listening to this in the US make sure that
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  you catch him if you can and you know his what's delightful about Tim is that he is so unique
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  he's so unashamedly Tim mentioned he doesn't pull any punches and he's always been an outspoken
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  rationalist and atheist and skeptic and really sort of enlightenment Renaissance man one thing
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  that we talk about in this interview is we refer to a conversation that I had with Osh
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  Ginsburg probably Australia's most successful television host who's the bachelor and Australian
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  idol and a bunch of other shows and Osh was on the show recently because he wanted to kind of
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  wrestle openly with the impact that the conversation around male violence is having on young men
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  and on men and what the most constructive way for us to have that conversation is and Tim
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  refers to my conversation with OSHA in a way that in hindsight he was worried might make it seem
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  like he was being critical of the way that OSHA was articulating himself so he wants to make it clear
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  and I want to make it clear that the way that OSHA that there's an enormous amount of empathy
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  and sympathy and kind of common ground that we're feeling with OSHA's predicament because it's
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  a predicament of people being in the public eye trying to talk about and wrestle with really
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  complicated things so if you haven't heard that it's worth going back and listening to my
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  conversation with OSHA Ginsburg if you have heard that or if your name is OSHA Ginsburg and you're
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  listening to this understand that what Tim says here is coming from a place of love and not from
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  a place of criticism there's another thing you should probably be aware of because we're
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  allude to it here I don't want to make a big deal out of it but it made the press in Australia
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  which is that after October 7th in November there was an incident at the Sydney Theatre company
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  where at the opening night of a new check-off play well it wasn't a new check-off play
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  check-off can't write anymore sadly but it was a new production of the seagull I was there
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  in the audience Tim was apparently there in the audience so we didn't know each other were there
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  and a few of the cast members at the curtain call wore Palestinian scarves
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  in solidarity with the Palestinian people and this was mere weeks after the slaughter of
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  over a thousand Jews and it was regarded as being insensitive it created a big balihoo
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  and at a dimension event shortly thereafter and just a night or two after his mother had died
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  he reportedly asked the audience not to film and not to record and just to have a moment with each
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  other and reportedly said something along the lines of let's not judge people who make mistakes
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  in this environment but let's also understand the hardship that our Jewish friends are going through
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  at the moment and it can be difficult for us to relate something along those lines was reported
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  of course someone leaked that to the press it was written up in huge splashy ways by
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  disingenuous journalists Tim was put through the public ringer I spoken about this on the show
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  before looking at his Twitter mentions was just a lesson in human savagery and hyperbole and
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  viciousness in terms of talking about him being a baby killer and having genocide on his hands
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  and so on and he contemplated how to respond to that public shaming we refer to that but I don't
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  want to dig into it I don't want to make another hash of it I'm not going to put it up on social
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  media or anything I just want you to have the background so that if you didn't see that you know
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  what we're talking about when we start talking about that because it's a crucial piece of the jigsaw
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  his experience with public shaming and really his broader critique of the way that we're having
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  conversations and the way that artists in particular can get caught inside worthy echo chambers I think
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  that's all that needs to be said he has a new book it's called you don't have to have a dream
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  without further ado enjoy this conversation with the one the only Tim mentioned
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  I like that one of the system key of the other I got you sushi and you got you anything I got
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  me coffee but I got me coffee before I knew that you were not here because I thought you might
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  have come but could might have arrived before me but I'm sorry now I feel terrible right at four
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  of and you've made me feel terrible as well well because I did a terrible thing I pointed out how
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  terrible you are and felt terrible it's within your control and control of our feelings thank you
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  you're the one who doesn't think words are that important you're a saying control of your feeling
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  I do you want a coffee I could send someone out for a coffee no I don't want a coffee I've had too
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  much coffee today I'm actually very happy good but that's not really related to your caffeine intake
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  no I'm saying say say she added caffeine worse yeah what the listener doesn't know all the viewer
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  doesn't know is that you were kind enough to go out and get food for us yeah you I mean friends
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  calories yeah but you were yeah I mean I was hungry you were hungry but you you you don't
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  identify as someone who is particularly thrown by hunger whereas I'm no I'm out I'm just done
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  I was so impressed when you were like no I'm gonna walk to blocks to a supermarket get fresh salmon
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  and get some sushi and sushi fish salmon and so is that is so that is something you have to
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  manage your energy levels consciously with food and well this is my third podcast of the day sorry
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  and they've been like 40 minute chats and I've done a two-hour photo shoot in a two-hour
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  signing session and I'm hungry and I didn't sleep enough last night so it's just like what can I
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  how can I fix myself yeah yeah so caffeine's one and but I once you've had a certain amount
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  it just makes you feel like shit yeah and and yeah making sure I'm not my solution to being
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  tired irritable hungry and worn down is just it's just it's a furious masturbation
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  no it's just to grip my teeth and go and push and push but yeah I'm interested in how people
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  who perform especially in the evenings when you're doing a tour when you're doing a show how
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  you manage your energy levels and I gotta get it right I gotta get you know just a right amount
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  of food the right amount of together which is not much of either but I definitely need to not have
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  no energy on board you really notice that if you're a runner you know if you run for many years like
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  I have getting a meal in at the right time not not that I run competitively but I really notice if
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  I'm yeah don't have enough calories yeah but that's a is the physiological is feeding physiological
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  physiology different from psychology because it's quite a delicate thing like what we're doing now
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  or what you're doing in a show is is quite there's a razor thin line between being at peak
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  performance and being very very bad yeah I mean for most people I you can phone him I still
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  be brilliant I think you know we burn more calories when we're thinking harder I mean I know it's
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  not many but you I don't know I just I get grumpy and sort of bit hyperglycerically that joke that
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  you just made is an interesting one where you say for most people there's a razor thin line between
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  brilliance and and doing a terrible performance but for you it could be different is there a is
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  there a kernel of truth in that in that I often wonder of someone as prolific as you and as
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  creative as you how much is and I'm not talking about your career I know your career I know
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  you work bloody hard in your career but when you're sitting down to write a song how much is will
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  and work and how much is is a gift well I don't know and I think my prolificness and my
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  quality overstated in your premise but like and I'm not being falsy modest I've been doing it
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  for a while I put out some stuff but so will and work are two different things because and then
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  and then maybe craft is something separate so craft is something you accumulate over time work is
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  your ability or your capacity for just doing the hours you need to do will is I guess you could
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  define will as the the sort of switch that you switch to to start but I think about intent and I
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  think there's one thing one thing I know and I think I can say this without sounding too
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  futuristic is many people have worked a lot harder than me to be good at what I do and are not
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  as good I mean I just and when I say not as good not as successful so I just happen to have a
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  brain that does these things and that happened to intercept with an audience at a time in the
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  and a place in the world where my sort of brain and my sort of aesthetic or my sort of you know
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  view on the world found an audience and it's all like right which I know I bang on about a lot but
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  but the fact is my brain the sort of whatever I have the slightly sciencey nerdy side combined
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  with a sort of arti creative side it's slightly unusual and it's just allowed me to do this unusual
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  stuff but there's no doubt that I play piano better just simply play piano with more
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  alacrity or speed or whatever than many many people have worked much yeah it's just my it's just
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  is something I can do like some people can play basketball so I mean do some people don't have
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  amazing haircuts yeah thank you very much I appreciate that compliment and I'm going to take it
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  as such although your hair's not quite not bad either well I've had I've had professionals working
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  on this yeah I don't have professional has no my children do it but there are two things that
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  you could be saying in there which are both interesting one is that your particular outlook and
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  your particular form of creativity and your combination of sort of being a science nerd and also
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  your style your aesthetic yeah resonated for some reason and it may not have if you'd been
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  born in 17th century Korea you know sort of written the right song at the right time yeah and then
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  the other is the durability to play at a piano and to yeah and that sort of gift the yes sure when
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  compose I mean composing catchy songs seems to come to you quite easily like I was just googling
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  around I mean I don't need to do a lot of Google research to know about you but in 2010 on New
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  Years Day there was this British panel quiz show and they get celebrities to make a suggestion
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  and then they have to guess what it is right the celebrity says it gives a description in one line
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  and then they're like oh I think they're talking about such and such you went off and wrote an entire
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  song which was about Google maps see you don't even do you even remember oh yeah there's a bit of
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  magic in that I I I wrote that yeah the day before yeah I didn't write it yeah yeah that's what I'm
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  saying you can do it on the spot I mean I mean I can turn out a funny song yeah you can come up
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  with a song that's actually catchy and clever and it will stay with people yeah in a day yeah
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  and then reap the rewards for the rest of your life in the case of a lot of people can do that
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  of it not everyone no and it's something I just very many and and the reason it's not yeah I feel
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  very very lucky that it's something that I could do a bit and I love doing so I did it a lot
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  you know and on all those tough years when no one took any notice of me and I was struggling
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  I was like taking 500 bucks to write an entire song about the CEO of a little company I was doing
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  these corporate gigs for like literally 300 500 bucks with some like musical theater improv people
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  and I'd write a song about the CEO and I'd take a day to do it and that some of them still sticking
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  my head you know and so I did the graph and I did and I got my craft up and it's not for everyone
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  but it's um I like where I've ended up with it I think it's good but I was going to say about Will
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  is I think um sometimes when I reflect on why I can do the particular thing I can do
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  which I don't do too much but I I feel like sometimes when I watch other creatives I feel like I have a
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  focus not not as in I'm focusing on work but like an intentional focus where I feel like my brain
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  is good at going there it is that that's what I want to get to it's not just thinking of I don't
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  really know what I'm saying I feel I feel like if I think I want to do something and it's within
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  my capacity I have I can see the path glowing in front of me right maybe meaning I haven't said
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  this before this is I'm just like I feel like I can tell I can get there meaning that you can see
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  the the the professional career steps for meaning that's from a creative perspective you you can
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  feel though you know what you have the gift you have which is rare please tell me which is that you
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  have an idea and in a way even though you don't know where the end of your sentences you
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  have this real clear path to get there you don't pause you don't arm and are you just structure
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  said and I'm quite good at that too but I'm not as good as you and I feel like I have that a bit
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  with just a piece of work I just go I'm going to write a song about what it feels like to try not
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  to have sex with someone you really want to have sex with I can sort of feel how that's going to
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  go right and I can I have self belief I don't know that's no I get it no I get it is it like
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  you're glimpsing a muse well certainly as you can imagine don't don't believe that I think it's
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  just I don't mean a literal no I mean a muse who has a mind I mean is it no I don't feel like it's
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  and maybe I'm just skirting around the idea of inspiration because it makes me uncomfortable I
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  mean the reason I'm asking this even though it's a really cliched question and I don't normally
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  ask it like where do you get your ideas from yeah and so on is because I was on Mark Boris's podcast
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  and he was asking me how much of my success do I attribute to being articulate and to having
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  a command of words which is what you just mentioned and I said like it doesn't hurt you know right
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  like a lot and I can't take credit for it actually you know I as you say I start a sentence I know
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  where I have to end up and nine times out of ten something in my brain something in my brain
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  allows me to like me end my way there it's craft yeah and so is writing a so obviously writing
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  as long as the same way for you that well I just yeah it's I wasn't very good young though
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  I mean one thing about my career is that it all happened late and no one at high school went
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  you've got talent you know never no no no you were performing in front of year three
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  and I was okay I played the magical cat in a sort of animalish Cinderella in year five
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  I would I would I would see that I was an okay boy Corrister I got little roles in the school plays
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  um I was in the school choir but got kicked out and I played piano but quit in year nine
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  really no one said oh that that mentioned boys got got something ever not through then I went
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  and studied music for two years trying to learn to read music and stuff because I it never took
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  and it remained untaken but um you know who everyone was saying had the piano thing that would
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  make I was successful me yeah when I was like yeah in year well you would have five or six
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  capacity playing the piano backwards and like doing all kinds of mention-esque trills and then
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  gave it up and you were the reverse hmm so even at uni no one I may be a few people I always
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  has a way with words and my songs I've actually just gone to the studio over the last couple of
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  months I've been in and out of the studio recording I've got this idea whether or not I'd do it
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  of putting out an album I thought it'd be called songs from the attic or something which basically
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  everything I didn't record in the studio some of which are songs people know I did I've recorded
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  a really good studio version of rock and roll nerd because there's only ever live versions and
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  there were it's I sort of wanted to lock one in make it sound really good but also songs that I
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  played in the unfunny show that people like is that being recorded and I'm like no could you record
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  I'm like okay but also songs people have never heard and songs from an album I made in 2001 in
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  my lounge room share of my sharehouse in Perth so I've been recording these things and there's
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  really a moment when I got I can think about the songs somewhere in about 1998 when I was when I
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  was 23 I wrote a good song and somewhere around that three or four years remember what it was um
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  well there's lots there was a song called at least I tried that was earlier that I wrote with my
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  brother um and then the the oldest song I recorded for this project is maybe the song of the
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  massacre which is a swing tune and yeah I don't know but somewhere in there I figured I figured
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  something out and and then all along I was sort of writing music with theater and actually in hindsight
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  is obvious that that that was what suited my style the best so he long before Matilda I was writing
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  songs for you theater and stuff in Perth and not really thinking anything would come of that but
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  I was always okay at that the storytelling side of songwriting not the stuff that gets on the radio
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  and the being funny bit and the being funny bit and and sort of cleveness in in the words
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  yeah yeah arguably do you think you're underrated as a musician and overrated as a lyricist and
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  comic I don't know how I'm rated really I there are people in the world who think I'm
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  yeah the image is the most underrated songwriter comedian in the world why why why doesn't everyone
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  know him and it's like I know whether to be flattered or other people other people are a lot
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  this guy's funny as currency I'm not my how whether people find my comedy funny is from
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  comedies so absurdly specific to an audience's cultural inputs you know of course people find me
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  unfunny and some people find me hilarious so that that particular that they're their particular
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  bone that reminds me of the first component of the of the binary that that I said seven years ago
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  which is what the was the first part is like the cultural contingency of your success in the
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  sense that you know you happen to have a particular outlook on a particular attitude and
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  a particular aesthetic that resonated the second bit was the work or the will whatever so just
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  focusing on that first bit how did you ever know I mean one of the things that creative people
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  find hard is finding their voice right like whatever that means like how much of me should be
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  this part of me that is bursting to come out and how much of me should be a bit more like
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  what the market probably wants yeah you know I mean yeah I do I mean I didn't think I was
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  going to be a musician I thought it's a thing I was compelled to do but I didn't see me reflected
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  in the market I maybe I did I certainly not when I was young I didn't think you know my friends
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  went off to drama school and I thought well of course I'm a drama school there special you know I
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  I didn't really took me a long time to feel like it was okay and actually when success came
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  it was because of me reflecting on my I mean rock and roll nerd is a song about a guy who
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  has no struggles to write about he's like he wants to be a rock star but he's hasn't suffered
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  and he's like doesn't live in the hood like like remember we were brought up in the 90s it was all
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  on one side you know the really early hip hop and stuff and on the other side grunge he's like
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  you have to be suicidal or yeah poor and black and I was famously neither and and so actually
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  self irony mocking myself was my key and then mocking others and then eventually it took years
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  before I it took Matilda for me to go actually maybe I'm like maybe I don't have to only
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  maybe I'm a good enough museo to just write some songs right you know it took me till I was
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  45 whenever a part together came out to put out my first studio but when the song since it was
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  pre Matilda you were you were already selling into a market that didn't necessarily have it
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  an atheistic like rationalist scientific like white nerdy kind of cross dressy like make up
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  wearing strange persona like you weren't you weren't turn on the volume down on the mention
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  no the night before Matilda opened and strapped it upon a oven I opened my arena show with a
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  55 piece orchestra and Birmingham arena the night before to the most to a I mean bonkers now to
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  the most Muslim populated city in Europe outside of some you know and I went I sent a runner to
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  the shop to buy two copies of the Qur'an and a copy of Harry Potter so you could burn them on
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  stage well so I could do a bit about burning them on stage really which involved putting the cover
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  of one around no two copies of Harry Potter and a copy of the Qur'an right and I took the Qur'an
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  out of its cover shouldn't say that out loud I um well when you're doing it in front of 10s
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  of that no I did I prepped it okay and I put the cover of that around the Harry Potter I had
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  Harry Potter and the Qur'an I was talking about why is this sacred I was talking about on stage
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  in front of 9000 something brums like talking about sacredness and how we impose agency on things
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  and stuff and like if I burn this I might be like whatever but if I burn this this was before
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  JK Rowling was her own you know we're burning JK's books was a thing um and then I revealed it
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  to be both Harry Potter and like now you feel differently right and it wasn't the best bit ever
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  but it was a pretty good bit and it was pretty balsy I was like so I at that stage I'm 35 and I
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  I look back then and think cheapest I was just eyes on the prize I was just like I've been given
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  an opportunity musicals opening down the road I've got an arena in a symphony orchestra and I am
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  all in on this you know and that maybe that's that intent it's like I don't care what other people
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  have done in arenas I don't care what other people have done with musical comedy I don't care
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  what other people have done with musical theater I can see how I want to make people feel I believe
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  I have the tools and if I'm fail I'm failing on my own terms and I'm just going to make this the
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  best arena comedy show ever I'm gonna blow people's brains and and I'm going to make this musical
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  make people laugh and cry and I just I'm too old I was already sort of too old to give a
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  shit what other people thought I should be doing and I do you do you give less of a shit now
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  than you did then I think I got more to lose now but I I guess I have to I don't really worry
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  about legacy but I guess I it's hard not to go look I've got not everyone likes me obviously but
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  I'm respected and I've worked really hard and I've put beautiful things in the world I've
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  contributed to beautiful things that other people have made and and I've got my comedy and I've
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  got my my book now and you know let's not throw it all out because I feel desperate to say something
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  agitated about this right whereas 15 years ago I'd have been agitated see what happens yeah so I
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  see well that's my job right but I don't see that as my job anymore and and we can talk about that
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  but it's appropriate though that's not my job anymore right I'm not like a little on-fong
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  telebola like I'm gonna agitate the big guy I'm 48 and I'm I'm the big guy so I can I can hopefully
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  put good ideas into the world through different means and I think I'm doing right but doesn't
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  isn't part of putting good ideas into the world also having that no fucks to give swagger to some
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  extent in the thing so but I think no fucks to give swagger reads differently on someone who's
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  very high status you know see what you mean you know when you're an upstart there's a it's
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  quite cheeky it's cheeky and no but I guess I don't mean society relies on those out I don't
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  mean that you would go out of your way to to provoke or offend no but that you would freely call
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  bullshit when you see it without thinking oh my goodness people might take it out of context
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  to people might get angry on social media about it your your question is pointed because you know
• 27:35
  me and you know I worry about that and you're talking to Osher about it the other day and I was
• 27:41
  thinking oh she doesn't have quite the language to explain why he's so scared I love that I'm sorry
• 27:49
  for people who didn't hear that episode of Josh's one go back and listen to what we're talking
• 27:52
  about male violence yeah and I'm sure he was worried about the the stereotyping of all man yeah
• 27:59
  that's right clearly he was insane he just kept saying and I do it all the time too
• 28:04
  and so so Osher was trying to say Josh thank you for the things you said about men's violence
• 28:10
  because I as a male who was bullied and it felt a lot of fear you know blah blah and I think maybe
• 28:16
  the way we're talking to men is not the most helpful way to go about it but he in order to say that
• 28:21
  he had to say I obviously I know that women suffer obviously over and over and over again
• 28:25
  which we all do now and you said why do you keep doing that I've shown he's like I don't know I
• 28:30
  don't want people to take me out and you did the and then what would happen you did what CBT
• 28:34
  what psychologists do to people with catastrophic thinking you said and what would happen well people
• 28:39
  online would pile on me and then what would happen what well then what would happen I don't know
• 28:46
  and and what what he means is I would feel bad and and for you you you were saying so what
• 28:53
  like so what if people pile on you but I think not to speak for Osher but to speak for myself
• 28:59
  there's a couple of reasons one is more careful these days I'm more careful okay so let me just
• 29:06
  go back to where I was I am more careful because I think it's appropriate to grow up into the
• 29:12
  where the search that you've been afforded I have a platform I have people from autistic five
• 29:19
  year olds to 80s 85 year olds from fucking war sort of Florida who like my work I
• 29:31
  it is appropriate that I take into account my audience and my power
• 29:38
  on the and then there's this other thing which is that we now live in a time where you can say
• 29:43
  something that comes from your heart that you really believe as a a person who cares and loves
• 29:49
  the world wants the world to be a better place a progressive who wants better conditions for
• 29:54
  people who suffer and all that you can say something from the heart like maybe shouting at men
• 30:02
  that they're bad is not the way to make male violence go away and that can be taken off you put
• 30:09
  into a headline and this has happened to me as you know and and people that you consider your
• 30:17
  peers and friends including some of your actual peers and friends will pile on you in public
• 30:24
  and it is hugely emotionally traumatic and we can talk about why because I don't quite understand
• 30:32
  it but I promise you it is for most people I've been there as you know as well the
• 30:40
  I would say a couple of things about that on the first question of you have fans from
• 30:44
  war sort of Florida if I got it you know from five year olds already it's have no taste
• 30:48
  five year olds to 85 year olds and you have to you know grow up and wear a suit and think about
• 30:54
  them yeah I would say have sufficient faith in them yeah and give them enough credit
• 31:02
  oh I'm not exactly they're not you know yeah yeah that they're capable of understanding
• 31:08
  the fallout from part two of your concern which is the bullshit that we all know happens when
• 31:15
  someone says something that contravenes the way that you're supposed to talk about something you
• 31:20
  know the the member the members of your industry or your peers who will you know disavow you
• 31:29
  because a headline said that you said something they weren't worth having as friends in the first
• 31:36
  place they might be powerful enough to actually change your career but they're probably not oh no
• 31:42
  probably not and in terms of your fans like to some extent I think I we're in a problem of
• 31:50
  there's a collective action problem here you know if everybody just changed the norms and said
• 31:55
  fuck it I'm just gonna try to be as honest as I can and I think I'm gonna call it as I see it
• 32:00
  and some people are gonna try to misrepresent it because some people are mischievous but I have faith
• 32:05
  that that you know that enough people will will look to what I'm actually saying and we'll go back
• 32:11
  to the original text and we'll listen to my work and we'll read my work and we'll listen to my
• 32:14
  voice and we'll try to understand and we'll know that that I have a close enough relationship with
• 32:18
  them as a creator that they're gonna have faith in my general decency like if everybody did that
• 32:23
  then of course there'd be no problem but it's a bit hard to stick your head above the
• 32:28
  parapet as the only yeah so I guess there's a part A and B from that point as well the part A is
• 32:35
  when I say emotionally traumatic it triggers something in you that to be an OSHA or to be me
• 32:44
  really a big part of why I'm me is something in me wanted to be liked and loved and respected you
• 32:50
  don't do what I've done if you didn't have an engine that says if I do this they'll clap me
• 32:55
  and they'll like me and they'll respect me and they'll adore me and and I'm very aware of all that
• 33:00
  and I'm aware of the idiocy of that but it's a part of my engine so when people call you you know
• 33:08
  say that you're something that you don't recognize in yourself a bigot or you know support of
• 33:13
  genocide or whatever then it it's just emotionally a traumatic in and of itself and it's um and
• 33:19
  you know this because this is what the chilling factor of council culture is that people pretend
• 33:24
  doesn't exist which is that basically people avoid emotional distress and I am someone who
• 33:31
  I've I now am off social media but but I it I am tempered by the possibility of public shaming
• 33:40
  regardless of my intellectual understanding that it is unjust and unjustified and meaningless
• 33:45
  and fuck them I am I will just avoid that yeah although I don't all the time when I'm really
• 33:51
  agitated by something the part B is um part of what I care about as I get older and always have
• 34:01
  actually and people some of my critics not not that I'm particularly focused on critics at this
• 34:06
  point in my life but some people especially in Australia on the on the far right because I've
• 34:11
  done a couple of for your overseas listeners I've done a couple of political bits of satire that
• 34:16
  really there was a particular song I wrote about a cardinal of the Catholic church over here that
• 34:23
  landed in our culture in a way I don't want to overstate it but it was not many there's not many
• 34:30
  massive there's not many times a piece of satire have landed like that he was the most senior
• 34:36
  religious figure that Australia has probably ever produced and I just wrote a song about him not
• 34:40
  coming home about to fuck face a royal commission it was a to face to face the music essentially
• 34:46
  on accusations of child sexual not of him not of him that he was part of he was complicit in again
• 34:52
  and um I won't really litigate that song it was it was designed to raise money for survivors of
• 34:58
  abuse to go to Rome to watch him testify and it worked you know in a big big way um and I'm
• 35:04
  proud of it but I could have a big conversation about the ethics of that sort of act but
• 35:09
  you mean you could have a self-critical conversation about whether or not you were right to
• 35:12
  yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah maybe we'll get to that if you're interested but um the
• 35:19
  the uh fuck what was it talking sorry um no no uh the so so um with that context I have a
• 35:31
  reputation for um being an agitator but actually the sum total of my 20 years of work is um
• 35:38
  is really broad and loving I'm mostly known for Matilda and songs like not perfect and white wine
• 35:43
  in the sun and my show upright which made many many people across the world cry and I talk about
• 35:51
  and I'm also known for my critical thinking stuff all through my comedy career I was doing stuff
• 35:55
  about like literally stand up about post-hug-hug-hug-hug-hug-hug Latin Latin names for logical
• 36:02
  fallacies like super nerdy stuff I wrote a song called in defense of the fence before Twitter
• 36:07
  in vent it was invented that said we divide the world into terrorists and heroes
• 36:12
  into normal folk and weirdos it was about binary thinking and how bad it is you know I've been
• 36:18
  banging this drum for a long time I want to keep banging that drum and I need to keep as many people
• 36:26
  as possible in my uh I don't need to I would like to not yeah ostracize anyone at all if I possibly
• 36:37
  can help it and even if they're wrong I there's there's strategy I unfortunately we live in a dumbass
• 36:45
  out of context binary thinking tribalize public shaming fuck show of the world and if I want to
• 36:52
  put good ideas into the world and try and reach across that divide I have to not lose one side I
• 36:59
  otherwise what good can I you're and you're trying hmm but you know that your audience self trying
• 37:05
  but you're failing zeps I don't think you are but you've definitely lost some people your audience
• 37:10
  self-selects and people are like look there's a right you're welcome if they don't want to listen
• 37:15
  to you I think you're right that there's a meta conversation to be had about the way that we
• 37:19
  have conversations right and that's the only one I have out I mean I'm always two degrees away
• 37:25
  from an actual conversation about a real thing you just a brain floating above the head yeah
• 37:31
  but I do know that that contains a that that contains a brain you put this is this is valid and
• 37:36
  the and obviously what I'm up to on this show is not about actually caring all that much about
• 37:43
  the things that I talk about on the show when I'm having an argument with somebody about some
• 37:47
  you know culture war issue at the end of the day what I'm trying to do is model the way that we
• 37:52
  have conversations show examples of the ways that we can talk about things in a way that might
• 37:57
  be constructive that other people can then take away and you so it is a meta conversation however
• 38:04
  there it's very difficult to model the way that we should be having conversations unless you
• 38:12
  actually do the work of modeling the way that you're having the conversation so if you think of
• 38:16
  the two levels right there's the meta level on which I talk about theory you just wait in and go
• 38:20
  let's talk about let's talk about trans people I'm talking about well I mean you sometimes do do
• 38:25
  that and you sometimes then to your credit and I think um before I get to that because I do
• 38:31
  want to touch on that when you mentioned that you have a need and you know OSHA has a need to be
• 38:36
  liked and so there that kind of increases the emotional valence of people of public shaming do you
• 38:44
  also have a need to be understood oh well okay so if I can just take that and go meta because I
• 38:52
  think it's important we all have a need to be liked to different degrees some of us have little
• 38:58
  broken brains that need it real bad and they're called actors and um some are like you and seem
• 39:04
  to be like oh they can take me or leave me you know although I think some of that's bluster I think
• 39:09
  oh it absolutely is and I wouldn't deny it as well but no the reason I ask the question about
• 39:13
  being understood is that I've had conversations with actor friends who very much want to be liked
• 39:18
  but they don't actually want anyone to know anything about them right and I'm sort of the reverse
• 39:22
  for me being feeling like I'm understood and seen in and that what the truest things that I care
• 39:29
  about are seen and understood about me is like that it's all narcissism it's all narcissism it's
• 39:36
  your first issue of flavor and narcissism mine is that I don't actually care whether they like me but
• 39:41
  I do care whether they respect me and so it kind of seem and by the way just to unpack the narcissism
• 39:46
  to get into broadcast and stuff it's not narcissism you do need to believe that there are places
• 39:52
  for stories in places for commentary and you need to identify in yourself a capacity for it
• 39:57
  and at that point you're like well I'm doing it now and I want to be understood or I want to be
• 40:03
  loved or whatever it is I think we all want to be understood and where this is incredibly
• 40:08
  salient in this conversation is where I'm a progressive I don't think anyone could look at
• 40:17
  my work and think I'm a sort of conservative whatever I'm a progressive lefty I guess although
• 40:22
  I don't like the binary in politics because I agree with some things and not others that out
• 40:27
  left wing party of blah blah blah but so I see myself as progressive but a lot of progressive
• 40:36
  people seem to think that the some total of their obligation as someone who desires change in the
• 40:42
  world is to say they desire change in the world and signify their moral righteousness whenever an
• 40:49
  issue comes up and there's not really a consideration of utility and when I say that because
• 40:58
  the main thing that's happening since we've got social media and we've found ourselves in these
• 41:02
  little bubbles is that we are getting further and further apart and yet we all know that we want
• 41:08
  to be understood and we seem to have so little capacity to go well if I want to be understood
• 41:14
  a dove that person might want to be understood so hold on if that person wants to be taken at their
• 41:21
  word understood to be complex understood to be someone who's come from where they've come from
• 41:28
  and carry their pain maybe maybe I shouldn't scream at them that they're a fascist bigot
• 41:35
  because maybe if they want to be understood and they don't recognize in themselves a fascist
• 41:41
  then telling them they're a fascist bigot is not going to land and I'm going to push them away and
• 41:44
  make them less likely to understand me like how incapacity to do like seven-year-old level
• 41:51
  empathy but no I don't think I think there's a strategic difference between the way that you think
• 41:56
  that that goals should be achieved and the way that that those people do which is that they
• 42:01
  they're going to storm the castle that they think the yeah understanding would be nice but at a
• 42:07
  moment where fascism is at the gate in a moment at which Trump and the far right in Europe are
• 42:12
  about to come overtake the world at a moment of climate crisis at a moment at that moment I get
• 42:18
  I get brave I pick up my phone and I say something mean then what what you you want to storm the
• 42:26
  fucking castle find a castle and storm it put your phone down but but anyway we've had 10 years
• 42:32
  so sure your strategy is this hypothetical person your strategy is I'm not going to put it I'm
• 42:39
  not going to try and understand a homophobic why would I try to understand a homophobic they're a
• 42:43
  homophobic fuck them there's an amazing documentary about Israel Falal which helps you understand
• 42:50
  where Israel Falal comes from sorry for overseas this is a rugby player who got completely had his
• 42:55
  career taken away because it was a homophobic Christian and the documentaries made by my sister
• 43:02
  a full disclosure and most of my liberal friends didn't watch it I don't want to hear about why
• 43:07
  we should empathize with the homeless I was the only person on the public broadcaster at the time who
• 43:11
  was trying to inject some profile out like content I was on my radio show and I got a lot of
• 43:18
  shit for saying like it doesn't have to be pro for now but it's not just understanding his origins
• 43:27
  but also if you sincerely believe that the creator of the universe has written a book totally
• 43:33
  oh yeah yeah you should take it seriously and by the rugby Australia threatening to
• 43:38
  to fire him if he speaks on behalf of Christ again obviously he thinks well that's God
• 43:43
  testing me I mean the Bible God does that shit all the time and it's a bit the what I was really
• 43:49
  the case I was really making which rubbed people the wrong way was that the boundaries of conversation
• 43:55
  should be drawn wider than we're drawing them we're drawing them too tightly so that he is so that
• 44:00
  his expression of saying that home but homosexuals are sinners like he wasn't saying that they
• 44:06
  should be beaten he was saying that homosexuals and foreigners are going to hell and atheists are
• 44:13
  going to hell and people who borrow money or something like that so that yeah that sounds like a
• 44:17
  legend or not you know but you know the idea that the that the contours of public conversation should
• 44:24
  be drawn it's so tightly that that expression is the potion is I don't think the most conducive
• 44:31
  way of running a civilization you well so there seems to be a sort of utopian fantasism
• 44:41
  so so back to your like it's a matter of strategy I think the thing to do is more understanding they
• 44:47
  think the thing to do is pick up weapons or weapons of words totally get it there have been times
• 44:54
  throughout history where beheading the aristocracy has been the only way through I would argue it
• 44:59
  being good if that stopped coming off so many heads and that it was we should learn from such
• 45:04
  revolutions that you should be careful about how many heads you cut off well the example is usually
• 45:09
  Nazis right I mean you know D day would you want to understand Hitler do you know do you want to sit
• 45:13
  down and have a cup of tea with him and go like okay so you're misunderstood and I'm misunderstood
• 45:18
  let's talk this time for war and we're getting closer to war America is getting closer to some sort
• 45:22
  of civil war because you that's where you'll end up if you don't take the opportunity to understand
• 45:27
  the opposition earlier right um obviously when I'm saying don't you got to understand the opposition
• 45:33
  I don't just mean the Jews of 1932 in Poland needed to understand Nazis the Nazis needed to
• 45:40
  understand the Jews of Poland 1932 because we are used to looking back on the time going
• 45:45
  there were baddies and victims but the German people thought the Jews were the baddies right yeah
• 45:49
  the German people thought the Jews were the baddies ring any fucking bells anyway like um so
• 45:57
  so if if your policy is it's time to pick up weapons against these people the time for understanding
• 46:03
  as past then you've had 10 years of showing me your social justice warrior flex on on Twitter
• 46:12
  you've had 10 years now how's it fucking going how's it going is it getting better is it getting
• 46:18
  better are you doing a good job for your progressive goals by doing this shit on Twitter I don't know
• 46:26
  my suspicion is it's getting worse that we've lost we've lost people we had we've got people
• 46:31
  getting less LGBT friendly because they've been shouted out for 10 years yeah there's a significant
• 46:36
  decline and it goes the other way too they're shouting it out yeah I mean I hope it goes without saying
• 46:41
  that I think the idiots over there calling us lib tards for wanting progress are are worse
• 46:50
  but just because other people are worse doesn't mean you don't have any notes to take about your
• 46:53
  own comment yeah yeah and and the yes I think what's what's important to understand is that
• 47:01
  we often misunderstand that it's funny you talk to someone about the root causes of terrorism
• 47:09
  for example and everyone is quite comfortable understanding that there are root causes for things
• 47:14
  that people aren't psychopaths right that like you know there's a reason why the 9-11 hijackers
• 47:20
  did what they did that have to do with more than just them being psychopaths that have to do with
• 47:24
  foreign policy that have to do with the conditions in which they were raised you know yet when it comes
• 47:29
  to us like we're not we're not quite so willing to make to pull that chest move and say well maybe the
• 47:37
  reason why Trump exists and the reason why the alt-right exists and why there's a pushback against
• 47:44
  I don't know transgender rights is because we've created we've participated in creating conditions
• 47:51
  that are conducive to that I mean that is a reaction to so I mean no it's your thought it just
• 47:55
  is what it is and pretending it's just baddies and goodies is not going to get you anywhere so
• 48:01
  so this question our capacity to extend our empathy in ways that are kind of that gel with our
• 48:08
  understanding of our world view but not extend our empathy to where it's really hard the example I
• 48:15
  always use is and this is me 10 years ago I haven't had a big transformation but I've just been
• 48:22
  slowly thinking more and more about this so I hope I I know I sound like I'm very didactic I don't
• 48:28
  want to lecture people but please like let's think about ourselves I find it very very easy to think
• 48:36
  about a 19-year-old black guy on death row in fucking Alabama Alabama and that guy grew up in a
• 48:46
  terrible neighborhood his uncles and no dad and his brothers and you know we're all drug dealers and
• 48:53
  when he was 11 he was a runner I love this racist caricature but no this is a guy on death row
• 49:00
  okay well I'm telling you why he's on death row these are the conditions and you get and he
• 49:05
  stabbed someone when he's 18 in a drug deal and he goes to death row and like we as progressives have
• 49:14
  absolutely no problem going that guy shouldn't be on death row what chance did he have
• 49:20
  right but some guy marching in Charlotteville in beige pants to save a statue is marching in
• 49:29
  Charlotteville for the same reason because that's his inputs that's his fucking inputs he you
• 49:37
  don't choose you know this comes to the fact we live in a deterministic universe and people
• 49:43
  don't understand this but that guy is that Tiki torch marching guy for the same guy the stabby
• 49:49
  guy is the stabby guy but the same reason that I'm a good musician it's just what they became
• 49:55
  and if you can't extend your empathy to the Charlotteville guy but you can to the black guy
• 50:02
  I understand it but you're wrong you have failed in your in what I think is a human obligation
• 50:12
  to extend your empathy if you're going to extend empathy due to causality due to someone's inputs
• 50:19
  you can't you don't get to choose I mean I think it's so what what there could be a couple of
• 50:24
  mechanisms going on here right one is the narcissism of small differences right this is always the
• 50:28
  case that the Sunnis and the Shia will fight each other more than the Muslims will fight the
• 50:33
  Christians or you know there's always like if we are I am closer to the Tiki torch guy
• 50:39
  then I am to the terrorist or the or the the guy on death row by that logic a black guy from
• 50:46
  Alabama Bama should be more sympathetic to the Tiki torch guy I understand by the way that there
• 50:52
  is I think there's a second thing going on with you want to finish that thought there's a valid
• 50:57
  repost that there's a power difference between those two people but but that is very that that is
• 51:03
  where we keep going wrong on on the progressive side of things it's like yeah but just because
• 51:08
  he's got more power because he's got a Tiki torch he's still just a guy who isn't outcome of his
• 51:12
  inputs he's no more to be blamed well also it it it aligns the fact that elites and powerful people
• 51:19
  are currently on the left like well you would have to say that the cultural center of gravity is
• 51:29
  is on by the left um tell me about the second thing and then I want to get back to your sort of
• 51:34
  original setup of this because it's really the interesting so the second thing was just that in
• 51:38
  addition to the proximity of the of the other person yeah the the I in other words the I is
• 51:45
  embedded the idea that they could have done otherwise and without going down a hole free will
• 51:50
  you know rabbit hole because that will take us another three hours but the
• 51:57
  there's so I don't know if it's just a leap of imagination or if there's something actually
• 52:02
  ontologically true about this but but it does strike me that I have a greater capacity to become
• 52:11
  a raging lefty or a raging right-winger than I do to become a terrorist there's more
• 52:19
  volition involved like they're just they're both closer and there's also and I can somehow take
• 52:25
  more credit for not being there that like I don't take a lot of credit for not being a pedophile
• 52:29
  and it take a lot of credit for not being a terrorist but I do take credit for not being a hack
• 52:34
  for not being a for not just endlessly writing blow the aid in conservative
• 52:38
  I understand will not be a you know a facile wokester you're you're explaining why we make
• 52:43
  the mistake but it's still a mistake right we I am very very interested in to whom we extend
• 52:52
  empathy and to whom we extend agency yeah and we tend to and they are very very related we tend
• 53:00
  to extend empathy to those who rather condescendingly we do not permit agency because we are
• 53:07
  happier to say wasn't your fault and you know what the subtext of that is you're you're a poor
• 53:13
  black person hmm I read condescension into people's capacity to extend empathy to some and and impose
• 53:25
  agency on others right so you give that Charlotteville guy agency it's Charlottesville
• 53:30
  Charlottesville guy Charlotte is the only only on your fourth time thank you thank you thank you
• 53:34
  that Charlottesville guy you should have got me straight like so it's like I just
• 53:39
  sitting here you tell me about my challenge because I think about the Charlotteville
• 53:44
  but anyway I take a call Charlotte or a city called there's a city called Charlotte in North Carolina
• 53:51
  I don't know much about America uh the Tiki Torch guy we're going there we remind me to tell
• 53:55
  for the way the two are as well okay well yes I'm coming to America um we give him agency because
• 54:01
  we, and this is understandable and human. I'm just saying it's not, if you're really being
• 54:08
  harsh on your logic, if you're being brutal on yourself intellectually, which I think
• 54:13
  is the best thing you can be, it is not correct that you give agency to that guy just because
• 54:20
  he has what in our society we call power, like he has some money and whatever. But giving
• 54:25
  him agency is attributing to him a choice and stuff. And that's fine. But is it not condescending
• 54:33
  to then not give agency to a member of Hamas? And go, it's not Hamas's fault.
• 54:39
  I mean, it's funny that you even say that he has power because I understand what I'm
• 54:43
  pointing to, which is the... I'm just saying that's what we...
• 54:45
  A white male is supposed to have more power than...
• 54:47
  I'm just acknowledging that. But he is the most shatter upon version of the white male.
• 54:53
  The Appalachian or Deep Southern Redneck, like, you know, Marga.
• 54:58
  But it doesn't matter whether he's shatter upon or powerful. He is still just...
• 55:04
  Do Donald Trump. So I can't extend my empathetic Donald Trump. But where I fail
• 55:11
  fall is understandable. It's understandable. I can't extend my empathetic Donald Trump.
• 55:15
  But I'm still wrong. I can actually have to really, really work on it.
• 55:20
  I have to work on it. But, you know, I can imagine being another unloved person who's never
• 55:24
  invited to the incline cocktail parties in New York. I mean, he's also got a personality disorder.
• 55:30
  I feel sorry for his personality disorder. So I get this. The reason I'm pointing this out is
• 55:37
  because I do it all the time. And I've thought about it a lot. And I'm like, why do I give
• 55:42
  agency to one type and deny another person agency? It's not their fault. I have to check myself and
• 55:49
  go, is that because I'm basically a bit racist? And I think white people have their destiny in
• 55:55
  their hands. And, you know, a person in Europe has less is the soft, the soft bigotry of low
• 56:02
  expectations. The soft bigotry of low expectations. So I've checked myself and gone, okay, I have to do
• 56:09
  two things to fix this. I have to increase my sense of the agency of these people I see as victims.
• 56:16
  And I have to increase my sense of empathy towards those that I feel contempt for.
• 56:22
  But is the first part of that the agency you feel you need to do that even if the agency is a
• 56:27
  loseery? Well, the truth is no one has agency. But I so so in my world view of someone who doesn't
• 56:36
  believe in free will on a on a deep intellectual philosophical brain in a vet level, I know without
• 56:43
  doubt that these are emergent entities in the universe. They didn't choose their brains,
• 56:49
  they didn't choose their inputs. Donald Trump didn't choose to be Donald Trump. I am, as I say,
• 56:53
  I'm a successful lovely father of two and musical genius for the same reason that a pit of
• 56:58
  file murderer is a pit of file murderer. I'm sorry. It's just the way the universe works. But the
• 57:04
  I'm not going to take that bait. But the, don't make a headline out of that. The age the the agency
• 57:12
  the assumption of other people's agency is still critical then in allowing us to have a
• 57:18
  functioning. What I say is that it's as good as agency. The free will conversation is it's not
• 57:26
  just a philosophical nonsense. It's true. But well, there can be both. Yes. But the way the
• 57:35
  universe operates, it's perfectly cromulent to act as if we have agency. In fact, the only,
• 57:45
  it's very useful to understand that people aren't to be blamed for exactly this reason. It is not
• 57:51
  necessary. It is not a terrorist. A terrorist was a boy recently, just a boy with a ball.
• 58:00
  And then he got given an idea and a trauma and now he's a terrorist. And that Charlottesville
• 58:06
  guy was a boy with a ball. Beautiful boy with a ball. And then he got given an idea.
• 58:11
  May not be a fool. We don't need to claim. We don't need to claim.
• 58:14
  He was an ugly little people. And so when you talk about imposing agency, I mean,
• 58:20
  allowing agency and allowing and giving empathy. Isn't it funny that we're just,
• 58:26
  when's the moment when a child deserves no empathy? Isn't it weird? We as humans go innocent,
• 58:33
  innocent, innocent, innocent, good to you. We just full ourselves all the time to make ourselves
• 58:40
  feel better about the fact that we want to be angry at people. And I get it. In some ways,
• 58:45
  we have to be. To pick up a weapon and storm D-Day beaches. Sometimes the person even,
• 58:52
  if they don't have agency, still needs to be defeated in the sense that if you could kill
• 58:56
  baby Hitler, you would. And baby Hitler hasn't done anything yet. But it would still be the right
• 59:00
  thing to do to kill him. The fact that this kind of dichotomy between agency and sympathy and
• 59:09
  condescension and low expectations, you mentioned Gaza. And this is where I see this the most,
• 59:16
  actually, at the moment, is the kind of the lack of agency that the people who claim to be
• 59:25
  most sympathetic to Palestinians are giving to Palestinians and to Arabs, that all the agency in
• 59:31
  their eyes lies on the Israeli and American and like Jewish side of things. And there's an enormous
• 59:39
  I feel condescension and low expectations from from Arabs. The, after in the aftermath of
• 59:48
  October 7th, you were reporters having, you know, there was this brief sort of social media snafu
• 59:52
  right because you were doing a show in Canberra and I went back and looked at the headlines,
• 59:59
  actually, I'm not that bad. I don't think it was that bad. The Twitter fell bad. My mind just
• 1:00:03
  carried my mom the day before. Yeah, exactly. My mom had just died. And this was an example, I think,
• 1:00:08
  of you being brave enough to say something that you knew could be misrepresented.
• 1:00:16
  It's probably tired and not I didn't have my guard up enough. No, I think it's good that you did
• 1:00:21
  that because you know what? There was a brief shit fight. A lot of people thought good for him
• 1:00:26
  and then it went away. Yeah. At the time, it felt, you know, as people bring you, you have to make
• 1:00:31
  a statement. It's just going to ruin your career. And I went to visit the Groundhog Day cast,
• 1:00:36
  which of course includes a very diverse cast and I have this part of why I'm so sort of furious,
• 1:00:44
  not furious. The part of why I'm sort of a bit heartbroken by progressiveism in at times.
• 1:00:51
  Of course, most people are beautiful most of the time. I'm just talking about, I do want to
• 1:00:55
  clarify. I'm talking about the emergent, the Gestalt of social media. I'm not saying you,
• 1:01:02
  all my friends who care on Twitter are fuckwits. I'm just saying what emerges is unhelpful, I think.
• 1:01:08
  And anyway, we can get back to that. But it emerges from them being fuckwits, but I'll allow it.
• 1:01:12
  Well, but by, you know, yeah, people don't take responsibility for the the Gestalt. It's very
• 1:01:20
  hard for a person. I just said one thing. Yeah, but you were one of 900 and now that boy's killed
• 1:01:26
  himself. So, you know, that's your fault. Actually, no, no, it's just me. No, no, you've got to take
• 1:01:30
  responsibility for that. If you're, if you're a part of a mob that drive someone, drive someone to
• 1:01:34
  suicide, you have to take it on board. And no one ever does. I've never seen anyone. And I've,
• 1:01:38
  you've seen them. You've seen people kill themselves after parlance. I've never seen anyone come back
• 1:01:42
  and go, I did the wrong thing. Ever, ever, ever. I'm sure it's happened. I just haven't witnessed it.
• 1:01:47
  But I'm, I kind of, I almost don't want to talk about that because I have to clarify what I said
• 1:01:54
  on stage, which I've not done. I was misquoted and I've never clarified what I said on stage.
• 1:01:59
  Well, do you want to? Not really, because then that will be taken. It's just another chance.
• 1:02:04
  Right. But basically, just to be clear, all I was the, I don't, I don't want to re-litigate.
• 1:02:10
  No, no, no, no. I was just commenting on a protest. Yeah. And I was just commenting that maybe if
• 1:02:14
  those protestors knew the emotional impact their protestor would have had on, on some Jewish people,
• 1:02:19
  they might not have done it. That's all I said. And I said, the reason they didn't know is because
• 1:02:23
  we're in internet bubbles. And they might not have known. I was just doing a sympathy thing for the,
• 1:02:28
  because the protestors got in trouble. And I was being sympathy. I'm like, they probably didn't know
• 1:02:32
  how it was going to land. And isn't it a pity they didn't know? How could they have known? Well,
• 1:02:37
  if they weren't in a bubble, they would have known a bit more. And they still might have done the
• 1:02:41
  protest. And if they knew and they understood how Jewish people were feeling at that particular
• 1:02:46
  moment, this very soon after October 7th, no, a month later, I absolutely respect people's
• 1:02:53
  right to protest. I'm not sure in this particular situation was the right moment, but, but,
• 1:02:59
  and I'm absolutely, absolutely supportive of my friends who protest on behalf of the Palestinian
• 1:03:04
  people. But I also know for a fact, because I have asked many people that there is a lot of
• 1:03:12
  information. Those people don't have about the situation. As some of my Jewish friends don't
• 1:03:18
  have a lot of information about the plight of the Palestinian people. I mean, without going into
• 1:03:23
  this, what I took from that and it's going back to our conversation about the meta conversation
• 1:03:28
  was that and you and I, because I, you told me directly what you had said, like the day after
• 1:03:37
  or something like that, I sent you when you were trying to ask for advice. How do you respond
• 1:03:44
  to it? And what I now, I only just thought of this, but what happens before you'd come out
• 1:03:48
  as a, as a raging blood-loving scientist? Yes, a raging, I could be an 87 might if you,
• 1:03:56
  you know, because Arabs are so much as well. Oh, yeah, of course. But the, um,
• 1:04:01
  what happened, I think, was that you were trying to have a level two meta conversation about the
• 1:04:05
  conversation. Yeah. But people don't want to hear that. Well, they misunderstand it. They don't
• 1:04:09
  understand what's being said. What you were saying was at a time like this, it's worth acknowledging
• 1:04:17
  the limitations of our own epistemology. Yeah, it's worth carrying the
• 1:04:22
  epistemic bubbles. Right. And it's worth, which it deserves me right for me in this
• 1:04:26
  tutorial, because I'm being a wanker with work. But it's worth understanding that certain symbols
• 1:04:32
  like the star of David or a Palestinian scarf or from the river to the sea or, you know, whatever
• 1:04:39
  it might be, they're going to land in potentially toxic and misunderstood ways. So just like,
• 1:04:46
  let's check ourselves a little bit and have as much empathy as we can. And that conversation about
• 1:04:50
  the conversation was misunderstood as being a conversation within the conversation. I think it was,
• 1:04:57
  I think there had been such a porosity of people saying, look, let's just be careful of our
• 1:05:05
  Jewish friends and how they're feeling right now in the same way that I would say without a doubt,
• 1:05:11
  without a fucking doubt if someone had got on stage with a star of David
• 1:05:18
  and had upset some of my Muslim friends, I would have said the same thing without a doubt.
• 1:05:24
  Because what I'm interested in is how the epistemic bubbles in which we live affect our ability
• 1:05:30
  to extend our empathy to our own communities in really important on the ground, damaging ways.
• 1:05:37
  So I want people to do everything they can to to agitate for peace and in the world. And
• 1:05:46
  if you have thought about it and you've gone, if I do this, you know, I'll be showing support for
• 1:05:51
  these people or whatever and then that's all fine. I would just ask us all, caution us all to look
• 1:06:00
  at something like America, ask whether we want to be there in 10 years, do we want, do we Australians
• 1:06:06
  want in this imperfect, really sometimes problematic multicultural democracy that is nevertheless
• 1:06:14
  almost as successful as the planet has ever known, notwithstanding increasing economic uncertainty,
• 1:06:21
  but still it's still one of the better versions that has ever been. How do we make it better?
• 1:06:29
  And if we genuinely want to make it better, not just want to show our friends that we think
• 1:06:37
  the same as them or not just get our feelings out, our very fair, very real feelings out.
• 1:06:42
  But if we're actually progressives, do you want to keep yourself in such a bubble that you
• 1:06:53
  hurt your neighbor in an effort to improve the life of someone on the other side of the world,
• 1:06:59
  the mechanism of which is elusive to me anyway. Because what you, your heart says I want to stand
• 1:07:08
  up for people X and that is fair. And your brain says if I do this, it might help them in some way,
• 1:07:14
  I find it hard to measure. But your brain should also say, oh, and by the way, I just made a person
• 1:07:22
  in my own community feel incredibly hurt. And when they told me they were hurt, I said I don't give
• 1:07:27
  a fucking fuck about your feelings. Then you need to consider whether you are actually being progressive,
• 1:07:33
  whether you're actually being ethical. So the activist sort of progressive response to that.
• 1:07:38
  And just put aside Gaza for the moment because I think it's a bit too egenerous, the case of
• 1:07:42
  Israel, but talk more generally about women's rights and gay rights and the rights of people of color
• 1:07:47
  and so on, and anti-colonial thinking and white privilege. The retort to that would be
• 1:07:55
  that historically, yes, you can point to America right now and say isn't it terrible that they're
• 1:07:59
  that divided? But historically, we've only ever gotten anywhere by fighting. And then once the
• 1:08:05
  people who are doing the fighting win, smug lefties like you and me consider around going, well,
• 1:08:12
  you know, why are they still fighting? They shouldn't be fighting. They should be understanding each other.
• 1:08:15
  And the fighters say, well, yeah, but you only have the ones rights and the gay rights that you can
• 1:08:20
  only have because we fought. There's two assumptions there. One is this is like that. That 2024
• 1:08:28
  division in America or 24, 24 division is can be informed by history. That's an assumption might
• 1:08:35
  be right. And the other is that the the aggressive angry fights are the things that changed it in
• 1:08:44
  history. Now, the first one, I think this is unprecedented because I think there's always been
• 1:08:51
  tribes. There's always been fighting, but I think the thing I'm pointing to, which is epistemic
• 1:08:56
  bubbles caused by nefarious algorithms, maybe nefarious isn't the word damaging algorithms,
• 1:09:02
  we have been hacked by. Right. And we can talk about that. I'm only talking about.
• 1:09:07
  Right. But one could concede that without conceding the point about activism more broadly. You
• 1:09:13
  could say that there's something unique, uniquely pernicious about the way that we're having
• 1:09:17
  conversations, but you could just fall back and say, well, then we should have conversations that are
• 1:09:21
  more civil. And yes, we should stop being uncivil to each other. We should stop being unepithetic.
• 1:09:26
  But we have to draw a line in the sand and say, you're not going to pass laws about what
• 1:09:31
  teachers can teach children about gay people or something like that. Right. And that's the line
• 1:09:38
  in the sand that I'm going to draw. So this is where being metter is difficult because
• 1:09:44
  this is where the metter becomes not very useful. But firstly, I would say, I'm not a very good
• 1:09:51
  progressive. I'm not a very good activist. I've had my moments. I do my things, but mostly I
• 1:09:57
  want my kids to be happy and I worry about my siblings and the various
• 1:10:01
  turmoil and troubles of my life and the people around me. But
• 1:10:07
  I would hate any listener to think what I'm saying is you activists have to settle down.
• 1:10:12
  I am tone policing, by the way, because tone is unbelievably impactful. But I just want to make
• 1:10:21
  it clear. I think I'm not someone saying, let's slow progress down. I'm saying, let's speed
• 1:10:29
  progress up by getting better at it. So that's my thesis. That's the metter. If 10 years of
• 1:10:37
  shouting at people on Twitter, increase the distress of trans people, then what are we doing?
• 1:10:45
  Does it reverse public support for gay marriage? Exactly. Which is declining.
• 1:10:52
  10 years of telling white people their white supremacists, let's not even litigate the truth
• 1:10:58
  or otherwise of that claim. If you say, if you're a white person, you've benefited from historical
• 1:11:03
  white supremacy, therefore deep down your racist, whether you feel it or not, that was interesting.
• 1:11:09
  I found that interesting, a proposition. Okay, let's, what happens if you tell the entire
• 1:11:15
  world's population of Western white people that they are implicitly racist by benefiting from
• 1:11:21
  a white supremacist society? Maybe it will, I don't know, maybe you'll shift something, maybe
• 1:11:25
  we'll make things better. When's the check-in? I suspect when you tell people they are something
• 1:11:33
  that they don't recognise in themselves, you isolate yourself from them. I suspect that
• 1:11:39
  won't, history won't read that as a win as a bit of rhetorical, as an idea. And let's not pretend
• 1:11:45
  that's grassroots. That's, that's an idea that came out of, you know, highfalutin, postmodern
• 1:11:51
  papers. I thought it was interesting. I can take on board that, but most people won't,
• 1:11:57
  won't like that. That's not a nice feeling to be told when you're not a racist, that you're a racist,
• 1:12:02
  when you don't feel like a racist, you know. So let's check in on that. How's it going? How's
• 1:12:06
  all this going? My argument is, and it's actually genuinely a question, I obviously feel a bit
• 1:12:12
  anxious about it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be talking about it, but is it working? Is the way we go
• 1:12:18
  about life? I mean, the answer to that could be, no, it's not working, but the reason why it's not
• 1:12:24
  working could be refusal. Well, if we're about a portioning blame and agency, it doesn't matter
• 1:12:31
  who it's going to be. If it's not working, it's not working. Right. But the activist's position
• 1:12:34
  could be, of course, it's hard to get people in positions of privilege to recognize the unjustness
• 1:12:42
  of the status quo. Like, you know, the old saying, it's very hard. It's very hard to get, it's,
• 1:12:46
  it is hard. The question is, is it impossible or is the version we're doing the best? Sorry.
• 1:12:55
  Yes, the, the old line is it's very hard to get someone to understand something that their
• 1:13:01
  paycheck depends on them, not understanding. Yeah. And so, I take your point, there may be,
• 1:13:07
  and obviously I believe there are better ways, but it may also be the case that, you know,
• 1:13:15
  white people are just really resistant to actually grokking how much easier it has been for white people.
• 1:13:21
  So, so, so the theory is, let's tell them more that they're racist, tell them for another 10
• 1:13:27
  years, and maybe that'll crack them. I suspect what you're going to lose, lose, lose. You're going to,
• 1:13:32
  because, because the, so, so to the other point I made, let's litigate history and the great
• 1:13:40
  progress we've made in the last 100 years and analyze, and I'd like to read a paper on this.
• 1:13:44
  I was thinking about this the other day. I'm sure it's probably more than a paper. There's probably
• 1:13:48
  books about it, and I haven't seen them, but to what extent is progress correlated with people telling
• 1:14:00
  people that disagree with that they're evil? Like, is it mostly people saying, you're evil,
• 1:14:09
  be better, or is it mostly people going, you and I are the same? Let's be brothers. You know,
• 1:14:17
  what is the, I mean, we know the answer to that, because we know the societies. Except it's not all
• 1:14:21
  the latter. There is, but, but it is mostly the latter. I mean, in the absence of the latter,
• 1:14:28
  nothing happens, but yeah, yeah. I mean, my general diagnosis or analysis would be that you start with,
• 1:14:35
  with the tortures and the flame throwing, and then the moment you've got people's attention,
• 1:14:39
  you pivot to empathy. I mean, that's what the most successful civil rights movement in the history
• 1:14:46
  of the world. Well, I was actually thinking of gay, of gay marriage. I would say that that's
• 1:14:51
  probably the most, the fastest pace of change in terms of people's attitudes, in terms of actually
• 1:14:57
  shifting the center of gravity of people's attitudes would have to be between the 70s and the 2020s,
• 1:15:03
  like that half century of gay rights. And it happened initially through violent protest in
• 1:15:09
  rejecting, you know, police crackdowns and so on. And then the moment the gay activists had
• 1:15:16
  everyone's attention, they said, actually, we want equality. We want the same things that you all do.
• 1:15:22
  We want to not just be discriminated against when we're renting an apartment. We want to be able to
• 1:15:25
  go and see our loved ones in the hospital. We want to be able to share our states and so on.
• 1:15:29
  Leaver. And so, and there's, it's so complicated. And I just sometimes think people listening to
• 1:15:38
  this just might be like, what are they fucking talking about? Like some people don't really
• 1:15:43
  understand the premise that I think I have inherited from the last few years, which is that
• 1:15:50
  social media as a place of discourse is doing genuine macro damage, right? Anyway, I was just
• 1:15:55
  thinking to people even know what we're sort of talking about. Well, why don't you talk to that
• 1:15:59
  hypothetical person who's in your brain? Because I'm not sure on what level you think that they
• 1:16:03
  wouldn't understand it, because I do understand it. But you want to just articulate some,
• 1:16:07
  you think that some progressives are like, we're getting it done, man. And I'd love to be wrong.
• 1:16:15
  I'd love my read to be wrong. But I think America, the politics of America,
• 1:16:23
  yeah, I don't think that they think that they're winning. But I do think that they think that if
• 1:16:27
  they laid down their arms, they would be completely trampled by the right. Yeah. So I think it's
• 1:16:34
  much more causal than that. I think the far left and the far right have created each other and
• 1:16:39
  we'll keep each other getting more and more extreme. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. And because
• 1:16:44
  it just, just look at it in the micro, you know, just, just look at it. As I think about your,
• 1:16:51
  your, your, your Thanksgiving dinner, you know, like, how does it go? Like, social media is a
• 1:16:59
  dehumanizing mechanism. That's the main problem because actually we don't talk to each other.
• 1:17:04
  People are much better than they are on social media. People are really great. But I look back
• 1:17:11
  before I quit Twitter and look at, you know, when Trump was getting in the first time and Brexit was
• 1:17:16
  happening, I was just spitting, I mean, it was well crafted, funny, not sweary. But I was just
• 1:17:22
  throwing my anxiety out into the world about people who'd vote for, oh, breakfast, Brexit. I say
• 1:17:29
  breakfast every time I mean, Brexit. People who, like, it wasn't cruel or personal. It was just
• 1:17:37
  useless, just useless signalling my rightness. I was just signalling, I'm doing it now, you know,
• 1:17:44
  probably. I hope I'm not just. I don't think you are. I don't think you are because even,
• 1:17:48
  because there are ways of signalling one's rightness. And obviously I would have this bias being
• 1:17:52
  a podcast host. I'm just being right. That's my, my, my bias would be that there is no substitute
• 1:17:59
  for a long form verbal conversation. But that there is, you know, there's art perhaps. But there's
• 1:18:05
  no, there's no way that 160 characters is going to, you know, you can't add up all of the tweets
• 1:18:11
  into the same duration as the conversation that we're having and yield the same
• 1:18:16
  out. Because there's a dynamic that happens in live conversations.
• 1:18:20
  And just the psychopathy of social media engagement, if that's where most of our engagement is
• 1:18:27
  happening, it has to be bad. And what is interesting? And if you're, if you think I'm,
• 1:18:35
  and I am criticizing progressives, because I feel like they're the people I can talk to or we
• 1:18:39
  are the other people I can talk to. What blows my mind is how clearly people can see the corrosive
• 1:18:49
  impact of social media and internet bubbles on the other side. Yeah. And they can see it in
• 1:18:54
  everyone. So most people go, oh yeah, look at QAnon. Those people are driven bonkers, but they
• 1:18:58
  can look at J.K. Rowley and go, look how she got, you know, as she said that and then they
• 1:19:03
  part on her and it's all become, she's been radicalized and they can see, they can see,
• 1:19:09
  I don't know, she's been radicalized, but you know, you can see the storm that's come out of
• 1:19:13
  the psychopathy of the interaction that just wouldn't happen offline. That's right. And you can see
• 1:19:20
  your, some choose your thing that you think has gone a bit bonkers. If you're a progressive who's
• 1:19:26
  mostly like up for everything, choose one thing where you can, you can see it right. But the
• 1:19:31
  closer it gets to home, the, but not I'm not contributing. I mean, we're all like that though,
• 1:19:35
  aren't we? Well, I've tried not to be, and I've corrected my behaviour. Right. By way of trying
• 1:19:41
  to, but I just mean, what a, what a grown up. I just mean across a large number of metrics,
• 1:19:45
  we think that we are special and that other people are, we are the hero and victim of my own story.
• 1:19:52
  I mean, that's what is one thing that I found really interesting about Megan Phelps,
• 1:19:55
  Roper, and she's a witch trial piece of work. That's a joke. She's very, very special.
• 1:20:01
  The witch trials of J.K. Rowling was the her linking of the her experience of the Westboro
• 1:20:06
  Baptist church with the witch hunting of, of J.K. And like the fact that even just,
• 1:20:13
  you know, this may be slightly tangential to the question about social media, but the fact that
• 1:20:17
  the cast members of Harry Potter disavowed J.K. Rowling on the basis of her activism,
• 1:20:24
  you know, when you know that if they sat down with her and had a cup of tea and they talked
• 1:20:31
  for half an hour about their concerns and she talked about hers, I'm sure they would
• 1:20:37
  have found some comment there. But they're just under pressure to perform because not only
• 1:20:41
  are we compelled to perform, we're pressured to perform. Like my, I have been, I'm on some big
• 1:20:48
  black list of celebrities who haven't said the right thing about Israel and Gaza. Like as a list,
• 1:20:54
  I love it when there's lists of Jews. That's always good. It's good. It's good time. You know,
• 1:20:58
  you're on the right side of Israel. Instagram, a friend of mine that's on a thing called Zionists
• 1:21:03
  in music or something. Someone's done a list of, just a list of Jews. Just a genuine list of
• 1:21:11
  Zionists in the media being alive, having, I mean, they must be really young. I think they're just
• 1:21:19
  we grew up in the shadow of the Second World War. Imagine being like, oh yeah, I'm going to put
• 1:21:23
  another Jew on this list. No, I just think they, I think they can play a language game and they go,
• 1:21:27
  it's not about it. It's a list of Jews. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a list of Zionists.
• 1:21:33
  They're not on the Jew. It's a list of them. They made them right on their own.
• 1:21:37
  No, no, no, no, no. They think that they, they think that there's a very clear delineation
• 1:21:42
  between Zionists. But actually, I don't, there were Jews who aren't Zionists and there are
• 1:21:45
  Zionists who aren't Jews. Therefore they're not antisemitic. I actually, I actually, you know,
• 1:21:52
  I wrote a song many years ago called The Peace Anthem for Palestine, right? And you wouldn't
• 1:21:57
  put it out there now. And I suggest you don't go look it up. But it was, it was, you know,
• 1:22:05
  back when I was edgier. And so I, and off the back of that song, I got unbelievable feedback,
• 1:22:15
  even back just this is early YouTube from Jews and Muslims. Really passionate feedback
• 1:22:23
  because the song was just like, the lyric went, we don't eat pigs. You don't eat pigs.
• 1:22:27
  It seems it's been this way forever. So if you don't eat pigs and we don't eat pigs,
• 1:22:31
  why not not eat pigs together? And it's like it was deliberately obviously trying to explain
• 1:22:36
  why, why dark comedy is comedy. I won't go into that. And it was obviously not laughing at the
• 1:22:42
  thing. It was just pointing out that they're the same religion within 600, you know, 600.
• 1:22:47
  Now this is a small difference. It's just a, sort of a bit more salty guy changing the rules.
• 1:22:55
  Yeah. And but they like almost and falafel on both sides. Yeah, well, and covering of
• 1:23:00
  hair and cutting off four skins and not eating pork and so on and so forth. And I just,
• 1:23:07
  you know, I was in my phase of writing, you know, my atheistic phase. But because of that,
• 1:23:13
  I started hearing and I was amazingly compelling to hear from Jews and Palestinians.
• 1:23:21
  In that time, there was, you know, I can't remember what year it was, but there would have been
• 1:23:24
  an invasion around then. And I, it started a journey. What do you mean an invasion?
• 1:23:30
  Like there would have been, there would have been some violence. But there would have,
• 1:23:35
  yes, there would have been some violence. It's a pretty safe bet if you're talking about the
• 1:23:39
  Middle East. There's going to be some unrest. And it started a, I'm, I'm sort of an auto
• 1:23:44
  data act in everything I do. I haven't, I couldn't write a good thesis on that region of the world.
• 1:23:51
  But I'm, I'm 20 years in to being pretty interested. And I find it very, very hard to,
• 1:24:04
  um, even if I felt no fear that I was going to get called disgusting things on the internet,
• 1:24:14
  which I pretty much do because, fuck, I'm honestly,
• 1:24:18
  but even with no, none of the shaming pressure or the cancel culture pressure of social media
• 1:24:24
  and of being a public figure and an easy target and all that, I would still find it hard to talk
• 1:24:28
  about. I mean, we've talked about it a bit. And, and I, I, it's very hard. I mean, of course,
• 1:24:33
  it's hard. It's the most complicated and intractable problem in the world.
• 1:24:37
  Incredibly shocked. By the way, and I'm anti-religious, right? So I don't like Islam. I don't like
• 1:24:42
  religion. I think it's terrible. I mean, Judaism sort of religion, but it's sort of culture and
• 1:24:47
  Islam sort of religion and sort of culture. But Islamism is like the worst thing ever. There's like,
• 1:24:53
  like, do we have to say that? Like, Islamism's like a really, really fucking bad set of ideas,
• 1:24:58
  right? It's really bad. And like, fundamentalist Christianity is too. And especially,
• 1:25:02
  I was back in the day when they used to like, match to the Middle East killing people, right?
• 1:25:06
  It's all bad. And there's all this geopolitics. And once I don't, I don't, I refuse to be told
• 1:25:14
  that I have to waive a flag about something that I've been reading about for 20 years. And I'm
• 1:25:19
  really, really feel sick about sick. You know, if you told me today, right now, that you have
• 1:25:25
  your genie, and all I have to do to never to have peace in the Middle East is slaughter my own
• 1:25:31
  children and then kill myself, I would do it today. I mean, if of course you would.
• 1:25:36
  That's a good utilitarian. Would you? Yes. I would hate it, but I would do it. If you could,
• 1:25:40
  really, you could absolutely convince me that the sacrifice of me and my children, of course,
• 1:25:45
  I would kill to take you too, bro. I don't know what would you not. I'm just thinking
• 1:25:50
  of that thought each moment through. It's not very nice to my kids. I'm not. Sorry,
• 1:25:54
  violence. Sorry. I love you. Yeah, I suppose I would. Of course, you'd have to. If you could save
• 1:26:01
  a million lives by the sacriot, of course, can we just get to ethics then and atheism and the
• 1:26:05
  cosmos from here? Or do you have a message? Yes, but I just want to say the idea that I
• 1:26:11
  am like I'm being morally judged for not being online and making some sort of statement of
• 1:26:19
  adherence to a binary, to some version of some fucking child's view. I just will not have it
• 1:26:30
  and fuck you. Fuck you for putting me on a list and saying I deserve to not sell tickets to my
• 1:26:36
  beautiful shows that I work hard on because I didn't say what you want to hear. What a gross
• 1:26:41
  world. You don't want to live in that world. You do not want to live in that world. So anyway,
• 1:26:45
  that's my little bit of like grueh. I mean, they want to live in that world if they get to write
• 1:26:50
  the list. We all kind of do. They'll be on a list. They'll be on a list. No, they don't. Any
• 1:26:58
  natural fact, the kind of Voltairean like idea of like I object to what you say, but I shall defend
• 1:27:04
  to my death. You're right to say it's not very popular. No, it's just never been very popular.
• 1:27:10
  Like I think we smaller really, really, really, really hard. We yeah, I know, but I mean,
• 1:27:15
  it's quite a recent. The online list is pretty recent. And it's been an elite group of mainly Scottish
• 1:27:24
  philosophers who were like, you know, here's a good idea. And then the places that took on that
• 1:27:28
  idea became fabulously wealthy and industrial revolution and and all of that.
• 1:27:33
  You would slavery and like, yes, like, yeah,
• 1:27:36
  creative democracy and that's right. That's right. I mean, it's a good set of ideas.
• 1:27:39
  The idea that we should test our beliefs against the veracity of the world.
• 1:27:43
  Absolutely. Great ideas. You know who hates those ideas nearly every
• 1:27:47
  percent of people everywhere. Yeah. It's like, it's like, it's really good man. They are,
• 1:27:53
  there is privilege in all of this, but I want that privilege for everyone. That's why I've
• 1:27:58
  written my book and you know, like, I want everyone to to be able to have these conversations.
• 1:28:04
  And not everyone has the time or resources, but that's the goal is for more and more people to
• 1:28:09
  be able to think more and more mentally about their ideas. I talk a lot about in my family.
• 1:28:16
  I don't talk a lot. We have discussed it with my kids, Metacognition. There's people who have
• 1:28:21
  thoughts and then there's people who have thoughts about their thoughts. Yeah. And it's really
• 1:28:24
  important to have thoughts about your feelings in all this, Tim. Fuck my feelings.
• 1:28:29
  Fuck all your feelings. Feelings are for art and storytelling as well from your family. Feelings
• 1:28:36
  are for the decision making. No, no, no, I'm not in playing that. I'm just here. I mean, I'm
• 1:28:39
  interested because feelings go watch Matilda in my, yeah, but that's my book. My book will make
• 1:28:44
  your cry. This is what this is what I'm getting to. I mean, I when my kids were little and I'm
• 1:28:49
  sure I've told you this before, you know, we would listen to when I grow up and I had the book
• 1:28:54
  of when I grew up and I would read it to them in the evenings before they went to bed. And
• 1:28:59
  there's so much heart and there's so much like it really tugs at the heartstrings, especially I
• 1:29:05
  think if you're a parent of young kids, the idea, you know, there are so many beautiful lyrics in
• 1:29:11
  that song and in the whole musical about the way that children think about grown-upness. And it
• 1:29:17
  made me reflect on my own grown-upness and made me reflect on, you know, the sort of, I don't
• 1:29:23
  know, it allows me to, it allowed me to live vicariously through the eyes of my children better.
• 1:29:28
  And so you're a very big brain and frequently people who have
• 1:29:48
  galaxy brains can find like regulating their emotions or expressing their emotions difficult,
• 1:29:56
  but you obviously have this amazing outlet professionally and creatively. What's the link?
• 1:30:05
  Well, I don't have trouble expressing like, I don't know, I just, I think one of the reasons I'm
• 1:30:14
  passionate about critical thinking is because of how much I love. Like, I think it seems
• 1:30:21
  intuitive to me. And as I've got older, I've realized that's not that to care about whether or not
• 1:30:28
  your feelings are accurate and to check your ideas and to, you know, is part of being more loving,
• 1:30:39
  is being more expansive, right? So we all want to, we all want to put kindness, you know,
• 1:30:45
  Twitter bios. But kindness is not, it's easy to be kind and empathic to people you already agree with,
• 1:30:53
  or people you already condescendingly feel sorry for. It's really hard to be empathic for people
• 1:30:58
  that say things you don't like, but that's the job, that's love. And I feel really like right now
• 1:31:05
  theory about this. I just, I know how people like me sound and it's boring and it's privileged
• 1:31:15
  but it's like I really, really, I love storytelling and I like telling stories about
• 1:31:26
  the reason we make art is, is empathy. We are, we makers of art and that's everyone,
• 1:31:33
  everyone who ever tells an anecdote or a story or draws a picture. We, we spend time often
• 1:31:39
  trying to put ourselves in other people's shoes. I'm going to write a script. I'm going to,
• 1:31:43
  what would it be like to be a woman with a coercively controlling husband? I'm going to write her
• 1:31:47
  and I'm going to write this six-year-old girl who's brilliant but parents are cruel and I'm going
• 1:31:51
  to write this guy who's stuck in a time loop and I'm going to write songs for him and I'm going to
• 1:31:55
  write a TV show about a guy who accidentally gets his brother's girlfriend pregnant and and I'm
• 1:32:04
  going to sit in all those things, all those people, all the, a road worker on the Nullabor
• 1:32:10
  and indigenous, I'm going to sit in all those people's experience and I'm going to slip into
• 1:32:16
  their shoes and then I'm going to invite the audience in to slip into the shoes that I've
• 1:32:21
  built for these people and the audience is going to sit with all these people and and so art is
• 1:32:27
  one of the many mechanisms by which we say look it's not all about how you feel there's other people
• 1:32:33
  who have another set of experiences you know and and maybe that's the connection maybe I think
• 1:32:39
  it's all the same maybe I think that doing the work to decentralize yourself from the world to make
• 1:32:46
  sure you're thinking outside your bubble to have empathy for the people you find the hardest
• 1:32:52
  to have empathy with maybe I think this is all the same thing slipping on other people's shoes.
• 1:32:56
  I mean I think what's nice about art that I'm jealous of you for and jealous of artists
• 1:33:03
  for is that it's almost another matter above the matter conversation right it's where you don't
• 1:33:11
  have to tell people to be empathic towards other people who they don't agree with because the art
• 1:33:19
  if it's good is so universal that it obviously it transcends any difference and resonates with
• 1:33:26
  everybody because everybody has been hurt everybody has been little everybody has been belittled
• 1:33:31
  everybody has been you know full of themselves everybody has felt ripped off everybody has pined for
• 1:33:37
  something everybody has felt tenderness everybody has felt you know it's a common experience yeah
• 1:33:41
  and he always that's right and the it's the the performance of when I grow up at the royal command
• 1:33:53
  performance do you remember that from four little girls doing well I think it's the I think it's
• 1:33:59
  the cast sorry the year that are opened on the west end when it won all of the Olivier Awards
• 1:34:04
  there was one of these big royal performance type things David Williams was there and you know
• 1:34:09
  and there was this beautiful I think it was a compilation I think it was when I grew up and then
• 1:34:15
  also the the other numbers sort of matched together into like this big six-minute thing that
• 1:34:21
  now has a Brazilian views on YouTube which I should play for people in here actually if they
• 1:34:27
  haven't heard it um do you were you there do you remember it no I wasn't there no
• 1:34:33
  is it do you remember the it's fabulous yeah do you remember the Olivier Awards
• 1:34:39
  yeah what was I like that was one of the better nights in my life yeah that was a beautiful night
• 1:34:45
  there's a bit hectic afterwards but um after so you get the awards and that was all great because we
• 1:34:50
  won we broke the record award and um then afterwards you're thrust into a sea of people and that
• 1:34:57
  you lose your friends and you don't get to talk to who you want yeah and it's like as close as I
• 1:35:01
  ever get to you know but then there's this moment where you're spat out into the streets of
• 1:35:07
  coven garden and Sarah and I looking pretty good actually we were looking pretty sharp
• 1:35:13
  you know tipsy but we didn't have time to get it wrong just good looking as a Charlotte's
• 1:35:16
  fuller racist exactly that's right and we walked through the streets past the Matilda theater
• 1:35:21
  to the coven garden hotel cobblestones and cold and it's just that was big were you holding a statue
• 1:35:28
  yeah yeah holding it I'll leave you out yeah yeah was that a beautiful night when I don't often
• 1:35:34
  I mostly couldn't recall that sort of thing it just is a blur but that one I've really really
• 1:35:38
  clearly remember going this is okay this is a yeah I'm allowed to be I'm allowed to be a little bit
• 1:35:45
  um I'm not very good at letting those moments happen but yeah that was a good one was that a transition
• 1:35:53
  point um I don't know I'm just like I'm always just I'm interested in those moments in life where
• 1:36:04
  well basically what you're articulating there where successful people are able to punctuate the
• 1:36:11
  sort of monotony of their rise in some way by going you know what this isn't actually different
• 1:36:16
  this is something I am this is something like not very many people get this I've had a really
• 1:36:24
  good time but I'm not I'm not very good at punching the air and I would I would have like
• 1:36:30
  given my time again I'd punch the air a bit more I'd be like go you um I don't know I always feel
• 1:36:36
  so lucky and like it's fragile and I don't know I like do you sit at the Tony Awards and go I'm
• 1:36:45
  with the Tony Awards the bullshit like I but there are Tony Awards can eat my no no no no no no you
• 1:36:52
  just had the misfortune to be in the same year as kinky boots I know that that classic
• 1:37:00
  yes that was a weird that was a weird one um yeah I mean that's the other trouble with the
• 1:37:05
  awards is you of course you don't want to congratulate yourself too much because then you lose
• 1:37:10
  well and you have to pretend it's a legitimate yeah um I
• 1:37:18
  yeah I've had I've had a lot of really really great times and probably the ones I've shared with
• 1:37:28
  Sarah you know the best ones and um you know but it's tweeter say but they're probably having
• 1:37:37
  kids and stuff overshadows it I mean I think my job man yeah exactly I always think it's it's
• 1:37:45
  like a no annoyingly schmoltsy to talk about kids and family because my honest answer would be
• 1:37:51
  the same as well which is like the most important things in my life are my are my family oh one
• 1:37:56
  of your two twins that's right depending on the week it should be to be toggles back and forth
• 1:38:01
  but the reality is you know it always sounds so phony when a politician stands up there and goes
• 1:38:07
  like you know the the hardest job in the world is being a mom so you know yeah and everyone
• 1:38:14
  applauds because that may be true it's also incredibly common it's also layers an experience that
• 1:38:23
  almost everybody has so like you know a Crimea river what's going to the Chinese winning a bunch
• 1:38:30
  of Olivier Awards yeah you know you know being on the west end for 14 years straight counting your
• 1:38:36
  royalty checks these are not usual experiences these are yeah like it's worth pinching yourself
• 1:38:43
  I'm thinking this is this is weird um you don't have to dwell on that anymore because I also want
• 1:38:48
  to talk about what you think about I don't know the universe and the cosmos and ideas and how
• 1:38:54
  and just do a quick one let's just do a quicky we're gonna have a drink with wouldn't it be good wouldn't
• 1:38:58
  that be nice um famously an atheist faithiest yes have you was that waxed and waned at all in
• 1:39:07
  any way not towards like the dogmas of the book but towards what the hell I don't have things about
• 1:39:14
  I don't have it in me I don't understand the question right I don't understand the question like
• 1:39:20
  what do you mean is there a god do you have any no one's ever defined it like well let me define
• 1:39:24
  if we um in my order in a way that might be interesting to people um the universe is very very
• 1:39:33
  very big and it's full of like lots of things and those things are more unusual than if there was
• 1:39:41
  nothing so it's interesting that it's here it's interesting that with you very hard so far it's
• 1:39:51
  interesting that we're here unbelievable it's interesting that stars that don't have to exist
• 1:39:58
  spewing out all of these elements that then assemble themselves into conscious creatures
• 1:40:03
  crawling around the surface of a rock it's all quite peculiar um therefore so therefore
• 1:40:13
  spend the farting unicorn must exist therefore um I'm with you on it's probably unlikely that people
• 1:40:24
  nailed it two thousand years ago in the middle east but I'm sympathetic to people who go
• 1:40:32
  there must be a cause yeah or maybe not even must be but it's a bit funny yeah it's a bit weird
• 1:40:39
  like but it's just a bit woo the whole thing so so and then therefore maybe I can tune into some
• 1:40:47
  universal consciousness slash love slash guided but now you're just saying words
• 1:40:56
  like such lack of specificity and all of that even a Josh Zeps version of that is just like
• 1:41:01
  yeah so what you're saying is stuff is weird therefore stuff
• 1:41:06
  okay so fine whatever like yes for maybe not maybe the reductionist materialist definition of
• 1:41:17
  things which is that there is nothing else apart from what science but actually the materialist
• 1:41:24
  view the atheist view is kind of the most we work as we just go oh god you like we don't we don't
• 1:41:30
  know yet yeah whereas the the the religious of the sort of materialist there must have been a man
• 1:41:35
  to make it you know there must have been a thing a bit like a watchmaker or a bit like a something
• 1:41:42
  that they're the ones that need a word to create a cause they're the ones who yes they think well
• 1:41:46
  they think what that they think that's precisely why it's reasonable to be religious they think it's
• 1:41:50
  but it's a trouble to be physics doesn't work that you just plug in X and call X God like it just leave
• 1:41:56
  it as X right X the the the primary cause of the universe is X and solve for X working on it
• 1:42:07
  you know a little spinny wheel spinny wheel right not God gods the wrong answer got well if God's
• 1:42:14
  the right answer you have to I always say does he poo like give me one attribute of God that we
• 1:42:20
  can talk about just give me one he answers prayers make me apparently not he he controls everything
• 1:42:27
  I don't know how do you disprove and like it doesn't feel very controlled like
• 1:42:33
  does he poo does he have hair does he have a cat does he like friends does he have a cat
• 1:42:39
  hello give me one attribute that you give me a claim and I'll tell you why I don't believe in
• 1:42:44
  right or why I might believe in it but no one no one's proposed a claim since we got rid of
• 1:42:49
  all powerful all knowing all because since the release of the problem of evil yeah the problem of
• 1:42:54
  evil teleology yeah so I don't know it just feels so it's funny right because one of my
• 1:43:04
  sorry America I'm coming to America coming to my shows I'm not doing comedy but it's always
• 1:43:08
  funny anyway I one of the things I find frustrating about the world I used to see reflected on
• 1:43:18
  social media and stuff before I freed myself is sort of incuriosity like people seem to just want
• 1:43:28
  settle for something that makes them feel good looked after virtuous righteous and it's like oh come
• 1:43:35
  on haven't you wondered yeah haven't you wondered why is rail for hours is rail for now haven't you
• 1:43:40
  have you even gone to look for why people think the way they think or haven't you
• 1:43:46
  like and I know that's really kind of sending because I know people are curious and I'm just
• 1:43:50
  I'm demanding that they're curious you're the one who's who lacks wonder they think you know you're
• 1:43:55
  sorry but that I just mean like in terms of politics and I but but back to yeah yeah I think
• 1:44:01
  it's funny because you could accuse me of being incurious about the prime mover about the maker
• 1:44:06
  because I'm like I don't know that's not doesn't seem very interesting to me to introduce like
• 1:44:13
  hypotheses out of fucking nothing just to go what if it's God I'm like well give me a definition of
• 1:44:19
  God this is a boring conversation as I said when you're doing your um there's stuff therefore maybe
• 1:44:24
  stuff um I said I said therefore Sven the farting unicorns corn farted out the universe it's just
• 1:44:31
  good or you know Kevin the snotty bear who snotted out the universe so they're all fine
• 1:44:37
  they're all placeholders for X but really if you want to talk about religion you have to say
• 1:44:44
  is it one is it one of the you know is it well you don't have to big three you don't have to
• 1:44:50
  and that's no you don't have to the interesting thing about wonder and curiosity is
• 1:44:55
  you don't need God for one know you check out the place have you I mean you you know
• 1:45:03
  you know so Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman and Richard Dawkins and mind you mine right
• 1:45:09
  at yours your right the they these are all people who have great at um you know what Dawkins
• 1:45:15
  would call unweaving the rainbow in his beautiful book uh unweaving the rainbow which is about
• 1:45:20
  the poetry of science and um there's an interesting move that often gets made nowadays which is not
• 1:45:27
  by religious people but by people who are interested in spirituality with a small s uh more
• 1:45:32
  colloquially defined right so you might be talking about your crystals and your tarot and your
• 1:45:39
  astrology and your manifestation where you know if you think about your vision board then you
• 1:45:46
  know the universe will conspire to bring the secret into your life and and from their perspective
• 1:45:52
  the reductionistic scientific account is is stripped of wonder is very matter of fact and their
• 1:46:01
  position is like there's no harm in having no I get that a sense of I get that I'm not really
• 1:46:07
  agitated by that I I it is in my nature to find non-specific language
• 1:46:14
  unsatisfying for such beautiful amazing stuff I think if you go the universe is wonderful
• 1:46:22
  therefore or tarot cards I'm I think you missed some of the wonder like you know the universe is
• 1:46:29
  wonderful therefore a chi it's like well okay so the problems well it's become untrendy to
• 1:46:38
  criticize religion it isn't amazing how it's just the thing and then it just went away but I
• 1:46:43
  think it's more important than ever to defend critical thinking and to defend um
• 1:46:51
  applying critical thinking to spirituality because I actually think it's gateway stuff I
• 1:46:56
  I do think it's all connected do you think I would like the world do you think formal religions
• 1:47:01
  are more gateways to irrationality or the woo woo small ways really no and I'd be guessing and maybe
• 1:47:09
  the whole thing's bollocks but don't you think the fact that most people who voted for Trump
• 1:47:16
  so so this is my theory give it to us criticize the great army I think when we get more high
• 1:47:23
  resolution in FMR eyes or whatever in brain scans we will be able to see how our brains
• 1:47:34
  during their elastic phases you know well they're always elastic um I don't need to explain it
• 1:47:42
  neurologically I think if you've spent your whole life subdividing your hard drive so that you
• 1:47:47
  believe things and don't believe them at the same time so if you grew up thinking Jesus is real
• 1:47:52
  announces my prayers but also I'm I'm not gonna step in front of this bus you're basically you
• 1:47:58
  understand that magic isn't real but you believe magic is real and you believe those two things
• 1:48:03
  at the same time right you believe basically in a materialist at universe in every action in your
• 1:48:08
  life but then you have this other program running where everything's magic and I reckon then a
• 1:48:15
  demagogue comes along like Trump and you can hear that he's a slime bag criminal sexist and sort
• 1:48:22
  of believe he's the second coming at the same time you're basically primed to to believe and
• 1:48:28
  not believe to believe two things at the same time interesting I wonder if religion teaches you
• 1:48:34
  to believe two things at the same time and whether that might be bad in and of itself not not to
• 1:48:41
  mention just the evils of radicalization because religion tells you you're special and other people
• 1:48:46
  aren't and that means you can kill them right I mean for some reason I find the the tarot
• 1:48:51
  is a bit of a long stretch no I like I like the theory I don't know how much credence I give it
• 1:48:55
  but I certainly give credence to the idea that credence bitch but I certainly give credence to the
• 1:49:01
  idea that the which is an idea that you didn't come up with so I'm giving credence to myself here
• 1:49:04
  and not to you uh it that the woo woo stuff the manifestation the the my brain can change the
• 1:49:10
  universe and like astrology and stuff like that it gets oh my nerves more than formal religion does
• 1:49:18
  because you only need one bullshit leap to be a believer in formal religion and that is
• 1:49:29
  the creator of the universe wrote a book but for this other stuff you kind of need a whole
• 1:49:35
  jenga puzzle like an an artist of stuff that you have to keep believing in with no evidence
• 1:49:44
  and it may even be worse than the dichotomy that you're talking about leave the framing what they don't
• 1:49:50
  believe like I I think that if we're going to if we're going to solve problems like climate chaos
• 1:49:56
  and save liberal democracy we all have to be roughly on the same page and in order to be on the
• 1:50:02
  same page we need not just empathy but we also need a respect for reason and rationality and
• 1:50:08
  evidence and if you jump at least out of the podcast if you don't welcome to the show get a humans
• 1:50:14
  if you if you jump those because you think that it's cute and fun to do terrible there's there's
• 1:50:20
  there's a better yeah you're untraining yourself I think skills that you need yeah either you believe
• 1:50:27
  that with the introduction of new evidence you will change your mind or you don't and if you don't
• 1:50:32
  believe that it is not just a thing but an important thing as I do that with the introduction
• 1:50:38
  of new evidence I would change my mind about God about about anything if you don't believe
• 1:50:46
  that changing your mind is a virtuous thing to do an important and right thing to do in the face
• 1:50:52
  of new data then with what would you change your mind about the opinion that you've been expressing
• 1:51:01
  about the importance of the need for empathy yeah yeah if I am basing my concern about
• 1:51:12
  progressive discourse on observation that we are making the people we need to seduce
• 1:51:20
  less seduceable right right we are we are sending people that we might have a chance
• 1:51:26
  of bringing it into the the fold of things we care about we're sending it we're turning them off
• 1:51:32
  baby absolutely turning off what are you doing believe that and and if you if you said Tim you've
• 1:51:36
  just got caught up in your own epistemic bubble that's not happening mate it's actually like look
• 1:51:41
  at the positive changes look at me too look at more more people of color in positions of power
• 1:51:46
  look at look at and and actually that that that thing you're observing about people that's just
• 1:51:51
  the fringe I tell me that data I mean you just actually you just you just did a pretty good case
• 1:51:58
  of convincing me that you're wrong because yeah I don't think that's there is a growth of there is a
• 1:52:02
  growth I think the Supreme Court of the United States is like has a greater representation than the
• 1:52:08
  American population of you know people in color and women that wasn't done by shouting at each other
• 1:52:13
  on Twitter that well got Trump elected and he did a bit of it because he nominated a couple of
• 1:52:17
  women yeah well a woman anyway a couple of women in the body of one woman I know I'm sorry I
• 1:52:24
  woman and oh guy the other woman was about yes look I honestly look the worst thing that could come
• 1:52:33
  of you know my I'm pretty sure not dehumanizing the other that's all I've been saying the whole
• 1:52:41
  time don't dehumanize the other I'm pretty sure that'd be better but before we run out of time I
• 1:52:46
  want to know about your book and your trip to the United States and your tours give me the pitch
• 1:52:51
  okay so as a I've given three commencement addresses in my time I've been given three
• 1:52:59
  honorary doctorates among the the shiny things I've and you're a triple doctor I'm a doctor doctor
• 1:53:07
  doctors I'm it's all nonsense but it's an it's an honor and I don't sneer at it but obviously
• 1:53:12
  it's just done that do a little bit it's a stunt but in if you want to get an honorary doctorate
• 1:53:17
  you give a speech and I I've made three of them one at my alma mater University of West Australia
• 1:53:22
  one at another one alma mater is that the word yeah I don't expect good luck um which is
• 1:53:28
  at a county university or West train Academy of Performance Arts and another at a theater school in
• 1:53:34
  England and I was really hoping one of your alma mater was in Charlotteville in Charlotteville
• 1:53:39
  in Charlotteville is a different place you thought I was talking about Charlottesville I was talking
• 1:53:43
  about Sean not but uh I uh I've collated those features penguin around them have collated these
• 1:53:51
  features and I've written essays kind of drawing a line across it and really just building some
• 1:53:56
  scaffold around my general humanist worldview which is very evident in all my work and I I point
• 1:54:01
  to my work and I go this is basically what I think about the world it does have a bit of a
• 1:54:04
  defensive enlightenment values yes great um and so that's coming out not not in America till next
• 1:54:10
  year or later this year I think but it's called it's called you don't have to have a dream advice
• 1:54:15
  for the incrementally ambitious you don't have to have a dream when I heard that title I thought that
• 1:54:20
  it that the point was you don't have to have a dream but if you want to achieve anything in life
• 1:54:25
  you'd better have a dream but it's actually when you realize it's actually you're saying literally
• 1:54:30
  you don't have to have a dream did you not have a dream not nothing like the one I got right I did
• 1:54:36
  what I said in the book be incrementally ambitious work with passion or what's in front of you and
• 1:54:40
  you never know what's going to come out of it I cared very much about making sure people watching
• 1:54:44
  loves labors lost in 1993 cried when the princess fell in love with the guy dressed up as a Russian I
• 1:54:50
  just really really wanted those people to be the princess or the guy dressed up as a rush was the
• 1:54:55
  music writer and I'm deep down I'm a princess dressed up as a Russian and I I wanted that and
• 1:55:03
  well I didn't think this is a stepping stone into something I was this is a stepping stone to
• 1:55:07
  making and when I wrote Matilda I'm like I want the people in straffit upon I even in the Christmas
• 1:55:11
  show of 2010 to love this show and I actually now I do it consciously now I check myself if I'm
• 1:55:18
  like where's this going to lead I go yeah that's not how you do it you just make something good you
• 1:55:24
  know and it gets me in trouble sometimes because I don't think too strategically but it's been
• 1:55:28
  really good for me have you ever heard me bang on about Franklin about sitting next to Frank Langella
• 1:55:32
  on a plane for six hours from L.A. to New York he just shot for us Nixon oh well for which you
• 1:55:39
  went on to win the Oscar and I was sitting next to him on a flight I've been brought out from New
• 1:55:45
  York to shoot a pilot in L.A. and so they were flying me out fancy pants class and I had a I
• 1:55:51
  with I won't bore people again with it but I faced a professional fork in the road at the time
• 1:55:56
  about whether or not to take one television show or whether to do another thing and he said to me
• 1:56:03
  what you just said basically he said look and a piece of advice I can give you is that every decision
• 1:56:09
  I've ever made that was intended to be strategic blew up in my face and every decision that I've
• 1:56:14
  ever made that I did for the love of it has ended up being strategically he said I've just shot
• 1:56:19
  this film where I play Richard Nixon and I it I've been doing on the West end and it was really
• 1:56:25
  of course I knew that I knew it from Broadway but I did on the West end because it started off
• 1:56:30
  off West end like I don't even remember what the theater was where it started but it was like a small
• 1:56:34
  London theater that he did because he because he loved he loved it then it went to the West end then
• 1:56:39
  it went to Broadway then it you know then then then and yeah that was that's obviously
• 1:56:46
  a survivor bias that some people might have an experience of being more strategic and you get a
• 1:56:51
  lot of messages when you're young about setting goals and I'm basically going maybe not yeah but
• 1:56:56
  but you know take advice from someone like me such a load of crap because I'm just an outlier like
• 1:57:01
  you don't this is nonsense there's no way to get I just got lucky and I had some things that went
• 1:57:06
  well like you're much better off take advice from your aunt who's you know got a community choir
• 1:57:13
  and it's true isn't it it's funny I remember watching I think it was Russell Crowe who was at the
• 1:57:18
  Academy Awards and he said you know I just want to speak to all the Australian and New Zealand young
• 1:57:24
  people who are going into the creative arts and I think they might never be able to make it I want
• 1:57:28
  to say to you follow your dreams it really is possible and I was like well of course statistically
• 1:57:34
  yeah I mean of course from the from a podium at the Academy Awards yeah I just want to
• 1:57:39
  spend ten million dollars by the lotto and I just want to say to everyone out there playing lotto
• 1:57:44
  by a ticket I bought a ticket and I've won lotto exactly therefore it's like 17 logical fallacies
• 1:57:51
  but and yes and one of the speeches in my book really does again they're all pretty rationalist
• 1:57:59
  and I hope they're not dampening of anyone's spirits but they're one of them's addressed
• 1:58:03
  specifically to actors and it's basically saying you might think you want this but this is not what
• 1:58:09
  you think it is you know the people I know who are actors who didn't become better than it come
• 1:58:14
  a batch are doing all these things and they're happy to and I know a couple of the most famous
• 1:58:20
  people in the world and it is not to be desired but you do you become a star you'll be fine
• 1:58:26
  but please know that when you don't become a star you'll also be fine yeah and that was the speech
• 1:58:30
  I go do you like the fame well I'm not very famous I like um do you like your level of fame yeah
• 1:58:39
  it has its pros and cons yeah mostly would you be more famous and where would you turn the
• 1:58:44
  dial if you could put it up or down no I don't want to be more famous I'd like to make more work
• 1:58:49
  so I understand the side effect might be more fame I'd like to make a feature that's a hit you know
• 1:58:55
  yeah um and sometimes I feel chippy about people I think have done less impressive stuff that
• 1:59:01
  are more famous but it's so much about looks you know like I look fine but I was never going to be
• 1:59:06
  I'm never going to be one of those people everyone feeds off because that's about beauty really
• 1:59:11
  mostly mostly isn't it really think about all the people well I mean being a hot
• 1:59:16
  throb superstar is but like being on a Kevin Spacey or someone is yeah that's true yeah oh yeah
• 1:59:22
  else there's a Frank flangella it's American fame I don't want that but I do want people to come
• 1:59:27
  and see my shows yeah so that's part of the so what are you doing in this that's what what
• 1:59:31
  I've been doing this thing in Australia and England called an unfunny evening with Tim
• 1:59:35
  mentioned in his piano and it's just part of my journey of like making sure people don't
• 1:59:39
  it's know what to expect from me and it's it's just me and a piano and I'm just playing songs
• 1:59:44
  I'm talking about them and I'm not doing the punchliney stuff because I just think it ages
• 1:59:49
  like if you if you know a punch it's like doing old jokes I know right and I haven't written
• 1:59:54
  comedy songs for a long time but when you say punchliney stuff do you mean punchliney songs
• 1:59:58
  yeah punchliney songs so gaggy songs always you're gonna go with this I'm the ginger or
• 2:00:03
  fuck I love boobs though like the really comedy songs one fuck I love boobs though oh such a good
• 2:00:09
  song that is a proper clever song but you know but you know that that's true the test of time
• 2:00:15
  but so I'm not doing my comedy material particularly but I I'm playing you grow on me like a
• 2:00:20
  tumor and like like all my songs are quirky and I talk about them in in my right you talk you
• 2:00:28
  but it's not stand up so it's a bit of whimsy a bit of comedy a bit of comedy it's just that
• 2:00:34
  it's just me and a general a bloody lovely night at the theater Timothy all I can say is that
• 2:00:40
  people have really really really responded to it here so and I haven't played in America for eight
• 2:00:46
  years who are you peeps over there say I was peeps everywhere like bookish yeah you know
• 2:00:53
  lots of nerds lots of like quirky people and like people of all different shapes and sizes
• 2:00:59
  and autistic people and that like pretty geeky I was gonna say where do they get tickets but then
• 2:01:05
  I realized that Google exists and they can just go to America sold out shows tickets in Austin
• 2:01:12
  and Minneapolis and some of the great but yeah I've I've I've toured there quite a lot and I was
• 2:01:18
  like why isn't it selling out and I suddenly realized that the theater's like two and a half
• 2:01:21
  thousand seats so I was doing fine right I'm doing they're not all but I'm doing kind of big-ish
• 2:01:27
  rooms and I'm really excited but yeah when you don't do it very often it's sometimes hard to get
• 2:01:35
  the traction again but this is my reentry into the market yeah speaking of gaggy songs you're
• 2:01:41
  reminding me of there are two points to this question one is do you remember going on television
• 2:01:49
  talk shows for the first time because as a lover of the format of television talk shows and I used
• 2:01:54
  to love you know John Stuart and they met and all those guys Conan I know you went on Jonathan
• 2:02:00
  Ross quite a lot which is a big British talk show and then the second part of that question was
• 2:02:05
  gaggy songs the song that you did for the Christmas special of Jonathan Ross for puffs in a piano
• 2:02:12
  no over not that one which was also a good legendary don't want about it's one never went to air
• 2:02:17
  oh what do you know what do you know Jesus there's for an Easter special oh Christmas Christmas
• 2:02:22
  yeah I'd never seen it before I want to I want to play it for for people do you want to take
• 2:02:30
  do you want to take it up oh no my sister does what it says on the tin
• 2:02:49
  so you're I used to play that at festivals with my band that was really good as a festival
• 2:02:53
  to you in the whole audience did you ride it for the Jonathan Ross Christmas special
• 2:02:57
  right and then you you're so at least you got some because they didn't they didn't air it
• 2:03:01
  they didn't air it because I totally defend people and then I do the rest of this conversation
• 2:03:05
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• 2:03:11
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• 2:03:17
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• 2:03:22
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• 2:03:28
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