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Short Stuff: Do people move in predictable directions? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. So
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: with short stuff, it is short stuff. Why don't you
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: like short Stuff? You're bringing me down? Okay, I felt sure,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: you're going Bill Murray there, I don't remember him saying
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: you're bringing me down? Yeah, I think that was what
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: he's saying in the Star Wars when he sang the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: words the Star Wars, you're bringing me down? Remember that
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: far Uh we are not talking about that though, we're
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: talking about directional walking. And this is from our old
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: colleagues at house stuffworks dot com and uh not our
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: old colleagues, but we used to use cracked all the time.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I used to love that site. Second to Jack O'Brien days. Yeah,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I guess Jack O'Brien is now our colleague and has
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: been for a while, so we're one degree removed. Check
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: out the Daily Zeitgeist if you don't all ready great show. Yep,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Jack and Miles in the game. That's right. What else
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: you've been on that show? I haven't twice. They're gonna
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: ask you a third time before they asked me. I
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  Speaker 1: would love that. I even had those guys a movie crush.
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  Speaker 1: I know, right, that's okay, this will get back to
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  Speaker 1: them somehow, somehow, some way. So Chuck that we're not
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  Speaker 1: talking about daily zeitgeist today. We're not. We're talking about
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  Speaker 1: something entirely different, which is the direction that people tend
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  Speaker 1: to move in. That's right. And uh, generally if you
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  Speaker 1: walk into like an amusement park or a store, and
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  Speaker 1: we'll talk about shopping kind of towards the end. In general,
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  Speaker 1: in the United States, people tend to go in and
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  Speaker 1: move to the right to a place and are indeed
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  Speaker 1: subtly or not so subtly steered to go to the right. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but from what I understand, it's like a amplifying our
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  Speaker 1: natural tendency to move to the right, at least in
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  Speaker 1: the United States and in Great Britain Japan. Um, we
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  Speaker 1: need to hear from you because we are being told
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  Speaker 1: that you guys tend to move to the left. Like, say,
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  Speaker 1: when you enter a grocery store, do you, guys, and
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  Speaker 1: this is a question to you in the UK and
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  Speaker 1: in Japan, when you enter a grocery store, do you
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  Speaker 1: move to the left or do you move to the right? Really,
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  Speaker 1: stop and think about it and then email and let
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  Speaker 1: us know. Okay, because supposedly you guys moved to the left,
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  Speaker 1: we moved to the right. And there's some pretty interesting
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  Speaker 1: explanations for why. Yeah. I mean, I can say anecdotally,
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  Speaker 1: and I think you can agree with this. If you
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  Speaker 1: go to London or something and you're from the United States,
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  Speaker 1: you're gonna be bumping into people a lot because they
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  Speaker 1: also tend, I think, to walk down the left side
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  Speaker 1: of like a hallway as opposed to the right side.
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  Speaker 1: Isn't that correct, like maniacs? Yeah? Uh. And when you
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  Speaker 1: look at sports fields, like the way you run bases
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  Speaker 1: or race a car or a horse or a or
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  Speaker 1: RaSE your legs, that is done in a you know,
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  Speaker 1: human Yeah, I've just never uh, that is counterclockwise. And
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  Speaker 1: they've you know, they found that when people walk up
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  Speaker 1: to like a track to go running, they instinctively moved
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  Speaker 1: to the right, which is counterclockwise and jibes with how
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  Speaker 1: sports are done. Right. But then put differently, that's when
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  Speaker 1: you're entering like a field of action from the outside.
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  Speaker 1: If you imagine the field of action being bounded by
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  Speaker 1: a circle. When you enter that field of action, you
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  Speaker 1: enter the circle you move to the right, which takes
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  Speaker 1: you counter clockwise. But if you're already in the circle
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  Speaker 1: and you decide to just start taking right turns, you're
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  Speaker 1: actually moving clockwise, which is brain busting if you think
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  Speaker 1: about it. Okay, I literally did not understand that until
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  Speaker 1: you just said it that way. I I. That's because
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  Speaker 1: it was really poorly put. Yeah. I did not get
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  Speaker 1: it at all, because I was like, doesn't matter like
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  Speaker 1: which way you're facing to begin with, but if you
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  Speaker 1: continue to take rights, is what the key? Because you know,
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  Speaker 1: three wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make
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  Speaker 1: a left. Is that how it goes, especially if you
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  Speaker 1: say it like that. Uh. They've done some studies over
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  Speaker 1: the years because they thought handedness might have something to
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  Speaker 1: do with it, and this was in the Association of
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  Speaker 1: for Psychological Science is where it was printed. It sounds,
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  Speaker 1: but they it does. They did find though, that lefties
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  Speaker 1: tend to prefer the left side and right he's like
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  Speaker 1: the right. And they even studied stroke patients who lost
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  Speaker 1: use of their dominant hand and found that over time
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  Speaker 1: they had to reverse a natural bias to favor what
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  Speaker 1: was their original dominant hand, with with which way they
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  Speaker 1: would go and these studies were very very important in
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: helping later determine how to best share a TwixT. Bar
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  Speaker 1: I was wondered, what was going coming up there? Do
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  Speaker 1: you you want to take a break real quick? Sure? Okay,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna come back and keep talking about the direction
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  Speaker 1: people tend to move, All right, Chuck, So you kind
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  Speaker 1: of said it. One thing that has been used to
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  Speaker 1: explain why people move in certain directions UM has to
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  Speaker 1: do with possibly has to do with the side of
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  Speaker 1: the road that you drive on. And yes, anecdotally, if
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  Speaker 1: you're in America and you're walking down the hallway, you're
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  Speaker 1: probably walking on the right side, your right side, yes,
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  Speaker 1: not your left side, because then you would probably bump
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  Speaker 1: into a lot of people. That's just kind of how
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  Speaker 1: things are laid out. So it does make sense that
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  Speaker 1: we would kind of move to the right. Um. And
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  Speaker 1: the reason why it would be significant if you know,
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  Speaker 1: people in the UK um go to the left in
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  Speaker 1: a store, where in America they moved to the right
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  Speaker 1: is because humans are animals, And it turns out there
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  Speaker 1: there aren't any geographical differences in migration direction among wild
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  Speaker 1: animals non human animals. UM, they tend to just go
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  Speaker 1: the same way. Wherever every member of their species goes
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  Speaker 1: anywhere in the world, that's the direction they'll go. It's
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  Speaker 1: not like if one, one group of the species of
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  Speaker 1: gophers lives in North America and they go to the
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  Speaker 1: last and then the African family of gophers moved to
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  Speaker 1: the right when they migrate, That's not how it goes.
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  Speaker 1: They'll all all gophers move, say, clockwise instead right. And
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  Speaker 1: these patterns that are generally based on aid from the
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  Speaker 1: wind if you're a bird, any kind of uh weather
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  Speaker 1: weather pattern like a solar pathway maybe. Um. The interesting
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  Speaker 1: thing in that we uh as far as clockwise, Like
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  Speaker 1: I've never really stopped to think why clockwise is clock
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  Speaker 1: one o'clock didn't go the other way? But it's based
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  Speaker 1: on the sun dial, And it's based on specifically a
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  Speaker 1: northern hemispheric sun dial, because that's the way the sun
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  Speaker 1: will cast in the northern hemisphere. If it was based
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  Speaker 1: on a southern hemispheric sun dial, then the clock would
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  Speaker 1: literally you know, the one and the two and the
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  Speaker 1: three would be to the left of noon. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: just calling it clockwise kind of begs the question, you know,
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  Speaker 1: like it's a human constructed direction. But we it seems
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  Speaker 1: like the most natural thing in the world because not
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  Speaker 1: only is it called clockwise, it's counter clockwise, which makes
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  Speaker 1: it seem radical and in opposition of the natural order
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  Speaker 1: of things to move left word rather than right word right.
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  Speaker 1: The only thing weirder than seeing a clock that would
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  Speaker 1: be laid out in reverse would be to see a
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  Speaker 1: base pop player hit a ball and run to third base.
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  Speaker 1: That would be very, very strange to my brain, would
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  Speaker 1: be especially if somebody was timing with the stopwatch that
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  Speaker 1: was running counterclockwise. I wish Japan did that, because Japanese
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  Speaker 1: baseball huge. That is huge. That would be so cool
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  Speaker 1: is if they just ran in the opposite direction and
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  Speaker 1: that was kind of like their thing they could. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: intramural games between American MLB teams and Japanese teams would
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  Speaker 1: be a total mess, but it'd be super entertaining to watch.
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  Speaker 1: And then you've always got the one guy that just
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  Speaker 1: runs straight past the picture towards second depending on I'm
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  Speaker 1: just going there and depending on whose rules you were
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  Speaker 1: playing like, that person would always be out because you
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  Speaker 1: just have to throw the first base or third third base.
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  Speaker 1: They'd also be a double specialist. I guess. Um. One
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  Speaker 1: way this can come into play those in architecture, because
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  Speaker 1: architects like to have fun, and that if they're designing
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  Speaker 1: something that they want to make you feel sort of
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  Speaker 1: either ill at e is or just sort of get
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  Speaker 1: your neurons firing in a different way. They can sort
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  Speaker 1: of drive you left in the United States out of
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  Speaker 1: the bat and put things of more interest on the left.
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  Speaker 1: Because and it's you know, it's pretty subtle. It's not
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  Speaker 1: like some radical ship when you walk in you're like,
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  Speaker 1: oh my god, what's happening. But you know, moving people
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  Speaker 1: in a different direction counter to what they usually move
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  Speaker 1: can can make your brain do different things. That's pretty neat.
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  Speaker 1: I love that. Um. That's if you want to like
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  Speaker 1: stimulate people in a weird way and make them slightly uncomfortable.
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  Speaker 1: In grocery stores and retail stores where you want people
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  Speaker 1: to feel totally comfortable so they want to stay long
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  Speaker 1: and spend lots of money there, you want to do
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  Speaker 1: the opposite. You want to kind of go with the
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  Speaker 1: natural flow, and we've done We've talked about this extensively
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  Speaker 1: in videos think other podcasts about how they lay out
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  Speaker 1: grocery stores to basically I hate to use the word
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  Speaker 1: manipulate you, but manipulate you into you know, shelling out
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  Speaker 1: as much cash as possible. And a big part of
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  Speaker 1: that is funneling you to the right and then placing
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  Speaker 1: things strategically in that counterclockwise motion that they expect you
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  Speaker 1: to move through the store in. Yeah, it's I'd never
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  Speaker 1: think about it, even though we've talked about it a lot,
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  Speaker 1: But I can't think of a single grocery store I
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  Speaker 1: go to where the produce and stuff isn't on the right,
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  Speaker 1: and eventually you wind your way around and on the
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  Speaker 1: left are like the frozen foods and ice cream and
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  Speaker 1: stuff like that. And the idea is that if you
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  Speaker 1: go in and go to the right and there's all
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  Speaker 1: the kind of junk food, you might just get that
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  Speaker 1: and leave and not er go not spend as much money.
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  Speaker 1: I probably choose airgo wrong. But uh, what they do
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  Speaker 1: is they wind you around to the right, where you
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  Speaker 1: buy like your produce and the things that you need,
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  Speaker 1: and then on your way technically on your way out
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  Speaker 1: of that counterclockwise circle. That's when you're gonna do the
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  Speaker 1: impulse buys and say like, oh well, let me have
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  Speaker 1: those those chips in that ice cream or that whatever,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: that whip cream that it's cool whip that ate straight
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  Speaker 1: out of the bucket. Well, it's just because it's so
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: so good, so good. Remember the peanut butter cool whip combo.
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  Speaker 1: No oh yeah, yeah, I told you. I got on
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  Speaker 1: that right after you told me it's so dangerous though. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, we can't keep cool ap in our house.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's gone in a matter of a day and
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  Speaker 1: a half. We just can't do it. Like we'll get
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: it for for Thanksgiving, for like pumpkin pie, and I
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  Speaker 1: always get an extra because I know that the pumpkin
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  Speaker 1: pot is not gonna have anything, because Emily and I
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  Speaker 1: are just sneaking in there like a spoonful at a time.
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  Speaker 1: And my daughter doesn't know yet. When she's introduced to that,
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  Speaker 1: it's all over because the freezer is low enough, right,
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  Speaker 1: and you have plenty of stools, handy yeah, and fingers
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  Speaker 1: or spoons. So now that the way you just describe
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  Speaker 1: the grocery store, now they think about it. Every grocery
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  Speaker 1: store I've gone into. The pharmacy is the last thing
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  Speaker 1: to your left when you go in, and there's basically
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  Speaker 1: no way to get directly to it. You have to
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  Speaker 1: go through other stuff and then they give you the
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  Speaker 1: opposite At my public is that right, the pharmamer she is.
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  Speaker 1: It's the first thing on the right when you walk in.
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  Speaker 1: I'm thinking publics too. I guess I'm I'm in a
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  Speaker 1: different design or a different dimension. Maybe there's a barren
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  Speaker 1: sting effect going on. Weird. Yeah, so, um, you got
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  Speaker 1: anything else about the way people move? No? I mean
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  Speaker 1: this last thing is kind of funny. They did a
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  Speaker 1: test in a store in Philadelphia where they tried to
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  Speaker 1: funnel people to the left by putting up like palettes
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  Speaker 1: and all these big things that block your way, and
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  Speaker 1: people were like literally crawling over palets just so they
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  Speaker 1: could go to the right. It's it's pretty funny. Philly Strong,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that's right. So since Chuck said Philly Strong, everybody, of course,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that means that short stuff is out. Stuff you should
• 12:43
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