Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Premium: Ask Me Anything - Fitness, Ukraine, Gender Ideology & A.I.

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Premium: Ask Me Anything - Fitness, Ukraine, Gender Ideology & A.I. · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  G'day, this is an abridged version of the episode that you can hear in full by signing up
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  G'day, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. And at all you
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  apostrophe OLE Substac, even though it's not old, because this is a brand new feature
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  that we've just rolled out. The ability for you to ask at any point in time any question of me
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  on and ask me anything page within the Substac. Totally free. If you're a member of the community
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  on Substac, are we fucked? Josh writes Adam. Hello Adam. He says I'm not normally a doomer,
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  but Trump and the populists and the endless culture wars bullshit and the splintering of
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  social media into camps that can't even agree on basic facts. All have me worrying that Western
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  civilization is in inexorable decline, acrimony and conflict. What if Trump wins again? What if
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  a lunatic like RFK Jr. does? Is there any hope? Question mark, question mark, exclamation mark,
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  writes Adam. And see if you join our Substac, you get to socialize with upbeat people like Adam
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  and others. The list goes on. No Adam, I'm just having a joke. I'm having a laugh. Look, I share
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  your pessimism sometimes, but you know what I always think to myself at every stage in human
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  history. There's good reasons to think that everything's fucked. My father was born in a refugee
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  camp in Switzerland during World War II in 1943 and he still had kids. I mean when his mother was
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  getting pregnant, she was a Jewish Polish woman while the Nazis were rampaging across Europe
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  and she still had kids. I don't know whether she intended to have kids or whether she just liked
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  fucking and you know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't talk about my grandmother's sex life that way.
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  Hi Nana, but you know she did and so she had them squirted them out. They were there. She wasn't
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  ringing her hands going, oh I don't know, should I you know use some whatever kind of contraceptive
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  prophylactic is available in 1942 in occupied France. She didn't ask herself that and if she did,
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  there was no point because she couldn't get her hands on one clearly since I exist. So that's
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  all one way of saying don't worry about it. There's always reasons to think that everything's going to
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  hell. I suppose at some point in history will be right and things actually will be going to hell
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  and there'll be someone like me saying ah people have always thought things were going to hell
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  and you know I'll certainly have egg on my face when the end does come and during Armageddon,
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  Adam will be typing away on my substacks saying you told me that I shouldn't worry about it because
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  your grandmother's was a whore and I'm saying that's not what I was saying. I didn't say that
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  about my grandmother. I just said she had kids nonetheless even in dark circumstances,
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  darker than the ones we're in now. So Adam thank you for being part of the community but stop
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  rubbing my face in my past words as the world implodes. I have better things to do during Armageddon
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  Adam. Like probably have sex myself I would have thought but I don't know what I'd do it during
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  Armageddon but it wouldn't be it wouldn't be this. I mean it wouldn't be answering
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  answering Adam's negative nelly questions. Andre writes how do you stay sane in the context of
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  the culture wars? Oh this is a similar. This is a similar question. Even when I try to write
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  Andre and instinctively tread a moderate line, Andre says I'm constantly feeling worn out by the
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  push and pull from the extremes it's exhausting. And then Andre only puts one exclamation mark not
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  two question marks plus an exclamation mark as Adam did. Andre thank you for the question.
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  I think it's I don't I think I don't find that exhausting. I guess I guess some people are just
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  hardwired to enjoy the rough and tumble and some people aren't like I don't really I think what
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  maybe one thing that I have going for me which I try to always remember is it all of these other
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  people who are talking nonsense are just idiots. Maybe what what carries me through Andre I think
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  is my contempt for most people. So I can just it's water off a duck's back I'm too old I have zero
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  fox left you know I'm just like whatever that's fine if you want to go around arguing with each other
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  that's that's all right. I remember Ricky Jave is saying that he didn't mind Twitter when people
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  were hating at him because he just felt like a like a cat with lots of little mice just flicking
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  him around you know just watching him like a or a kid with a magnifying glass on the ants just being
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  like I mean this probably says more about Ricky Jave's god complex and anything else but you know
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  what I mean I don't I think when I was younger I as everybody does especially in their teens and
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  even yeah I guess your teens mainly and when you're a kid assumed that the world was constructed by
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  clever people who put it all together this way because it's supposed to be this way and that
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  someone's got their eye on the shop people are running it you know it's a well oiled machine
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  and then when you grow older you realize with growing horror that nobody knows what the hell they're
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  doing and actually most of the people in positions of power are no wiser than you are the whole world
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  is held together with duct tape and twine and we're all just fudging it nobody's got their eye on
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  the shop at all nobody's running anything we're all over the shop so I think in some ways that can
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  be horrifying but in other ways that can be sort of reassuring you know the culture wars are
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  raging on a lot of people are being crazy and what do I care I've got I got my beer you know zero
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  alcohol beer but still I got my beer I got my salami and that's not a sexual inn you end up
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  about my grandmother that's I mean literally I'm just eating salami and beer you know and as long
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  as this salami and beer I know I'm a getting just yet I don't let my blood blood pressure get to
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  too high over it a shorn writes on the on the sub stack AMA I'm a young father as well how do you
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  approach the gender ideology slash other woke ideas being taught in our schools as truth and what's
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  your approach in parenting regarding screen time I'd love to hear what you think oh congratulations
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  on your little little bugs um screen time I don't I don't care about screens I care about social media
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  I care about algorithms I care about the manipulation of our minds through predictive
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  computer programs so for me screens are fairly immaterial I mean if the kids are doing
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  you know a reading app or a learning maths or something on an iPad it doesn't particularly
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  bother me that they're looking at a screen um I we try not to have them watch TV before
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  school unless there's a special occasion or something and they tend not to watch more than
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  I don't know an hour of TV a day or something like when they get home from school and they want to
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  chill out and I want them to eat some fruit and vegetables we put on ABCME or one of those channels
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  for young kids I don't care I mean what what I am wrestling with is once they get old enough to
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  well we don't let them watch YouTube so that YouTube can't start learning what they like and they
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  can't like start selecting things and have algorithmically curated things offered to them
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  from the YouTube column side column and once they start asking for social media then it's
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  going to be a shit fight because I don't want them engaged in that world of self-judgment and
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  self-comparison and bullying and just the endless interfacing with a system that you're
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  using to kind of curate your own existence in real time instead of actually responding to the
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  real world and living in the real world so that's going to be a problem but at the age of five
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  as my kids are that is not yet a problem as to how do I approach the gender ideology and other
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  woke ideas being taught as truth um I haven't encountered it yet I mean they're only in kindergarten
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  I suspect a lot of it is is online beat ups I think it'll be interesting to see how much of that is
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  is real is is truthful like cause of I of course a stir when I said on a recent episode um I think
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  that my one of my guests was asking like aren't all humanities or all professions
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  irredeemably woke and can I name a profession oh no it was it was professions dominated by women
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  she was saying are there any professions dominated by women that aren't extremely woke and I
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  said well what about teaching and lots of you responded like holy shit teaching is super super
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  woke and I don't know what I feel about that because I agree I know what you mean that like
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  lots of teachers are left wing I don't see in practice amongst my the parents of my you know
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  my friends who are parents I don't see evidence of a lot of uh woke bullshit being pushed on
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  people in public schools I do definitely see it in universities at a college level university level
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  that I've seen in schools yet that may just be because none of my friends have kids older than
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  you know the age of 10 and maybe it maybe it comes thundering through in high school I'm not sure
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  watch this space I will approach the gender ideology and woke ideas being taught in schools
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  the same way I approach everything I mean if it comes if it comes to pass that something that is not
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  true is being taught in school I'll raise it with the teacher and the principal I don't think
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  that's going to happen I really don't it depends what you mean like you know I'm sure there will be
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  kids in our kids class or classes who uh want to switch their gender pronouns for example and if
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  you're the type of person who's going to insist on not changing the gender pronoun and insisting
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  on calling the child by their biological sex that's going to cause a lot of problems now I think
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  that's a mean thing to do so I wouldn't do that I would just call the child by whatever pronoun
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  they want to be called and their parents want them to be called if there's a dispute between the child
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  and their parents you know how their parents want to deal with the gender thing and that gets escalated
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  to a school level or teacher or I mean I'm gonna try not to get roped into such debates that's their
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  business I mean from our perspective I'll teach my children to treat people with respect the way
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  that they want to be treated and beyond that I think everything else is reasonably common
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  sensical and I don't expect the educational system to stray terribly far from that until the
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  children are learning critical theory at university by which point we'll be living in a different
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  world and who knows a juice juice 213 on the substack juice 213 says do you even lift bro of course
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  he does I mean what other question would juice 213 ask except do you even lift bro like what's
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  your method to stay in shape juice 213 says do you track any fitness activities where any smart
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  devices what's the first hour of your day look like I do lift I lift twice a week during the pandemic
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  I decided that I was either going to get fat or I was going to get fit because I was spending too
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  much time sitting around in the first year of the pandemic eating ice cream and watching Netflix
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  and apparently that is not conducive to wellness so I was actually doing a kind of almost a I want
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  to say bootcamp but when my fitness trainer hears me use the word bootcamp he gets very angry
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  he flies into a furious rage it looks like he's gonna beat me because not a bootcamp it was just
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  a 12 week intensive program of weight training and diet and I lost like you know 20 kilos
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  in about three months so like 50 pounds and then I just kept it up not through intensive aerobic
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  exercise I hate breaking sweat I hate to hate having my heart pump and like tasting blood in my
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  mouth that's not fun nobody ever had fun running a marathon you know it's not fun stop pretending
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  that running's fun so try and make it a thing I like lifting things I enjoy that I like the feeling
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  of my muscles working out and so that's my only method to stay in shape and then also with the other
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  the other revelation there was downloading one of those apps where you enter all of the food that
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  you eat and getting an actual understanding of how many calories are in things and what macro
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  nutrients are in what things so that was eye opening I mean the fact that a large bowl of pasta has
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  way more calories than a large steak was eye opening so I was like I'll just have the steak I mean
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  where would I pull up so then you know expanding the amount of calories that I want to consume
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  on the things that I actually enjoy rather than just cutting out extraneous filler calories that I'm
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  not like that I'm not enjoying anyway that was all part of a kind of a pandemic awakening pandemic
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  era awakening for me do I track fitness activities with smart devices I don't I kind of like to I
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  feel like I'm on the precipice of getting I don't know a smart watch or something I feel like I
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  want to and what is the first hour of my day look like terrible terrible shameful appalling the
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  ignominy of it is embarrassing and I shudder even to a confess that I usually have to wake up from
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  an alarm or from a child who is coming into my room because he or she is awake it's usually a
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  and then I roll out of bed I get them food I if it's one of the two mornings that I'm working out
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  I will go to the gym and if it's not I usually have a podcast to record or something else to write
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  or something to record or something to do and I don't have time to focus I don't have time to
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  meditate I don't have time to be mindful I don't have time to just self-care you know I just
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  really lack the time for self-care I'm a love so maybe someday I will conquer that juice
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  213 and tell me this juice 213 if you have any tips for how I should track my fitness activities
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  or what the first hour of my day should look like given that you're named as a juice 213