Today we have a guest!! Juan Carlos Pineiro - the creator of the Re:Mind Mental Model set (and also Taylor's husband) is here to walk us through three examples of doomed scenarios that used 'Second Order Thinking' to the detriment of many! Second Order Thinking is only thinking about immediate consequences and not thinking in the long term. Like when the city of Cleveland released millions of balloons into the air in 1986, the cultural treasure that is the Biosphere 2, and when doctors set out to give vaccines to people who hadn't had them before. Three stories of things that did NOT work as expected! Learn more about the Re:Mind card deck at https://remind.coach/ and follow Juan Carlos in Instagram @readjuancarlos - https://www.instagram.com/readjuancarlos/
Today we have a guest!! Juan Carlos Pineiro - the creator of the Re:Mind Mental Model set (and also Taylor's husband) is here to walk us through three examples of doomed scenarios that used 'Second Order Thinking' to the detriment of many! Second Order Thinking is only thinking about immediate consequences and not thinking in the long term.
Like when the city of Cleveland released millions of balloons into the air in 1986, the cultural treasure that is the Biosphere 2, and when doctors set out to give vaccines to people who hadn't had them before.
Three stories of things that did NOT work as expected!
Learn more about the Re:Mind card deck at https://remind.coach/ and follow Juan Carlos in Instagram @readjuancarlos - https://www.instagram.com/readjuancarlos/
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: Americans, ask not what your country can do for you
>> Speaker A: In the matter of the people of.
>> Taylor: State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not.
>> Speaker A: What your country can do for you.
>> Farz: We are recording, we are live, and we are joined by somebody that we'll introduce here in a little bit. Taylor, how are you?
>> Taylor: I'm good. How are you?
>> Farz: I'm good, I'm good.
We are doing a special episode today with one of our number one fans
Well, now's the later part we're going to introduce.
>> Speaker A: So far, so good.
>> Taylor: This is perfect. I have no notes. We're going great so far.
>> Farz: We are doing a special episode today with one of our number one fans. And this is something that other fans should take note of because if you want to be on the podcast, you can by writing to us, letting us know what you're into. And then we have to have a little bit of a sanity check after that, but then we can move on with it.
We're joined by one of our number one fans, Juan Carlos
But we're joined here by one of our number one fans, Juan Carlos. Oh. Is married to Taylor. Hi, Juan. How are you?
>> Speaker A: Oh, hey. I. I wouldn't say I'm one of the number one fans. I think I am the number one fan.
>> Taylor: I think so too.
>> Speaker A: I just want to make sure that that's known to the other contenders for number one, that they really have to show up if they want to unseat the number one fan. I've listened to every single episode at least once, if not more than once. I wouldn't say that that's, like true for everything, but I'm pretty intense on my doom to fail.
>> Taylor: Sometimes you'll be listening to something and I'll be like, are you listening to me? And you're like, yeah. I'm like, that's so cute. Thank you.
>> Farz: Juan is definitely a top contender for our one and only autographed Doomed to Fail poster and soon to be album that Juan himself will have to produce and then we can sign it for him. So we are joined limited edition hot merch.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: Super limited. Super limited by necessity.
Doomed to Fail brings you historical disasters and failures
Taylor, do you want to go ahead and introduce the show?
>> Taylor: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We bring you historical disasters and failures and I am Taylor, joined by Fars and Juan Carlos. Welcome.
>> Farz: We are here. So we decided to do something a little bit different this episode, which was having Juan on and he's going to tell us the story and then Taylor and I were going to be the captive audience, whereas usually it's one of the other. And so that's kind of the direction we're going to take it today. So hopefully you all enjoy.
This story is going to talk about both historical disasters that are doomed to fail
Is There any banter related items we should go through?
>> Speaker A: I think the only thing that's probably valuable, at least from my end, is noting that I am massively into mental models. I've been writing and talking and now building my own app and card deck with them. So this story is going to talk about both historical disasters that is very doomed to fail and also backed up with the models that have created the conditions for those disasters. So it's a mixture of those two things, which ultimately I think is sort of the thread that I'm wondering is like the right way to needle through. Hey, these are how models and frameworks for how to live really affect you individually and personally. Hey, these are the reasons why things kind of got screwed up sometimes. And this is a way to utilize them to essentially overcome or hurdle what other people have failed to do or failed to acknowledge before things went awry.
>> Farz: Love it. I love it. And I don't actually. That's very on brand. Yeah, no, I'll call it out as well. I'm actually holding a. The cards that Juan has generated Rebind, which also will have an app or has an app currently, I can't remember which. Juan, I don't know your topic. I know that you posted a bunch of ideas to us a while ago in a Slack channel, but you also don't have the memory of a goldfish. So I literally do not know what your topics are. But based on this, I'm gonna guess that there's something having to do with confirmation bias, maybe some dunning through grow effect going on there. I don't know. I. I don't know where you're gonna go with this.
>> Taylor: Swiss cheese is one of our favorites. Let me get my.
>> Farz: You love Swiss cheese?
>> Speaker A: Yes. Swiss cheese models are fantastic.
>> Farz: So there you go.
>> Speaker A: So it. It's none of those, but I love that you have a bunch of the frameworks and those are all in that sweet little deck and I'm glad that everyone's holding theirs. I hope that you're using it and that it's cool and fun and valuable. It's really around it.
>> Farz: It's great. Like what you said, like in the middle of the day, it's like I'm thinking a certain way. Maybe my mood is affected and kind of feel that bubbling up within you and it's like, well, let's pull out a card and like, maybe this is like kind of like a different way for me to perceive what's happening in front of me. It's super useful. So thank you for this Remember when.
>> Taylor: I. Oh, I remember this one. I had the prisoner's dilemma out. Remember when I was like, the moral of that is that you should rat on your friends? And you were like, no, it isn't.
>> Speaker A: That's like. That's the antithesis of what you're supposed to take away from that.
>> Taylor: You're supposed to learn from there.
>> Farz: Well, why don't we. Why don't we get into it, Juan? Like, what do you. What do you have for us today?
>> Speaker A: Sure. So we will.
>> Farz: By the way. By the way, Juan, I'm sure you're a listener, so, you know, we interject with questions all the time, so don't let that throw you. Okay.
>> Speaker A: Does it matter if I go real Dan Carlin at the start? Just assume that.
September 27, 1986, largest balloon release in history takes place in Cleveland
>> Taylor: Hey. All right.
>> Speaker A: September 27, 1986. Cleveland, Ohio. 1:50 in the afternoon. A structure the size of a city block, 250ft by 150ft, three stories tall, sits in public square draped in mesh netting. Beneath it, 2,500 volunteers have spent hours filling balloons with helium. The gold 2 million. They stopped at 1.5 million when the weather started turning. The name of the episode, the road to h*** is paved with balloons.
>> Farz: I love it. I love it. I know this one, and it makes me. I love stories like this where it's supposed to be jubilant and just nobody thought it through to its conclusion.
>> Taylor: I'm very nervous, so I. Balloons ache whenever. Like, if I'm ever holding a lot of balloons, I just don't like it.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Speaker A: So the net lifts, and you're right. Far as. So that's exactly where this is headed. So the net lifts, the balloons erupt upward, wrapping around terminal tower like a multicolored second skin. The crowd cheers. Over 100,000 people are watching. Cameras flash. It's the largest balloon release in history, shattering Disneyland's record from the year before. A world record for charity for 30 seconds and its magic. And then the wind arrives, Right? The cold front gets in there. The balloons don't rise and disperse as planned. They collide with cool air and rain and plunge back toward earth, still inflated, clogging streets blanketing Lake Erie. Shutting down the Runway at Burke Lake or the Burke lakefront airport for about half an hour.
>> Farz: But I'm gonna ask you a question, Juan.
>> Speaker A: Yeah.
>> Farz: Okay. It feels like knowing the weather would be, like, a critical component to the planning process of all this. Like, is it safe to assume that either. Yeah, it's like one or two things, right? Either they knew and they didn't care or they didn't look at all, which likely.
>> Taylor: They obviously don't care about, like, what's gonna happen to the balloons.
>> Speaker A: Right.
>> Taylor: And because the plan is that they just, like, go into the air, this.
>> Speaker A: Is a huge part, I think, of what ends up being a part of the catastrophe ultimately is, hey, what are the second order consequences of these actions? And so a lot of the environmental factors that occur afterward, a lot of the challenges that come from this, I think are a result of essentially saying, hey, we have a day. We're going to do this thing, rather than saying, hey, we can't do this today, because these reasons. Right. And it's not like this area isn't super windy anyway.
>> Taylor: And there is an airport, like, near enough. Right?
>> Speaker A: Yeah. But they, I don't think that they were thinking about it that way in the United Way. I'm sure wasn't necessarily overthinking. Hey, these are all different places.
>> Taylor: 80S thing to do.
>> Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, Hands Across America. This, there's. There's all these big ideas for, hey, if we do this, it'll really show everyone that this is important.
>> Taylor: Across America.
Two men are dead because of these balloons floating on Lake Erie
>> Farz: I'm ask one more question, and then we can get back to your story. Juan, what happens to balloons? Like, do they just go into space and it's like in space forever?
>> Speaker A: No, no, those come back down to the ground blown up. Yeah.
>> Speaker A: Okay, so they, they all come back. So if you have 2 million balloons that went up, they. They come back, they end up in.
>> Taylor: Like, killing fish, I imagine.
>> Farz: Got it. Okay, back to your story.
>> Speaker A: One.
>> Farz: Sorry.
>> Speaker A: Yeah. So in Medina county, at Louise, now Wachowski's pasture, her prized Arabian horses bolt in terror at this descending swarm. They injure themselves on fences. And then on Lake Erie, there's two fishermen, Raymond and Bern Bernard, that they had capsized the day before. Coast Guard helicopters are searching for them. They can't distinguish between the men's bodies from the thousands of rubber balloons floating on the surface. The search is suspended on September 29th.
>> Taylor: Oh, no.
>> Speaker A: Bodies wash ashore days later.
>> Taylor: Oh, no.
>> Speaker A: No, no. So the United Way, of course, you know, they wanted to inspire Cleveland and they planned for months, and they obviously meant well. And then, you know, Raymond's wife sued them for 3.2 million and settled at some later date for some undisclosed amount. Two men are dead because of these balloons. And the environmental effects are real.
>> Farz: And so, yeah, I was gonna ask. Okay, remind me again, so what was this is a fundraiser for United Way? Is that what it was?
>> Speaker A: This is an event that they put on. It's called Balloon Fest. And it was to direct attention.
>> Farz: Okay.
>> Speaker A: Toward what they're doing.
>> Farz: I feel. I feel like they could have also invited Bono to play a gig. You know, they could have done a lot of things to draw attention besides. Besides this.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God. I hate it so much. I'm looking at pictures and it kind of makes you want to. Oh, Guinness doesn't. Guinness doesn't do it anymore. Because they're like, no, you can't do that anymore.
>> Speaker A: Oh, like balloon releases.
>> Taylor: World records. Yeah. World records for balloon releases. Yeah. I really. It really makes me anxious. I just don't like it. I don't like it.
>> Farz: It's kind of pretty. I'm not going to lie. I mean, it is pretty.
>> Speaker A: Yeah. It's a multicolored, you know, balloons in the air. I mean, it's going to be sort of beautiful and majestic in its grandeur, really, that, you know, in that sense, if you got swept up in it. Sure. But then, you know, you have to ask, I think. And this is. This is the mental model. It's called second order thinking. Right before you act, ask, and then what? And then you trace back these consequences so you don't just see the first move, which is letting the balloons out. Everyone's excited. You see the second, third. There's a cascade of consequences as a result. And you have to think about those first, you know, and it's not like the organizers of Balloon Fest didn't have access to this tool. They were smart. You know, they planned for months. They did all of this work. They built a giant structure the size of the city block. They coordinated 2,500 volunteers, but that's a ton of infrastructure to do for a single day. They just never asked what happens after the balloons go up.
>> Farz: Yep.
>> Speaker A: It's not because they forgot, and it's not because they were lazy. It's because they were certain.
>> Farz: You know, they're. They were probably very similar to me, which I just. They probably just thought, it goes into space and it's not our problem.
>> Taylor: These are. Oh, cool. At least it's gonna go to space. Space, space party.
>> Farz: I don't know how air works.
>> Taylor: This balloon is going to make it through the atmosphere.
>> Speaker A: They go on forever. Just like everything.
>> Taylor: Yes. I wonder if could a. I'm gonna look this up. You can continue.
Second order thinking requires doubt. And people don't like feeling that doubt
Could a helium balloon survive in space?
>> Speaker A: No.
>> Farz: Of course. Yeah. I like that. Like, I posed the question.
>> Taylor: You guys. Let me look that up.
>> Farz: You seem so intense whenever you go to the computer. I'm like, she's. She's. On a mission. She can't be stopped anyways. Juan, continue.
>> Speaker A: So it was for charity, right. This was going to save CLE Cleveland's reputation. And I think that certainty is what disarmed the safety mechanism of thinking farther ahead. When you know you're doing good, you stop looking for evidence you might be doing wrong.
>> Farz: That is so smart. That is so. That is like that. I think you can distill 99% of human history into I thought I was doing something good. Like.
>> Speaker A: Right, exactly. So many examples of that throughout. And second order thinking requires doubt. And people don't like feeling that doubt feels like disloyalty to the cause. Right.
>> Farz: Y.
>> Speaker A: So when you're naysaying something in the moment and how much, how many times does this happen in like any board meeting that you've ever been a part of. Right. Or any meeting at all where, hey, somebody says something and you want to agree first before you disagree. And if you have disagreement in certain contexts, you can be very concerned about that perception in those spaces, especially when a lot is on the line.
>> Farz: Yeah, my favorite thing to do these days is really you. You didn't put me onto it necessarily. But once I realized you were digging into mental models, I. I like started like looking into it on my own before you ship the cards and everything else. And, and it's a very common business practice, obviously, but I'm. I don't read a lot of books so I don't know a lot of stuff. But I, I now one thing that I try to do in every situation where like a big decision is being made is a pre mortem. Like instead of, instead of going into it being like, how's this going to work out? It's like, how's it not going to work out? That's actually, that's going to fill more gaps than you're thinking then how it will work out because we'll work out as wishful thinking sometimes.
>> Speaker A: So yeah, 100 agree. I mean, and that I think is like the, the through line for essentially these stories is what could you have done differently? How do you think differently? I think that's the point. And I actually love that you did a lot of research on your own elemental models and the pre mortem is a part of your, you know, now playbook. Right. That's awesome.
>> Farz: It feels like it was like I was looking for things that helped me. Honestly, it was more so just like I needed things to help me think more critically instead of just, yes. Ending myself into decisions that get me in trouble and like, what are the ways I can put a little break on myself? And that was. That was one of them.
>> Speaker A: I think that's the kind of change that most people need, especially right now, where you're essentially force fed information from all of these different angles. And a lot of them, you give permission to have, you know, avenue into you. Right. And so how do you get better about thinking first?
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Speaker A: It's something that I continue to see, and it scares me about the way that we're allowing ourselves to feel first rather than think first, so.
>> Farz: Amen.
>> Speaker A: Yeah. There's a huge. I think that's. It's commendable that you're doing that. And it's important work to continue to tow that line where you're unwilling to just say yes or work without a strategy first.
>> Farz: Yep, yep. No, I appreciate that.
Morgan: How do you get that many donations for a balloon giveaway
How did this all end? I'm sure there's like a. A postmortem to this, right?
>> Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So. Well, so you don't ask. Right. The. After all of this happens, people aren't asking and they didn't ask, and now the wind shifts, these two men drown. And that pattern is pretty much everywhere. And by the end of the day, you're going to see it running through your own decisions. Right. And so, you know, you've already seen it because you've done this not with 1.5 million balloons, not with two men drowning in Lake Erie, but the same pattern, that same certainty. You've planned something, thought it through, tried to help, and watched it go sideways. So, like, in historically for this event versus, you know, how we all live in reality.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Speaker A: This is something that is. It's not because we're careless. It's because you were sure. And here's the question. Yeah.
>> Taylor: Don't understand why. I guess, like, just because it's pretty. It's pretty.
>> Speaker A: Oh, the. The balloons. Yeah.
>> Taylor: Like, I don't. I feel like I'm missing.
>> Speaker A: Fundraiser for Cleveland.
>> Farz: Yeah, it's always something like, I mean, okay, listen, listen. I'm not trying to cast aspersions on any organization here, but why? There was this man. I can't remember what it was. It was something I forgot who was on Ellen DeGeneres show back in the day where they were like, if you guess the answers right on these three questions, then we're going to donate $50,000 to the Breast cancer awareness. And it was like, can you give them the money anyways?
>> Taylor: Who cares? Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah. That's kind of where my head went with this conversation, was like, I don't know. Like, did you have to. It's, like, with fun runs, but it's like. Like, you have K10K. It's like, I know you're trying to give a reason for people to show up, but, like, you just give them money.
>> Taylor: I know. I guess. I guess also, that's like, kids across America as well. Like, you just give me $10. You don't have to hold hands. But. But it's, like, fun to say that you were a part of something that cool and, like, God, I just really feel stressed out thinking about being, like, underneath those balloons, blowing them up, like, one by one.
>> Farz: Wait, Taylor, this was 65, wasn't it? Or 86.
>> Taylor: 86.
>> Farz: Yeah, 86. Okay, so they probably had cash on delivery here, where, like, they were probably mailing checks in the. The donations for these balloons. Or somebody would, like, they. The point had a weird transaction methodology. How do you get that many donations? Like, it's gotta be like a. Somebody shows me your door, and here's your balloon certificate, and then you give the mailman money.
>> Taylor: I think so. I think so. I. I still give $5 a month to Greenpeace every month, because some cute little girl, like, came to my house while I was on maternity leave and asked for $5 a month of Greenpeace, and I gave her my freaking checking account number and routing number, and she came.
>> Farz: I think that same girl came to my house after your house, because around the exact same time that you're talking about someone, also a cute girl showed to my place. I was like, I'll give you whatever you want. What do you want?
>> Taylor: I know. And I like, it was originally like 15amonth, and I was like, I can't. What am I doing? And then so I, like, tried to go on the website and cancel it, and all I could do was get it down to $5 a month. And I was like, fine, you win Greenpeace.
>> Farz: But I'm there. I've been there. Anyway, sorry, Juan, we're derailing this story. Please go.
>> Speaker A: No, it's fine. And. And now both of you pay Greenpeace every month.
>> Farz: No, no, I don't. I actually. I actually did cancel Greenpeace. I do pay Morgan's the disabled amusement park. I still. I still do that. And I do another whatever. I have a few things that I donate to.
>> Taylor: I give Wikipedia $4 a month. I could give them more.
>> Speaker A: Yeah, that's nice.
>> Farz: They don't deserve it.
Don't talk about Wikipedia, Juan. This is what's going to get me canceled
I'm kidding. I love your Wikipedia.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God. Are you kidding? Don't talk about Wikipedia. That Way we need it.
>> Farz: This is what's going to get me canceled. Anyways, back to the story, Juan.
The Cuyahoga river had caught fire twice in 1986
>> Speaker A: Well, so I'm going to head back to Cleveland, but now with the new lens. So it's 1986 and the city is struggling. The economy's depressed, the reputation's tarnished. The Cuyahoga river had caught fire twice. Cleveland was the punchline of American cities.
>> Taylor: Tell me more about the river catching on fire.
>> Speaker A: Apparently, that river had caught fire twice. I actually don't know exactly why it had caught on fire. I assume it's related to the pollution.
>> Taylor: It's hilariously bad.
>> Speaker A: Yeah, there's no bueno.
>> Taylor: Could not Cleveland.
>> Speaker A: Cleveland had a bad story going on and I think they were trying to right the ship. And the United Way comes in and was like, spectacular time. Something will put Cleveland on the map for the right reasons. Finally.
>> Taylor: What does the United Way do?
>> Farz: Yeah, go with Taylor.
>> Taylor: What does the United Way do? Do you know? Is it just like. I don't housing.
>> Farz: I have no idea what it does. No.
>> Taylor: Certainly not the environment.
>> Farz: Rachel's dad listens to every episode and he's lived in Cleveland for a very long time. I'm sure he will write back and tell us why the river kept catching fire, which I will update you all in Slack.
>> Taylor: I want to hear. Yeah.
>> Speaker A: So the United Way decides to do this thing. And the man from the United Way who dreamt this up had been marketing at Procter and Gamble, and he wanted to rebrand Cleveland as cool. And, you know, as an organizer later told Gizmodo, which is much later, Cleveland had cleaned up tremendously and wanted to change their image and by polluting there. Yeah. So there's this balloon release, the biggest ever, and you have a Guinness World Record. And it's all for charity. And they planned it for months. They built this massive structure. They recruited all these people, right? And what they didn't plan for was the weather. And the original release time was later in the day, but a rainstorm was approaching, so they released it early at 1:50 in anticipation of the rainstorm, hoping the balloons would rise before the front arrived. And they didn't. And so this cold front pushed the balloons back down instead of rising and dispersing and eventually biodegrading. Somewhere over Pennsylvania, 1.5 million still inflated balloons descended on Cleveland and the surrounding area.
>> Farz: I love that Ohio was like, well, f*** Pennsylvania.
>> Speaker A: Total. Like, it'll go over there and we don't have to worry about it.
>> Farz: There's some college rivalry there. I'm not even Privy to from that area. That has to do with this, I'm positive.
>> Speaker A: So the airport shuts down for 30 minutes. Balloons are covering the runways. Traffic accidents spiked across the city as drivers were distracted or blinded by this descending swarm. And then in Medina county, you have the horses that panic. And the balloons washed up on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie for weeks. So, you know, it's gross. And coming back from, you know, nature.
>> Taylor: Oh, there was something hilarious. Oh, I think this week a cargo ship that was full of french fries like crashed. And then there was a beach that was like covered in french fries.
>> Farz: So much better. Just like potatoes cook if they stay in the sun long enough.
>> Taylor: How I feel like I would. I could like lay on like a beach of french fries and be quite happy.
>> Farz: I think that's your retirement.
>> Taylor: That sounds awesome.
>> Speaker A: Yeah. So I think the real question is like, what story did the organizers tell themselves? You know, that's the, that's a challenge. The permission they had. And so this is, and I think this is just the, the ending of this story. But it's first order thinking and it's a trap that most of us live in. And this feeling.
>> Taylor: Second order thinking.
>> Speaker A: No, no, the first order crap. Second order thinking is when you saw consequences.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Oh, is that a separate card?
>> Speaker A: No, there's no first order thinking card.
>> Taylor: Okay.
>> Speaker A: Because you don't want.
>> Taylor: You do.
>> Speaker A: Taylor.
>> Farz: Your brain is doing it right now. You don't need the card to tell you to first order.
>> Speaker A: Ouch.
>> Farz: Sorry.
>> Speaker A: Wow.
>> Farz: Wait, no, no, no, no, you're fine. Wait, that wasn't an insult.
You're changing the bias. That's right, you change. Don't we by default, first order thing
>> Taylor: I'm just kidding.
>> Farz: Don't we by default, first order thing, then you need the model to change.
>> Speaker A: That's right, you change. You're changing the bias. Regular default. Just messing around. All right, so we have this well intentioned system optimized for a visible first step and blind to what followed. And so that's, that's the balloon fest.
Eight people seal themselves inside a 150 million glass structure called Biosphere 2
So now let's move on to the Biosphere 2.
>> Taylor: Oh my God. Okay, I'm sorry.
>> Farz: Polishore, right?
>> Taylor: I f****** loved the idea of the biosphere. I thought it was like the f****** coolest thing that you could possibly think of. I'm so excited to talk about it.
>> Speaker A: So it's 1991, the Arizona desert, near the town of Oracle. Eight people seal themselves inside a 150 million glass structure called Biosphere 2. Three acres of and. Yeah, go ahead.
>> Taylor: I'm sorry, I already have questions. I'm only laughing because I'm remembering how much I liked it. Was there a biosphere one. What happened to that one?
>> Speaker A: I have no idea. What happened to Biosphere 1?
>> Taylor: Is it number two or is it also that's.
>> Speaker A: It's the number two.
>> Farz: Okay, that's fine.
>> Taylor: Is Biosphere 1 the Earth?
>> Farz: Oh my God. Yes, of course.
>> Speaker A: So we have three acres of engineered ecosystem under crystalline dome. The mission proves humans can live in a closed, self sustaining environment. A test case for the kind of life support systems that might one day sustain colonies beyond Earth.
>> Taylor: Dumb. Oh, that part's dumb.
>> Speaker A: That was my Dan Carlin.
>> Taylor: No, that was good. I'm sorry.
>> Speaker A: Are you gonna put the sound effects afterwards?
>> Farz: Insult each other by accident? Do you now get how easy it is to happen?
>> Taylor: Oh my God, Fars, I'm sorry that you felt bad for something that he said to me.
>> Speaker A: Now you're making her apologize.
>> Farz: Like perfect gaslighting here. Just like absolute primo gaslighting.
>> Taylor: Oh my God.
>> Speaker A: So the folks in this biosphere, they had everything modeled. A rainforest that pushed against the glass. A miniature ocean, savannah, marsh, desert. It's all under that dome. Agriculture to grow their food. Air recycled by plants. Water purified by natural systems. And the whole goal here is two years of complete and total self sufficiency. And the ambition of it is honestly like staggering.
>> Taylor: Right?
>> Speaker A: They're going to recreate Earth in miniature. And prove that humans could manage a planet.
>> Taylor: Oh my God. You know what it's like? It's like Zootopia. There's like desert land where camels live. And then there's like water animals live in like Waterland and like the polar bear land. So it's kind of like that. Okay, I have another question. Why would you need to do that? Like, couldn't you just be like. What's our favorite of the ways the Earth is and just do that?
>> Speaker A: Well, I think that they were trying to create the entire concept. So they'd say, oh, we can build all of the ways in which we need to exist in this other space.
>> Farz: What was the point of it when.
>> Speaker A: You go to another planet? What's that?
>> Farz: What was the point of it to.
>> Speaker A: To test whether you can live for a couple of years in a biosphere. So that when you go to another planet, right, if you head to Mars, you're going to need an ecosystem to exist. Who's going to build what?
>> Taylor: The biosphere and Mars?
>> Speaker A: Well, currently it sounds like Elon wants to be the first one on that.
>> Taylor: But like someone has to get there.
>> Farz: First with like research this. I don't think Juan was researching botanists on Mars for this.
>> Taylor: I Feel like we should watch bios for later on.
>> Farz: Dude, bio was not bad.
>> Speaker A: I'm all in.
>> Taylor: Is it a Baldwin? Is. Is it polisher and a Baldwin and they.
>> Speaker A: Actually, there's a documentary too about the real thing. Spaceship Earth. Right.
>> Taylor: Oh, fun. I don't know.
>> Farz: Sorry.
Several months in, the crew realized their oxygen levels are falling
Back to the story.
>> Speaker A: So four women and four men entered the airlock on September 26, 1991. The media was captivated. Time magazine ran all these features and the world watched. And the real crisis was invisible and creeping. So several months in, the crew realized their oxygen levels are falling. Not quickly enough to notice day by day, but the instruments showed oxygen's disappearing. Rather than immediately pumping in outside air, which would have violated the entire premise of this experiment, they decide to study the problem. And so after 16 months, these oxygen levels have dropped to well below normal standards, which is 20.9%. And they go down to around 14%. And it's equivalent to living at roughly, you know, 15,000ft above sea level. It's higher than most cities in the world.
>> Taylor: Were any of them dating? They probably are, yeah.
>> Farz: Of course. Obviously. Yeah.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Speaker A: I have no idea.
>> Taylor: Do they smoke cigarettes? Probably not, but maybe.
>> Farz: And then make a lot of appearances in our episodes, don't they?
>> Taylor: I think about them all the time. First, I think that's probably why. And then what were there just like big oxygen tanks outside?
>> Speaker A: Yeah, they have oxygen that's pumping in here.
>> Taylor: Okay, but something's wrong.
>> Speaker A: Oh, but something's very wrong. They're losing oxygen more than they thought they would. And so the, the idea that this thing is going to replenish itself isn't occurring. So the crew's fatigued, they're have difficulty concentrating, they're struggling to perform regular tasks, and the carbon dioxide levels are spiking and you know, some accounts put it at many times the normal of outside concentration. So things are going on here and the ecosystem is collapsing around them. And the morning glories are taking over the rainforest and they're blocking lights from other plants. And invasive ant species are killing off most of the pollinating insects. And most of the vertebrae go extinct inside the dome. And the ocean is turning acidic and still the oxygen's dropped. So finally these tank trucks come over, they start driving up the access road and they pump tens of thousands of pounds of liquid oxygen into the system that was supposed to be self sustaining. So the experiment continues, but the entire premise at that point is over. It's broken.
>> Farz: Can I wait? I think, Taylor, you were going to interject.
>> Taylor: Why do they bring animals? Are they like eating them. No. Are we bringing deer to Mars? Like, why? Why? Why would you bring animals to Mars?
>> Farz: Okay, that question, Juan, before you answer. Because I know, I know you don't have an answer to that. Before you answer. This proves that, like, people back then.
>> Taylor: Like, music peaked, you could do whatever the you wanted.
>> Farz: But that was it. Like, we were so, like. Like, we really needed to, like, do this whole experiment, spend billions of dollars, do whatever it was to prove that humans need, like, an enclosed atmosphere in space with oxygen and, like, food and water. Like, it's like, everybody knows this. Like, why are we doing this? Like, why are we forcing people to have sex with each other when they don't even like each other?
>> Taylor: You know, they definitely don't like each other afterwards, you know? And then, like, what if there's like, one definitely not hot one, or were they all hot? Like, what happens to that guy?
>> Farz: Yeah, well, do you know that. Was that part of your research when you were looking this up? How hot were they?
>> Speaker A: That is a great question. And I have no idea how hot or not hot they were or even what story they told themselves. You know, they were building a closed system and they modeled it and they accounted for the variables. And the ecosystem should balance itself out. They just need to engineer it.
What's the doom failed part about Biosphere 2? Everything went wrong
Right. And the permission is the expertise equals certainty. These complex systems can be engineered like machines. And they treated a living ecosystem like a watch. As if understanding the parts meant controlling the whole.
>> Taylor: Could their family visit them outside of the dome?
>> Speaker A: No, they couldn't leave the dome.
>> Taylor: I mean, like this.
>> Speaker A: They look in. I'm sure they could. I don't know if they did. It looks pretty nice on the inside. Yeah.
>> Taylor: Yeah. I can only find one person. He's not. He's not hot. So I think Marcus be the guy.
>> Farz: So, wait, what?
>> Speaker A: I don't think that's why they were selecting people.
>> Farz: Why actually they're there. So what is the doom to fail.
>> Taylor: Part of this bald guy? Oh, there's one tall guy. There's one.
>> Farz: There's not wrong being bald.
>> Speaker A: What's the doom failed part about Biosphere 2? Everything went wrong, Fell apart.
>> Farz: Oh.
>> Speaker A: What's the doom failed part about looking at the hot guys? That is a good question.
>> Taylor: There's one. There's one, I think standout hot girl and then one standout hot guy. Then there's a bald guy. There's an old short guy.
>> Farz: Jason.
>> Taylor: Maybe they had nice personalities.
>> Farz: Yeah, a lot of us have to develop personalities for. For baits.
>> Taylor: We're not bald yet.
>> Farz: I'm working on it.
>> Speaker A: Do you use the chew? Do you do the finasteride?
>> Farz: You know we're being recorded, Juan. I don't do anything because I'm confident in my baldness.
>> Taylor: Okay. Okay.
Biosphere 2 failed because it treated an open system like a closed one
All right.
>> Speaker A: So back to. Back to the mental model.
>> Taylor: Which mental model am I finding now?
>> Speaker A: So first thing is. No, no, we're remaining. So the mental model remains. Second order thinking. Oh, is about second order thinking.
>> Farz: Gotcha.
>> Speaker A: So we ask, and then what? And we trace the consequences. And the Biosphere 2 team had the tool and they understood the systems, and they should have been better at second order thinking than anyone. And so you have to ask, why didn't they use it? Because expertise created a specific certainty and the belief that they'd already traced the consequences. They'd modeled the system, they'd accounted for the variables. They'd done that second order thinking in advance. Or so they thought. But this is the closed system trap. It's one of the most dangerous ways. Certainty disarms the safety mechanism. A closed system has no exchange with its environment. You can't model it completely. A watch is a closed system. A car engine is a closed system. You understand these parts, you understand the whole. An open system is a complex system. It has feedback loops, it has emergent properties and nonlinear interactions. And small changes cascade unpredictably. An ecosystem is an open system. So is a market, and so is a team. And so is a fam. And when you treat an open system like a closed one, you stop asking, and then what? And you assume you've already answered that question and your model is the answer. And that's what happened in Biosphere 2. They asked, what happens when we seal the dome? They answered, the ecosystem cycles and plants produce oxygen and systems balance. And they never asked, and then what happens with the soil bacteria and how does that interact with the atmosphere over 16 months. And then what happens when the concrete absorbs CO2 at rates we didn't anticipate? And then what it supposed to do?
>> Taylor: Right?
>> Speaker A: They were.
>> Taylor: They figure out what. What, what could go wrong.
>> Speaker A: What could go wrong?
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Speaker A: And they just didn't go far enough.
>> Farz: Guys, I would 100 live here. I would live in a visit.
>> Taylor: My good news was you can visit. We should go.
>> Farz: It's cool. Yeah, it looks really fun.
>> Speaker A: Yeah. Well, now that it's open.
>> Taylor: Well. Yeah.
>> Farz: Is there oxygen in it or.
>> Speaker A: Yeah, they just let that bring your own freely. Now you bring your own oxygen when you walk in. They've closed out all of the air.
>> Farz: So the failure here was really like the Oxygen system broke. And then they were like, we're done. We're done with those masks because we don't know what's going on.
>> Speaker A: No, no. They kept the charade up, but they brought in the oxygen. So they couldn't create a sustainable ecosystem. So essentially, everything's dying in there. The oceans are acidic, so everything has to essentially get pulled in from a resource perspective to be able to sustain, which is ultimately is, like, the opposite of what they had intended. It was supposed to be closed so that they could prove that they could live somewhere without necessarily needing the Earth to supply additional help.
>> Farz: Got it. Got it. Fun. It does look cool. Like, I like. It's kind of my dream life to, like, live in, like, a safe jungle. I could. I could go with this, I guess.
>> Taylor: I get why they need bugs, but I don't really get why they need other animals. Like, I don't get why you need an ocean. Like, water is heavy, and also oceans are salt water. So, like, what's the point?
>> Farz: Well, it's an ecosystem. How are you going to create an ecosystem without the same things you have on Earth?
>> Speaker A: Right ocean.
>> Taylor: But is the way we have on Earth the right way to do it? Yeah. Yeah.
>> Speaker A: Well, it's a valuable question, and I don't think that they ultimately were able to answer whether they could even replicate an ecosystem, period.
>> Taylor: Well, I definitely want to go.
>> Farz: If they just figured out the oxygen thing, do they really have to figure out the rest of it?
>> Taylor: I feel like that's your number one. Do they?
>> Speaker A: Well, they didn't. So the. The microbes were producing CO2 far faster than the plants could convert it back to oxygen, which is why the imbalance occurs.
Concrete absorbs carbon dioxide and converts it to calcium carbonate
And the system was off balance from day one. So they just had mismanaged their thoughts about what would happen, and that mystery stumped them. So where was all the carbon dioxide going? If the bacteria were producing that much CO2 and the plants couldn't keep up, the levels should have been even higher. So something was absorbing it. And that's the concrete. Oh, the unsealed concrete throughout the structure absorbs the carbon dioxide and converts it to calcium carbonate. And the concrete's literally eating their CO2. Which sounds helpful, except the process also locked away the oxygen. And so the missing oxygen wasn't missing. It was trapped in the concrete as calcium carbonate. Got it. So they built a watch. They got a wilderness, and the wilderness ate their air. And not because they forgot to ask and then what? But because their expertise made them certain they'd already answered it. They believed that they thought about all those consequences, but they didn't, and they couldn't see that coming. Well, it's like, where in your life has expertise become the reason you stopped asking questions?
>> Taylor: Right?
>> Speaker A: Because ultimately that's the closed system trap. And it's not the only way certainty disturbs the safety mechanism.
We'll move on to the who versus India. One actually, like, just to be honest,
We'll move on to the who versus India.
>> Taylor: Okay.
>> Speaker A: It's the 1970s. Wait, it's the 1970s.
>> Taylor: You have to do that. I'm just kidding.
>> Farz: You can't keep going.
>> Speaker A: I thought you liked Dan Carlin. I thought you liked Dan Carlin.
>> Taylor: I do. You. Could you do it?
>> Speaker A: What? Did I not sound Carlin enough, or.
>> Taylor: No, you didn't. You did.
>> Farz: One actually, like, just to be honest, like, when I'm editing these, like, audio spikes, tell me when the. When one starts, and it's actually helpful. So keep doing it.
World Health Organization launches campaign to eradicate smallpox in India in 1970s
>> Speaker A: 1970S India. The world Health Organization arrives with a mission. Eradicate smallpox from the last and largest stronghold on Earth. The stakes are almost incomprehensible. In the early 1960s, India accounted for nearly 60% of all reported smallpox cases in the world. The virus variola major killed one in four who contracted it. More than 300 million people died from smallpox in the 20th century alone. This was a genuine plague, and India was ground zero.
>> Taylor: Yikes.
>> Farz: Boom.
>> Speaker A: Boom. Thank you. Thank you.
>> Farz: I knew you were waiting.
>> Speaker A: So the WHO has the vaccine and they have the plan, and they've already succeeded in Brazil, in Indonesia, across most of Africa, mass vaccination works. Find every case, vaccinate everyone around it in a ring, and the disease dies out. Ring vaccination. The strategy is simple, proven, and backed by full institutional weight of the who, and it runs into resistance they never anticipated. So in some areas, vaccination teams encountered significant pushback. You know, parents hit children. Communities were deeply reluctant to cooperate. There were these logistical nightmares and access problems and reporting gaps and administrative failures. And there's this fear and distrust that runs deep in many of these regions. And the WHO responded the way institutions often respond when plan meets friction. They intensified their efforts, right? They're like, this is for the good. So beginning in 73, an aggressive campaign launches. Vaccinators went house to house in some areas. Police escorts accompany them. There are accounts of coercive tactics. You know, they're being pressured. There's some intimidation, and there's documented cases where there's forced vaccination. Now, this doesn't happen all across the board, but this is happening because they think it's at the behest of the population, which ultimately it probably is, but the way that they're going about it is ultimately quite wrong. So academic research acknowledges these methods generated local resentment. You know, the harder these people campaign, they get pushed into the. Well, the harder the campaign pushed into these resistant areas, the more some communities evaded the teams. People hid their sick, and the trust eroded. The campaign eventually succeeds, and the last case of naturally occurring smallpox was recorded in Somalia in 1977. And smallpox becomes the first human disease ever eradicated.
>> Farz: Good for humans.
>> Taylor: That seems good.
>> Farz: This reminds me one of when the CIA was trying to find Osama bin Laden, and so they did, like, vaccine programs in that part of Pakistan. These are trying to, like, get people to, like, get their blood to figure out who's related potentially to him. And now, like, nobody in that region will ever take a vaccine. Never again.
>> Taylor: Or.
>> Farz: It was a Red Cross. Sorry. It was like the Red Cross, but I think the CIA embedded something. Whatever. I don't. I don't know the full story, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Speaker A: And in those resistant pockets in India, success didn't come through that pressure alone. It came when they shifted. Right. So when someone started asking a question that had been overlooked by a lot of these folks that were pushing hard, why are they resisting? You know, what story did the WHO tell themselves in those difficult regions? We have the vaccine. We have the plan. We've done this. And so, you know, the permission that they gave themselves is their map's accurate, and if reality doesn't match, push harder. And they weren't wrong about the vaccine. They weren't wrong about the epidemiology of it. They were just wrong about assuming the territory would simply comply with the map.
>> Taylor: Right, Right.
>> Speaker A: So the safety mechanism, ask and then what? Trace those consequences. The who, just like in all these other instances, had this tool. They were epidemiologists. They eradicated smallpox in other places. Right. And they understood the disease transmission and the vaccination coverage and herd immunity. And they should have been better about thinking about individuals.
>> Farz: As the resident Brown guy on the podcast, logic holds no sway over cultural things, values, and ways things are done. So I can. I think the fallacy here is thinking that the things that you care about are what the other party might care about as well, which is not getting sick. And sometimes some of those cultures hold other values higher than that.
>> Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean, when the WHO and local health officials investigated why certain communities resisted, they learned about Chateau Lamata. And that's the Cooling Mother. It's a Hindu goddess associated with smallpox and other pox. Diseases. In temples across India, you'll find her image, this woman riding a donkey, carrying a pitcher of water and a broom. And for many traditional Hindus, smallpox wasn't purely a medical event. It had spiritual dimensions. The disease could be seen as a visitation carrying meaning beyond biology. And so for some, the vaccination felt like interference with forces beyond medicine. That wasn't the only gap.
>> Taylor: Side my face off because religion is so stupid. Like of course you would make something up to make you feel better about having this terrible f****** disease.
>> Farz: You know, we are tolerant people here, Taylor. People can believe what they want to believe. They are not stupid for their beliefs. People are different. And we tolerate people.
>> Taylor: We tolerate people.
The map was medically correct, Right? Everyone thought it's accurate
I'm. It's the other stupid part.
>> Farz: Some first order thinking going on over there.
>> Speaker A: It wasn't the only gap. It's just one of the gaps. There's past dynamics too. So in certain communities, people would only accept care from individuals they considered socially appropriate. And a vaccinator from the wrong background touching someone could be deeply offensive. And they learned about perta. Among some Muslim families, male vaccinators couldn't examine or vaccinate women. Access required female health workers. So they had learned. They learned about trust in a country with complex history. Strangers arriving with needles, accompanied by police triggered suspicion that had nothing to do with the vaccine itself. And the map was medically correct, Right? Everyone thought it's just that the territory was socially, religiously and historically layered in the ways the map didn't capture. And the campaign success accelerated when they adapted to the territory. So ultimately they do make all of these choices and changes. Local health workers from the same communities, Sensitivity to caste dynamics, Female vaccinators reach women in conservative households, Integration with local leadership. They end up doing the right things. It just takes them a while to get there. And the cost is time. Eventually. India declares smallpox free in 1977. And it's not because their map got better. Because they finally applied second order thinking to the territory. Their map had simplified. So that's the map trap. And it's the third way certainty disarms this safety mechanism. So that's the three domains. Same permission, structure, balloon, festival. Good cause means exempt from scrutiny. Biosphere expertise meets certainty. Who our map is accurate. Reality should comply. But this isn't just history. This pattern is everywhere. It's in Prohibition, right? 1920, the 18th Amendment. Alcohol is destroying families, fueling violence, corrupting society. And the solution is. Ban it. The noble experiment, Right outcome. Of course, it's the term. Organized crime didn't even exist. Really, in America, before Prohibition, like the concept of organized crime obviously does. But the idea, like, the same way that we have, like, the, you know, the idea of a bucket list now. And that was a creation of the movie Bucket List from, you know, the Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson picture.
>> Farz: So more salient example is the cartels who only exist because of the prohibition on drugs.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Speaker A: And Al Capone was pulling in 100 million a year by the mid 1920s. He was spending 500k a month in bribes to police, politicians, and federal investigators. And alcohol didn't disappear. It went underground. And it's less regulated and it's more dangerous. And you have these, you know, the bathtub gin killing people and speakeasies flourishing. And desperate drinkers switched to whatever they could find. And it's opium and marijuana and cocaine and, you know, medicines with dangerous additives. And this experiment became the only constitutional amendment in American history to be repealed by another amendment. And so the 21st undid the 18th. You know, the road to speakeasies was paved with temperance.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Because a lot of women were like.
>> Farz: My husband gets drunk and beats me.
>> Taylor: Exactly, like, every day. And we didn't think about it. And then the only reason Prohibition passed in the first place was because women were larger votes. I think that was the 17th, right. Oh, 17th amendment is that you get two senators. That's boring.
>> Farz: Women's rights, seriously, that's the 17th.
>> Speaker A: Really?
>> Taylor: Some of them are dumb. 19th. 19th is. Is women. So 19th couldn't be prohibition.
>> Farz: Codas. Get that? Like, I don't good for them.
>> Taylor: 18. Oh, yeah. Okay. 18 is prohibition. 19 is women. That's interesting. Maybe I'm wrong on that.
Facebook's internal motto is move fast and break things
>> Speaker A: Well, let's flash forward. So same thing's true when you think about Facebook's move fast, break things 2012. Mark Zuckerberg writes this letter to investors. Facebook's internal motto, move fast and break things. Right. The idea, he explains, is that if you never break anything, you're probably not moving fast enough. And speed equals innovation and disruption equals progress. Break things now, fix them later. And the outcome is election interference in 2016 with the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal. And there's 87 of these profiles without consent. A misinformation pandemic that preceded the actual pandemic, and a teen mental health crisis that the company's own internal resource documented but didn't address. You have in 21. This whistleblower, Hogan, released internal documents to Congress and their studies on teenager mental health alone. And the company's own research found that Instagram harms Teenagers, especially teenage girls. And the company knew it. And then you have, you know, Chamath Famous, you know, former vice president of Growth, one of the people who built the platform, said the short term dopamine driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation. Misinformation, mistruth. After the 2020 election, we all know what happens. The company disbanded its civic integrity team, the team that monitored election interference and political extremism. And then you have a 2025 study that found that only 8 out of 47 think that there's teen safety features on Instagram actually work as advertised. They moved fast and they broke a lot of things. And democracy, mental health, the information ecosystem. The company dropped the motto in 2015, but the breaking continued. It's the same pattern. Good intentions or at least good sounding justifications. And so your first order thinking is there, but you have catastrophic second order consequences.
>> Farz: So I have opinions.
>> Speaker A: Yeah.
>> Farz: I think that we are in the midst of human evolution towards tech and I think this was all inevitable.
>> Taylor: What, that Facebook is dangerous?
>> Farz: I don't know if I call Facebook dangerous. I think that anything that is, I think we were going to end up here anyways. And I don't think that. I think the natural endpoint of AI isn't more connectivity. It's going to go further towards silos.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Because then you can create everything as a silo of a subculture. Of a subculture. Of a subculture. Like you don't need things like social media, but like this is like the first foray into that. But I think like that's just like, I don't know, I feel like we're part of, like this is like a evolutionary thing.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Speaker A: And I agree. I mean technology, technology certainly exists in that way. Can you work on how to do things better? I think there, of course you can. You know, and so speed can often be to the detriment of decision making, which can lead to worse consequences.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Speaker A: Are there scenarios where social media could have done more better? Of course. Like there's no, there's no doubt. You could have changed that narrative and made it less dangerous for certain aspects of societal change.
>> Taylor: And then it would have been like less addictive and they would have made less money. Right.
>> Speaker A: Persuasive patterns. Absolutely. Yeah.
>> Taylor: So it's like, well, we're gonna do this anyway. I guess, like they don't mean that's. I don't think that Facebook has good intentions.
>> Farz: Like, I think maybe the point, if it wasn't them, it's somebody like, I think like, again, like humans are always going to like the, the root. At the core of our brainstem is a need to progress and do things and change and innovate and move forward. And you don't know what you're innovating into. You don't know what the vacuum you're going into is until you're inside of it. And then you realize, oh, this vacuum's huge. And now I got to start building blocks and barriers here and there and do whatever. Like, I don't know. I don't think, I don't think it's like a matter of like, good and evil. I think it's a matter of like anything that pushes the boundaries or changes fundamental human interactions and dynamics is going to. Implicitly, it's gonna, by its nature, it's going to introduce dangers that you could never perceive because it's novel and it's new. That's literally why AI is going to kill all of us, by the way.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I mean, I guess like, you couldn't have invented cars without, like knowing people were going to die in them, right? But you're like, oh, but like the good outweighs the bad, right?
>> Speaker A: The means in those. It just how certain are you of that and how realistic is it to think that we're better than that? And then how many Ralph Naders do you need to fix some of those problems? Right? Because ultimately it's not like the car companies were clamoring for seat belts that ended up being someone else. And so you do need those folks that are going to help. Right. The ship in those scenarios, especially if people are going to be ignorant or be unwilling to do something the right way. And to that point, I think that if you have people that are reckless, that are driving right, not to continue this metaphor, then you're going to end up in scenarios that can be really problematic for society. And you're absolutely right. Everyone's like, hey, the race is on. We can't stop because we want to win. And it's a win at the expense of, to your point about it's the end of the world at the expense of humanity. And so are you willing to make some of those choices consciously and think about those consequences before you're so far down the rabbit hole that you can't come back? And I think that's the same thing that happened with social media. So the reality is that we didn't know what the attention economy was going to do to us at the time, but there were a lot of Signs pointed to some really negative and, you know, end outcomes here. And then we're seeing now, with the advent of AI, at least from my perspective, the introduction of the manipulation age on a much larger scale, which is going to be much more challenging for us to navigate. It's half the reason why I built Remind. This card deck and this app is built as a. As a way for you to detach yourself from the information that's coming from all of these directions. And to your point, I mean, all of these things of election interference and, you know, polarization and ideology, those are all very well known and relatively well documented, and yet they persist in nearly this identical format. And what did they do?
Why is it a bad thing if people post extremist content on social media
They removed safeguards. They didn't add more. So the companies that are at fault are removing and reducing because they believe that by doing so they make it a freer place when the reverse can very well be true. Right.
>> Farz: Big question for you. Why is freer not always, always better?
>> Speaker A: I don't actually think that's the framing.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Speaker A: So I think the challenge with the idea of, like, well, we took all the safeguards off and that makes it free.
>> Farz: Why is it a bad thing if people want to post extremist content on social media? Why is that bad? I don't. I don't understand that.
>> Taylor: Well, I think, like, people like children and people can start, like, but then.
>> Farz: They can consume the opposite content.
>> Taylor: They can, but it's not as sexy. Like, it's not gonna, like, like, once you are watching.
>> Farz: Why isn't it sexy?
>> Taylor: Because it's someone, like, riling you up and like, it's like that whole thing of the other. Like, this person is making. Like, this is the thing. This is the reason that, you know, you feel this way. And this is the reason that, like.
>> Farz: The methodology, then, the methodology of countering hasn't been discovered. But, like, it's not inherent, apparently. Like, there's literally. I remember when I was a kid and they banned Harry Potter books from our schools because it was like, witchcraft and. But it's true. And, like, even then, like, I guess, like, what I'm saying is, like, why is censorship ever? How is it ever good? Like, people should have access to whatever they want to have access to.
>> Taylor: They should. But also, like, they're not that smart. Like, they're not going to, like, go out and find the other opinion. Like, I don't, you know, like, you know, me, I live in my silo, you know, and, like, I feel like most people aren't going to be like, oh, let me take a constructive view of this thing and look at both sides or other opinions.
>> Speaker A: I think that there's. So the world of ideas is an important one to have agreed, full stop. There's no doubt in my mind that we should be able to listen to others and hear what they have to say, regardless of good, bad or otherwise. And in fact there's openness that needs to exist and occur in some of these spaces. I think there's power dynamics at work. A few actors can amplify messages and that can become a cover for domination rather than open discourse. And those are, there are challenging spaces inside these, inside social media. Right. And every society already censors. So we can pretend that there's, you know, something that's not there, but realities is that.
>> Farz: Well, I think the censorship in most ecosystems comes from the gatekeeping apparatus to disseminate that information. Social media, in my opinion, has broken down those barriers. Like it's not a bad thing. I don't think. Like, like, like I, I don't, I don't want to have like an editorialized corporatized view of the opinions of something going on in the world. If someone's on the ground, I can report it and post it to social media and I can digest it in that format.
>> Speaker A: Then like that isn't, that isn't, that isn't what's happening and it's not how information is being served to you. Right. You're already algorithmically inclined to get the same media that already agrees with you. You're, you have already, by virtue of what you look at and how you look at it, have given it permission to give you certain kinds of information. The, the idea that you have some kind of.
>> Farz: You do have agency. Like you do have the agency to go and look elsewhere. Like you don't have.
>> Taylor: Again, most people don't.
>> Farz: Well, but then you solve for that. Not hiding the ball from them like you solve for, like. The problem is most people don't seek out the information on both sides or the medium with a middle or whatever. I don't think the answer to that problem is you hide the ball from them so they can never get access to either one way or the other. Like, isn't the problem you're solving certainly.
>> Speaker A: Don'T think that's what was occurring? It's. If there is certain malicious or bad actors that are in a system, do you give them the same voice as anyone else? And I don't know if the answer is always yes.
>> Farz: Yeah, I can't debate that. Yeah, I don't know But I, I.
>> Speaker A: Of course you want. And this is where I think I agree with you wholeheartedly. Fundamentally. I believe in seeing all ideas. I want to be able to see ideas. But you can have challenges within a system, and that's why guardrails do exist. And if you take off the guardrails, it can be challenging.
>> Farz: Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.
I feel like I've derailed this so many times. I'm just. I just. No, no. You are confused. Rivalry.
I feel like I've derailed this so many times. This conversation.
>> Speaker A: No, no.
>> Taylor: I'm just. I want you guys to know I've been scrolling through my Instagram and my feed is still all he did. Rivalry. So I'm on the right side of history. I just. You are confused.
>> Farz: You should look at. I think cold. You look at. You should search cold friendships and see what comes up there.
>> Taylor: Cold friendships.
>> Farz: I have no idea. I'm just making stuff up because either Rivalry. What's the opposite of that? Friendship.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: So.
>> Taylor: I'll.
>> Speaker A: I'll bring it back home. And we're. We're. We're close here.
Taylor: When your good intentions backfire, you blame circumstances
So you believe good intentions matter. You know, you probably said it this week, I was just trying to help. And you judge people by their intentions and malice is different from mistakes. And we should give people credit for trying to do good intentions matter. But here's what I've noticed. When your good intentions backfire, you blame circumstances. You don't question your certainty. You assume your plan was right and reality was uncooperative. And the feedback that fell flat, they weren't ready to hear it. And the project that failed, the market changed and the relationship that suffered. They didn't appreciate what you were trying to do. You never ask, was my confidence the problem? And here's that hypocrisy. You look at Balloon Fest with hindsight and think, how did they not see it coming? You learn about Biosphere 2 and think, obviously you can't model an ecosystem like a machine. You hear about the WHO in India. Think. Of course you have to understand the culture. Of course you can't force vaccinate your way to compliance. And then tomorrow you'll greenlight your own project with the same logic they used. This is a good cause. We planned it carefully. What could go wrong? The gap between two things. The certainty with which you judge historical disasters and the certainty with which you plan your own. That's where the next disaster lives. You're not different from them. You're them before the wind shifted.
>> Farz: That's a good closer. You're then before the wind shifted.
>> Taylor: I only make good decisions, so I don't really relate to that, but I get it. Yeah.
>> Farz: Taylor's never gonna have to go past me.
>> Taylor: Just kidding.
>> Farz: I. I truly appreciated the thought you put into this one because you intersected amazing stories with crazy consequences with the Mental model concept. And frankly, what I'm thinking now, Taylor, is like, should we, like, create, like, sub episodes where one, like, dissects our episodes is like, here's the mental model.
>> Taylor: Oh, that'd. Like a little one. Like a little.
>> Farz: Yeah, like a little blurb. Like a five minute, like, hey, Juan, like, here's a story synopsis. And then you just like.
>> Taylor: He'll be like, you guys, this was obviously the Rumsfield Matrix or the.
>> Farz: I feel like I know what that reflex.
>> Taylor: Or. Oh, the red Queen effect. I like that.
>> Speaker A: The red queen effects.
>> Taylor: This was obviously the peak end rule, you guys. Priming swaddle tendency. No, but I do feel like a lot of these mental models have Absolutely. Yeah. Obviously, I said this was cheese one, which we talk about all the time with, like, plane crashes. Because, like, it wasn't one thing. It was a whole bunch of things aligned to make a whole. And then. Yeah. So I think that they can really kind of pop out, which is fun because you're like, oh, that. Absolutely. And, like, I also feel like maybe some of those bad decisions. I'm just looking through this, but, like, sunk cost fallacy, I think comes up a lot, especially with, like, Facebook. Like, you're not going to stop doing Facebook because kids are dying. Like, that's not something that you're going to even consider, you know? So, like, that's like, you're already. You're already doing that thing. You know what I mean? Game theory, prisoners dilemma. You guys, if we go to jail, I'm not telling you literally immediately. So I just want you to know this is.
>> Farz: Then we know that we tell on.
>> Taylor: You know that I'm going to tell on you. So you do whatever the other thing is, and then you'll be out. We go first, we both go to jail for, like, a smaller amount of time.
>> Farz: I think everybody in this hypothetical, it's gonna be a bank robbery, it's gonna be a heist of the Louvre, and we're all going down.
>> Taylor: I'm gonna make a deal.
>> Farz: Guys, we gotta wrap it up.
>> Taylor: I know it's late for you.
>> Speaker A: Thank you for having me, y'.
>> Taylor: All.
>> Farz: Thank you so much. That was fantastic. Taylor, do we have to lead anybody lead off with anything?
>> Taylor: Well, I'll let you know how Biosphere is. We're going to watch it later. Juan, looking at you And I think that that is it. I haven't had any.
Juan Carlos: Ryan James turned himself in on Friday
Oh, goodness. They caught Ryan James wedding. That's the big news.
>> Farz: Incredible.
>> Taylor: So he turned himself in.
>> Farz: Shepherd and Nadine both messaged us about this. So we got two of our listeners messaging us separately about this. It was awesome.
>> Taylor: I mean, I'm like, that's crazy that I put out an episode on him on Monday and they caught him on, like, Friday or what. He, like, turned himself in on Friday.
>> Farz: Listening to us while they're in the helicopters.
>> Taylor: So I put it on. On Tick Tock. And then I put it on Instagram and I boosted it because I was like, this is exciting. You know? Holy crap. So on TikTok, everyone was like, that's cool. This story is crazy. On Instagram, everybody. I told Nadine because Nadine lives in Canada. And I, like, boosted it to Canadians because, like, I think Canadians to be interested in, like, the episode. And the comments were so fudgeing mean. And I was like, I should visit Canadian women. Because the Canadian men were like, this is old news, girl. And I'm like, it happened this morning. What the h***? Like, they're just. They're just beyond mean. And, yeah, I was very impressed.
>> Speaker A: I. I think that someone is a listener that actually is on the pulse or something, I think.
>> Taylor: And I said this in the last episode, and it's stupid, but I feel like I'm just so close, you know? Like, that's crazy. I don't know. I've never heard of this guy. And then like, all of a sudden, he's caught, like, oh, my God, you are plugged in.
>> Speaker A: One person did say, I think so.
>> Taylor: One person said, that's my husband. Don't talk about him like that. Which I thought was hilarious. So, like, thank you, that person for commenting, but no, thank you to everyone else. But anyway, we got more listens that has, like, a whole. A lot, exponentially more listens than our other episodes. And because people were looking. So I hope that you've stuck around because that is super exciting. So thank you. And if you have ideas or thoughts, please don't leave me a mean comment. Keep that in your brain, but email me. Doomed to failpodmail.com DM me on Instagram. I will talk to you there.
>> Farz: Gmail.Com. please do write to us. We do love getting those.
>> Speaker A: Hey, thanks, y'.
>> Taylor: All. Oh, hey, Juan Carlos. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure. I know that you're, like, in the other room, but it's been fun to see you. And thank you for sharing your reminded deck with us. I know your website is remind coach and. Right. Is that correct? And on the site, you can buy the mental model deck. It has like 100 mental models and like a card deck and you can use it like a tarot card. Just, like pull one out and like, think about how you're going to use it for your day. And then you can also get. There's an app where you can look them up. There's more mental models on the app and then you can. You can be there as well. So if you do end up buying the. The remind deck and you put in your. Your order notes that you heard about it on Doom to Fail, I'll throw in some Doom to Fail stickers because I am the shipping department. But I'm very excited to share this one. It's so cool that this is a physical thing that we have in our hand. And your dot. Your daughter wants to say something. Go ahead.
>> Speaker A: Hello.
>> Taylor: She says hi.
>> Speaker A: Hi.
>> Farz: So I'm putting this in the beginning. Is that right?
>> Taylor: No, at the end.
>> Farz: Oh, then. Okay. Okay. I'm going to edit myself out saying this. Awesome. Thanks again.
Stay safe in your winter event, Flo. I know you got some more winter weather coming your way
Thanks to both of you. Three of you. Sorry, Flo. And we'll get this uploaded again. Write to us@uniflpodmail.com find us on all the socials. Dunfl pod. I think that's it.
>> Taylor: I think that's it.
>> Farz: Thank you.
>> Taylor: Stay safe. Ours. I know you got some more winter weather coming your way, so stay safe in your winter event.
>> Farz: We'll do our best.
>> Speaker A: I can't wait to listen to this because it'll be like listening to my favorite friends on my favorite podcast, but.
>> Farz: With me in it. And your voice is so buttery smooth. Everybody is going to be excited. They're going to say amazing things. I'm positive. Oh, wait.
>> Taylor: I'm so sorry. I have one more thing. Okay.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: If I tell you this. So when I was in fifth grade, we did a thing where we got to pretend that we were on a spaceship and I got to be one of the astronauts. And there were like, four of us, and we went into a thing that was kind of like the biosphere. It was in a classroom and it was like a big tent, and we had to be in there all day. And they, like, we had to, like, do science experiments and then, like, do, like, the walk on those, like, moonwalk shoes, like, in the classroom. And then, like, if we had to go to the bathroom, they had a wagon and they'd, like, pull a wagon up to the thing and you get into it, and the other kids would take you to the bathroom and they would like on it, like, there's a box, and I just have really cute pictures of me, like, dressed like an astronaut. And that kind of reminded me of the Biosphere.
>> Farz: If you have the pictures, they have to go on the Insta post.
>> Taylor: It's real cute. So I will. I will show you.
>> Farz: We got to do it.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Sweet. Thanks, guys. I'm going to go ahead and cut the recording off.