Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Herman Pontzer (Adaptable: How Your Unique Body Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us) is an evolutionary anthropologist, author, and associate professor at Duke University. Herman joins the Armchair Expert to discuss growing up at the end of a dirt road in a house his dad built, unpacking the dark history of anthropometry, and the ewok chapter of human evolution. Herman and Dax talk about why the brain is the most expensive organ in the body, how the first full human skeleton found being named after a Beatles song, and why people burn more calories being anxious. Herman explains the hockey stick inflection point of intelligence when we began hunting and gathering, why research on early humans debunks the paleo diet, and the story of the guy that accidentally killed the world's oldest living organism.Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Hermian Permian. I'm showing by my mom. Hi, mom. Hi, son.

You're not going to believe this, Miss Monica. Tell me. Good friend of mine's here. Who? Herman Ponser. Wait, what? Oh, ma'am, did you make him up? No, that's really our guest, Herman Ponser.

Wow. Herman Ponser. Herman Ponser. Maybe my favorite name we've had for a guest. Really good name. A really cool guy. Incredibly cool. Professor of evolutionary anthropology and global health at Duke University.

He's an internationally recognized researcher in human energetics and evolution. His previous book, which is great, is called Burn, Some Shocking Ways We Consume Calories. We talked about it and it was really interesting. Yeah, we did a little section on Burn and then his new book, Adaptable, How Your Unique Body Really Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us. This was so fun. It was. Evolutionary biology is one of my favorite

things to think about. In anthropology. Yeah, like what was I just, oh my God, we were just discussing what could have been the cause of you and I. You were saying women, oh, women wanna get something of their boyfriends to smell. Like a t-shirt, something that's a very common desire.

And I never met a guy who tried to get a shirt from a girl. Something's there. I wonder if when there's a quantum computer that can model the future and all that, if it can go backwards in time, and somehow we would get answers to these things. Well, in the meantime, Herman's working on it. Herman rocked.

This is a really, really interesting episode. I'm usually threatened by other anthropology majors because they actually know all this stuff and I'm mostly ill-informed, as we find out a few times in this episode. I'm glad that you allowed it, as we find out a few times in this episode. I'm glad that you allowed it, because we all got to learn. Please enjoy Herman Potler.

I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankenpann. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're analyzing the man who literally changed our minds about everything. The father of psychology, Sigmund Freud. Freud's ideas about sex cause outrage. Is Freud still relevant? Or should we simply give him the slip? Follow Legacy now wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge entire seasons early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. He's an objects man. He's an objects man.

He's an objects man. He's an objects man. He's an objects man. He's an objects man. He's an objects man. He's an objects man. He's an objects man. Dax is getting a new tattoo, and Rob is.

Matching? So like when you hug each other, it forms a full? Yes, yes. But only our wives will see it. So you're from Pennsylvania? Mm-hmm. Where about? I'm a Michigander.

Okay. Did you ever see Groundhog Day? Yes, Paxawhanee, what is it? Punctahtani. Punctahtani. So we played Punctahtani in high school ball. They were that close. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yes. They kind of nailed it. That's sort of the vibe. I lived in Brooklyn for a few years and it almost broke me. It was the F train. You'd be like on the F train at nine o'clock in the morning. It was like a meat wagon. You'd be just like packed in.

Just to pass the time once, I was like, I wonder how many people are on this train. I did the math and then how many cars there are. And I was like, oh, there's more people on this train than there are in the hometown I grew up in. Whoa. Yeah, what was the population? So 800 people in my hometown of Kersey in. Whoa! Yeah, what was the How many acres did you grow up on?

It's kind of a long story, but so the Ponser family was one of the first families to move into that area. It was not super densely settled ever. Even the Native American folks were like, this is a junkie land, we don't want to spend a whole lot of time here. And so, my extended family owns hundreds of acres of forest. Oh wow! And could you get lost in there as a kid and explore?

100%, yeah, yeah, yeah. I lived at the end of a dirt road in a house that my dad built, physically with his hands. It was Buddy Dean. It was wonderful. I grew up riding motorcycles and hiking around and hunting. It was kind of an amazing way to grow up. Yeah, would you be out tromping around with a BB gun

when you were little? Totally. I mean, the first time I got an actual firearm, I think it was for my 10th birthday. A 22? Yep. But my life is so different now because in the academics university world,

that's not a background that you see very often. Exactly. It's kind of looked down upon. Oh, completely. Well, this is a whole other avenue, but we talk about diversity in the university and everybody is for that, but it means different things to different people. Yes. It would be interesting to me to see diversity of backgrounds that way.

You don't see a lot of folks from rural America in the ivory tower. No, no. And also maybe a little more socioeconomic thrust. Because we've divided up into these lines that are pretty comical in ways. Is some of it though, do we think chicken or the egg a little bit? At this point, I think if you're in certain parts

of the country, you don't want to be associated with liberal elite institutions. We've created it as like us, them. I think about the folks I grew up with. One of my best friends growing up, he's a union electrician, still lives back in Kersey, and he's got a great life. That was an avenue that is a wonderful way to go, but he would never have considered doing what I'm doing. It wasn't even on the radar, who knows what this kid's going to do, but it is really kind of dichotomized that way.

It is. Where did you go to undergrad? Penn State. And then you did graduate school at Harvard? That's right. And when did you get in the anth State. And then you did graduate school at Harvard? That's right. And when did you get in the anthro trajectory? Did you do any reading about me? I also was an anthropology major.

No, I know. I was gonna tell you that I'm actually here from UCLA. You know the anxiety dream where you have the class that you never finished and they tell you you have an exam? I have it with me here. Oh, oh. We're here to do this with you. Okay, wonderful.

This is great. 25 years out, let's see how I do. Yeah, I wanna see what's changed. I think I'll do bad, and I think I'll be three standard deviations above what most people do. So how about that? Oh, there you go. Some humility and some arrogance.

Yes. I've retained, I think, more than your average bear, but I'm probably wrong about one. Were you excited about the physical anthro, the cultural anthro, or you like floor field? How did you do it? Yeah, so I deeply regret what I did, which is I was enamored and intoxicated

with the excitement of cultural anthropology and learning about mating rituals and patrilocal and metrilocal and all these things, even the kind of fakir modern primitive, that was exciting. But as I got into it, I was like, oh no, no, I'm way more interested in physical anthro, specifically evolutionary biology. I found that I left with, I was like, oh no, no, I'm way more interested in physical anthro, specifically evolutionary biology.

I found that I left with, I need to know more how we ended up as a species before I study what the species then did culturally. Yes. What was your route? I went to Penn State, not having any real idea what I wanted to do. I took a seminar in human evolution

that was co-taught by a cultural guy and a sociobiologist bioanthro guy. And the cultural guy, the postmodern stuff had kind of passed him by and he was not into that. And so he was a good foil for the evolutionary guy because they both kind of saw things sort of the same way. Cultural anthro and bioanthro can be very at odds. Someone was even telling me at Berkeley,

we just interviewed someone there, they were like, look, if you get in this trajectory, you can't talk to the physical anthropologist. I don't even actually want you speaking to them. Which was kind of nuts. So there's a lot of that kind of schism still now, but luckily for me, these guys complimented each other well and that class just lit my hair on fire.

I mean it was amazing. My parents were both high school teachers. It was a home where we talked a lot about ideas and had arguments that were good arguments. It was really fun growing up. It was such good training looking back. They were English teachers, so evolutionary biology wasn't their thing really,

to sort of have a whole nother way to look at the human species in this evolutionary deep time perspective. And all these quirks and weird things about you think, oh, but actually there's a reason for those. That's what was illuminating to me. First, I'll say even before Anthro was a Western Civ class,

learning how did we get to where I woke up in Milford, Michigan, 1925, and I was prescribed all these things. How arbitrary are they? Where do they come from? That was like, oh wow, there's an actual explanation for why we're doing everything the way we're doing.

And then you reverse from there, and it's like, oh, and there's even greater explanation. And then the physical part is the grand explanation. Just in your intro, I'm really glad at how you lay this out because one of my great interests was always these differences in populations. I just was drawn to them immediately, finding out, oh, we kind of know

that Native Americans came from Asia because they have a distance-sizer and only Asians have a distance-sizer, and so did Native Americans. That's a really cool, hard bit of evidence clue.. I like that and for people to know the history of anthropology There was a field called anthropometry which studied specifically differences between people and was heavily Weaponized and used during the nazi era completely fed completely into the whole eugenics. The big push was that so that kind of went away With a good reason it was being terribly exploited for the wrong reasons

But my interest was always not from any place of superiority, just a deep curiosity of how we could have these variations within the same species. Right. And you begin talking about the ways that populations differ or even just more fundamentally how people differ. And because of that really dark history, yeah, people get nervous right away. The sort of superpower that an anthropology background

gives you is you spend four years in college talking about this, trying to dissect. People are different, that's a good thing. How and why. How is it adaptive to where they live? Yes, and how much of it's noise and how much of it's signal, because there's a lot of noise, and how much is different within groups versus between.

It gets less scary. You go, okay, that's how that works. And it's actually, because there's a lot of noise, and how much is different within groups versus between, it gets less scary. You go, okay, that's how that works. And it's actually a weapon in debunking racism. Yeah, and I think right now, when I look at social media world, which has gotten even weirder recently, the only people who wanna talk about difference that way are the race realists.

That's a new word for eugenics. What do they call it? The race realism, race realists, this kind of thing. Oh, saying like, we understand that there's differences between races. Like they're telling the truth about race. Exactly. I, man. Exactly, yes.

Oh, God. I doubt they are. Exactly. It's really kind of scary. And so you don't have anybody with any real background in how this works talking about it, because everybody's afraid to. So then they get to come to the surface. So let's talk about it in a way that's evidence-based,

that's less scary, that's unpacked. I think you have to start with how the body works, right? Because I think people don't have a fluency in that. How does embryology work? How does the brain work? How do the muscles work? I mean, if you start with those pieces, then you can say, well, then how come your physique

is different than yours or mine? How does skin color work? Now we can understand why skin colors differ. And it's not a scary thing. This is the biology of it. That's how we talk about it. Yeah, so the book, Adaptable, aims to educate you on how your body works.

But instead of it just being a straight biology textbook, there's gonna be exploration of the lifestyle, the people, the landscape, the local adaptations. So it's a very fun lens to look at it. So I guess let's just start with the history of us as humans. Oh yeah, well we're part of the great ape family tree. Our lineage kind of busts out about seven million years ago, breaks away from the lineage that becomes chimps and bonobos. But the first five million years,

I think of it as basically the Ewok chapter of human evolution. You're walking on two legs, but you're furry and kind of ape-like. Are you fully bipedal? Well, people argue, let's just say yes. Okay. Earliest ones probably have a grasping foot.

We see that in a couple of these, like Ardipithecus. That's changed since you left. Yeah, I know AF-Harensis. Prior to Lucy's AF-Rensis, it was Ardipithecus. The initial stuff was found in the 90s, but wasn't fully reported until 2009, I think. Oh, so I was nine years out. I don't know.

There you go. He's what? He's walking on two legs. He's the first one to walk on two legs. So, as far as we can tell, the earliest, earliest ones, even before that one, are walking on two legs. The evidence for that is, if you look at the skull of one of the earliest fossils we have,

you can figure out the orientation of the spinal column. And if it comes straight down out of the head, vertical, then it's probably on two legs. And if it comes towards out of the earliest fossils we have, you can figure out the orientation of the spinal column. And if it comes straight down out of the head, vertical, then it's probably on two legs. And if it comes towards out of the back, then it's probably on, so that's the kind of way they put these things together. Isn't it, Nate? I love that stuff.

The osteology class was my favorite one in all of physical enteral. So, australopithecine is no longer the earliest one. Now you're already two million years. This is humiliating. Can I just add my favorite one was Gigantopithecus. Yeah, but that's like our long lost Asian cousin. Right, that was in Asia.

That was a giant biped. Still is the biggest ape ever. Wow, how big? Like, you know, big, way, way, twice the size of a gorilla or something crazy like that. They're really, really big. Think Bigfoot. Some of these people are really grasping

for Bigfoot to be real. Yeah. They like the gigantic Yeah, there's a wonderful story of a professor I think he's in Idaho who did his whole PhD on very normal anatomy and questions in anthropology And then once he had tenure he was like, yes, let's party How tall was the Shakey and a yeah see we can fact check. This is the fun stuff gorillas aren't that tall Like I have respect for that. How tall was the shaky in a- Yeah, see. We can fact check it.

This is the fun stuff. Gorillas aren't that tall. No, but they're 450 pounds. Right. I don't know, six feet tall. Let's go six feet tall. Okay. If I had to guess.

I'm not sure how much full skeletons of it either we have. We have mostly cranial dental stuff, heads and teeth. 9.8 feet. 9.8 feet, stop it. Let's go. You want the source. I can see it on your face. What's the source, Rob?

I do, I do. Britannica? No. Oh, you just showed up Britannica. He doesn't like that. They got there on a sponsor. Ah. Wikipedia says 12 feet.

12 feet? No, no, no, no. Ah, the wisdom of the crowds. That's just your rap life. I'm gonna have to write a new book. Okay, so I sidetracked you. Okay, so seven sidetracked you. Okay, so seven million years ago.

That's right. And so you got these bipeds. They're walking on two legs, but they've got grasping feet for at least for the first couple million years. Then you get Lucy and the Oshelopithecus afarensis. And that's another very successful chapter. Not everyone knows about Lucy. Okay, she came out of the Rift Valley, right? Yeah, so she's one of the earliest, let's say, full skeletons

that we've ever found. So it's not just a head and it's not just a tooth. You can kind of see the whole thing. I mean, it was a really big deal and it's just been 50 years since that discovery actually. Wow. And it was named after his wife? It was named after Lucy in the Sky of the Diamonds,

which was playing on the radio as they were excavating. Louis Leakey, is that who found it? No, no, no, this is up in Ethiopia and they named Lucy after this song, Lucy in the Sky of the Diamonds. Oh, the Beatles song, wow. Wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anthropologists are cool. Very. Yeah, they named Lucy after this song, Lucy in the Sky and the Times. Wow, wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anthropologists are cool. Very. Yeah, they name it after drug songs and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So specifically a drug beetle song, you know better. Oshelopithecus methamphetamine never caught on. Yeah.

Okay, so they find Lucy. But again, I mean, still very ape-like, as far as we can tell in terms of diet and stuff, eating almost all plants. There's some interesting ideas these days that they might've had some very simple tools maybe, but things don't really shift away from like an ape-like kind of way of life until you get hunting and gathering

going two and a half, two million years ago. And we get fired as well. So that doesn't show up till about a million years ago. There's a gap. So there's about two and a half million years ago we start hunting and gathering. And that changes everything because I mean just think about What it means to have a species that does two different things. No other species does that. There are species that kind of generalize any

individual bear for example We'll eat fruits and we'll hunt a little bit and so they're generalists Yes There's no other species that half of the group Does one thing acts like a carnivore the other half acts like an herbivore and gets plant foods. And then so you get the advantages of both, then you have to share it. Yeah.

Yeah. Animals don't like to share, right? Very rarely. And in fact, even apes don't share much. Well, for sex trade they do. Yeah, very specific context. Yeah. And very little in terms of total amounts.

No one throws it into a big pot other than lions maybe. Yeah, social carnivores, that's another example. Wolves, but that's how rare it is, you can kind of think of specific examples. Almost every animal just keeps it. That's what usually works the best. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That has permeated everything. So I come in here and I don't know you guys, but you don't kill me. That's crazy. That is nuts. And then you offer me food. Wow, think about that. And anytime you have a celebration, you're sharing food.

That's the fabric of what humans are all about. And then what's fun about that is it's just this snowball of social complexity, intellectual complexity. All of a sudden brains are not just figuring out where the food is and not just figuring out maybe who to mate with, but they're doing all these calculations about who's in my group, who's a friend,

who's an ally, who I can trust, who I can't trust. Then you have all the forging stuff on top of that and the complexity just snowballs. And you see the tools develop with that. So over the past two million years, you can like literally track from simple stone tools to more complex to multi-piece tools to iPhones. It ratchets up quickly.

Yes. Do we have any sense, could you determine this from the archaeological record, when does mate selection shift from a game of size to perhaps a game of savvy and aptitude and hunting, aptitude and gathering? Easiest way to track that would be size dimorphism. So in a gorilla, for example, males are twice as big as females

and it's because they basically just fight over who has access to the group of females. And they're gonna just increasingly get bigger and bigger and bigger ad infinitum because the biggest one will have access and pass on its big genes and just keeps going up. Male lions just keep getting bigger than female lions. Yeah, so that's a funny piece about human sexual biology

is that there is less sexual dimorphism than even in Lucy So Lucy is still pretty significant sexual dimorphism. She's tiny the males are not tiny Right, and so there's a probably a lot of male-male composition That's what you'd have to infer and you get to our gene is the genus Homo and that all of a sudden starts to go Away and you get to the sort of five ten percent dimorphism that we see today Is it only five to ten percent? It depends on the metric So in terms of a height probably about ten percent in terms of strength, 10% dimorphism that we see today. Is it only five to 10%? It depends on the metric. So in terms of height, probably about 10%, in terms of strength, for example, it can be 20, 30%.

It would depend on the population too. But, so here's what's also fun. In humans, males aren't just competing against males for mates, females are competing against females for mates. That's another obvious piece that's very different. I'm sure that there's some kind of interesting female competition happening within chimps, for example, but it's subtle.

It's mostly inherited, their status. So females in chimpanzees, they leave. So they can't inherit status from mom because mom's not there. They grow up in a community, when they hit puberty, they go to the other community. So females are always new, males stay, and the males are duking it out

for where they are in the hierarchy. And there's friendships too, it's not all mean. So being bonobos, for example, it's a bit different. Female groups are dominant to males in bonobos. A male's rank has everything to do with mom and his best female friends. It's a matriarchy. Kind of more so, yeah,

in terms of for the power dynamic lies. Interesting. Okay, so we do see that dimorphism start to shrink. You could call that a move away from pure physical competition to more intellectual competition. Okay, so we're super unique in the fact that we have split up the food gathering.

What else is unique? Obviously the way we rear young. The intellectual complexity that kind of runs away and becomes these huge brains that are three times the size of a chimpanzee brain. You end up having to learn so much to be a successful adult that childhood gets strung out. So there's this 15 year, 20 year gap

between being born and being a capable human. No other species is like that. You were saying that your daughter's seventh birthday party, all the seven year olds there, if they were any other animal would be grandparents at that age. Oh my God. Yeah, that's right.

That's so wild. Isn't that fun? That's a great way to think about it. It is. And our frontal lobes aren't even developed until 25, so it takes us 25 years. So there's this long period where adults are working harder than they have to to feed themselves

because they have to bring enough food home, not just to share with everybody, but if you were just sharing with other adults that were all capable. It's kind of a one-to-one. Yeah, but because you're also trying to feed all the young ones, now you've got to get even more than you had to get before.

So it changes the whole economics of all the calorie gathering, basically the food gathering. And we have these extended childhoods because of how much there is to learn, because of how complex we get. And that's what people get wrong about brains too. People get really nervous about

kind of the biology of intelligence. Again, the racists are happy to talk about the biology of intelligence. Charles, what's his name? Charles Murray. Charles Murray. But what people, I think, get wrong about it is to understand how the human brain works. You're born unfinished.

And you have to be born unfinished. Because there's so much to learn that your brain's job is to learn how to work in its culture today. You can't be hardwired because it's going to change so quickly that if you sort of genetically encoded what you're supposed to learn, that wouldn't work. Because it won't work next generation. It won't be adaptive. That's right. So your brain comes in completely unfinished and you spend 15 years literally constructing your brain.

Because every time you make a new memory, you're plugging neurons together, you're taking other ones apart. Building this neural network. Yeah. We measure something like IQ and we think, oh, that's something inherent about the brain. It can be, if it's a really controlled setting, you could begin to understand how well a brain builds or doesn't build those connections. But pretty much if you compare across people or across cultures, what you're measuring is the content that got built in there.

It's a content measure, it's not a ability measure. And then you factor in nutrition too. We were with Bill Gates in India and one of his main thrusts is these gaps. As much as like 30% of your intelligence can be missed if you're not hitting your nutritional goals and certain windows of your life. Like it's pretty dramatic, the impact of nutrition.

The brain is the most expensive organ in the body. And when you are five years old, it's at its peak need. Something like half of your resting energy expenditure, the calories you're burning minute by minute as you just rest there as a kid are going to your brain. Well yeah, proportionally, you look at a baby's head, it's a third of its fucking being. Yes, and inside what's going on is even more active

than it would be as an adult. Right. Because of all the connections that are being. Because we're going to have to ass off to catch up to this baseline knowledge. It's so cute. They're so cute. And when they're cranky, it's like,

of course they're cranky, they're in a graduate class every day with a final. Oh, stress. Mm. That's right. So of course, if you miss those calories, your body's going to try to shield your brain, but there's only so much you can do. Okay, so are you leaning towards,

because in 2000, the two most promising explanations for our explosion intelligence was, one is our groups are growing in size in the complexity of the group and the facial recognition all these different things and knowing where you're at hierarchically was gonna predict your mating success and that was driving it and then there's this other kind of fruit based I never loved that one where are we at are those still the two debates yeah this is not gonna be very satisfied I think that's a false dichotomy because we're

doing both things. We're in this really complex social world and you got to be good at that. You suck at that, I'm sorry. Your reproductive success is not very high. Yeah, you get excommunicated and you die very quickly. Yeah, it goes really far. Or you become a tech bro. Yeah, that's right. That's working out pretty well for a lot of them actually. Because they're good at the other part of it, which is the foraging piece. Today's foraging is getting a job that you can bring home resources, right?

So you gotta be able to do both. If you look across all primates, the biggest brain species are the ones that have the hardest job to do figuring out how to go get food. It's not the ones with the biggest social groups. Oh right, cause like, homodryas baboons have bigger groups than.

Exactly. But that doesn't mean that in any one case It's not a combination of things. We get these big trends and then the one-off cases like humans are the extreme one-off case There's nothing else like us, right? So there's no silver bullet explanation. It's just perhaps some combination of yeah And speaking of tech bros, I'll say that in my line of work you get emails Regularly dear. Dr. Pons sponsor. Yeah, I have figured it out Here's how it all works together And here's the silver bullet thing that nobody's thought of and it's just the one thing and the proportion of those emails from

engineers and retired doctors is disproportionate to their numbers on the Something about that training of seeing things in a black and white way. Yes. And I give them credit for spending time thinking about this stuff. It's fun to think about and doing a good job. I don't want to be too harsh on it,

but the sort of black and white feeling of how things work and knowing that, well, then it must just be this one thing. And it's never one thing, is it? Yeah, exactly. Right, yes. It's very comforting that there would be a single explanation and it would be definitive. Yeah, right.

Okay, so our intelligence starts taking a leap. How is that graphed? Yes, it's very comforting that there would be a single explanation and it would be definitive. Yeah, right. Okay, so our intelligence starts taking a leap. How is that graphed? Is it totally linear or is it more of a hockey stick? Like when we go from homo erectus to, I know Neanderthals have a 1650 cc brain. It was enormous, bigger than ours. How gradual is that?

The hockey stick inflection point is when you start hunting and gathering. And then from there on out, it's been just a climb. The way that we're figuring this out is we're going to the field, we're digging up fossils, we're measuring the skull sizes. I've had a chance to do some of that. That's really fun work.

It's like putting the frames of a movie back together, only it's a two million year long movie. Even if you had a hundred frames, that's not enough. Now, and also part of your work was you've done a lot of field work with the Hadza and they're in Northern Tanzania. That's exactly right. Okay, and also part of your work was, you've done a lot of field work with the Hadza, and they're in Northern Tanzania. That's exactly right. Okay, and so what have you observed in them

that seems to confirm what you learned on the biological side? There's a fun story there. The first project I did with them was measuring energy expenditures, metabolic rates, how many calories you burn every day. For your book, Burn. It ended up in burn, that's exactly right.

This is fascinating, because I think we would all assume this group that is walking all day long, they're averaging 19,000 steps for the dudes and 16,000 steps, and then they're busy all day long. They don't domesticate any animals, any plants, they're doing it. Right, right.

You think of yourself as burning a couple thousand calories a day or something. I hope. I mean, that's what we're told. What would you think they're expending? I don't know enough about these types of things. I think that would be a very natural, common guess. They're five times as active as me.

I would imagine double. At least double. That's right. Yeah, yeah. But nobody measured it. Lots of estimations about what that would look like. It kind of feeds into questions in public health because maybe obesity is a big problem in the US because, well, we're not burning as many calories as we should be maybe we should be burning like hunter-gatherer level calories

Yeah, but we're not and then that also gives ride to a whole paleo movement diet. Yes all of it So looking into it. I was like wait. This is all based on nothing. It's just estimates, you know Yeah, really know any of this stuff. Let's go see and so a couple of collaborators and I went one of the guys I work with is Brian Wood. He's at UCLA now. You're alma mater. Oh, guy, great. He must be a genius. He's wonderful. Yes, of course, of course.

He's spent more nights in a Hadza camp in the past 10 years or 20 years than he's probably spent at home. He's there a lot. We go and we do this project and we're measuring energy expenditures. We're measuring how many calories you burn every day over about a week, week and a half.

And we use this isotope tracking technique. It's the best, coolest way to do it. Gold standard so that we know the numbers are real. Could you explain that for a second? Because I found it fascinating. Maybe it's too nerdy, but you're measuring carbon dioxide. I'll go as deep as we want to go. Yeah, I love it.

Let's put these people to sleep. Let's go. Good, exactly. It's called doubly labeled water. You drink a half glass full of water. So water is H2O. Some of the Hs are different. Some of the Os are different.

They're different versions of those elements. And you can track that if you took a water sample and put it in a mass spectrometer. That's a machine that would measure how much of those different elements were there. You can use it like tracers, basically. You drink some of that water, and over time you're going to flush

all the marked hydrogens out, because you're peeing and you're breathing out water vapor. All the water you lose, the hydrogen is the marker of that. The oxygen you'll also lose is H2O, but it turns out you also lose oxygen that you drink. It gets mixed up with all the oxygen and carbon dioxide that you're making in your body, and you end up breathing out those oxygens as CO2 as well.

So those oxygen elements, oxygen isotopes get lost two ways. The hydrogen isotope only gets lost one way. If you look at the difference in rate of loss, you can figure out how much carbon dioxide the body's making. That's calories per day. Isn't that cool? Wow, that is cool.

Because carbon dioxide is the exhaust. That's exactly right. Of metabolic activity. You cannot burn calories without making CO2. You cannot make CO2 without burning calories. It's the measure. It's not a whoop or a fit bit. Yes, we're not estimating at all.

This is a real measure. And it got figured out in the 50s, but then we could use it for people in the 80s and so people have been doing it since then and it is the gold standard. Have you done it to yourself because I would want to do it. You have? Yeah. And what did you burn a day? 2800 a day. Are you active physically? I am. I was sick that week so I was less so. I'm not like bedridden but I wasn't running as much as I like to. So you're probably more like 3000 a day? Typical American male burns 3,000 calories a day. Typical American woman is gonna burn 2400 calories a day.

Okay. Yes, it's a B. Yes, Monica. Because you're lazy. If I had a guess, that's what you're burning. I'm not lazy. I know the real answer. What's the real answer? The only real relation hardcore is your non-fat mass.

So your muscle and your organs, as you plot that and you plot calorie consumption, it's spot on. When we're observing the difference between males and females, all we're really observing is the difference in our body composition. That men have X amount, well in this case 24 divided by 3000.

That's probably the exact difference in non-fat body mass. That's right. That's right. Anyways, back to the Hadza. So we go there, we do this study. We live in Hadza land for a summer. Basically it's a big camping trip

with scientific equipment, doing these measurements, hanging out, going on hunts, going on gathering outings. It's really amazing. Is there anything you can do We live in Hadza land for a summer. Basically it's a big camping trip with scientific equipment, doing these measurements, hanging out, going on hunts, going on gathering outings. It's really amazing. Is it fun? It's so fun. And the people are just generous, wonderful folks.

Bow and arrow and what are they getting? Gazelles and stuff? Picture natural geographic savanna, that's it. Zebra, giraffe. Did you eat some zebra? I've had different animal foods, whatever they would bring home. I've had zebra. Do you have they would bring home. I've had zebra

Do you have a favorite? None of it tastes as good as a cow. Haza cuisine is not really a thing It's not fatty any of those animals. A and B. It's just the meat. Yeah There's no like sauce. There's no salt. Very little salt and very little anything else. No dry rub No, if they kill a zebra, you can't eat a zebra in one day It's a huge thing Yeah You can't eat a zebra in a day And so they eat huge thing. Even a camp can't eat a zebra in a day. And so they eat what they can right then

and then they bring all the meat home and they cut it into strips and they hang it from the trees. A camp is about 12 or 20, sometimes even smaller, but let's say a dozen grass houses in a nice part of the savanna. And the whole camp just kind of smells like a butcher's shop for a week. It's kind of crazy.

Yeah. Do they have any elevated rates? Probably less of animal born bacteria. It isn't rampant. Any of these subsistence groups, if you look at hunter-gatherers, you look at farmers, parasites are like a part of life. And so I'm sure they have them more than,

I hope, us three have them. I don't know. But no, it doesn't affect their day to day. I read this result and I found it quite depressing. Oh, right. So we haven't got the result yet. We take the samples home. They get analyzed at a lab at Baylor.

We're internationally leading guy in this technique. Sends me the data back. And I'm just so excited about it because we're going to find out they're burning double the calories. It's going to be so cool to see. And nope, it's the same. So they as getting more activity in a day

than a typical American gets in a week, are burning the same number of calories every day as the American. Total shocker, right? As a scientist, that's the best. Yeah. And so I went back to the guy, Bill Wong, he's the one who did it.

I said, Bill, did we screw it up? Yeah, this can't be right. And he said, no, no, no, the data, because there's internal checks they can do it. Data look great. And I said, then what's going on? And he goes, well, we see this sometimes. They're more efficient. And I said, no, no, no, the data, you know, because there's internal checks they can do, data look great. And I said, then what's going on? And he goes, well, we see this sometimes, they're more efficient.

And I go, oh, thank God, somebody understands what's going on here. And I said, what do you mean? And he goes, well, they burn fewer calories than you thought they would. They go, that's not an explanation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's been the last 15 years of my career.

A big part of it has been trying to understand this phenomenon, because it's not just them, we've done this in other cultures, we've done this in other species, and activity doesn't sort of link up with your daily expenditure the simple way that people think it does. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

["The Daily Expenditure"] But it doesn't reject the hard fast rules calories in calories out. Not at all. You're embracing that. Like if you eat 2000 calories and you only burn 1000, you will have a surplus turned into fat. 100%. Vice versa the other way. So how do you make it jive within that system?

I think what it does is it helps explain why people have such trouble doing the calories in calories out thing. First of all, it's hard to know how many calories you're eating. And then secondly, it's very hard to know how many calories you're burning because it isn't just how active you are. Right. It turns out. Yeah. Okay.

That's interesting. Now it's like, well, yeah, it's calories in calories out, but good luck tracking either of those things. It sort of sends you back to square one of like, how do I find a way to do this? If I'm really worried about diet and diet's the best way to handle your weight, which is true, then okay,

then how do I find a way to do that? Is it because they are expending so much energy that the body is figuring out a way to conserve the oxygen? It's figuring out a way to conserve energy on other things. When we were there, we brought up this sort of briefcase based respirometry system where you can put a mask on a person that's hooked up to a little computer you wear on a chest harness. We can measure how many calories they burn to walk.

That's the same. So the activity costs aren't lower. So they are really active. They're burning tons of calories on the activity. There's no secrets there. The fact that the total number of calories a day is no different than everybody else means there has to be something else going on

in all the other things that your body's doing, saving energy here or there, squirreling it away, and that's interesting. So an analogy to that would be really physically active people here in the States versus inactive people. When we look at them, what we notice is people who are really physically active, they have less inflammation.

Well, what's that? Your immune system isn't as active. Oh, okay, so we're saving some calories there maybe. Your reproductive hormones aren't as sky high. They're actually really high in the sedentary Americans versus like the Hadza, for example. Or this is why you have Olympic athletes that don't get their period for three years.

Yes, that's true of it. But on the way there, there's a very healthy point where your estrogen levels might not be as high as somebody who's sedentary, and maybe that's a good thing. All signs point to that is a good thing. Yes, stress reactivity. If you are an athlete, or even if you just exercise regularly, if I scare you, your heart rate's going to go up, but less.

You're going to have a smaller stress response, and if you measure how much cortisol you make all day, or how much epinephrine your body makes all day, it's less if you are physically active. Yeah, interesting. Now, have we gotten good at monitoring how many calories the brain is consuming while intensely active?

I have to imagine if you're crunching numbers and computing that activity's gonna burn more calories than watching TV. It's kind of a disappointing amount. They do these tests where they have people play like chess against a game that's tuned just to be just a little bit better than them. So they're working their asses off

and they're struggling. They lose anyway, must be very frustrating. And you just like four calories an hour, it's nothing. It's like a couple M&Ms. So it's not like you could say this brain economy is a kind of one-to-one to this physical activity. Probably not. Probably the brain is one of the pieces

that's not getting touched. You can't really mess with it. And that's because most of what your brain is doing is completely off of your radar. It's all the organizational stuff, housekeeping stuff. What you found is that there is a pretty narrow margin that the body wants to operate in metabolically. Yeah, it's working to keep you within a narrow range.

Sometimes this gets misinterpreted like, oh, there's no effective exercise at all. Now there can be, sometimes you can see it. Well, I've experienced it. So that's where I'm wrestling with, like as I read this stuff, I'm like, well no, I up my thing and I've had all the results one would expect. Yeah, if you start an exercise program tomorrow,

it's gonna take a while for your body to adjust, so for the first couple weeks, you haven't seen the adjustment yet, so you really are burning the extra calories that you expect to burn. And the body hasn't found its way to homeostasis yet. But, if you're doing a lot of weight training, we get into this non-fat body mass or we are going to see a direct result to your metabolism.

When we say no more calories than somebody else, those are all sort of size adjusted comparisons. Right, because it doesn't make any sense for me to say that you and Monica burn the same number of calories. Obviously it's going to be different because of the size difference. Right. And so when we do these population comparisons,

we don't want to just compare sizes across, we want to compare adjusted for size. And so that's right, if you build more muscle, for example, then yeah, you'll burn more calories just because you are bigger. Yeah, your body can only digest so much. Like these bodybuilders there walking around 300 pounds of lean muscle,

their body's not going to hit a homeostasis where they only consume 3,000 calories a day. They'll go up, so that's a fun one. The other challenge to this idea is like, well, what about the Tour de France? You're burning 8,000 calories a day. 8,000 calories a day. They'll go up, so that's a fun one. The other challenge to this idea is like, well what about the Tour de France? You're burning 8,000 calories a day. 8,000 calories a day. It's a sub amount.

I did the math, we're like, what can I tell you? Because it's great. They're doing 7, 8,000 calories a day for three weeks, so 21 days straight. That's 150,000 calories in three weeks. That would be 75 days of normal caloric output in 21 days. The body can't adjust to that, right? It's going to need those 9,000 calories.

That's right, so we know that there are periods the body can at least for some short term time really crank it up. And we see that with those guys. We see it with- Pregnancy, interesting. Yeah, yeah, so that's the fun thing. The ceiling kind of comes down,

and it's analogous to you can sprint for 10 seconds, or you can jog for an hour. The sprint in this scenario is the Tour de France. And the jog is how hard can you push yourself for six, seven, eight, nine months. And the hardest thing you can do for nine months is pregnancy. We call it a metabolic ceiling.

The total limit to how many calories your body can possibly burn is higher for a short term thing, but gets progressively lower and kind of squeezes down to about two and a half times your basal metabolic rate. I guess I'm just curious how much it goes up during pregnancy. It goes up maybe 20, 30%,

but that's because of the size change. It's all proportional, you're saying. That's right, it remains proportional. So that's kind of fun to think about. So when your heart rate's above 150, there's no hacking there. Your body's never going to adjust to that. Not in the moment, surely, no.

You're burning those calories right then. Yeah, so even if you do it for a prolonged period of time, your body's never gonna be at 150 beats per minute and only burning the amount of calories one would burn at 80 beats. That's right. The adjustment seems to be happening in the other times. The non-exercise moments.

Yes, exactly. Do you think you can feel that? The stress response, for example, I think you can feel that. Who knows how that's affecting the brain exactly, but I think the mood impacts. You're seeing that regulation that's happening from exercise touches everything. Yeah, we know it's directly related, but we've never had a great explanation for why. Yeah. My explanation was always like, oh, we were designed to go do physical activity and get a serotonin reward. And in the absence of any of that physical activity, the brain's like, I'm not giving you that.

So that was always my explanation, but this one's interesting and compelling as well, which is we don't have the energy to do that. Right. I would like to see people think about exercise in a different way. It's not just about putting your foot on the gas pedal and raising the calories burn.

It can do that in a short term and your body's going to adjust and juggle the calories. Don't worry so much about the calories. What the exercise is doing is re-regulating how all the other systems work, because they're all linked. So if I start exercising more, I'm going to affect all my other systems in good ways.

Yeah, you say it kind of like calibrates and puts in harmony all these different systems. Yeah, it's like the rhythm section. But if, okay, so instead of working out, you could just get scared a lot. Oh yeah, you could pay someone to follow you. Have the same output. You need to drink the isotope though,

so we know exactly. Like, is it 80 calories per scare? I'll do this research. Yeah. Let's do it, let's do it. I actually brought with me, now, wouldn't that be amazing if you could get like a can of DLW, crack it open, isotope water.

I'm dying to know how many calories I burn. Wait, so people who have high anxiety or panic, stress and stuff, do they burn more calories just being anxious? Yes. That's wild. Fun set of studies done in the 90s. You have somebody just kind of hang out and relax.

The best part is you don't even have to scare them. You get them when everybody thinks that they're relaxed. Right. But then you have them do this survey afterwards, whatever the scale is about how anxious you are in general. And people who are pinned out on being anxious have higher expenditures just resting. Their body is just going away. Do they have a higher resting heart rate and cortisol?

Yeah, their body's dealing with a lot. Okay, so really quick blast paleo. Because this is on the surface, something that seems really logical to people. So the premise of paleo is during the Paleolithic era we lived a very certain way we only ate non-processed vegetables and meat it was a low carb high protein diet and this is people's religion but what did you find with the Hadza? They don't eat a paleo diet which is hilarious because they're actually hunting and gathering there is no single one diet that hunter gatherers eat.

If you look across the globe, you'll find people on any mix of animal and plant foods across time, across space, you see anything. The real paleo diet would be whatever is there. 100% fish in some cases. So the Hadza have actually quite a lot of carbs in their diet. We see that again and again and again.

This idea that the only way to be paleo or the true paleo is low carb. Sorry, that's not really true These tubers are very starchy very starchy and when it's not tubers It's berries and when it's not tubers and berries, it's honey. There we go Yeah, you said 10 to 20 percent of their calories are straight honey. Yes in water and sugar Yeah, people think that honey is magical and it is kind of wonderful, but it's just sugar and water man Hate to break it to you, it is sugar and water. Tell us about what is unique about us humans, heart and air supply.

How did this system come about and what's unique about it? Well, you're kind of your typical mammal setup for hearts and lungs. We have a four chambered heart, all mammals got that. Our lungs are driven by a diaphragm, the muscle below your lungs, it kind of pushes them out and brings air in and pushes air out. That's all the same.

But what we've done is we've taken your larynx, that's the little voice box, little cartilage cup that you can feel in your throat, and we've brought it down in our necks low. And that's because of the way that we've been adapted to speak. It's a very appropriate discussion for this. All of this right here,

we're all making air sound waves at you. That means something to you. That's crazy, first of all. Right. No, I know, yeah. Transferring what's in your brain to my brain with air waves. But to get this range of sounds,

and particularly the vowel range, A-E-I-O-U, you need to have a vocal track that has kind of two components, a vertical part that comes up out of your throat and then a Horizontal component that comes out of your mouth and you shape those different things Separately to make different sounds by taking your larynx and putting it down here in your throat now you can choke that's dumb Okay, so that's a new yes Other primates they have it up high their larynx is up almost kind of behind their nose is up real high

And so the likelihood of them swallowing something and it gets dumped into their lungs, way less. God, I experience this almost daily. Joking. I'm eating and I take a deep breath for some reason. I suck some food in there and then I'm dealing with it for 30 minutes. And even cooler, deeper history,

which is that, have you ever wondered why food and air go in the same place? Yeah, it's a bad design. Yeah, it's a bad design in general. But you know what it is? Because when we were fish, there was a little air pouch called a swim bladder that helps fish stay buoyant.

Do you ever wonder how they stay upright and know how deep or shallow to be? Yeah. It's because they can adjust how much air is in this swim bladder. And for them, it's not lungs, it's just a little pouch. But then as vertebrates move on to land, that becomes lungs.

That's the structure that gets all, you know, vascularized. Isn't that fun? Because gills are no good anymore, right? And now we're stuck with this dumb thing where even embryologically, you see the gut tube form and then a little pouch grows out of your guts and that's your lungs.

And it all connects out to your mouth. And now we want to have this vocal communication and there's been such strong selection on that that even though thousands of people die in the United States alone, die every year from choking. It's a big cost. That's a problem. But this is so valuable that evolution said,

the net result was still more kids having this even with the risk of dying. Isn't that crazy? Oh my God. Yeah. The body's full of these wonderful things. So it had nothing to do with our uprightness, because I could also imagine when you're quadrupedal,

your orientation is all different. So that ties into when you run, you can run and talk, and you can run and kind of breathe in different schedules. If you ever have some fun with this, you can take a breath in every two steps, not every two steps, or in every step and out every step, or in every three and out,

depending on your pace, You can change that up. A quadruped that's sprinting can't do that because every time its front feet hit the ground, its gut slosh forward, push the air out of its lungs. And then every time it stretches back out, the slush is back and they flare back in. So there's this idea that actually my PhD advisor built on this idea, it's an old idea that goes back

to the 80s, that being bipedal made it easier for us to become endurance runners that could run down game. Because there are some cultures even today that will run an animal to exhaustion. That's how they hunt. Like wolves. Yeah, exactly.

You know, we can kind of run at all these different speeds and still be able to breathe fine. Whereas if you are a quadruped, the range of speeds that you're able to maintain and still be able to breathe fine. Whereas if you are a quadruped, the range of speeds that you're able to maintain and still be able to breathe effectively is much more limited. And so you can kind of push these, anyway, that's the idea.

Now, are there differences within populations or no? About what? Our air supply and our heart. You don't see it in the vocal tract and that kind of thing, but what you see is there's a bit player in this whole system, which is the spleen. Monica, do you know what the spleen does? Most people don't.

No, I just know it can explode if you have mono. Yes. So it's mostly like an immune system organ. It tracks what's going on immune system wise. But right, it kind of seems expendable. Maybe even get it removed, it's not a big deal. It also acts as a reserve tank for red blood cells. And so there are people who live at altitude

and are always kind of oxygen starved. Their spleen's get a little bit bigger because it becomes this extra reserve red blood cell thing for their blood to, your red blood cells are the ones that carry oxygen. So. Your hemoglobin. Exactly.

And then there's this amazing case that's kind of documented at 2010 or so. There's a population of folks called the Sama. You hear them written about as the Bajau as well, but they call themselves the Sama. And they are basically hunter-gatherers in the ocean. They spend their lives on boats. This is South Pacific, so Southeast Asia,

the Philippines and islands up into Indonesia now, they forage underwater, so they just kind of free dive. There's no scuba or anything like that, they're just holding their breath. And you can imagine in that very particular population, there was strong selection for, can you hold your breath a little bit longer? Are you less likely to drown,

because you push it too far? Yeah, yeah. And in those folks, the gene variants that build a bigger spleen have been favored, and now they have bigger spleens on average. On what order? 30% bigger or? Yeah, something like this.

It's not double, but it's just enough, right? And evolution's always working on the margins like that. Yeah. Isn't that so cool? But it's a nice example of, and it's something I try to cover when I teach this stuff But also in the book people are always looking for adaptive stories about why this population is different than that one usually There's nothing there usually the selection pressures are kind of the same like a heart and lungs it's kind of the same for everybody and

It's only in these really small particular cases, like underwater foraging, like living at altitude. Because think what has to happen, you have to have selection pressures be stable for long enough and really localized that evolution will say, yes, these particular gene variants now are an advantage and stably so, so that now things change. Most of what we see when we look across populations

is kind of just slush and slop and noise. Right, and maybe not even consistent long enough for it to have a big impact. Okay, what about how we eat? We're kind of talking about it already. People are really good at eating whatever's around. You can tell from our teeth and our guts, broadly speaking, that we're ready for a high quality diet.

We don't have to spend hours chewing grass, obviously, right? We're good at stuff that's energy dense. Cooking has actually changed our bodies completely. A common argument from vegetarians is like, look at our mouth, it doesn't resemble a true omnivore's mouth. They're leaving out that that's because we cook. Yes, that makes energy in the food easier to get at,

which ends up meaning that you get more calories per bite and it's easier to chew on all these things. This is a fun one too. We talked about how once cultural complexity gets out of hand and kind of snowballs, now the brain is playing catch up. You're born trying to fill the brain with all the things that you learn.

You see this cultural inheritance in other words. You call it the dual inheritance sometimes. You've got your DNA inheritance. We've also got this cultural inheritance that's just as important. And those things have to link up. Case in point with cooking. There's no gene for fire.

There's no genetic variant for fire, but our bodies need cooked food. So the biological inheritance is a digestive tract that requires cooked food, actually. Raw foodists have a hard time, even today with the weird, amazingly easy-to-adjust foods you get in the supermarket. You could never be a raw foodist on wild foods.

It wouldn't work. So our bodies need cooked food and how to cook and how to make fire is completely culturally inherited. You don't come out knowing how to start a fire. That's right. And so if you don't put those things together, you're done. Isn't that fun?

I want to earmark this for the very end, get off book a little bit. But yes, this is like, I read Behave. I don't know if you read Sapolsky's book. I've read Sapolsky, I've read Parts of Behave, yeah, yeah. But that one does a really great job of, the nature nurture debate is really a false dichotomy. You can look so many times where they're so interwoven,

you can't really even make some distinction between which is which, which weirdly and funnily it kind of brings back Lamarckian biology a little bit. But let's earmark that. Is that necessarily about the book, but it's a fascinating thing to think about now. How about muscle and bone? And there's nothing that's more kind of plastic

and adaptable than the muscles. You can change sizes and even change the kind of fiber types if you're slow twitch or fast twitch, power or endurance. That's a really flexible system. And I think it's another case where if all humans were just born to be just one kind of athlete, just an endurance or just a power kind of thing, it wouldn't work because cultures change, the jobs you have to do change too quickly.

So evolution has to solve that problem by creating flexibility and creating adaptability. So over the course of a lifetime, if you grow up someplace, you're doing a lot of running, you'll get good at that. You grow up somewhere where you're working with your upper body a lot of running, you'll get good at that. You grow up somewhere where you're working with your upper body farming or canoeing, you'll get good at that.

Like you see examples of all these things. The Olympics is the best place to observe this. I love it. You're like, look at a power lifter, look at the ultra marathon, or look at the sprinter. Every sprinter looks the same. Every beach volleyballist looks the same. That's it.

And they're all the same species with 99.9% of the same DNA. And look how fucking flexible it is. Humans are incredibly inherently diverse the way that we're built. Just look around. Any population you're going to find the big people and the small people and the strong people

and the thin people. You find all of it everywhere. And I think that is true. Humans are kind of inherently more variable. I think that also gets back to this issue of every lion has to be the best lion it can be. And there's a narrow prescriptive way of how that's going to work for them

to be a successful adult. In a human society, even hunting and gathering society where the career options are more limited than maybe here, you're still going to see a variety of ways that are successful to be an adult. And so I think there's sort of more breadth of possibility there than in other species. I want to go straight to environmental protection.

I would imagine many people don't even know why some people are white and some people are black. I think that's probably true. I mean, I think they've observed that, but I don't know if they would necessarily know so. The molecule that makes the skin dark is a molecule called melanin. You've got these really cool cells

that start off in this very special part of the embryo that migrate into your skin and those cells make melanin. You've got these really cool cells that start off in this very special part of the embryo that migrate into your skin and those cells make melanin. That's their job. And the more they make the darker you are. And so we all make it. It is. Less. We're melanin challenged. We're lazy melanin. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I feel it. On a sunny day I feel it. But even the baseline is variable right? That's right. So if we were an African species we know that 300,000 years ago, that's where we all were. Melanin is this natural sunblock. You see more melanin, darker skin in populations that have more ultraviolet light exposure. And it's because ultraviolet light is good because it helps you make vitamin D, but it's bad because it blows up this molecule called folate, which you need to make DNA.

You are making two miles of DNA every second or something like that. It's crazy. Because your cells are dividing. And so if you don't make that right, that's a problem. There's all my tosis or there's cancers, or if you are pregnant and you are building a fetus, there's a lot of DNA being made there. And if that doesn't work out, that's not good, obviously.

So you need the exact right amount of UV. You want to make vitamin D, you want to protect your DNA. And that balance is why if you're at a high sunlight area, you're going to be inherently adapted to be darker. Populations farther away are going to be adapted to be lighter and get more of that UV because that's the other part of the seesaw. Yeah. So just to remind people about the geology.

So Africa is on the equator or where most of the humans come from. So the sun is always in the same spot in the sky. It's always up and down for 12 hours. You're out on the Savannah. There's not a lot of cover. the same spot in the sky. It's always up and down for 12 hours. You're out on the savanna. There's not a lot of cover. You're not in a forest. So as people move north, the balance shifts.

So there's less light, there's less UV, there's less opportunity to make vitamin D, and then the skin gets lighter. Yeah, so there's like 100 and some genes that work together to kind of figure out how much melanin you're gonna make. You can imagine there's variants of those. We all have those 150 genes,

but your versions might be different than mine. And so the versions that help make more melanin, those are going to be successful in high UV places like Africa. As you move north, the variants that make you a little bit lighter, all of a sudden that's an advantage. And we see those variants get selected for to be lighter.

And then people move back into more tropical areas with higher sunlight intensity and we see the darker skin variants come back. Well, that's where it gets lomarchian. So my question to you is, do we have every ingredient at the disposal and we are turning on and turning off certain things? That's where this weird interplay between

how we've thought of Darwinian evolution and now we're starting to see, well, no, we kind of have a lot of genes that are just not activated. In my mind that says that you Dax could. Be black. Be black. Right, I can't.

No, but in our population, pick any population, you will find all the variants available. That's one of the big discoveries of modern genetics is that those variants, the same variants that make some people darker, some people lighter, they're all there in the population. Even if no one's black? Potentially so, because what'll happen is,

they'll just be a much lower frequency. So maybe only 5% of people have one gene have the variant that would make you darker skin. Since it's at low frequency, it's unlikely they're gonna have that variant and the other variant that helps, and the other variant that helps, and the other variant that helps,

that altogether give you darker skin. But now let's make selection favor darker skin. Well now, bit by bit, you kind of reassemble the frequencies to make those alleles more frequent. The two darker kids of the 100 kids survived and they made it and one had a third of this recipe and another had a third and now we're two thirds of the way there.

Yeah, so Lamarck would say anybody in their own lifetime can achieve that change. That's not right. But what is right is that any population over enough time could end up going back and forth on these traits. I might be misunderstanding, but I guess what Darwin was missing was the epigenome.

So he also had no idea about genes, and he thought that traits mix like paints mix. Right, right, right. And if you do that, then you just get blah. Recessive and dominant. Yeah, he didn't have any idea about that. So he was out to lunch on how any of genetics works. But the epigenome, which is hovering above your DNA and deciding what RNA is gonna send out.

That's a big factor too. And this is where I get into the recipe thing, right? With this enormous amount of detailed data for the epigenome to choose to use or not use. And there's a lot going on there. Whatever genes you've inherited from mom and dad, they're not all turned on all the time. And this is where nature and nurture

start really mingling, right? Yes, and this has been a big breakthrough in the last 15, 20 years of just how this works. The moment you're born, and maybe even before you're born, which is crazy. Mom's uterus passed on. You are listening, you're paying attention. And yes, you have all these genes from mom and dad, but you're not, and maybe even before you're born, which is crazy. Mom's uterus, past stomp. You are listening, you're paying attention. And yes, you have all these genes from mom and dad,

but you're not going to use them all. You're going to pick which ones you use. And then that creates diversity too. Now I've heard male pattern baldness is an adaptation of going into Northern climates as well. See, I thought it was a sign of prowess and obvious. Yeah, I like to think so. Is male pattern baldness an adaptation

to receive more vitamin D from the top of your head? I doubt it, and here's why. That extra little patch isn't doing you a whole lot of good, first of all. But if you're upright all day. Yeah, but you're also not wearing as many clothes all day, probably, and you're outside the entire day. You probably get plenty of exposure anyhow.

Here's who really needs the vitamin D, is mom. So why is her hair not falling out? Exactly. Okay. How do we explain male pattern baldness though? Is there an armchair theory on it? So this is where I would push back and say, let's be sure that we're looking at an adaptation and not just a tolerated bit of noise.

Ah! Right? Skull shape's a great example of this. Back in the bad old eugenics days, people were measuring the skull shapes of Eastern Europeans and Asians, all these things, and they're trying to figure out who's a good person and who's a bad person. And it was all really ugly shit.

Guess who was great, Arians. Exactly. And you do that analysis today and you say, well, what if rather than assuming that I'm looking at selection favoring that skull shape here and this skull shape there, what if my model is, well, evolution doesn't care. It doesn't affect how you survive. It doesn't affect how many babies you have. Right, there's no real force acting on this. Yeah, so what if

the model is, well it's just noise and we know what noise should look like. Noise should look like gray screen noise, right? It's just no real pattern to it. There's a very clear mathematical test you can make for that and sure enough if you look at skull shapes across the globe, it's noise. They don't mean anything. So let's put a real fine point on this because what I learned in anthro and what I've repeated to a lot of people is the categorizing of people by race

is just simply scientifically very, very weak. In that, the example that was given to me in anthro is there are populations within Africa that have more genetic similarity with populations in Ireland than they do with a neighboring tribe. So why on earth would you categorize these people by this thing that is the least telling and least dynamic in everything?

This is just like, as you said, 150 alleles or something that means nothing in the grand scope of things. If you really wanted to categorize and group people, we just know that would be about the worst way to do it, to get any consistency. That's exactly right. And the reason why do we do it is because we seem to be inherently built to like to have in groups, out groups.

And we're visual primates, man. Yeah. So we pick something visual. I think it's kind of inherent in the way that our brains are built to go that way. So it's not a surprise, but that doesn't make it right. It's a pretty crap way to do it. It just means nothing if you were looking at it

scientifically. Yeah, but what's crazy to me's a pretty crap way to do it. It just means nothing if you were looking at it scientifically. Yeah, but what's crazy to me is that's still how we do it, not just casually. It's how you doctors do it. Yeah. Doctors are still doing this race-based view. That's how they're trained.

You come into the doctor's office, you get a medical test. And how I interpret that test is through a lens of if you're black, if you're white, if you're Asian. You get the exact examples in the books because I was like, oh, this is fascinating. There's a thing called an EGFR, estimated glomular filtration, it's how your kidneys are doing.

It's a blood test. I get a blood test, I run it through this analysis, I get a number and that's your EGFR. Okay, is it good or is it bad? It all depends. If I'm a doctor and I'm interpreting that number, I ask is the patient black or is the patient white? That's fucking crazy because their kidney function

has nothing to do with that. Okay, but let me attempt to push back and maybe you'll correct me in this. So one thing I learned along the way, which I found very fascinating is that African-Americans, not black people across the globe, but African-Americans have a very elevated rate of hypertension. And so the question is how they get this rate

of hypertension and what people have figured out is that when the people in Africa were kidnapped, they were first marched to West Africa, most of them, to get put on boats to be brought to America. Half of those people died of dehydration on that walk. So the people that made it to the boat had a really high salinity count or asymmetrical salinity count. They were able to hold onto the salt in their body. Then they put them on boats. Half those people

died of dehydration. So the people that landed here had this extreme force case of natural selection where a high salinity rate was beneficial to survival. We assume for half a second that was true. Yeah. And I'm a doctor and I measure the salinity count of beneficial to survival. We assumed for half a second that was true. And I'm a doctor and I measure the salinity count of someone's body and I see that it's elevated. Well, what I'm really trying to do is decide, is it elevated relative to his peers or her peers or her in-group because that's really

what's gonna be significant. Is this person running an outside risk even given their elevated disposition? That would be relevant, no? Again, at least there's a plausible mechanism there. To push back specifically on that one, if that were true, if that bottleneck with the slave trade were what was happening, we would see that in the genes

that we know are related to hypertension risk. We don't see that. You don't? No, there is no evidence. And also you can take black families who are not descendants of the slave trade. Right. But they grew up in America where there is racism.

They have the effects of that. So race becomes biological. You mean if someone flew from Nigeria here tomorrow, within some time they would have the predictable. Yes, that's right. So yeah, usually there's not even a story as to why, at least that one has a story. Yeah, yeah, it seems extremely plausible to me.

People dying of dehydration, I'm certain they weren't handing out water. Let's do more of the heart rate thing. So through the 80s and 90s, it was thought that black folks in America were just genetically predisposed to heart disease. This is how it is. Just accept it.

Accept it. Move on. And now we know, okay, well actually, if you study folks that are black, and even if they're descendants of the slave trade, but they aren't in the United States exposed to structural racism, they actually don't have hypertension.

That isn't a thing that all the folks have downstream. It's a stress thing. It's a stress thing. Yeah. Wow. Another great example, native Americans in this country have, for all sorts of reasons,

they also have hypertension and other sorts of bad heart outcomes. Overindex and diabetes. Is that because they're predisposed to it? Well, actually, if you also look at Native American groups in Bolivia, it's the same diaspora that came down. Same folks, but they aren't living in a world that has-

Oppressed them. That oppressed them. And so guess what? Healthiest hearts in the world in Bolivia No signs of diabetes. So it's true that in this environment that gets triggered that set of sequences But what we're looking at is an environmental influence We're not looking at some inherent biological predisposition and what gets dangerous is if you say well, that's just how those folks are What can we do throw up your hands, well, that's just how those folks are. Right. It's the, what can we do? Throw up your hands.

Yeah. That's a very different response than you say, holy shit, this group does have an issue. We gotta fix it. We gotta fix it. Maybe we can fix it. Yeah. That's right.

So the way that you understand how the body works ends up with big consequences for how you think about society. Yeah, absolutely. How we deal with all these problems. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Here's a fun one. My mother-in-law just had a DEXA scan done. She had her bone density checked and they give you a bone density score, how mineralized your bones are. And then I

was reading the report with her because she wanted some inputs and they had this thing at the end, your FRAX likelihood, F-R-A-X is this sort of algorithm they run the data through, likelihood of major fracture in the next 10 years is X. And I thought, oh, that's interesting. So I looked that up online, I'd heard about this,

I wanted to look into it. You can go to the FRAX website, any doctor would use this. The herd doctor used this. You put in the bone mineral density. You put in your BMI. Are you frail? Are you robust? A robustus? Yeah, good.

Age, sex, the things that are relevant. And then it also asks you, what's your race? Are you black? Are you Asian? Are you Caucasian? And I played with it. She grew up in China. She's Asian.

If you put in Asian versus Caucasian versus African American, you could change your risk by double or half. So that's 4X from the ceiling to the floor. Yes, and it's totally bullshit. I mean, there's no way that's right. And the training set that they must have used this on was capturing something about the environment of folks

and that's affecting your likelihood. I wonder how this menopause data, because we had a menopause expert on, she's saying Southeast Asians go through menopause on average like six years earlier like around 47 or 48 Earlier than maybe it wasn't six, but it was several years. I don't know. I wonder if that's a nature nurture So I would be interesting. Yeah, I don't think we have a great answer We know why menopause happens mechanistically, but we don't really know what triggers the exact timing, like why it's 47 versus 49.

I don't think we have a great handle on exactly that. Well, you run out of eggs, and the body starts ratcheting up. But if everyone starts with so many eggs. And why this time versus that time? Five years difference is a big difference. Why who's early and who's later, I don't know. So the idea that your doctor is looking at the census box

that you ticked and making real decisions. It's like, take your car to the mechanic. They say, well, we checked the timing bell. We checked the brakes and we think your car is going to be okay because it's blue. Like, well, wow, what? Well, hold on. We did this, the diagnostic tests.

I mean, here's the numbers, but then it looks pretty bad. But the good news is you've got a blue car. Well, what the hell are you talking about? We do this. Well, we shouldn't. With cars. If they come in and there's a Rodnock at 100,000 miles and it's an American car, all systems go, this is what we expected.

If you bring a Toyota in that's got a Rodnock at 100,000, something's really weird. Cause we do know a Toyota will go 300,000 miles and the American car is gonna go 150. But that has to do with how that actually is built. Yeah. It's the actual, it's the relative system. The quality of manufacturing.

This is literally as dumb as saying, two Toyotas, both are broad knocked, one's white, one's white. Okay, because the numbers are exactly. You won, you won. You're going to win most of these, but I'm going to keep going for it. Let's talk about dying, because here's my great curiosity.

Your cells go through mitosis. They make an identical copy to themselves. So there's this great mystery. If they're making identical copies, how does aging even really happen? So clearly something turns on or off and it starts making the cells differently, which is its own mystery,

kind of how it's making identical but not identical copies. My question is, why hasn't there ever been a mutation that just didn't turn that on? What would govern against that? Why couldn't that be a mutation that just didn't turn that on? What would govern against that? Why couldn't that be a mutation that would have happened by now? Well, first of all, some species are getting pretty close. So you've got bristle cone pine trees

that live 5,000 years. And are there some sharks that are like- Go to 600 years, I think. Oh my God. 600. I wanna live to 600. Yeah, there's a wonderful story, it may be apocryphal about the guy who discovered the oldest living organism.

You guys ever hear this story? No. That was lovely. It may be apocryphal, but it's such a good story. So it's a grad student in forestry and he's trying to study bristlecone pine trees for some reason. I think he's using the tree ring data

to figure out environmental changes over deep time. This is in the sixties. It buys a special tubular drill bit that you can drill it into the tree, pull it out and you get this core sample of the tree. Look at the rings. He's starting his research, and he gets up there into the forests,

probably somewhere out here in western US, and he starts drilling into a bristlegum pine, gets the thing stuck. And he's like, ah, I can't finish my dissertation. I'm in real trouble. So he goes to the ranger's station and says, this is what happened, I'm so sorry. Can I cut that one tree down, please, to get my core thing out? And the guy's like, yeah, fine. So he goes to the ranger's station and says, this is what happened, I'm so sorry, can I cut that one tree down please

to get my core thing out? And the guy's like, yeah, fine. So he cuts it down. And he's a good scientist about it and saves a section of it and counts the rings later on and goes, oh my God, I just killed the oldest thing on the planet. That's risky.

It was a 5,000 year old tree or something like that. I love when you go to Mirror Woods and they've got the cross section and then fucking Jesus is on them. I'm one of the rings. Oh, it's incredible. When people argue for like a 6,000 year old history of the earth, the really serious anti-evolutionists,

I think, man, we've got tree ring data older than that. For sure it's older than that, but anyway. Yeah, how do we age? What's unique about how we age? Obviously we live quite long for primates. We're the oldest living primate for sure And we do a better job not senescing So there's been selection there to push that process off the standard story

Is that whatever the kind of damage that accumulates over time as we get older? Your body has ways to fix that and repair it and put it back, right? But that takes energy everything's a trade-off So if my body's spending energy keeping myself alive, well then I'm not spending those calories on reproduction. And that's the balance of that, and really the reproduction part is what evolution really cares about.

How many copies of your genes do you get in the next generation? So if you spent all of your energy on maintenance, then maybe you could live a lot longer, but that's not a great strategy because- Those genes won't make it to anybody. Exactly. So that's the standard story about why sen Those genes won't make it to anybody. Exactly. So that's the standard story about why senescence happens.

The mechanism of exactly what's happening at the cellular level, what's breaking down, why, that still is, I think, up in the air. The stuff I find convincing too is that it's kind of entropy. The wild number of chemical interactions that actually become at that scale physical interactions of molecules bouncing against molecules, things get wrecked and broken

and you have to put them back together. The idea would be that that's why calorie restriction, for example, I don't know if you want to do it, but that's been the one thing shown in every species ever looked at. But even in like lab settings in mice, if you cut their calories by 20%, they live a lot longer. Cause your body starts eating all the junk

that's accumulated. All the scrap. It kind of cleans up the scrap and uses it. And it just creates less exhaust, less byproduct and less entropy. Okay, so what do we need to know about living and how to live longer? You got to play two games to try to live forever.

One, we know the rules to, and we can do something about, which is make sure you're exercising, eating a healthy diet. We can talk a lot of time about what that would look like. Yeah. Don't smoke. Don't do things that we know lead to early. Drinking is, I hate to say it, but I think drinking's not. All these things that we know how to do.

And that can push you through the kind of typical falling off the cliff that happens to a lot of us as we get older. But once you push into the kind of the 80s, 90s, then you gotta hope you got good genes. Who's the guy who's trying to live forever? Is Brian Johnson, Is that the guy? And I don't know him and I wish him the best.

Did you watch the doc? The last thing I saw with him was him on Bill Maher's pod talking with him. Oh, okay. Yeah. I haven't watched the doc. I kind of keep up with him a little bit on social media because I think it's interesting.

I am aware of the routine, at least some of it. He'll have a really good chance of winning the first game. He's not going to die of heart disease. That seems unlikely. He's going to beat die of heart disease. That seems unlikely. He's going to beat the four horsemen, as the Tia would call them. The preventable cancers. Metabolic disorders.

Yes, he's going to do great. He's going to get to be 80 or 90 if I were to make a prediction. And then we're going to find out how mom and dad did in the genes category. This is where I'm very discouraged. Yeah, so I don't know. The idea that you could have a life that's twice as long

is in my mind, the same as saying that I'm gonna have a human that's twice as tall. Right. There are thousands of genes that all work together to make a human-sized human. If you wanted to make a double-sized human, imagine all the things you'd have to change. It wouldn't just be make sure you feed them better.

You've gotta change genetically how you build the thing. And so lifespan is just another trait, just like that. So what I think we're seeing now is there's enough good nutrition around the world, enough good medicine around the world. Please get vaccinated, take your antibiotics, take the medicine you need to take. We can get you to 80, 90 relatively.

That happens for a lot of folks. That's wonderful. And even over a hundred. But then you start hitting the genetic limits of what's possible. Yeah. Right. That's how I read it. And I'll be happy to be wrong.

Do two minutes on vaccines. Well, as the measles outbreak right now in Texas, it lets us know they're an important public health thing to do. The vaccination schedule is critically important to keep. There's a reason all those are in there. Those are all diseases that really harm kids and have lifetime effects and sometimes death. But I mean, these are really nasty things. Vaccination is one of the greatest medical discoveries ever. It goes back to

the 1700s. George Washington was vaccinating his troops against smallpox. It has saved more lives than any medical discovery ever by a landslide. That's exactly right. That and clean water, and you basically have the modern world. Yeah. And without those things, you don't. And what's really troubling for vaccines is they are a victim of their success. Yeah.

And that's a real bummer. For the people who did not grow up around polio, as my grandfather did, the notion you wouldn't get a polio vaccine for your kid is outrageous to me. But a modern person hasn't get a polio vaccine for your kid is outrageous to me. But a modern person hasn't seen a generation of kids in wheelchairs and on crutches. And the way they work is this really clever thing

that your immune system has cells that are listening, looking for infection, and they learn how to identify it and kill it and make antibodies to it. And you are evolved to have this adaptive response that vaccines kind of take advantage of. The idea that's sort of unnatural is bullshit. It's completely using this natural system that your body has evolved.

And then the other thing that people always want to tie it to are developmental issues and autism, of course, and all of that's going to be completely debunked. Just all such bullshit. And yet, it just won't die. People really want to push it, and it's kind of scary from my perspective. I think, man,

if we can't hold onto that advantage, right? I know. Then what are we doing? Okay, this is just my hypothesis. It is the same part of your brain that makes us all very susceptible to religion that's being hijacked. Because it's driven by a notion of purity

in the natural world. Because there's been these studies where if you plot on a US map, the lowest rates of vaccinations, they correlate perfectly with where Whole Foods are. Ha ha, I believe it. That's really troubling because people are shopping. Whole Foods are also more often college educated, they're upper socioeconomically.

Yes, there's a great example of this thing that's become associated with the political right since code, but actually before that was very much on the political left. Yeah. Well, this is where the circle meets Exactly the sense of purity the sense of well natural nature Natural everything being natural and non-toxic. It is ought fallacy We ought to teach that better right just because something is some way doesn't mean it ought to be that way first of all So it just because polio exists in the natural doesn't mean that we ought to just say, yes, let's have that. You naturally can't see at a certain age when you go get glasses. People

are very a la carte about what they want to accept and what they don't. But a lot of people really think that it causes the person to change. I know someone who is an anti-vaxxer and they were describing seeing someone get vaccinated and the way they were describing it, they were like, I saw a shift in their eyes. Yeah. It's like a war film. It's because they either were protected

against COVID, they were happy. Yeah, exactly, they were smiling. No, it was wild. And I believed that that's what they saw in their head. That's fair. I don't know how to tell someone like, no, you didn't. Yeah. Well, back to anthropology and cultural anthropology

and cultural relativity, I grant people their reality. Yeah, I know. But there has to be a place where we say we appreciate your beliefs and everybody has their own perspective, but that we are going to pay attention to the numbers. There has to be some agreement about an evidence-based way of making decisions. Your reality is fine, but when it starts impacting other people's realities,

that's where I think we have to say no. We wouldn't even have an issue if it didn't actually pertain to children, because that's what it's all about. I don't give a fuck if someone doesn't want to get vaccinated. If they're going to die of measles and you chose it, it's on you. In the most literal sense, you have decided for your kid they'll have the same position as you will, and it'd be like branding them your religion when you're born, or branding them your political identity.

That's the bummer about it is they've inherited their parents' position on something, which is probably not fair. A hundred percent. And they're not old enough. The age of consent is there for a reason, right? And they're below that. They're powerless to voice a different view. And yeah, we're seeing outbreaks that are preposterous that we would see in this time. 2025.

So that's really worrisome. I mean, it's, well, yeah, if we want to get into this, but we're watching right now in real time, maybe the dismantling of one of the most amazing medical research apparatuses that there ever has been. And it's starting with the way that HHS is potentially being led by somebody who's really skeptical about vaccines, that's scary.

Yeah, Kennedy. Yeah, all the way down through they're changing the way the NIH is going to run, International Science Foundation is going to run. I don't think people appreciate just how radical this is. I mean, this is the world I live in, university research. People are really afraid about what the next year is gonna look like.

Are we gonna be able to do medical research? Is there gonna be the next discovery for the next vaccine? Is there gonna be the next discovery for the next medicine or the next treatment? Because maybe it's gonna be very different, maybe not. But it's much harder to fix things than it is to break them. And so the timeline, when we say in two years, gosh, where's the pipeline for new drugs?

It's not gonna be six months to put it back together, like it was six months to take it down. So that worries me a little bit. Well, Dr. Ponser, this has been so fun. You're the first Herman I've ever met. You're the first Dax I've ever met. Look at that. I've met other Monicas.

Yeah, I want some more. That's a great name. Thank you. It's trusted, very very Trusted brand. We've got a lot of Monica's we like. But we have a character on the show though that is Hermium Permian. Hermium.

Hermium Permian. So that's close but not exactly. And Herman, he sounds like this. I've never met Herman, this is really exciting stuff. And you're a professor and a scientist. Miss Monica, my mom, can you see this? Yeah, it's really cool. So Hermian and Herman sat in one room together.

It's very exciting. Your book's awesome. I hope everyone's as interested in the human evolution and biology. Like I am adaptable, how your unique body really works and why our biology unites us as a beautiful message. And it's rooted in our story, which I find endlessly fascinating.

So thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having me. It was really fun. ["Facts I Don't Care About"] Next up is the fact that I don't even care about facts I just wanna get in their pants. Do you want me to bore you with some mechanical stuff? Oh, boy.

We're already so tired, but sure. Okay, we are both drowsy. I know. What's your explanation? Well, yours is the Okay, we are both drowsy. I know. What's your explanation? Well, yours is the weather. I guess I don't even need to ask. But yesterday the weather was top tier, gorgeous, and I was exhausted.

Yeah, so my explanation is I flew seven a.m. flight on Friday to Nashville. So that's up at four a.m. to get in the car at 5, 4 45 or whatever. Received my pontoon boat. Oh, wow. I don't deserve it. It's too nice of an item for me. I was just like, I don't deserve this.

It's so nice. Wow. It's so nice. I hit a button and the whole canopy goes up. The sound system is insane. It's the best sound system. That's great. That sound system is insane. It's the best sound system. That's great. That I've ever heard.

So many Creature Conference. It's, oh, I love it. I did put up the bimini and cranked the music and walked around the deck for a while and just pretended I was kind of hanging out. My friend Tyler made the funniest joke. I bet it's big in the boating world, but I had never heard it.

He said, it's the most fun you can have on a floating patio. And I was like, that is what a pontoon boat is. It's a floating patio. It's just a perfect rectangle. Okay, bored. And then a lot of busy work, readying stuff to depart. Whatever. Then I drove.

Also, my nose blowing back a bit because my nose was so full on day two of the motor home drive back. So clogged, really clogged. Well, maybe you have a bug. No, I think I might have a bug. I think I have a bug. Ss, yeah, it's probably a bug.

So yeah, then drove 2000 miles and got home and got at it. Yeah, and just a bit exhausted. Okay, so as you were dying to know what mechanical things happened on the bus. Oh, that wasn't it? No, nothing's happened so far. Oh, I thought just mention of the boat was mechanical. Was enough about the bus.

Oh, the bus, yeah. All in all, the best, least amount of shit broke that ever has. Inside of the front door, all of the molding, which is a big chunk, because it's got a power shade, and that thing came off, so that was flopping, then it broke, still not bad.

Rear toilet, my bathroom toilet, no power. Took the switch out of the middle bathroom, plugged it into the back one, Okay, it's not the switch. Get home, start reaching out to the dudes I know that build the bus. Okay, this is a gratitude and a grievance. So grateful they talked to me and they helped me every time. I'm so grateful.

But I'm talking with a newer guy and I don't, I feel like he underestimated my mechanical ability. So I'm like, where does this plug into? Maybe the module is bad, blah, blah, blah. He's like, oh no, there's a fuse panel under the bed. I go, okay, I look under the bed, there's no fuse panel visible. So now I'm going under the bed and it's an electric bed,

so I can't remove the mattress and look under it. It's all bolted down with this huge heavy frame. That's two and a half hours yesterday to get under the bed and get all the little plates off of things to find these fuses. Finally, I'm like, I film it. I'm like, there's no fuse panel under here. I think he thinks I just can't find it. Then I start showing him videos like,

I've taken apart everything. Oh, wow. showing him videos like, I've taken apart everything. Oh wow. So he's like, huh, that's interesting. The only other place it could be is X, Y, and Z, go there this morning, look, no. Then there's this huge panel with all these other fuses on it. And I sent a picture and say, before I take this off,

do you think it could be behind here? They say, no, absolutely not. I take it off anyways, it's in there. After three days of searching for this fuse panel, I found it buried in a wall behind this other huge panel, plugged it in, I have power in the back, flushed it, it popped the fuse. TBD, more to come.

Wow, okay. Ha ha ha. Can't wait. Well, I'm boring you, let me bore you a little more. Oh no. I didn't get to a couple things last fact check. But I wanna talk about my toilet. Oh, okay, tell me about your toilet

before we move off the toilet topic. So my plumber is at my house doing some repairs. Now I had to leave in the middle. is at my house doing some repairs. Now, I had to leave in the middle. And of course I'm... That's a tricky sitch. It's a tricky sitch. What do you think about that? I mean, I think you just had to do it.

You had to do it, just go to work. There's really nothing to think about. Is it ideal? No. It's not ideal, right? It's not ideal. And I mean, I could- But I don't think he's gonna steal from you.

Either do I. He's too obvious of a suspect. Either do I, and he's a very nice man. Do you know him prior to this? Or is this his first trip over? No, he's come over before. He's like the building plumber. Okay, then I'm not too worried.

I'm not too worried. I just, you know, it is weird to leave your apartment or house and leave a stranger in there. Yeah. I don't think I'd recommend it, but it is what I did. And I do feel a little uneasy about it. It's fine. What do you think could happen?

He'll look through your stuff? I don't know. There's nothing even specific. It just feels weird. A little icky. Yeah, icky. Yeah. And I already have anxiety as we talked about.

Right. I have anxiety today. Yeah. Premature death anxiety. Yeah, I heard a very sad story. Yeah. I heard a very sad story. Yeah. I'll tell it. I'll tell it quickly.

You told that, I can tell this. Well, mine didn't make you sad, did it? Sad that I had to listen to it. Okay, so yeah, there's a makeup influencer that I follow, that I really like, that she had a new makeup video so I clicked it and it wasn't a makeup video. It was a very sad story about someone passing away and her family suddenly and unexpectedly.

Very sad. So then I just started, this is how my brain works, right? Like sometimes something will happen. It's not every time. Sometimes I'll right? Like sometimes something will happen. It's not every time. Sometimes I'll hear a story or something will happen sort of in the zeitgeist or in the news that will spark like a spell of anxiety for me. Right.

And it's just like everything comes to the surface of all the bad stories I've ever heard, the scary stories, the unexpected. So it's just rumination on scary stories. Like the way life is so scary and unfair and bad. God, I'm sorry you have that. Thank you, me too. Yeah, so my brain is filled

with a lot of bad stories right now. And then I try to tell myself like, this is what happened, you heard this story and it's why you're feeling like this and it's okay. But I'm also like, I'm pretty smart. So when I say it's okay. Yeah, you start poking holes in it. You know when people have angel and devil on their shoulder,

mine's like I have a stupid mouse and a smart mouse. Uh-huh, those smart mouse wearing glasses. Yeah, obviously. And a graduation gown. And holding a little pet, like a quill. Yeah, yeah, right. Really studious. Yeah.

And the stupid mouse is just wearing undies. Sure, that are inside out. Yeah. Yeah. And she says, the stupid mouse is just wearing undies. Sure, that are inside out. Yeah. And she says, the stupid mouse is like, it's Monica, it's fine, it's gonna be okay. And then the smart mouse is like, what makes you think it's gonna be okay?

It's not okay, this is life, this is what happens. And then the stupid mouse is like, I guess that's true, but also you just have to accept it. And then the smart mouse is like, ehh, I guess that's true, but also you just have to accept it. And then the smart mouse is like, well, that's not helping. The acceptance isn't helping me feel better. See, I would reverse those two mice. I think it's the dumb mouse.

Don't say that about the quill girl. Listen, it's the dumb mouse who is saying, you need to be afraid of dying and you need to be afraid the people you love are gonna die. And then the smart mouse goes, you're ignoring the odds. You're just refusing to look at the odds, which is like one in a million, you're gonna know somebody who dies of an aneurysm.

Yeah, but it's actually not, it's not as pointed as that. It's not like, well, it does obviously start morphing into like my life and people and being scared, but it's actually more like the weight of the world. That the world has very upsetting things happening all the time. And I can walk through life ignoring that most of the time. But then when it's like shoved in my face,

I am forced to remember that that's part of it. And that's what's happening. It's like just overwhelmed. But even, I hear you, but even that, if you took your 37 times 365 days you've been alive. What if I just was doing this the whole? Just gently knocking the whole time as you heard this. But I can't do that.

You've hit the limits of my fast. Wow. I mean, I could, but it would take me five minutes. All right, we don't have to do that. But suffice to say, over 37 years, that's 37 hundred, 37 thousand, it's over 150 thousand days, that no one you love has died.

Well, that's not true. Oh, your grandpa died? Well, no. One day. I know people who've died. Out of 100. This isn't that helpful. It's not helpful to.

I just think the smart mouse should be the one that points out the actual odds in the data you've accumulated so far. That's not how emotions work. Right, the emotions are for the dumb mouse. No. I'm just asking you to flip the rolls of the mice. I know what you want me to do.

I think the dumb mice sees scary stuff in the news and gets really scared because they saw it. And then the smart mouse goes, yeah, but it's because you're seeing things from all over the world. There's 7 billion of us. You're seeing it's very misleading. But it's not misleading that the world has pain in it. No, that's true.

The world does have pain. That's what the smart mouse is saying. As the world has pain in it. No, that's true. The world does have pain in it. That's what the smart mouse is saying. As the world is suffering. Yeah. The mouse is Buddhist. Well, obviously. The smart mouse is like, yes, this world has so much pain and suffering and it's part of it.

Yeah. And that's hard. That's overwhelming for me. Even though I know it's true. And I know you can't think your way out of it. I get that. But also, another angle I would, framing is, yes, life is scary. It has moments of heartache and pain.

So when you're not in those, they're coming. They're coming and on that day, you get to experience what that is. But to waste any of the days that aren't those days is a little dishonoring to the days where there isn't any suffering. Yeah. No, that doesn't help.

I know. It doesn't any suffering. Yeah. No, that doesn't help. I know. It doesn't really help. It's okay. Sometimes you have anxiety. That's right. Some things I saw and thought of on my trip. Okay. I was at an In-N-Out in Barstow

and I was in the bus parking. And so other buses were arriving with people that were on tours. And there was a German group on a tour of conceivably the USA. And they were stopping at In-N-Out and the organizer of the trip was wearing a In-N-Out paper hat.

Cute. Yes, and one of the German women had a shirt on that said New York dreams, Brooklyn vibes. Wow, so they had already gone to New York Dreams, Brooklyn vibes. Wow. So they had already gone to New York. Clearly. And I don't know what that means. Brooklyn vibes is like-

Your chill? Yeah, it's more hipster. In New York Dreams, you wanna be on Broadway? New York Dreams is- Or finance? Big city dreams. It's like big city dreams- Big city dreams, backwater vibes.

Yeah, I don't know about backwater, but like it's like saying Hollywood dreams, Los Feliz vibes. Yeah, I don't know if I would have that. You get there different. Sure. Well, I wanted it. Okay, I was watching Turning Point,

which I was trying to tell you about in the last fact check, the history of the Cold War. No, you're gonna like this one. Okay. This is about the power of media. Okay. Okay. So Ronald Reagan was ratcheting up the nuclear arms race

really dramatically. He really wanted to get leverage over Russia. He was war hawking. I've talked about this before. This is the only thing my mother never let me see in my whole childhood, the day after. Yeah, it was a movie. It was a movie about what the day after

a nuclear holocaust would look like. Yeah. And 100 million Americans watched it. Wow. It still has the record of the most viewed. Ever? TV movie ever made. Wow. It still has the record of the most viewed. Ever? TV movie ever made. Wow.

100 million Americans watched it. Ronald Reagan watched it. He was profoundly moved and he changed his course. Really? Yes. And he backed off. He did. And so began.

Holy shit. A more collaborative approach to nuclear disarmament. And I was like, we want to talk about the power of fucking movies and media. I know. A hundred million people see this thing and then the president completely changes course. Yeah. Like, don't underestimate it. Putin was obsessed with these KGB movies that were popular when he was a kid. He was trying to live out this thing he saw in a movie.

Right. So this circles back sort of to an ongoing debate we have. Not really, because I think we sort of agree, but the power of media is very extreme. And so then do we have a responsibility if we are participating in the media? Like if we're members of the media, is there a responsibility? Like if you're a filmmaker or you're a podcaster or a whatever.

I don't think so. I think you make what you're drawn to. Whoever made the day after was into making that kind of movie. Right. You know? Yeah. And then so they did that well. But I think to give yourself a call.

Now we have, I have one that's clear to me here. Yeah. Which is openness, vulnerability. Poops. Trauma poop. Yeah. But I don't think any, do you think people have to have a- No, I don't think you have to have a cause. But I don't think any, do you think people have to have a-

No, I don't think you have to have a cause. Because I don't really trust everyone's thing that they want to move. No, I actually, I don't mean have a cause necessarily. I'm just, I guess I'm saying, what if they had made a movie that was like pro, what if it had made Ronald Reagan like blow up everything? Yeah, right.

Right. That, right. Right. That's possible. Yeah, this one clearly was fearful, as everyone should be, of a nuclear disaster. Several times the people in charge have been told that the other side had launched missiles. That's happened several times. Think this Russian dude, he just refused to do it.

Yeah. His computer was telling him that we had launched 200 nuclear warheads that were inbound and would be there in eight minutes. And you just gotta pray that no one ever responds. Because like, I hate to tell everyone this, but if I'm in that job and I see that Russia has launched the entire arsenal on us, my reaction is not to kill all them people.

Right. What's it gonna do? What's it gonna do? Yeah. We're all dead. Exactly. This isn't gonna undead us. Yeah.

And I'll just be responsible for killing hundreds of millions of people. That's how I feel. I hope that's how everyone feels. They don't. A lot of people. I hope that's how everyone feels. They don't. A lot of people are like, yeah, you got, you're getting us, we're getting you. Eight, yeah. Did you finish Paradise?

James Marsden, Friend of the Pod. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Friend of the Pod. So it was, it had an element to that, spoiler. I won't say, many more. Remember, like, he decides. Oh yeah, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, you're right, you're right.

That show was great, and I've heard a lot of people talking about it. Last thing on my trip, I watched the disappearing murder of one of these girls. Abby Petito or something? Yes, Abby, yep, yep, that's the one. Yeah, I haven't seen, I see it pop up a lot,

but I haven't watched it. I don't think it's good for me to watch during my anxiety steps. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, I forget the people's names. It's Gabby Petito. Gabby and her, I don't wanna say his name. Okay.

And her boyfriend, they're gonna go out and they're gonna have like a vlogging, they're gonna live in a van and they're gonna to go out and they're going to have like a vlogging, they're going to live in a van, and they're going to be YouTube people. And at some point, they're on the side of the road and the police are called because a motorist saw him hitting her in the car. Right. They pull up on them, or they pulled him over. He was swerving. He's got some cockamamie story, blah, blah, blah. During the interview with the police, the guy who observed the hitting, he said, well, the gentleman was hitting the girl.

Oh my God. He's like trying to be like PC about it. Well, it's so weird, like you call a woman a girl, and then you call a guy who's beating the shit out of a woman, a gentleman. He really flipped this. He did, it was an accident. I think maybe you go into like police speak,

like you think that's how the cops talk. Exactly, I think that's what is happening. He like feels. But then he should have said the gentleman was hitting the victim or something. He should have said the gentleman was hitting the girl. I don't think he was equipped to really do this. No, he's probably nervous being,

and I just, I heard that line, I was like, oh my God, hold on, did you just say the gentleman was hitting the girl? I don't think that you could say that. Yeah, that should, yeah, that guy should be canceled. Okay, you're now relieved of all my housekeeping from the bus trip. Oh, thank God. No, I loved those last ones.

Okay, good. The crazier part of that story is like, he comes home, she's missing, Yeah. the parents Of the gentleman or the girl? The gentleman, hitter, the gentleman abuser. Uh-huh.

And they let him live at home for two weeks and then when the cops come in, they go, you can't talk to our lawyers. Like they get very involved in protecting him. Oh. And then they find this letter between the mom and the son that predates this you can't talk to our lawyers. Like they get very involved in protecting him. And then they find this letter between the mom and the son that predates this, that was like, I love you so much, if you killed someone,

I'd get a shovel and bury the body with you and all this stuff. It's really kind of like a look at what people do for their kids. For their kids. I would do some terrible stuff for my kids. I would, I can relate. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. I don't like that.

I know, but I have girls, it's a little less scary. I know, but like, girls, it's a little less scary. I know, but like, okay, on the pit. Shall I watch? There is this woman, girl, woman. Gentleman. There's a storyline with this old, this woman, and she comes in with her son.

She's sick, the woman is sick, and the son brings her in, and the son has a very reclusive. Lives in the basement, maybe. Yeah, but he's in school, he's in high school. Anyway, she's sick and she's throwing up, and then at one point they realize, or she says, I've been poisoning myself to come so that he would bring me here

because I think there might be something going on with him. And then- This is a crazy plot line. No, it's not. You wanna call the cops? No, cause she feels like that's a huge betrayal. So take it, so the, she feels like the hospital can't get him arrested. Of course they can, but continue.

Well, she doesn't know that, okay? The husband has passed away. All right. Now, so then they're like, okay, maybe, but then they have to figure out a way to talk to him, and that's complicated, and essentially he runs out of the hospital. He flees.

He flees, and then Dr. Robbie Noah Wiley, he goes chasing him, but then he can't find him, he's so hot, and he can't find him, and then, but he has like a list, the older mother found this list of girls he had like written about. And so Dr. Robbie is like not, he's kind of taking it seriously, but he's like-

So he's kind of an investigator and a doctor? Yeah, he's kind of taking it seriously, but he's like, I don't really wanna, if I go to the police and ruin this boy's life for no reason, that's his whole thing. That's the conundrum. Now, I don't want to spoil, okay, if you're watching the pit and you're not caught up, pause right now.

Or fast forward. By the end of... Pausing won't help you. There's a mass shooting. Oh, fuck. And obviously, we're meant to believe it's this kid. Of course, red herring. Yeah, and I don't know if that's the way it's going to go,

but the things you do for your kids, like, tell me,'t know if that's the way it's gonna go, but the things you do for your kids, like tell me, please, if you, I mean, yeah, it's not gonna work for your kids, because it's like too hard. We know them, we know them, so it's trickier. But let's play it. Let's play.

Because. This is a worst case scenario. I think we have to play, because I think everyone thinks this about their kid, that their kid is incapable of doing something really, truly horrendous. And that's what it was the momma saying. I don't think that, that's not my hangup.

Okay, well then let's say that you found a list of kids in the class. What if it says like, I wanna kill them, and it's a list. What would you do? I would ignore it. No, I'm teasing, I'm teasing. Oh my God.

I would sit down and we would talk for a long, long while. There's a huge gap between I wish these people were dead and I'm gonna kill these people. Yes, there is. And you're trying to figure that out. Yep. And then you're also trying to evaluate, did they have the means to do this? Well, how seriously are they?

If I had an inkling at all that this was a possibility, I would move, I would take the kids, I would move away from all these people, I would get her in therapy, hardcore, and I would get a tutor to come finish her schooling until she got out of this adolescent phase and we would be checking in. I would not call the police. Is that what you're wondering? Well, how fast are you going to move? That day?

Because I think if they have this like need to kill. Yeah, I also take them to school. So I could definitely pat her down. That's true. People will be mad about that. I don't think the police have anything to add to make the situation better. I don't think removing her from the house and putting her in foster care is going to help. I don't think a state mandated counselor is going to help. I don't think jail time from the house and putting her in foster care is gonna help. I don't think a state mandated counselor is gonna help.

I don't think jail time, you know, like I don't think they have a solution that would be appealing in this situation. They can't fix, that's not what they do. So involving them, I'm not sure what that would get us. I'm gonna remove her from the school. I'm gonna make sure those kids are safe and we move, but that there's no services that the city offers that are gonna help her in this situation. And I just would want to help her.

Oh, I guess I don't know enough about that to know if that's true. Homicidal teens? Well, no, about like what the police could do preemptively. Well, think it through. Let's think of what they could possibly do. I mean, if they have a list like that, I think they could arrest them. I don't know if you can arrest them based on that.

I don't know, actually. I think you could, because it's premeditated. Attempted? I don't know. Intent versus attempted. It's not attempted if she made a list, I don't know. No, it's not attempted. But regardless, sending her to jail's not gonna help.

Well, it is gonna help protect the other kid. Well, I'm gonna remove her from those other kids. I just think removing her from the situation isn't gonna, so yes, I guess it would protect those kids maybe, I mean, she's good. So yes, I guess it would protect those kids maybe. I mean, she might just like leave and go kill them. Like, how can you know for sure, just cause you moved. Well, I'd be moving to many states away.

Okay, but what if then she kills it then, oh, you said you're gonna do a personal, what if she kills it too? I did a Jonathan Haidt really quick. I thought of all the ways that. But like, I don't think you really did. Like in real life, if you moved some states over, unless you like literally kept her in her bedroom,

she's gonna be out in the world. Well, yes, at a later date with a lot of therapy and assessment. The therapy is gonna be interesting. Here's a broader question. Do you think, this is a broader, dicey or scarier question. Do you think it's possible that a kid could have

those feelings and intentions in 11th grade and then grow out of that? I think, I'm inclined to think yes. Now I'm not saying everyone would, but I'm saying, do I think that's a possibility? Do I think there's crazy, hormonal, confused, in a worse situation they're gonna be in in their whole life, kids that will be different

as 20 year olds? I do. I think that is a possibility. I think my main obligation is to protect any innocent kids from getting hurt. Yes. And once I've achieved that, I think I feel fine on my own to be trying to help her through it.

And I don't think the state would be helpful in that process. Some people will be screaming, you're rich, you can do that. Yeah, but the question is what would I do? Yeah, but I guess if I had a kid at that school and my kid was on that list, you then just taking her away, I don't think would cause me much peace. I think I would have more peace

knowing that kid was in juvie versus their parents decided to take them a couple of states over and like take it on and get therapy. Like look in- Five states over. Okay, five states over. And also-

Arizona. I am conflicted because also I agree that I think like a good therapist and a different, you know, a safer environment for that kid is actually gonna probably result in a better outcome for that kid. Yeah, yeah. And all hands on deck.

Like I get that. And I get, if that's my kid, I'm like, fuck that. That kid needs to be away. And like, oh, that's it. And for how long? So you're buying yourself like a temporary peace of mind. Well, all of it's temporary. If you go and you take your kid there, again, they're not gonna like live in their room

for another 50 years. Right. So that's also- It kind of times out the same. It's like by the time they'd be letting a kid out of juvie for having made 50 years. Right. So that's also- It kind of times out the same. It's like by the time they'd be letting a kid out of juvie for having made a list, it would be the same time Lincoln would be entering the real world as an adult.

Yeah, so I guess, yeah, I would feel like I think there needs to maybe be some putting away during that time. Some confinement. Just to make sure. I get it, I get it, I get it. some putting away during that time. Some confinement. Just to make sure. I get it, I get it, I get it. I'm just being very honest about what I would do.

I would break a lot of laws for my kids. I would kill for my kids, I wouldn't kill otherwise. Yeah, there's a lot of things I would do. Yeah. I would steal, I would do anything. I don't think I'd be able to kill another innocent person. I don't think I could do that. Well, innocent.

They have to be threatening your child for this to work. I wouldn't, if my kid said I don't like the grocer, will you kill him? I would not do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, this is feeding into your anxiety a little bit, I think.

What if, okay. What if at the grocery store. Yeah. She pulls a gun. Oh wow, okay, this is a lot. So at the grocery store, Lincoln has a gun. Oh wow, okay, this is a lot. So at the grocery store, Lincoln has a firearm. Ugh, I hate this story. Yeah.

Okay, yeah, she has a firearm, she hates the grocer. Yeah. Mainly because he. Doesn't sell ripe pears. No, there's something about his face she just really doesn't like. Okay, that reminds me of turning point, could we continue?

Okay. And she pulls out a gun and is about to shoot him. Yeah, I tackle her. No, no, no. The grocer then pulls out a gun. Okay. To protect himself. Yeah. You're there. Yeah. With out a gun. Okay. To protect himself. Yeah.

You're there. Yeah. With your own gun. Yeah. What do you do? And I have the opportunity to shoot him before I think so. He shoots her.

That's a good one. You came up with a good one. Like she is the one. That one's really hard. It is, right? That one's really hard. Good job. Would you ever,

would you ever maybe shoot her in the foot? Oh. So that like she drops her gun? I would just tackle her so he knew the threat was over and that he didn't have to shoot her. Okay, that's your plan. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be very hard to kill the grocer if she pulled out a gun.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. But also he has a gun to out a gun. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also he has a gun to your kid. Like I- Yeah, okay, turning point. Oh, sorry, you started this, I think. This is what I learned. So when Ukraine had their first elections,

there was a pro-West candidate, and forgive me, because I've forgotten these names, or I can't pronounce them to begin with. And then there was a pro-Russia candidate. The pro-Western candidate was leading by a lot. They poisoned him. They poisoned him. Who did?

Russia. Oh, yeah, duh. And his face. Yeah. Have you ever seen this guy? No, but they used that poison a lot. He lived through it. But his whole face became inflamed and atrophied.

I mean, they turned him temporarily into a monster. Ugh, so awful. Can you fucking believe that's what they? Yes, they do this. I know, it's maddening. Yeah, it's horrifying. Oh my God. Oh, so what are the ethics of this?

I wish someone would assassinate Putin so bad. Yeah, me too. Yeah. But he's inflicting harm. He's killing so many people. Yeah, yeah. Now, do you think I could go to jail for saying that I want Putin dead?

No. You're just not allowed to say that about our president. But it's kind of the same as the boy saying. The list. Yeah. Right, so what if they found in my bedroom a list and I said must kill and I intend to kill Putin. What can they do?

I think they'd probably give me a hundred bucks for a plane ticket. I know, I know. That's the thing. Well, actually no, not currently. Why? Our government is not anti-Putin. Well, our government is one,

our leader doesn't seem to be. Our leader who makes all the decisions. Yeah. All right, let's do some facts. Let's do some facts. This is for Herman. Oh, Herman. I love Herman.

Learned a lot. Okay, Gigantopithecus. Yes. I have largest ape to ever live, estimated to have stood about 10 feet tall and weighed over 500 pounds. Oh my God. I wanna see one so bad.

Yeah, I know. I really wanna see one. And when you do your time machine, you could go back and see one. I could, I bet they're gonna be hard for me to find, but I guess I'll know exactly where the bones are. It says they're wandering the thick forests of ancient China during the last ice age. So you'd have to go back there.

That's not bad. This was 16,000 years ago. You'd have to wear a coat. Yeah, some definite North face gear, like I were going to Antarctica. Exactly. Boy, I'd love to see one. And they might think I was cute and not threatening

and they'd be nice to me and then they could hug me the way I was saying I would like to be hugged. Oh. And maybe even rock to sleep. You wouldn't feel scared and thought I was cute and not threatening and they'd be nice to me and then they could hug me the way I was saying I would like to be hugged And maybe even rock to sleep. You wouldn't feel scared and threatened? I would but if I noticed that they thought I was cute and tiny I Would appeal to their sense of safety. That's the point I was making about two months ago Right. That you only act terrible when you're scared. Yeah, or hungry. hungry. You might want to eat me. Well, exactly.

Cause you're just like, you're like a little piece of bread. Okay, now malnutrition is bad for you. School-aged children who suffered from early childhood malnutrition have generally been found to have poor IQ levels, cognitive function, school achievement, and greater behavioral problems than matched controls and to a lesser extent siblings. The disadvantages last at least until adolescence." Yeah, at least. It's not going to get better.

Well, exactly. Yeah. Your brain's already formed. That's when your brain is so mushy. Just trying to form is all. It's not a fair planet. See? See? That's what the smart mouse says. Uh huh, it's not a fair planet.

Probably not. Okay, that's it. That was it. Okay, that was light. Light and easy. Easy beasy, all right. We like Carmen and we like each other. Yeah, we like each other.

You have some anxiety, but it's okay. It'll pass. It'll pass. It will. Tomorrow you'll be feeling 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Gigantopithecus? All right, love you, bye. All right, love you. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.