First question: "Are memes the future of society?"

I think you meant this as a joke, but the answer is yes.

The internet, for memes, is the perfect petri dish, gladiatorial theater, and mutation chamber...

growing, selecting, and randomizing the memest memes to meme in our minds.

Society has always been a war of memes, but before it was fought with sticks and stones.

The internet, however, has arms-raced that fight to trench warfare of meme-driven brains in many areas.

They've not yet captured all fields of thought, but I fear the meme trenches will only expand.

In a previous Q&A, I was asked what topic I've changed my mind on...

...and the unmitigated benefits of the Internet sure is one of those things.

"Rate from top to bottom: pancakes, waffles, french toast."

If you know you're at a great restaurant, then the ordering hierarchy is:...

...french toast before waffles before pancakes.

If you're at a restaurant of unknown quality, the hierarchy reverses.

Pancakes are more reliably consistent and thus can't reach the repulsive troughs or sublime peaks of French Toast.

“What makes you unique compared to the 7 billion people on Earth?”

In a world of billions, no one is unique.

“If you could have a companion animal like "The Golden Compass" what would you have?”

A chimpanzee daemon: maximize utility while minimizing inconvenience.

“What common life advice do you disagree with?”

"Do what you love" and her sister meme: "Follow your passion".

The word 'passion' here is a disgusting perversion of language if, you know, words mean things.

And yes, there are people who are 'passionate' (gross) about their work, but guess what?

Those kinds of people don't need advice.

They're going to do whatever they're uh 'passionate' about anyway.

So this advice is useless to who are its exemplars,…

…while being anti-useful to everyone else,...

...making most people feel bad about their lives and their work by setting an impossibly high bar.

In life, rather than expecting to find a burning passion inside yourself that you somehow don't know about already (because it doesn't exist)...

...it's better and more useful to think of life like fishing -- some spots are beautiful (to you) ...

...and in some spots your skills will catch fish, others not.

But you can't know where you'd like to spend time until you go there ...

and you can't know how many fish you can catch there until you try.

The younger you are, the more time you can spend sailing to different spots…

and then the older you are the more time you get to spend in places you know you like,...

…refining your abilities to catch fish there.

"Did you have a point in life that turned you around productivity wise?

If so what changed, and what contributed to that change?"

Yes, there was a time and an event.

I drifted through school without learning how to be organized because, …

…despite what schools tell you about preparing you for the real world, …

…they're mostly a babysitting service obsessed with an endless game of Trivial Pursuit.

When school dumped me into the real world I had no idea how to adult, …

…and needed to figure it out fast.

The single thing that changed me the most was keeping a paper notebook in my pocket…

… and writing down my thoughts and simply looking back at that notebook on a regular basis.

That loop booted me into a real human.

It's so simple, but it comes down to increasing communication between …

…the past, present, and future you.

That's how you direct change in yourself over time.

"What motivates you to do anything productive when everything is meaningless anyway?"

This 'if we all die what's the point' meme is a bad one for brains.

Like, it's true that in the long run we are all naught but dust, forgotten. Forever.

But your present experiences are real and they're all you'll ever have.

A sunset doesn't need meaning to be enjoyed, the enjoyment is the meaning.

Using productivity to build a life you want to live is intrinsically meaningful, …

…despite Abyss swallowing us all in the end.

If you're not in a good place, there's lots of small stuff you can do to start turning that around…

Watch this, do the opposite.

“What would you do if you became immortal?”

I'd live a really long time.

“On a D&D alignment chart, where would you place yourself?”

Oh, D&D alignment charts, so fun because of the endless disagreements over…

… what the words ‘lawful, chaotic, good, evil, and neutral’ mean.

You think it's obvious, but so does the guy you're arguing with.

People might think I’m over here, but I might view myself as over here,…

or depending on how much you want to want to D&D rules lawyer the word 'chaos', …

…maybe even over here.

But the question ultimately presupposes the lie that people are consistent selves.

And in reality our selves are situational and everyone is everything for a time or under the right circumstances.

But that's no fun: it's easier and memesier to put people on a 2D grid!

And I've yet to see a D&D alignment chart for YouTube.

Who among Tubers is our lawful good, and who is our chaotic evil?

On the reddit, I look forward to seeing your 2D D&D interpretations of the multi-faceted people on this site.

“You are allowed to change the name of the 7th planet on our solar system what would you call it?”

King George, of course! I’m still serious about this meme. #7thPlanetKingGeorge

“If you could remove a single trait/characteristic from human beings as a species what would it be and why?”

Human tribalism... is a double-edged sword.

There were 14,000 questions submitted to this Q&A on my the reddit, …

…and it's astounding to see how many are really asking: "Are you part of my tribe or not?".

And it's disappointing to see how badly people react when the answer is 'no' --

even on the most trivial of things.

However tribalism is how we develop teamwork and teamwork is how we build civilizations.

But tribes are so often motivated by the totem they construct of the other tribe to yell at.

So if tribalism and the teamwork it creates could still exist …

…when removing the tendency to build totems to burn in effigy, I'd do that.

“Can you wear a hat for the rest of the video?”

Uh-OK

"What's your opinion on whether Balrogs have wings?"

Ahh, the great Balrog debate of 2000 lives on.

There's a good reason my Balrog is drawn the way it is.

The line from Fellowship reads: [Gandalf's] enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about [The Balrog] reached out like two vast wings.

Unambiguous: a shadow that’s ‘like wings’ isn’t wings. They're metaphorical wings.

Yet not two paragraphs later Tolkien writes:

" [The Balrog] drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall. "

Unambiguous: wings.

Or maybe not?

Are these wings the metaphorical wings from but 12 sentences earlier?

Well now this has become an argument about how big the room is that these real or metaphorical wings much stretch across.

Asking "Did the Balrog have wings?" The books have the same answer as: "Hey, where did the Orcs come from?"

"dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy?"

yyyy-mm-dd

"What are your thoughts on your thoughts?"

Who knows where thoughts come from, they just appear.

"Is the glass half full or half empty?"

Why must judgment be passed? The glass is this full.

"How would you rule the world?"

With compassion. And an IRON FIST.

"AM I FIRST ?????? "

No: you were exactly 10,044th.

"What have you read recently? Any recommendations?"

I'm glad you asked, Never Not Act, for today's sponsor is Audible,...

…, who likes it when I recommend books and will give you a free audiobook with a 30-day trial at audible.com/grey

Related to that earlier question, I did recently read "Tribe" by Sebastian Junger...

…and it really changed my perception on the experiences soldiers have in war,…

… and how people act during disaster and just in general…

… how groups survive when there’s outside stresses acting on them.

It's a thoughtful book and it’s also nice and short, which is a big advantage.

So I liked Tribe. I recommend it. And if you want to give it a try, you can do so with Audible.

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Audiobooks have added a lot to my life and Audible is where I get my audiobooks from.

So you should give them a try and go get your free audiobook …

…maybe it’s Tribe, maybe it’s something else you want to listen to…

...with a 30-day trial at audible.com/grey

Thanks to Audible for sponsoring this episode and thank you to everyone who submitted questions.

I'll see you next time!