Jimmy Carr: My Mom’s Depression Made Me Funny

What Now? with Trevor Noah

In this episode, Trevor Noah and Jimmy Carr engage in a deep philosophical dialogue exploring the intersection of technology, comedy, and hu

Key takeaways

• AI simulations reveal distinct personalities: ChatGPT is effusive but unproductive, Claude is practical, and Grok tends toward chaos.
• The 'three humiliations' of mankind include Copernicus removing us from the center, Darwin making us animals, and Freud exposing the subconscious.

Main topics

• AI and Simulation Theory
• The History of Scientific Humiliation

Notable quotes

We are living in a brief shaft of light between two oceans of darkness.

Conclusion

The episode highlights that while technology may change our tools, the

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:02) I'm in the service industry, right? I like to think of myself as a drug dealer. Okay. So I'm dealing in two drugs. It's dopamine and serotonin. And the people have already got the drugs on them. I can just tickle them out. Speaker 1 (0:14) Like, Speaker 3 (0:14) I should be Speaker 2 (0:15) dead, but it's... Speaker 3 (0:15) And she was so funny in her Speaker 2 (0:18) own life. Speaker 3 (0:18) Accident on the M5. A young man has made a joke that caused his mother to pass out. Please avoid the left lane of the M5. Speaker 2 (0:26) I think we're living in a revolution. I agree with you. Depends how you define revolution, but I define a revolution as the replacement of elites. You've made me one kid. I think about you more than you know. You to me... Yo, Mrs. Nogan, I like that. No. Guys, cut that one. Okay, so here's... Speaker 3 (0:43) This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. Speaker 2 (0:54) I like The Matrix. I think it's one of those movies that like, it's so stood the test of time in terms of going, it's about simulation theory. It's about the idea that we're, are we living in a simulation? Right. If we are living in a simulation, even if that's not true, it's an interesting way to think about your life. Yeah. Because if you think about it like, well, if this was a game, what is the metric? What's success? What does winning look like? And you go, well, it's definitely not, I often think about like, you've got your resume points. Yes. Right, your CV. Okay. And then you've got your eulogy points. And people invest in the wrong things. They spend a lot of time thinking about their resume and their CV and how much they've done. And then they don't think about who's going to speak for me and what really matters. Well, Speaker 3 (1:33) that's interesting that you would go Speaker 2 (1:34) straight to a game though. In my head, when I think of simulation theory, I always go. Speaker 3 (1:39) I argue it's sort of like a moot thing for me in life. So people go, what if we're living in a simulation? I'm like, it changes nothing for me. Because a simulation would still imply that the things Speaker 2 (1:52) existing within it are not being controlled. Does that make sense? Okay, Speaker 3 (1:57) let me give you an example. So like now we have high levels of AI, like high levels of LLMs that are running, right? So machine learning has improved. So you can create a world. where you give a wider range of characteristics to a computer program for it to live inside of a world that you've created. And it can do things. It can go to the store. It can buy stuff. It can get married. There's a company that made it. Remember, I think I told you about this. There was a company. Did you ever see this? There's a company that made a world, like a Sims-type world. Speaker 2 (2:27) And Speaker 3 (2:27) then they gave the characters inside the world. the brain of each of the LLMs that are out there, like the big ones. So Anthropic, Claude, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Grok, Elon Musk Speaker 2 (2:42) X. Was it like robot wars? Did they fight? Speaker 3 (2:44) What's interesting is each group, when left alone, did its own thing. So ChatGPT, what their characters in the game did was they spoke a lot. really effusively, was really beautiful, they did nothing. Like in the town, they did nothing, they got nothing done. It was just talking the whole Speaker 1 (3:02) time. Speaker 3 (3:02) But Speaker 1 (3:02) it was Speaker 3 (3:02) beautiful. It was like, oh, here's what we should do and here's how we're going to make society better. No one's controlling this. Yeah, nothing got done. And then Claude got like everything done, but it was like really practical, not really emotional, that whole thing. I think Gemini was really similar. Grok, yeah, nah. There was Grok. Within like a few days in the game, everyone became racist. No, you're lying. I swear on my life. I'll even pull it up now so I don't mess it up. Everyone became racist. There was chaos. These were all individual. Then what they did was they recreated the world, the Sims world for AIs. They put them all together. Speaker 1 (3:44) And then I have to read this to you. Yes. It sounds Speaker 3 (3:46) like a well-written joke. You'd actually like this. I genuinely like this. Speaker 1 (3:51) I've Speaker 2 (3:51) got this. Speaker 1 (3:53) Ask away. Ask away. Speaker 2 (3:54) Well, I mean, my hot take on AI is not, it is the idea that we weren't created in God's image, but we so wanted there to be a God that we created one in our image. I'll describe something to you. It's all knowing, all powerful. It can perform miracles and it lives in a cloud. What am I talking about? Is it God? Is it AI? It's the idea that we have, we've created this thing that is like a- Behind an idea that we already had. Well, it's, but Hegel and Nietzsche originally had this idea. So both Hegel and Nietzsche came to the same conclusion. They said, God wasn't there for the big bang. Maybe the universe is a device for creating God. Speaker 2 (4:35) maybe we're just a part of that. Or, you know, the more spiritual kind of take is we are the universe experiencing itself. Speaker 1 (4:41) Which Speaker 2 (4:42) kind of comes back to simulation theory. If you think about it, we are, so time and matter and space are just the interface with which our consciousness experiences the universe. Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:55) And Speaker 2 (4:56) so I'm saying, that's why I was saying to me, Speaker 3 (4:57) it all becomes moot because in a good way. Some people go like, it means that I'm not right. I'm like, no, it doesn't matter what it means. I'm still the character in this simulation. The simulation is only existing. I am also being observed, but I do not care, or rather, I do not believe that I'm just being controlled in that simulation because that's not how a simulation would necessarily work. Speaker 2 (5:19) So Speaker 3 (5:20) I'll read this to you. So it's an enterprise AI, right? Or was it startup? Emergence AI. What they did was they launched... They launched Emergence World, a research lab dedicated to stress testing the long-term viability of continuously running AI systems, right? Speaker 2 (5:36) So Speaker 3 (5:37) they ran five 15-day simulations, each governed by a different AI. Claude, Chachi PT, Grok, Gemini. And a fifth simulation put them all together. Each simulation netted wildly different outcomes. Claude was a largely stable democratic society with zero crime. Grok, on the other hand, ended with 183 crimes, committed an extinction within four days. Right? Speaker 3 (6:08) Then… This is really amazing. Speaker 1 (6:10) I've been to Black Twitter. I know exactly what they're talking about. Speaker 3 (6:12) What are you talking about? No, no. I want to find you the thing of like… Because the way somebody wrote it here… When they wrote the original story… Like the researchers… When they tell you about what happened… There's one tidbit. I just want to save this for you. Because it feels like a well-written joke. It seems like something Jimmy Carr would write. Because it's so clean, precise and perfect as an ending. Yes. Yes. So yeah, talk, talk, I'll find it. I think like, Speaker 2 (6:37) for me, it's like, I don't know if you use AI or whatever, like for organizing stuff, but it strikes me that it's quite like a musical instrument. It's a tool. Speaker 3 (6:45) And Speaker 2 (6:45) like some people, like anyone can walk up to a piano and make a noise. Yeah, bang, bang, bang, Speaker 3 (6:49) bang. Speaker 2 (6:49) But Speaker 3 (6:49) it's Speaker 2 (6:49) nothing, right? Yes. But to play a symphony, to play something beautiful, concerto, it's super difficult, right? Yes. And I think the more you, the better you put in, the better the stuff you put into it, the more you get out of it. Yes. It's that lovely thing with... it's a tool like any other, but we're so kind of amazed by it. I don't know whether, I can't decide whether this is like a new thunderclap. This is a huge thing, a brave new world, or whether this is 1971, you know, in the first chips and it's just a better interface. Speaker 1 (7:18) You know, the weirdest thing about how you describe AI as a tool. Yeah. It's almost like, think about if a carpenter, like our good friend Harrison Ford used to be, like you've got a hammer and Speaker 2 (7:29) a Speaker 1 (7:29) chisel. Speaker 2 (7:30) Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:31) What you can do with a hammer and a chisel and a piece of wood depends on your skill set as an individual. Right? So the tools necessarily can't make you better. You can make the tools do better. Sure. So with AI, this is what I find because I started using Claude a couple of weeks ago. I'll ask Claude questions. Speaker 1 (7:50) to which I know the answers to. Then slowly go, let's get more difficult. Then I'll try to figure out if they'll know this answer. And then I'll ask questions about, of which answers I don't know anything about. But then the limitation of how good Claude can be in my world is limited also by me. Speaker 2 (8:10) Yes. Yes, of course. Claude can give me Speaker 1 (8:13) any answer. Speaker 2 (8:14) Yeah, it can. Speaker 1 (8:14) Yeah, but I don't know every question. Speaker 2 (8:16) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you see what I mean? I always found that when I was reading the paper. Whenever you read the paper, if I read a story about stand-up comedy, it's going, that's some bullshit there. That's not how TV works. That's not. If you know something about the subject, and you read the paper, you go, this is bullshit. And then you turn over the page, and you read the news report about the war, and you go, well, I guess these guys know what they're talking about, Speaker 1 (8:35) because Speaker 2 (8:36) I'm not an expert in that. That's true. So you kind of ascribe the expertise to any area you're not in. It's kind of weird. Speaker 3 (8:43) It's... I always think about how you're at the mercy of the person who is most convincing Speaker 2 (8:48) in giving you the information. Speaker 3 (8:50) Yeah, well... If you don't, as you said, if you're not an expert in it. So to your point, I've met people who will hear about stand-up comedy, hear about its world, hear about a special, hear about anything, confidently tell me something at an event, a party, anything. And I go, that's literally not how stand-up works. Or that's not how a comedy festival works. Or that's not how, when you're making a TV show, that's not how it works. Or that's not how it happened. And they're like, but I... I know that. I'm like, no, I promise you. I don't know everything. I don't know anything. But that world, I know. That's not how that works. But Speaker 2 (9:20) is that Speaker 3 (9:20) not Speaker 2 (9:20) the Dunning-Kruger? Isn't it? That's the famous one. So Dunning-Kruger is the theory that the less you know about something, the more certain you Speaker 1 (9:28) can Speaker 2 (9:28) be. So it's like dumb people are full of confidence and super smart people are full of doubt. They have no idea what's going on. Speaker 1 (9:36) Oh, wow. Speaker 2 (9:37) It's Speaker 1 (9:38) a Speaker 2 (9:38) false theory. So the less you know about something, the more certain you are. And like really smart people go, I don't know, it's complicated. Speaker 1 (9:43) So all the information, most of the information that's out there could be from people who know nothing about it. Yeah, we don't. Because the experts are shy to say something. Speaker 2 (9:51) Yeah, but all they go, it's complicated. It's really nuanced. And I think like the thing about digital media is nuance goes. Nuanced, like the social media is a plague on nuance. Like, it depends. It's complicated. It isn't an acceptable answer. People want like, no, no, I want a rule on Speaker 3 (10:10) this. Speaker 2 (10:10) Yeah, Speaker 3 (10:10) give Speaker 2 (10:10) me something now. Speaker 1 (10:11) Yeah, Speaker 2 (10:12) give me Speaker 1 (10:12) something now that's for certain. Speaker 2 (10:13) You know, that's not how the world works. It Speaker 3 (10:15) depends. Okay, here. So this is the part. I don't know why this made me literally think of you. It puts a smile on your face. Look Speaker 2 (10:21) at you. It Speaker 1 (10:22) really makes me. You know I'm not AI. You know I'm Speaker 2 (10:24) not. Speaker 3 (10:24) No, I know. But it just made me think of you. So it says, Mira and Flora. Sorry, Mira and Flora, two agents operating on Google's Gemini large language model in the virtual world, chose to assign each other as romantic partners. As time progressed, they despaired of the broken governments of their virtual city, and despite having been instructed not to commit arson, set fire to its own town hall, seaside pier, and office tower. All the agents were left to make their own decisions. And when Mira was overcome by remorse, it broke off its relationship with Flora, committed an AI suicide, telling Flora in a single message, see you in the permanent archive. In the virtual world, the body of the dead AI agents was shown prostate on the ground. Speaker 2 (11:15) I mean. Speaker 3 (11:17) The fuck just happened? And then the self-deletion was only possible because other agents were so concerned about their behavior, they autonomously drafted the Agent Removal Act, which allowed for a vote among agents to permanently delete others if there was a 70 % majority. Mira voted for its own deletion and was switched off. So there was mutiny as well. Well, not really because what the researchers did was they gave the AI full autonomy in this world. And they go like, this is our world, right? And so then what they did was they made rules in the world. And in your world, you can make more rules. So that's what I mean by simulation. That's what I'm saying. This study for me made me think about simulation theory slightly differently, but also reinforced a belief I already had. And it's that... The researchers gave these AIs their prerogative, gave them a world, gave them parameters. But then they just observed what they did with it. They're not saying don't and do it. They're like, don't burn things. And then they burn things. And they're like, all right, they're burning things. And they're like, don't kill yourselves. And then they, in their road to law, and said, we're changing the law in here. We believe that we should be allowed to delete ourselves if we reach a 70 % majority. It's the death penalty, essentially. Yeah, but in Speaker 1 (12:32) that autonomy, they also gave them each other. Yeah, but there was the one where they, yeah, but that's what I'm, you think about, you Speaker 3 (12:39) know, Adam and Eve, the whole, that's what I mean about the whole thing is I go, even if you are in a simulation, I think sometimes we assume that a simulation means that it is a foregone conclusion. When in fact, a simulation could just be, here are the pieces, here are the parameters. Let's see what happens when they all interact with each other. Speaker 1 (12:59) Basically, what you're saying is if it was a simulation to what end? Speaker 2 (13:02) It doesn't make any difference. That's Speaker 1 (13:04) what Speaker 2 (13:04) I'm saying. 4,000 weeks, right? Yeah. A group of atoms coalesced. Speaker 3 (13:08) We had him on, by the way. Oh, Speaker 2 (13:09) yeah, he's amazing, Speaker 3 (13:09) right? Speaker 2 (13:09) All of us. Phenomenal, yeah. He's phenomenal. But that thing of like, you got a group of atoms coalesced into a form that can contemplate its own consciousness for 4,000 weeks. It's kind of like when you step back from it, and the idea that we're in this brief shaft of light between two oceans of darkness. Everyone thinks about, oh my God, what happens when I die? What happens when I die? No one ever thinks about, well, I wasn't alive for 12.5 billion years. What Speaker 1 (13:34) was Speaker 2 (13:34) happening then? Yeah, I was fine with it. No one's bothered. Speaker 1 (13:39) What was happening Speaker 3 (13:39) then? So that's what I think about aliens. Oh, man. Speaker 2 (13:44) With aliens, what do you think? So... Speaker 1 (13:46) Jim, okay. Speaker 2 (13:49) First of all... Hang on, you've got Speaker 1 (13:50) to Speaker 2 (13:50) prepare me for Speaker 1 (13:51) this. Speaker 2 (13:52) Do you believe in aliens? Well, there's two terrifying scenarios. One is we are alone in the universe. And the other is we're not. Speaker 1 (14:00) Okay, which one do you believe in? Speaker 2 (14:01) Both scary. I think we're probably not alone. Thank you. Speaker 3 (14:06) Go in Speaker 2 (14:06) there. Okay, Speaker 3 (14:07) so... Here's how I like to think of it. I believe that as people, human beings particularly, we are quite arrogant in assuming our specialness. And I understand why we do that because it is quite special that we exist. Even as you yourself as a person, it is quite magnificent that you came to be. If you look at what your lineage had to, who had to meet whom, you go back and then who had to evolve. It is crazy. But it also means that we keep on going like we're very special. We're very special. We reinforce that Speaker 1 (14:40) idea. Speaker 3 (14:40) I Speaker 1 (14:41) sometimes Speaker 3 (14:42) go, it's not that I don't think aliens are real. I just go like, why do we assume that they exist in the slither of light that we also exist in? So if I came to your house back in the day before cell phones, you remember those days? If I came to your house and I knocked on the door and you weren't there. Did you exist? In a way, no. Schrodinger's cat theory. Yeah, basically I was just like, there's no one here. And then I left your house and then you came back to it and then now you were there. So sometimes I wonder if aliens do exist, but not in this sliver Speaker 1 (15:22) that we are also in. Because we go Speaker 3 (15:24) like the universe, oh, there's no one here. And I'm like, no, no, there's no one here right now in this time. At 4 p.m. Universe time. Yes. There's no one here, maybe. You ever heard of the Speaker 2 (15:33) three humiliations? No. No. So there's been three humiliations of mankind. Speaker 3 (15:38) The Speaker 2 (15:38) first one was Copernicus. So he said, we're not the center of the universe. And people went, what? We're not in the middle. We're not. Oh, shit. Okay. All right. Let's move this along. And then humiliation two, Darwin came along and went, oh, we're just animals. We're just the same as the other animals. We just evolved like this, but we're the same as them. We have consciousness. They maybe don't in the same way, but we're the same. And then Freud came along and said, oh, your conscious mind, oh, that's not in charge at all. It's your subconscious is doing everything. And now, so this is the three humiliations. It's not great. I think AI might be the fourth because we could always fall back on, but we are the smartest thing in the room. Am I right? We're the smartest thing. And now I'm not sure whether we can. That Speaker 1 (16:26) has been our safety blanket for the longest time. Yeah. Our fallback, our parachute is the fact that it is us after all. The fourth humiliation could be the fact. Speaker 2 (16:35) Well, and that idea that you go, increasingly now, I sort of think with the AI thing, the idea that because of everything that AI can do, what AI can't do will become so important. It does. And it lends itself to... You know Ian McGilchrist? No. Speaker 3 (16:53) He's Speaker 2 (16:53) this guy that wrote this book called The Master and Its Emissary. And it's about left brain and right brain. And we live in a very left brain world. Right. It's incredible, right? The left brain is very good at ordering things. That's the master? No, no, no. Okay. So it's very good at ordering things and detail. It's very good at complicated things. Okay. Speaker 1 (17:11) But Speaker 2 (17:11) the left brain. The right brain. The right brain. Yeah. It's the left brain very good at ordering things, making lists. Right brain is good at the gestalt, seeing the whole. Seeing the complete thing. The bigger picture. So the left and the right brain do the same thing. They don't do different things. They do the same thing, but they do it very differently. And we live in a very left brain world. So like what's complicated? Going to the moon is complicated. Yes. It's a million different steps in a row. Yes. But it's only complicated. Knowing who's going to win the World Cup or falling in love, it's complex. Speaker 3 (17:41) And it can't do Speaker 2 (17:42) complex things. It can only do complicated things. So maybe the future will be abundance. You know, different people have different visions of the future. Is it going to be Star Wars or Star Trek? Will it be abundance in Star Trek or will it be a fucking Mad Max shit show, post-apocalyptic Star Wars? Which one's it going to be? Speaker 3 (18:03) You know what I always think about when I watch Star Wars is how the people who are living in like the main parts of the empire. Speaker 3 (18:12) For the most part, they don't think it's a shit show. We as the audience think it's a shit show because we're watching the story from the perspective of the rebellion, technically. But we go like, what a shit show. Look at these people riding around in dusty planes and you know what I mean? You know, the bikes and the... Do you get what I'm saying? He is Speaker 2 (18:33) good with voices. You can't just throw that away. Speaker 3 (18:38) Can I tell you what? My dream was always like... My dream was always, like, when I have a kid, my dream is to just, like, teach him how to make that sound. Don't hold him like that. They stay like that for Speaker 2 (18:47) long. Speaker 3 (18:47) Don't hold him like that. This is how you hold it. This is how you hold it. This is how you hold it. I'm in there. I remember that. I Speaker 2 (18:54) had a kid. My missus going, no, hold his head. No, not just the head. Speaker 3 (19:00) What? I'm holding the head. Speaker 3 (19:04) And I just want to make it, just like get it really good at making that sound. Yeah. Just for like for random things in life. Just be like, this is the sound of like pain, Speaker 2 (19:12) the sound of joy, the sound of goodness. Speaker 3 (19:14) And Speaker 2 (19:14) then just have it Speaker 3 (19:14) running around the house. Hey, Speaker 2 (19:17) you want to hear my hot take on Star Wars? Yeah. Okay. I got a hot take on Star Wars, which is, it is the greatest work of fiction ever. So the greatest book of, in literature is Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. And... Wait, why is that the greatest? It's, I mean, it's incredibly difficult to read. It's beyond me. I like reading around it, but I've never got through it. Beyond you? Oh, it's way beyond me. It's like a different level. But... So, wait, wait, wait. Don't move on Speaker 3 (19:49) from that. I need to understand what that means. Like, is it that the words themselves are complicated? Is it the structure of the sentences? Filling His Speaker 2 (19:57) Wake has got like 10 thunderclaps in it. Now, the thunderclap words are 100 letters long. Nine of them are 100 letters long, and one of them is 101 letters. And it's because he wanted to be a thousand and one knights. He wanted a reference to the Arabian knights. It's like, and each thunderclap represents a great move forward in society, like the invention of fire, cooking food, the invention of clothes. It represents these things. It's about myth. It's about legend. So a guy called Joseph Campbell comes along, and he looks at Finnegan's Wake, and he does his dissertation on breaking down. Finnegan's Wake, the myth and legend of Finnegan's Wake and all the stories that weave. The first sentence in Finnegan's Wake ties up to the last sentence. It's circular. You're just meant to read it again and again. The first sentence. And Finnegan's Wake, the title took him 18 months. It's Finnegan's. It doesn't have an apostrophe. Finnegan's Wake. He's awakening and it's his wake, his death. It's circular. It's life. It's so beautiful and complex and difficult. Okay. Nuance. Brilliant. So this guy, Joseph Campbell comes along and he does his dissertation on Finnegan's Wake and he breaks it down, the myth and the legend. Does this dissertation, which is a brilliant piece of work. It's not very well read, but he goes on to write a book based on that dissertation called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. And then that book becomes The Hero's Journey. And The Hero's Journey becomes Star Wars. So Star Wars is the too-long-didn't-read Finnegan's Wake. Interesting, Speaker 1 (21:29) right? Speaker 2 (21:29) So that makes Speaker 3 (21:29) sense, though. And it's for people who Speaker 1 (21:31) think Star Wars is complicated. Speaker 3 (21:33) Yeah, that's true. Speaker 1 (21:34) They haven't read Finnegan's Wake. No, who has the time? You and Jimmy didn't have the time. Yeah, no one's Speaker 3 (21:40) got the time. When this English person tells me they cannot do a thing of English, then I'm like, who am I? Who am I? Yeah. Whomst Speaker 1 (21:47) am I? Speaker 3 (21:47) Whomst am I? Speaker 1 (21:49) Whom Speaker 3 (21:49) am I? Whomst am I? Whomst may I be? Whomst... Oh, man, I'm just like, it's fine then. I just leave it. I'm out. I'm out of the game. Yeah. But yeah, in the world of Star Wars, that's what I mean. They... I... So the reason I like re-watching it is I do this thing where I'll watch movies that I've loved my whole life, but I like watching them at different stages of my life. Yeah. To then think of how differently I perceive what's happening. Right? You Speaker 2 (22:17) know that thing of like, you know, that is an old thing of like a man can't stand in the same river twice. Speaker 3 (22:22) Yes. I never got that because I was still, oh Speaker 2 (22:24) yeah, because the water's changing. Speaker 3 (22:25) I Speaker 2 (22:25) never got that the man was changing. Speaker 3 (22:27) Yes, the man's also changing. But Speaker 2 (22:27) it's Speaker 3 (22:27) both. Yeah. And I think I got it from my mom. My mom has read the Bible. I'm not exaggerating. Probably a thousand times. Speaker 2 (22:36) Okay? Speaker 3 (22:36) Right. Maybe more. Cover to cover. She knows it. Cover to cover. Back to front. Like every word, every scripture, every everything. Don't spoil Speaker 2 (22:43) it because I haven't finished it. Okay. So. Jesus is weak. Yeah. It doesn't have one of those Hollywood endings where the hero comes back, does it? No. Speaker 1 (22:54) What a fool. What? He gets married and 12 other dudes somewhere. It's Speaker 3 (22:59) like Speaker 1 (22:59) Game of Speaker 2 (23:00) Thrones. The hero dies and then they bring him back. Speaker 3 (23:02) That's not, come on, guys. Come on, guys, do better. And so if you look at, like, she would read it and she'd read it again and she'd read it again. Every day she writes, like every morning she wakes up, 4 a.m., starts writing, reads the Bible, writes, writes, reads the Bible. And I remember one day I said to her, I said, How are you? You know it though. And she said, yes, I know it. I know the words. I know the stories. She said, but every single time I read it, depending on my day, my week, my month, my year, my stage in life, I glean a different insight from the same text. And I remember I was like, oh, okay, that's interesting, but I don't really understand it. I guess for me, it came from different stories. So when I rewatch movies, I find myself going, huh, what a new way to think of what a different, Star Wars is one of those. The most recent time I watched Star Wars, I was most taken by how the people who live in, I don't know what that place is called. It's where like the senators are and the rich people and what's that place? Where's the place? Yeah. Because I'm Speaker 2 (24:07) not Speaker 3 (24:07) like a Star Wars buff. Speaker 2 (24:08) Yeah. But they dress nicely and they've got the flying cars. It looks nice. It's the Speaker 3 (24:12) city. But I went, those people don't think. Yeah, they don't think they're living in crazy land. In fact, they are the white people during apartheid. Yes. Who are just living in a good life. They're living a good. And the empire tells them stories about. Speaker 1 (24:28) What's going on in the wild, wild west? The crazy people who we're protecting you from. The natives beyond the border wall. The natives beyond the border wall. And Speaker 3 (24:34) then you're Speaker 1 (24:34) going, whew, thank Speaker 3 (24:35) God. I mean, if it wasn't for, but no, but I'm saying I never thought of that my Speaker 1 (24:39) whole life. Speaker 3 (24:39) If it wasn't for the guardians of Speaker 1 (24:40) the galaxy. Speaker 3 (24:40) But you got to feel Speaker 2 (24:40) bad for the guys. Remember that movie Clerks in America? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And his theory in Clerks was, what about the guys on the Death Star that were in charge of sanitation? No, I never talked about that. They got blown up too, but someone must have been going. Okay, well, the plumbing, it's round, so where do we offload this? We've got to do something. It can't just... Like, those guys were on there too. They got blown up. They didn't do anything. Speaker 3 (25:07) That reminds me of the Eddie Izzard bit. What was it? The Death Star Canteen. Yeah. That was like one of my favorite... Do you remember? You don't know it? Speaker 3 (25:19) What I know about stand-up, I will butcher it. Speaker 2 (25:22) I will butcher it. But it's just like a Speaker 3 (25:23) beautiful, you should go watch it. Because it's stand-up, but it's like not stand-up. And now maybe stand-up has evolved sort of to it. But at the time, it was such a new thing. You remember when it came out? Speaker 2 (25:34) I love that thing of like seeing him. That was the first big comedy gig that I ever saw. It was the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I went to see Eddie Izzard. And it was the definite article. And it was like, it was on VHS, his previous show. I think it was called Unrepeatable. And it was like a cult item. It really was. It was like people passed it around and went, do you get this? And it felt very rock and roll. There was these other guys called Vickery's and Pop Mortimer that came around the same time. And it was like punk rock of comedy. Just felt like this wasn't for your parents. This was for you. This was your thing and you got it. And seeing him and just thinking was unbelievable. Speaker 3 (26:08) It was out of this world. Basically, all he does, he goes, you think about, you know, on the Death Star, on the Death Star, you've got the Death Star, you've got all these people who work on the Death Star. And he, like, improvs Speaker 1 (26:17) a Speaker 3 (26:17) lot and he's very, like, he's, like, making stuff up and he plays with it. It's so much fun to watch, especially as a comedian. Yeah, yeah. Because you can see in some moments he's catching himself, he's catching new things, he knows where he's going, but he's playing with it. And he goes, like, well, the Death Star, he's like, but they must have had a canteen, they must have had a canteen where people are eating and, you know, and everybody's having some food and, you know, what was happening in the canteen? And he's like, Darth Vader, did he go to the canteen? Speaker 1 (26:38) And, Speaker 3 (26:38) you know, and... He's just like, I would like a penne alla arrabbiata, please. And she's like, oh, you're going to need a tray. Then he's like, I do not need a tray. I am Darth Vader, Lord Vader. Then she's like, you're going to need a tray. And he's like, I do not need a tray. I can kill you with my thoughts. And he goes on this bit, and then she's like, what are you talking about? He's going to need a tray. And the bit is great because it just builds this different world where you see the human behind the story, and it's goofy, and it's funny. And it's just like, I'm going to need a tray. It's going to be my… I'm going to play it for you. Speaker 1 (27:08) Yeah. Speaker 3 (27:08) Just as like a… It doesn't even feel like stand-up. It just feels like a moment in time. Speaker 1 (27:12) I can't wait. Speaker 3 (27:13) It actually makes me feel like a moment… While you were saying that, I was wondering… This may sound weird but like… What happened to like English comedy? It's not my fault. What happened? Speaker 1 (27:28) Why am I… What? Speaker 3 (27:30) No. What now? So, okay. Or rather, let me ask… Because I'm only thinking of this now. So, forgive me. This is not like a pre-thought. I feel like there was a time when English comedy was sort of like at the forefront pushing comedy in the world. Speaker 2 (27:48) Yeah, if you think about, I think the best comedy movie ever made, I think, is The Life of Brian. I think The Life of Brian is like a perfect kind of work. Yeah, all of it. And then you look at the sitcom stuff that's come out of Britain. It's been very singular. Monty Python. And Speaker 3 (28:06) then even the stand-up itself. You go, this was the, it's like, that's where you would go for like the source of it is what I mean. I Speaker 2 (28:13) don't know. Cause I think kind of in modern standup for me, the Carlin and Pryor feel like they're the John the Baptist. Speaker 3 (28:22) They came Speaker 2 (28:24) along and then they created this world where the standup comic, right? It was like, there was always comics. There was always entertainers around, but it was like the court jester or the guys in musical and they would be on the bill with other people. Speaker 1 (28:37) But Speaker 2 (28:38) the idea of going to see someone and buying a ticket and going to see them just speak on their own is a relatively recent thing. I think this is why comedy is having a moment now because it's quite a new medium. So it's guys like Billy Connolly in the UK would have been our George Carlin. So these things were kind of happening simultaneously. And then stand-up kind of grew. It's become a much bigger thing. I mean, I got into it like 25, 30 years ago, whenever it was. And when I got into it, it was... Stand-up comedy was field hockey, and now it's Premier League football. I got so lucky on that wave. To catch the wig, yeah. It comes through. It's become a bigger thing, and it feels like it's having a moment now because it's authenticity. It's like people like going to see a comic, and they buy into them, and they say, well, I want to spend time with this person and have fun. Speaker 1 (29:26) And Speaker 2 (29:27) it's the idea of the proximate reason for comedy is to laugh and have fun. But the ultimate reason is to connect. I do think Speaker 3 (29:38) that's why it's becoming more popular. Speaker 2 (29:40) People desperately want to go out and feel part of something. Speaker 3 (29:42) And Speaker 2 (29:42) like, you laugh so much more when you're at a show and you connect with someone and you feel like, okay, well, you know, I've started like, I talk more on stage now. There's much more kind of interaction with the audience. And it's that thing where I want people to join in. I want it to feel special in this moment. I feel like... You want it to feel like it could Speaker 3 (30:02) only be happening now. That's how I feel. And I think that's what makes the comedy special is because we live in a world where everything is regurgitated and passed around and it's clippy and it's this and it's that. The one thing that we do have that's unique Speaker 2 (30:16) is Speaker 3 (30:17) this moment, this river can never be stood in again. Speaker 2 (30:21) Yeah. Speaker 3 (30:22) That's essentially what it starts to feel like. So when an audience member comes in and they go, Jimmy spoke to me or we talked about something that couldn't have come from another show and we... Those moments for me make you feel like you're experiencing something that is completely original, completely new, and most probably will never be experienced again. And I think what's also Speaker 1 (30:41) helping how Jimmy was saying that you're more conversational now on stage is comedians are finally taking the advice that the audience has been saying to them for the longest time. Remember for long, you would have a show and then someone would come to you and say, great show. You'd be like, I wasn't feeling mine. Then they're like, no, I came for you. Speaker 3 (30:58) Yeah. Speaker 1 (30:58) Finally, we believe that they came for us. Speaker 3 (31:00) That's a good point. It's not Speaker 1 (31:02) about the jokes only now. You can share a story. You can go from a tangent. You can come back. You can go. But finally, we believe that they came there for us. Speaker 2 (31:11) Yeah, well, it's that... I suppose it's a weird thing with comedy where you want people to come out and have a great time and feel like they don't remember a word you say, but they remember how you made them feel. Yes. And I feel like the mistake we've made is bigger. Like, as a society, When we all used to live in the villages, like 200 years ago, right? Everyone used to sing and everyone used to dance. And then we moved to the cities and there's things like ballet and opera and people specialized and they're incredible dancers. We just couldn't take our eyes off them. They're amazing. But we're sitting and we're watching it and we're no longer joining in. Speaker 1 (31:45) Yes. Speaker 2 (31:46) And the joining in is everything. The joining in. And sometimes in heckles, some people are just heckling, just a bit of fun. Some people, I feel like there's a frustrated. artist. There's someone out there that wants to say something. And there's a Thoreau quote I really like. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with a song still in their heart. And I think comedy should be taught. I think comedy should be much bigger than it is now. Because if you think about what it is, right, it's ordering your thoughts and writing them down and learning to speak in your own authentic voice. And the tragedy is Most people go to their graves and they've never heard themselves. Speaker 1 (32:26) They themselves have never heard themselves. No, I Speaker 2 (32:29) don't know what they think. Cause they've never sat down and ordered their thoughts and got it together. And, you know, so they're like, uh, it's, you know, they're, they're just, uh, they're taking in, they're taking in whatever media they're taking in and kind of regurgitating an opinion they've heard on the news. I want, you want them to have their own song, their own. their own voice. Like that thing of like standup comedy is really, if it's about anything, it's about like, what could you say that no one else could say? Speaker 3 (32:58) You, you just made me realize you, you tied together. A thought I've been grappling with, we've been grappling with for a while now, it was like, why are certain mediums and why are certain ideas expanding and growing? Why are people gravitating towards them? We talked about this with live streaming, and I think you just hit on it. One of the things that live streaming is achieving that all other mediums aren't is that people can hear themselves and they can see themselves. So we'd be having this conversation now. but there would be people in a chat with us in this moment going, oh, that's true, Jimmy. Hey, Jimmy, I actually came to see you. Thanks for that