3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

I put a vlog out last week about my trip to record with Rogan & Naval. It's pretty beautiful.

In other news, Waymo the driverless taxi service has come to Austin.

I’ve found over the last few weeks that a Waymo which says it’s 7 minutes away regularly takes 15 minutes to get to me.

It wasn’t getting lost or taking wrong turns, it just seemed to be moving unusually slowly around pedestrianised areas and junctions.

I’ve realised that Waymo is totally cucked and has taught me a fundamental truth about how humans think in cars.

Allow me to explain.

Humans largely behave on the road.

They do this to avoid inconveniencing or angering other drivers, and to avoid endangering themselves.

It’s reciprocal courtesy.

But with Waymo that isn’t a consideration because 1 - you know the Waymo will always stop if you bully it by crossing the street or pulling into its lane and 2 - there is no fear of retribution or sense of guilt for inconveniencing another driver as there is no driver.

So Waymo just gets bitched by every human who’s prepared to prioritise themselves.

Hence, it’s the last priority at every junction and crosswalk.

This issue will disappear once all vehicles are autonomous, because the playing field will become level again.

But I think the next few decades are actually going to see driverless vehicles be way slower to reach their destination until either humans stop putting themselves first on the road (never going to happen), or self-driving is given some sort of retributive algorithm to tailgate a driver who just cut you off.

MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Douglas Murray - how has Trump’s first few months in office gone, what is happening with the Democrats’ strategy, what the lessons are from Ukraine and Gaza for the rest of the world and why Easter books keep crushing.

Thursday.
Rob Henderson - one of my favourite social psychologists on why Liberal women are dating Conservative men, how to choose a good partner and whether adolescence was an accurate assessment of incels.

Saturday.
3.5M Q&A - it’s me. Answering your questions. Hello.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
Romantic relationships matter more to men than to women.

“Stereotypes say it’s women who care more… but this time the stereotypes are wrong.

A new paper in Behavioural and Brain Sciences assessed this very question.

Researchers found that, among other things:

Men strive harder to establish romantic relationships
Fall in love faster
Benefit more from relationships
Depend more on their relationships for social support
Are less likely to initiate breakups
Suffer more in the wake of a breakup
And take longer to get over their exes.”

— h/t Steve Stewart-Williams

2.
Don’t fall into the trap of mourning a life you can still live.

If you're the sort of person thats regularly surprised at how well things go, that’s maybe a good indication that you’re allowed to believe in yourself more.

3.
You need fewer inputs, not more.

“The answers you seek are in the silence you’re avoiding.” — Dylano