- [Sam] Get ready for a "Game Changer"!
Tonight's guests, professor
of "Um, Actually"-ology,
it's Mike Trapp!
- Hey!
- [Sam] New York Times
best punning novelist,
it's Rekha Shankar.
- Hello!
- [Sam] And recipient of the
MacArthur Wholesome Grant,
it's Ryan Creamer!
And your host, me! I've
been here the whole time!
This is "Game Changer", the
only game show where the game
changes every show, I
am your host Sam Reich.
I am joined today by these
three lovely contestants.
Now, you all understand
how the game works.
- [All] No.
- That's right, our players have no idea
what game it is they're about to play.
The only way to learn is by playing,
the only way to win is by learning,
and the only way to begin is by beginning,
so without further ado, let's begin.
Ryan, you've watched a TED
Talk in your life, I assume?
- Yes.
- Well, in a moment I am
going to ask you to give one,
to share with us a big idea.
But don't worry, I'm here to help.
I've made for you a
presentation to go along with,
the only issue being you've
never seen it before.
Ready to go?
- Okay, I think I'm ready to go, yeah.
- Ryan, your first slide.
- The sun.
This thing is hot.
[Trapp laughs]
I don't know about you guys,
but I certainly couldn't
live there. Next slide.
[Rekha laughs]
So all we know on Earth,
correct me if I'm wrong,
is that people are apt to lose their hair.
- I think that's fair to say.
- Sure.
- Right, so here's my thought.
If we go to the f*cking sun,
[Sam and Mike laugh]
we sh**t on a rocket
straight the hell right
into the middle of it,
now listen, I know what you're all saying,
"Too hot, we can't get on
there, it might burn us all up."
But, if there's some sort of cool rocket
that will sh**t right
through all the hotness
- When you say some kind of cool rocket,
- Right.
- you mean like,
temperature cool,
not like,
like it's just a cool rocket.
- So glad you asked, no,
I do mean a cool rocket,
- Oh, okay, great!
- something that's really,
yeah yeah yeah.
I will make a point,
the only thing worth going
to in the middle of the
sun is for hair regrowth.
And this is just a model of
what I think could happen.
Next slide, please.
Alright,
so there's going to be
a couple things we need
to build this cool rocket.
[Rekha laughs]
And I'm just gonna run through them all.
You may know these beans,
and that's exactly what
we're gonna need, alright?
The cool rocket will run on pinto,
it'll be made out of kidney,
we need lima just for the
people to eat on the way there.
- You don't want them eating the rocket,
that's for sure.
[laughter]
- That's for damn sure.
- They're gonna be tempted,
if it's a whole bean
- Unrelated, unrelated.
- -created rocket.
Like, "Hey, paws off the
rocket, buddy, you got all the-"
- "Hey, hey, if you're trying
to eat some uncooked beans,
that's what we got the
bag of limas here for."
- Now I know it's hard to
distinguish between the beans
you can eat and the
spaceship, which you can't.
- Absolutely, but I want to
make clear, our astronauts
will be given very intensive bean training
before the cool rocket launch.
- Are you sure it's easier to
give astronauts bean training
than it is to give bean
experts astronaut training?
- Next slide.
[laughter]
- Yeah, f*ck four and five, next slide.
- Yeah, we don't need four and five.
- Once again, black and mung
get the short end of the stick.
- So, all right, we'll be
frank with you, all right?
We took this to the government
and they were not into it.
[Sam laughs]
The cool rocket confused them,
they weren't as excited as you guys were.
Funding was a huge issue,
obviously there's a lot of things
going on in the world right
now, they made the argument,
they deserve more funding
than the cool rocket and
going to the middle of the
sun to grow our hair back.
So that's why I'm coming to you guys
hoping that you will fund this.
We need $45 billion.
- Why did you choose to
use an exed-out thumbs up
instead of a thumbs down?
- Great question, so we couldn't secure,
it's a Getty Images, it's a thumbs down,
and we didn't have the licensing rights.
- You already purchased the thumbs up
and blew your budget on thumbs up.
- Now I'm no Photoshop expert,
[all laugh]
but is not a thumbs up just
an upside down thumbs down?
[Sam laughs]
- You know what, Rekha?
That is so funny, 'cause I
didn't even think to do that.
So next slide please.
In conclusion, guys, our
work is cut out for us.
I mean, a lot of money
needs to be secured,
and so in conclusion, I
would just like to ask,
next slide please.
- This is your last slide.
- Guys, I will be honest, I
rehearsed this presentation
really hard in the thought
that there would be a slide
after this, and I think
without a visual aid,
I don't feel comfortable truly ending it,
so with that, I just
thank you for your time.
- Wow.
[Rekha claps]
Ryan, let's say, uh, 2 points for you.
[bell dings]
- Thank you.
- Rekha.
- Uh-oh.
- Time for your TED
Talk-style presentation
beginning with this.
- Now, Sam, let me ask,
where are you from?
[Sam laughs]
- Oh, how-
How dare you.
I had assumed we were safely
in another game format.
- There is no bit we will not
run into the ground, Sam Reich.
We will juice every last
drop of juice out of a bit.
- You would say, as
Trapp so sweetly put it,
that that bit has been juiced to death.
- Yeah, yeah, I think that's safe to say.
I think it's lived it's nine lives.
- Yeah.
Have you guys ever
loved something so much,
you just overuse it?
[grunts of approval]
Yeah, okay, next slide.
Well, so has my friend, Devon.
Devon lives with passion, right?
Sounds like a few of you in the audience.
- Cut to a crowd, there's
one woman nodding.
[everyone laughs]
- Devon lives life to the fullest.
Devon uses a bit 'till people
issue a restraining order against her.
She goes too hard.
Devon versus everyone
else, Devon's heavier.
[everyone laughs]
Because her passion far exceeds
her human form, next slide.
[chuckles]
Now, what I'm posing to you
is something so passionate,
that maybe you won't even
understand it at first.
You know, we have pride
in our country, right?
"Oh, go America, USA, USA."
- Yeah, go America.
- Of course, yeah,
every day I say that, yeah.
- Sir, in the audience, you
strike me as an Orioles fan.
I'm talking to the redhead.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
- And how would you express that?
- Uh, wearing clothes, I guess?
- Wearing clothes.
Wearing an Orioles hat, perhaps.
What I am suggesting here today,
I think that Americans
could use a little more
pride in themselves.
I think that the entire
North Midwest, as I like to call it,
could just have a big ol' baseball hat.
- Is this giant hat gonna have effect on,
you know, the weather, the climate, and
that's gotta have some
- Thank you for asking this.
- ecological effects, right?
- Pollution, smog, I
don't like these things.
Neither does Devon, and neither do you,
by virtue of the transitive
property, you are Devon.
What if we are actually creating a little
control experiment for climate change?
And we're saying,
"We don't want any of
that disgusting pollution
from your lower, the lower 45."
[laughs]
So, uh, next slide.
[chuckles]
Now,
[laughs]
you asked me how are we gonna make
a baseball hat to express American pride
over states like Minnesota,
over states like Wisconsin,
over states like Michigan?
I'll say too, those were
key states in the election.
- Mmhmm.
- And that's exactly
where I'm going with this.
[everyone laughs]
- Tell me more.
- The only way we can get
this project up and running
is if we don't forget to B.A.R.F.
Biden,
And,
Real Financing.
- Mmmmm.
- So we need our
figurehead to support this,
and then we need actual money behind it.
- You know Rekha, there
is a really odd way
in which that all kinda
came together at the end,
I mean, a hat dome as
climate change experiment.
I'm not exactly sure how the stove and the
scale fit in, but...
- Because this plan
is cookin', and it's gonna bubble over,
and cake your stove.
[everyone laughs]
- You know what?
I was impressed enough by how you turned
that performance around at the end there,
that I will give you the 2 points.
- Thank you.
- That's 2 points for
Ryan, 2 points for Rekha.
- Damn, it's a dead heat.
- Mister Trapp.
- Yes.
- Inspire us with your
big talk starting here.
[laughs and chuckles]
- What is a human?
[snickers]
- Hmmmm.
- What makes someone someone?
For ages, we've tried to understand
what is the divine spark inside all of us.
A soul, maybe, that makes us who we are.
And I say to you that, we don't need to
worry about the soul,
we need to worry about
the three major parts that
make a person a person,
and those are, of course,
predominantly skin,
some hair, and a little bit of blood.
- From my estimation, I've got
quite a bit more blood than hair.
- I had the same question.
- That's actually a common misconception.
[Rekha laughs heartily]
[Sam chuckles]
- Next slide, please.
Now with that being said,
what if a human could be more than just
blood, hair, and skin?
- [gasp] Oooooh yes!
- What if a human could have hooves?
Of course, the dream is always
to be the hottest centaur
in the world,
[Ryan laughs]
but you know, we're gonna
have to start small,
and we're gonna focus on those hooves.
If we can get hooves as a
part of the average human,
then we can achieve our true potential.
Next slide, please.
Now,
[Ryan laughs]
in the early 1800s, this was an era
of ingenuity and big dreams.
This was the original plan for
getting hooves onto people.
The sights were set pretty low, they knew
from like the first major milestones,
they were like, "This
ain't gonna happen," right?
Like, they knew we were looking at hooves,
but we thought by 1959,
certainly into 1971, that
we could get hooves onto people.
- Is there anything to be
said about the confluence
of these initiatives
with, like, major wars?
- Hmmm.
[laughs]
- I'm noticing, you know,
lots of no's leading up to
World w*r II, and honestly, uh, wow.
Like, we've got the, you
know, the Korean w*r,
and we've got the Gulf
w*r right at the end
where nobody knows.
- Yeah.
w*r has a way of spurring technology, and
advances in the sciences,
unfortunately, do
sometimes occur around major conflicts
as we're looking through it.
And I don't think I even,
I don't think I even need to explain
how hooves would be
beneficial on the b*ttlefield,
as I think that's pretty self-evident.
We've seen some setbacks, but I think
as we'll see in our next slide,
there is actually hope for the future.
[Ryan and Rekha laugh]
I want everyone in the audience right now,
I want you all to look at your hand.
Hold out your palm, look at it.
No, you're not imagining things,
it's a little hoof-like.
[Sam cracks up]
- I don't see that at all!
- [Ryan] Yeah.
- Well hold on, hold on,
I don't think you're
looking hard enough.
- Wait, in what way?
- And also, if I was gonna be a centaur,
wouldn't I just get four legs
and my hands would remain the same?
- No, most people assume
that, in becoming a centaur,
you would grow a horse, a lower half.
But in point-of-fact,
from your shoulders down
becomes horse, and a new torso grows up
from where your neck is.
- Oh my God, it's like
horse overalls.
- Yes, exactly.
- Yes, horse overalls.
- But yes, if you compare your hands
with the hands of someone from 1800,
you'll see it's
significantly more hoof-like.
Our dreams of making
a human more than just
skin and hair and blood, but in fact
skin, hair, blood, and
hooves, is closer today
than it ever has been before.
- Wow!
Trapp, really well-rounded,
[applause]
bringing it all together at the end there
for a little bit of an
interactive experience,
remaining on message throughout,
I give you the full 3 points.
[Rekha gasps]
- Thank you very much.
[bell dings]
- Scores as we head
into the mini-game are:
Ryan with 2, Rekha with 2, Trapp with 3.
Academics think they know everything.
But everyone has holes in their knowledge.
Today, we're going to play a game called,
"Who's the expert?"
- Mmmm.
- I have invited in an
academic to join us,
and have here a list of topics,
each of which one of the
three of you is an expert in.
- Hmmmm.
- And you will each have 10 seconds
to convince our academic
that you are the expert
on that topic, make sense?
- Okay, I think so.
- I think so, yeah.
- Introducing now, a
professor of Sociology
at Columbia University,
and my brother, Adam Reich.
- [All] Hey!
- Hey!
- Thank you so much for joining us!
- What do you think about
the notion of expertise?
- Well, expertise is dead.
- Mmmm.
- Okay, and so we
should get rid of the game.
- Great, we're,
this is gonna be great for us, yeah.
[everyone laughs]
- The very premise of the
game is deeply flawed.
[Sam laughs]
- What do you mean, expertise is dead?
- Trust in expert knowledge
is at an all-time low.
Trust in scientific
expertise, more generally,
has been declining for
the last 30, 40 years.
So all of your expertise is really,
it's all full of sh*t.
[everyone laughs]
- All right.
Rekha, you have 10 seconds to convince me
that you're the expert in:
"Frasier".
- "Frasier" was a show that
was on from 1993 to 2003
starring Kelsey Grammar,
David Hyde Pierce,
Peri Gilpin, and Jane Leeves.
It is about a man who
lives with his father,
and it is a love story
between two brothers,
a father and a son, and a dog.
[buzzer sounds]
- And that's it for Rekha,
going to Trapp for 10.
- "Frasier" is a spinoff of "Cheers"
with the character of Frasier
played by Kelsey Grammar.
Most of the comedy from the
show comes from this idea
of Frasier is a very high-class individual
with his low-class
low-brow blue collar father
and the comedy that comes
from the interactions between-
[buzzer sounds]
- 10 seconds over, Ryan!
- Joe Frazier was a boxer
[jovial laughter]
who took on Muhammad Ali
in the 1980s in "The
Rumble in the Jungle".
"Down went Frazier," the iconic phrase
where Joe Frazier,
knocked down, knocked out.
Muhammad Ali the winner of
"The Rumble in the Jungle"
has gone on to, you know,
have a storied career.
[buzzer sounds]
- And that is it!
Adam who do you think the expert is?
- I think it's very clear
that the expert is Rekha.
[bell dings]
- Trapp,
you have 10 seconds to convince me
that you're the expert in:
Vegan Desserts.
- So, the thing with
vegan desserts is that
you're gonna have to be,
you're replacing a lot of
things like eggs and dairy
that people tend to like in desserts,
but there are a lot of great substitutes
that you can have there.
There's vegan butter, there's coconut oil,
and there's things like
chia seeds that you
can moisture-
[buzzer sounds]
- And that's it for Trapp!
Rekha, 10 seconds.
- Miyoko's vegan butter is the worst
vegan butter on Earth,
it tastes like coconuts,
the other things you can use are
Earth Balance sticks,
Earth Balance margarine,
you can also use tapioca
flour, you can use
arrowroot starch and all sorts of things
to get a thickening agent
into your vegan dessert,
you can also use avocado-
[buzzer sounds]
- That's it for Rekha, Ryan.
- Vegan desserts, defeated by Muhammad Ali
in the 1980s.
[infectious laughter]
Down goes vegan desserts,
crushed by the strong hands
of the very strong, fast,
"float like a butterfly,
sting like a bee,"
Muhammad Ali, "The Rumble in the Jungle".
Iconic in the ring.
[buzzer sounds]
- And that is it!
Adam, who do you think the expert was?
- This feels like a trick question,
because there's no such thing as expertise
in vegan desserts,
they're just disgusting.
[Sam laughs]
But I'll give it to Mike.
[bell dings]
- Damn.
- Fair enough, it goes to Mike.
Ryan, you have 10 seconds to convince me
that you are the expert in:
"The Sims", go!
- "The Sims" is a simulation
game where you're a family,
there's a Sims 1, 2, they
had expansion packs for both,
then there was 3 and 4 on PC, Mac,
and yeah, it's a game
where you build a family
and live out a life on your computer.
[buzzer sounds]
- 10 seconds, Rekha.
- "The Sims" is a
single-player simulation game
where you can be a character in a family,
you can also have expansion packs,
we have dogs and cats
and magic and vampires,
and you can also have a job.
You can go to the Sims at work,
and you can also grow older,
starting in "The Sims 2"
you were able to age with your Sim
and they could die of old
age or die of starvation,
which is really a fascinating-
[buzzer sounds]
- And 10 seconds to Trapp.
- "The Sims" was the winner
of "The Rumble in the Jungle",
[jovial laughter]
Muhammad Ali, no one was expecting it,
but there, a little diamond
floating right above his head,
those Sims, there's a whole family of them
coming in, just wailing on him.
[buzzer sounds]
- And that's it!
Adam, who do you think the
expert was in "The Sims"?
- I'm disturbed by Rekha's,
the form of her expertise.
[Trapp and Ryan giggle]
She's k*lling off characters.
However, it does demonstrate
a textured knowledge
of the game playing, so I think I might
have to go for Rekha.
[bell dings]
- Adam, well done.
The answer to all three
of these was Rekha.
- That's so psycho, Sam.
[everyone laughs]
- Wow.
- I was losing my f*cking mind.
[everyone laughs]
- Adam, thank you so, so much.
- Thank you, brother.
Bye everyone.
- Bye, nice to meet you.
- The points as we head
into round 2 of our game,
Ryan with 2, Trapp with 4, Rekha with 4,
a dead heat.
Ryan.
- Yeah.
- Would you inspire us?
- Totally.
[Trapp and Rekha laugh]
- Your first slide being:
- All right, well,
this almost goes without saying, you guys.
[Trapp and Sam laugh]
- So why say it?
- I don't even need to explain this.
- I think we've all known
this for quite some time,
but it helps every now and then,
for points to be reiterated
so they don't get
lost in time.
This is your brain on hugs,
and as you can tell by the
electricity coming out of it
and the smiles that they're sharing,
it's just absolutely astounding, I mean,
I love it, people love it, and, um,
[sighs]
next slide.
[Sam and Trapp laugh]
- To be clear, the lightning is good?
- Yeah.
- And to that same effect,
this grim reaper is also good.
In this diagram, we see
the intersection of death,
often thought of as a
sad thing to be lamented,
thing to be feared.
Cats die.
[Sam laughs]
This woman will die.
- Today?!
- Yes, these will both die today.
[Trapp laughs]
I have them backstage,
and it is going to happen.
What I want to make clear to you is that
they back there are so afraid, but,
[everyone laughs]
before I came out here,
I hugged them both.
[gasp]
They did say, "Stop, you
don't have to do this,"
but they also smiled a little bit,
and that just goes to
show, in the face of death,
the power of hugs is enormous.
- Do you know that woman?
- I do, very well, this is my aunt.
[everyone laughs]
Next slide, please.
Now, this is where things
go off the path, I think.
[Rekha laughs]
You think, "Well, what is the
point of this presentation?
Hugs are great, everyone knows that."
I do need to make this clear,
a hug of Santa is a kiss of death.
It's likened to an atomic b*mb blast.
There's radiation for weeks, we don't know
what's chemically within him, but,
I beg of you not to hug Santa Claus.
[Trapp laughs]
- From what I've understood about Santa,
is that he's nice.
- Totally.
- So what is this that
you're telling me now
that he'll cause nuclear destruction?
- I'm so glad you brought that up.
So are we familiar with the Grinch?
- Intimately.
- Intimately, great, phen-
[cracks up laughing]
- Sexually, yes.
- So in the story of the Grinch,
I mean, obviously, the warmth, the love,
the hugs that he's given
grow his heart three sizes.
- Mmmm.
- Santa's heart is already, you know,
as the biggest size in the world.
- Oooh.
- He has the biggest
heart ever, and if he is to be hugged,
you know like in "Spider-Man
It's kinda like that, where
the hug will explode out
[Rekha laughs]
and destroy everything.
- What does this say about Santa's
relationship with Mrs. Claus?
- Very good question.
- Uh-oh.
They ain't getting any action.
- Rekha, that's verbatim it.
They ain't getting any action.
[laughs]
So, take from that what you will,
but it is what it is, next slide, please.
The centerpiece of my argument.
[Trapp laughs]
What all of this has been leading up to.
And regrettably,
[Rekha and Sam laugh]
I think as we can all see,
it's having a little bit of trouble.
In rehearsal, we couldn't get it to work,
so I don't know why I
thought it would work now.
Just, suffice it to say,
it was a very well-produced
CGI recreation of what would happen
if you were to hug Santa Claus.
And, I mean, the people
who did work on it,
I just wanna thank them, 'cause
[everyone laughs]
you guys can imagine
how cool it would've been.
Thank you so much for your time.
[Sam laughs]
[everyone claps]
- Very well done, Ryan.
I really liked how you managed
to sort of dig holes for yourself,
and then try to scamper on out of them.
I'll give you two points.
- All right.
- The thesis of which,
I think I can say is,
we should all hug each
other, but not Santa.
- Yes, exactly.
He's a frightening beast.
- Rekha.
- Okay.
- Let's hear your big idea,
starting here.
[Rekha and Trapp chuckle]
- Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?
[Trapp laughs]
- Hmmmm.
- I think this is gonna be a good one.
[Sam laughs]
- Aren't you guys so tired of small talk?
[everyone laughs]
"Hey, honey, how are you doing?"
"Hi, I'm doing fine."
"Oh my God, how's the weather?"
"Why don't you go outside
and check yourself?"
Well I posture to you,
hot dogs are like the small talk of food.
[gasp]
- Ooooh.
- Just something boring and droll,
"Oh, you don't know what to eat?
Pick up a hot dog at the vendor."
It's tiring, and I
think we deserve better.
- I see.
- It's something
we're settling for.
- Mmmm.
- Okay.
- Next slide.
[everyone laughs]
The redhead up front.
- Yeah, hi.
Mmhmm?
- You're laughing, why?
[laughter]
- Don't give it to her, Ryan.
- Why are you laughing?
Because I would venture
to say you laughing
is sort of offensive.
'Cause I think you're laughing
because this duck is in a business suit
and has a nice body.
[Trapp laughs]
- That's exactly what I
was laughing at, yeah.
- Well that's what I have to
say is a common misconception.
That this duck can't exalt
itself to be a businessman.
This is what I'm saying.
You're settling for hot dogs.
You're settling for a
duck just sitting around,
"Quack, quack, quack,
quack, quack, quack, quack."
You're not believing that anything
can be a level above what it is now.
- I just have a question of clarification.
- Okay?
- What is the misconception here?
- The misconception is that this duck
can't dream about being a man.
- The misconception is
that it's a fantasy.
- The misconception is that that should be
in a thought bubble,
and not a speech bubble.
[laughs]
- Oh, speech bubble.
- Yes.
- It's not a thought, it is.
Next slide.
[everyone laughs]
So what I'm here today is to tell you that
you can exalt anything in your
mind to be at a higher level.
You can achieve more
than you think you can.
For instance, redhead in the front.
- Can you please stop picking on me?
[laughter]
- Nope, tell me what this graph means.
- Yeah, you do the presentation.
[laughter]
- What, no, no.
Let me tell you, redhead,
you're stuttering.
- I feel picked on.
- There's something deep in your psyche
that feels picked on,
that feels lesser than,
that feels you can't explain this graph.
Well I'm here to tell you, even the most
confusing graph that my son
put together can be understood.
Look at this graph.
I told my son, "Make
something incomprehensible.
Let me trick the audience.
Let me see if they really doubt
their mind capacity that much."
And you all fell for it, and
I'm sorry you fell for it.
But I'm here to tell you, you
could understand this graph.
Look at this.
All it's saying is that volcanic eruptions
have sort of had a relatively
similar level of occurrence
from 1960 to 2010, whereas
"Women named Allison"
has been on a relative
decline, and then an uptick,
and that these two patterns are unrelated.
- To be clear, you're saying that
this is a silly slide your child made
that you put into the
presentation to prove
that anyone can do anything?
[sarcastically applauds]
[laughter and applause]
- Stand up, sir, stand up.
Stand up, sir.
- Okay, but I'll be out of frame.
- Sir, you are the first
person in this audience today
that has chosen to believe in themselves.
That has chosen to look at
something confusing and go,
"No, that's possible."
Ducks can wear suits,
graphs can mean something.
Next slide, unless this is done.
- No, there's one more.
- Uh-oh.
The only person on my
side in this argument
so far has been Adam Driver.
[Sam and Ryan laugh]
We do phone calls about this.
We're trying to get the word out.
We're trying to get people
to believe in themselves,
to believe that they are more
than they think they are.
But they think he's bananas.
[laughter and claps]
People think he's bananas.
- Thank you, Rekha, for telling us
very passionately and
in a very roundabout way
to believe in ourselves,
I will give you 2 points
for that absolutely insane presentation.
Trapp.
- Let's do it.
[claps]
- Here's your first slide.
[chuckles]
- Folks, there's a problem
with society these days
that we've all run into
at some point or another.
We've all been invited
to a mysterious mansion,
[Sam laughs]
no explanation about why we're there,
no explanation about what
binds the other strangers
that are in that room.
Yet, within that house are the
tools of our own destruction.
A candlestick, a rope, a wrench, a g*n,
a knife, a lead pipe, not pictured here,
didn't have the money to
get the lead pipe.
[chuckles]
These dangers are there, and I do believe
that there is a solution.
That solution is here on our next slide.
Let's take a look.
[laughter]
It's fish, people.
Not fish-people.
It's fish, comma, people.
I'm addressing you.
- You see, I told you.
- The people.
- Dangers lurk everywhere.
[Ryan laughs]
And who better to teach us how to
confront those dangers than fish?
Now, it is because of the
dangers that these fish face,
one of the oldest, the oldest
branches of the Tree of Life
on Earth, they're still
living, they're still thriving,
because they know how to confront danger.
Now how, specifically,
do fish deal with danger?
Next slide, please.
[Ryan laughs heartily]
Well, it's like that joke about
the boy and the water fountain, you know?
- This is one of his greatest,
I've seen him do, I've seen
a YouTube video of this joke.
[laughter]
- You love this joke.
- This joke is so funny.
- Film it, film it.
- I'm surprised he's
doing it again.
- It's a classic, really.
It's classic.
- [Ryan] It's hard to beat.
- Boy walks up to a water fountain.
[Sam wheezes]
Leans in, presses the button,
squirts him in the eye.
"f*ck," the boy screams.
[Ryan laughs]
- Whoa, okay.
- "f*ck, sh*t, a*s."
Wipes the water out of his eye.
Leans in for another sip, because
the boy's thirsty.
Presses the button,
right in the eye again,
the other eye this time.
- Mmmm.
- Again, stream of
profanities the likes of which
a young boy should not know
come erupting out of his mouth.
- But he's so thirsty.
[laughs]
- This is the best part.
- Boy goes for a third time.
He leans in, he presses the button,
straight down his throat,
right into his lungs,
he drowns.
[Sam laughs]
[Rekha laughs and claps]
The boy goes up to heaven.
- Oh, it's still going, all right.
- He's talking to Saint
Peter, and he's like,
"All I wanted in life was just
a little bit of refreshment.
What's going on here?"
And Saint Peter says to the boy,
[snickers]
"Better than getting it in
the eye a third time, right?"
[laughter and sarcastic applause]
- How is this about fish?
- Now, what does this teach us?
We're dealing with a law of numbers here.
Many people are gonna die as we figure out
what these dangers are, and we figure it,
but someone is going to find the solution.
- Mmmm.
- Someone is going to
try something different,
they're gonna find the way to survive,
and then we can all adopt
that new strategy and live.
And that's exactly what you're
going to see on my next slide.
- Great.
- Yes.
[hearty laughter]
This is the Pyramid of Time.
[more laughter]
Like nutrition, this
tells us how we should be
living our lives.
You wanna healthy dose of "is",
the present, all right?
That should be most of your time,
living in the present, assessing
the dangers around you.
- Mmmm.
- Also important, the "was".
These are things you've already learned,
these are things you've
learned from other people,
who you've seen die.
Then the "will be".
Looking ahead to the future,
what dangers do you see
coming down the pipeline?
And finally, the least important,
the "will have been".
A little bit of that future
retrospection can be valuable.
People are going to die.
- Mmmm.
- But we shouldn't
ignore them, we shouldn't
ignore the strategies that they took.
The people dying right now,
the people who died previously,
the people you think might die,
and the least important of all,
the people who will have
been dead in the future.
[laughter]
Next slide, please.
So,
[Ryan laughs loudly]
that was all
just the introduction.
We got a lot more to talk about here.
- What?!
[laughs]
- For the comedy value,
I desperately wanna
just give you one point.
[laughs]
- Yes, I think, Trapp, for that
absolute Herculean display of nonsense,
I will give you one point.
[laughter]
- That is
totally reasonable.
- The score at the end of our game is
Ryan with 4 points, Trapp
with 5, and Rekha with 6.
[gasp]
- Ooooh!
- Rekha,
you get to pick something
from the winner menu.
- [Trapp] Oooooh!
- I'll choose the Goldbelly credits.
- Yay.
- Goldbelly credits for Rekha.
Trapp, you may pick something
off of the loser menu.
- Ooooh, that's fun, let's see.
I always insult Sam, so that's
not really that special,
[Sam laughs]
I'll promote something.
- Oooh, great.
- Mister Zac Oyama, who you
all know from Collegehumor
[Sam applauds]
and from Dropout,
is recording his own live play D&D podcast
called "The Rotating Heroes Podcast".
It'll be, like, a bunch
of very short arcs,
where lots of different people
are going to be playing.
Ryan, something off of the loser menu.
- Uh, I'll give a virtual
hug to my squad real quick.
- Ooooh!
- C'mere you guys.
- That's cute.
- Oh, so nice.
- I like it.
- That does it for us
here at "Game Changer".
I'm Sam Reich reminding you
that the only difference between
a good idea and a bad idea
is all in the presentation.
Good night.
- Good night.
- Bye.
- Bye bye.
[canned applause and piano music fades]
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