so how fast do you want to die
oh I’m sorry somebody must have told you
that this was gonna be some sort of calm
day where you learned like cute facts
from people in colourful pants but it’s
my turn now and from my turn
I’d really like to remind you of your
own mortality
so how comfortable are you with your
impending doom pretty comfy all right
cool I asked you this question
because you are all making choices every
day that wildly affect your lifespan and
usually you make those choices without
giving them any sort of second thought
now according to the watch I’m not
wearing i’ve got about eight minutes
left of this talk and in those seven
minutes and 55 seconds i want to draw
your attention to the choices you’re
making every morning noon and night and
i want to give you a tool to make them
better of course i should backtrack
don’t give me too much credit for the
life-changing quasi-religious experience
that you’re about to get from my talk
you see the idea is that I’m using date
all the way back to the ancient Greek
philosophy of hedonism and we find them
today in modern academic disciplines
like the cost-benefit analysis of
economics what I’m about to ask you to
do you already know how to do and you do
it all the time every time you generate
a mental pro/con list of spending the
summer with your family or getting on
that hot guys motorcycle and spending
this summer wherever he takes you well
that’s philosophizing like a Greek so
let’s get started here’s a hypothetical
what if I told you that I could get you
a job the most amazing job in the world
but it would kill you a little bit
faster than you’re already dying let’s
say I take this young man here in the
front row and I tell him I can snap my
fingers and make him President of the
United States
as president he could positively impact
the country he could save dozens or
hundreds or thousands of lives but it
would kill him a little faster wouldn’t
it the stress from that job would wear
on him in a predictable fashion and he’d
lose some of the life he would have
otherwise had
that’s les summers with your family les
days spent by the pool do you take it
should he I definitely take that job I
take it and I run with it
and I make the world a better place and
if I die in my late 80s instead of my
early 90s that’s fine
I had a great death as a friend knowing
what I had done was worth it
but that hypothetical is probably way
too easy for most of you so let me give
you a second one let’s say I toe this
young woman here in the front row that
every day for the rest of her life I
will give her one hit of sweet pure
Colombian cocaine it’s guaranteed to
make her high as a kite and happy as a
clam for at least 20 minutes a day of
course it is going to kill her a little
faster because spoiler alert
hey cocaine kills you that stuff is
gonna ruin her kidneys and really mess
up her brain chemistry and not only is
she going to lose some of her life she’s
gonna lose some of her friends and
family along the way too so what do you
do do you take it
alright alright I I don’t take that deal
that cocaine is gonna kill me a lot
faster than being president would and I
wouldn’t get near as much satisfaction
from it for me the costs outweigh the
benefits so you’re probably thinking how
does any of this relate to you I told
you you made these decisions every day
and that stuff’s crazy so let’s get out
of the hypotheticals when we talk about
nutrition we’re essentially asking the
same questions I’ve been asking these
people in the front row you see I’m
already addicted to cocaine more
accurately I’m addicted to semi-dried
pieces of Apple they’ve got the texture
of marshmallow oh my god I think it’s
really satisfying it’s down when you
bite them mmm oh you’re super good
hmm
oh it’s so good it’s so good okay all
right I’m back I’m back these things are
delicious they are my favorite treat I
love them so much I script it in that
excuse to eat one in front of you for
this talk but usually I only eat them on
Saturdays and Sundays now you may be
thinking but destiny rose you just said
they were fruit that means they’re
healthy if they’re really your favorite
thing why aren’t you eating them all the
time always constantly and forever and
the answer is my cocaine II little Apple
bits kill me just like the cocaine I’m
giving her after this show as fruits
they’re jam-packed with sugar which can
feed unhealthy bacteria in my body and
trigger flashbulb insulin responses that
can lead to diabetes in the long term
now they’re not as bad as say something
like soda which in my current example is
kind of like super meth but they’re also
not as good as something like mushrooms
which in this current example is is kind
of like mushrooms I know my cocaine II
Apple bits kill me a little so I’ve
chosen to only eat them on days that
start with s when Saturday rolls around
and I’ve been good all week eating my
leafy greens I grab a bag of those
babies and I go full Scarface on them
that kills me a little bit but I’m okay
with it I’m okay with that much death in
my life I’ve made the decision to do
well to do that using the Greek
philosophy I mentioned at the very
beginning of the talk the hedonistic
calculus the hedonistic calculus is a
mental exercise where you look at a
choice and you try to figure out all the
pain and pleasure
it could cause you in the future what
you’re trying to do here is really get
an understanding of all the consequences
of every action you make the goal of the
calculus is to make your life as good as
it can be for me to have a maximally
pleasurable life I got to live a long
time so I can eat a lot of delicious
stuff for me to live a long time I have
to watch what I eat because a tub of
cookie dough for breakfast would be
delicious but it would only be delicious
for a couple of weeks
until that inevitable heart attack made
its deliciousness pretty irrelevant so I
keep my sweets small and I’ve learned to
cook vegetables in a way that makes them
taste just sort of less generally sad
that makes my life a lot longer giving
me way more weekends to cover myself in
Apple bits some of you probably strongly
disagree with the restrictions that I’ve
put on myself after doing my own
calculus you say take the high profile
job and take the Colombian cocaine too
and if you drink a soda every day in the
Oval Office that’s nobody’s business but
yours some of you though I’d bet sort of
vaguely want to see your grandkids or
you want to see the world become a
better place or you at least want to see
the last of the new Star Wars movies
yeah all right cool so whatever your
personal cocaine is I bet you’d give up
just a little bit of it to see those
things all I’m asking you to do is think
about it think about happy how happy a
Snickers bar or a piece of white bread
makes you and then go and learn how fast
that thing is killing you and the next
time you see a bowl of candy or a bowl
of pasta pause a moment and think about
how long you want to live how happy that
thing makes you and how fast it’s
killing you when you eat it maybe you’ll
be like me you’ll eat mushrooms most
days you’ll save coke for the weekends
maybe you’ll be like some of my really
healthy friends who just live an entire
life of chicken breast and kale or maybe
you will reorganize your priorities and
you’ll go and buy stock and potato chips
it is quite literally your funeral I
can’t make that decision for you but you
should know what’s killing you and when
you find out I encourage you to find
your own balance between kale and
cocaine thanks I’ll see you after the
show for that Coke
[Applause]
oh I’m sorry somebody must have told you
that this was gonna be some sort of calm
day where you learned like cute facts
from people in colourful pants but it’s
my turn now and from my turn
I’d really like to remind you of your
own mortality
so how comfortable are you with your
impending doom pretty comfy all right
cool I asked you this question
because you are all making choices every
day that wildly affect your lifespan and
usually you make those choices without
giving them any sort of second thought
now according to the watch I’m not
wearing i’ve got about eight minutes
left of this talk and in those seven
minutes and 55 seconds i want to draw
your attention to the choices you’re
making every morning noon and night and
i want to give you a tool to make them
better of course i should backtrack
don’t give me too much credit for the
life-changing quasi-religious experience
that you’re about to get from my talk
you see the idea is that I’m using date
all the way back to the ancient Greek
philosophy of hedonism and we find them
today in modern academic disciplines
like the cost-benefit analysis of
economics what I’m about to ask you to
do you already know how to do and you do
it all the time every time you generate
a mental pro/con list of spending the
summer with your family or getting on
that hot guys motorcycle and spending
this summer wherever he takes you well
that’s philosophizing like a Greek so
let’s get started here’s a hypothetical
what if I told you that I could get you
a job the most amazing job in the world
but it would kill you a little bit
faster than you’re already dying let’s
say I take this young man here in the
front row and I tell him I can snap my
fingers and make him President of the
United States
as president he could positively impact
the country he could save dozens or
hundreds or thousands of lives but it
would kill him a little faster wouldn’t
it the stress from that job would wear
on him in a predictable fashion and he’d
lose some of the life he would have
otherwise had
that’s les summers with your family les
days spent by the pool do you take it
should he I definitely take that job I
take it and I run with it
and I make the world a better place and
if I die in my late 80s instead of my
early 90s that’s fine
I had a great death as a friend knowing
what I had done was worth it
but that hypothetical is probably way
too easy for most of you so let me give
you a second one let’s say I toe this
young woman here in the front row that
every day for the rest of her life I
will give her one hit of sweet pure
Colombian cocaine it’s guaranteed to
make her high as a kite and happy as a
clam for at least 20 minutes a day of
course it is going to kill her a little
faster because spoiler alert
hey cocaine kills you that stuff is
gonna ruin her kidneys and really mess
up her brain chemistry and not only is
she going to lose some of her life she’s
gonna lose some of her friends and
family along the way too so what do you
do do you take it
alright alright I I don’t take that deal
that cocaine is gonna kill me a lot
faster than being president would and I
wouldn’t get near as much satisfaction
from it for me the costs outweigh the
benefits so you’re probably thinking how
does any of this relate to you I told
you you made these decisions every day
and that stuff’s crazy so let’s get out
of the hypotheticals when we talk about
nutrition we’re essentially asking the
same questions I’ve been asking these
people in the front row you see I’m
already addicted to cocaine more
accurately I’m addicted to semi-dried
pieces of Apple they’ve got the texture
of marshmallow oh my god I think it’s
really satisfying it’s down when you
bite them mmm oh you’re super good
hmm
oh it’s so good it’s so good okay all
right I’m back I’m back these things are
delicious they are my favorite treat I
love them so much I script it in that
excuse to eat one in front of you for
this talk but usually I only eat them on
Saturdays and Sundays now you may be
thinking but destiny rose you just said
they were fruit that means they’re
healthy if they’re really your favorite
thing why aren’t you eating them all the
time always constantly and forever and
the answer is my cocaine II little Apple
bits kill me just like the cocaine I’m
giving her after this show as fruits
they’re jam-packed with sugar which can
feed unhealthy bacteria in my body and
trigger flashbulb insulin responses that
can lead to diabetes in the long term
now they’re not as bad as say something
like soda which in my current example is
kind of like super meth but they’re also
not as good as something like mushrooms
which in this current example is is kind
of like mushrooms I know my cocaine II
Apple bits kill me a little so I’ve
chosen to only eat them on days that
start with s when Saturday rolls around
and I’ve been good all week eating my
leafy greens I grab a bag of those
babies and I go full Scarface on them
that kills me a little bit but I’m okay
with it I’m okay with that much death in
my life I’ve made the decision to do
well to do that using the Greek
philosophy I mentioned at the very
beginning of the talk the hedonistic
calculus the hedonistic calculus is a
mental exercise where you look at a
choice and you try to figure out all the
pain and pleasure
it could cause you in the future what
you’re trying to do here is really get
an understanding of all the consequences
of every action you make the goal of the
calculus is to make your life as good as
it can be for me to have a maximally
pleasurable life I got to live a long
time so I can eat a lot of delicious
stuff for me to live a long time I have
to watch what I eat because a tub of
cookie dough for breakfast would be
delicious but it would only be delicious
for a couple of weeks
until that inevitable heart attack made
its deliciousness pretty irrelevant so I
keep my sweets small and I’ve learned to
cook vegetables in a way that makes them
taste just sort of less generally sad
that makes my life a lot longer giving
me way more weekends to cover myself in
Apple bits some of you probably strongly
disagree with the restrictions that I’ve
put on myself after doing my own
calculus you say take the high profile
job and take the Colombian cocaine too
and if you drink a soda every day in the
Oval Office that’s nobody’s business but
yours some of you though I’d bet sort of
vaguely want to see your grandkids or
you want to see the world become a
better place or you at least want to see
the last of the new Star Wars movies
yeah all right cool so whatever your
personal cocaine is I bet you’d give up
just a little bit of it to see those
things all I’m asking you to do is think
about it think about happy how happy a
Snickers bar or a piece of white bread
makes you and then go and learn how fast
that thing is killing you and the next
time you see a bowl of candy or a bowl
of pasta pause a moment and think about
how long you want to live how happy that
thing makes you and how fast it’s
killing you when you eat it maybe you’ll
be like me you’ll eat mushrooms most
days you’ll save coke for the weekends
maybe you’ll be like some of my really
healthy friends who just live an entire
life of chicken breast and kale or maybe
you will reorganize your priorities and
you’ll go and buy stock and potato chips
it is quite literally your funeral I
can’t make that decision for you but you
should know what’s killing you and when
you find out I encourage you to find
your own balance between kale and
cocaine thanks I’ll see you after the
show for that Coke
[Applause]
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