← Alive with Steve Burns
Alive with Steve Burns
Listen Again: Adam Savage on Critical Thinking and Truth in a Post-Truth World
00:49:15
Loading summary
Transcript110 lines
- [00:12]
Steve Burns
Hey, there you are. Come on in. Good to see you. Welcome to Alive. Okay, question for today. Have you ever believed a story even though you didn't know if it was true?
- [00:33]
Adam Savage
Mm.
- [00:37]
Steve Burns
Mm. Huh? Huh? There's tea. You want tea? Okay, here's the thing. I was once a story that everyone believed even though it wasn't true. Yeah. See, I was an urban legend, a proto meme of sorts, a myth, if you will. For a while there, everyone kind of believed for like 15 years that I died of some terrible event like a drug overdose or a car crash or suicide or some awful shit. It went on forever. Here you go. No matter what I did, I couldn't get truth to cut through a sea of stories, you know, simply because it seemed that everyone preferred the story to the facts. It was really surreal. But now, honestly, it feels like that's all of us all the time, right? I mean, we're standing in front of a fire hose of misinformation. You open up your phone and it's like all conspiracy theories, and it feels like the truth is now some kind of a vibe or something. And you add AI into the mix and, man, I'm just wondering where all of this is headed. Like, what's the future of truth? What do you think? Huh? Interesting. Interesting. Let's go. Okay. All right. Full disclosure, I am extra psyched today because our guest is Adam Savage, who is a maker, a storyteller, professional tinkerer, and the legendary co host of mythbusters. Probably my favorite show of all time. He spent like 14 years on TV blowing stuff up, breaking stuff down, testing the veracity of myths and urban legends. The show became a cultural touch stone, not just because of the explosions, but really for the way it modeled the scientific method as something playful, accessible, wildly fun. Before all that on mythbusters, Adam had already built a career behind the scenes as a special effects artist on films like Star Wars, Episode two, no big deal, the Matrix Reloaded, Galaxy Quest, which, by the way, is an awesome movie. He worked in theater and sculpture and fabrication as a teacher. He's written a best selling book called Every Tool's a Hammer. He launched the YouTube juggernaut, Tested, and basically he just remains one of. To me, he's like a champion of curiosity and critical thinking, and I'm thrilled. Oh, and he's. He's here. Okay. Hello, Adam Savage.
- [04:02]
Adam Savage
Hello, Steve. That was the most wonderful introduction. Thank you.
- [04:06]
Steve Burns
It was all apartment And I was keeping it chill, actually, because you really. You really are. You know, they say, don't meet your Heroes. I hope this goes well. Is this the set? Is this. Is this tested? Is that it right there?
- [04:23]
Adam Savage
This is. We're in. We're in the. I guess this would be the west half of my shop. This used to be a display area lined with billy bookcases from IKEA and filled with my collection. Back in 2022, Industrial Light and Magic closed down the last of its original buildings, and I took in some of the model making shelving full of the greeblies they used to build spaceships, because I thought, let me just keep all this stuff together. And then this became an extension of the shop, which is spectacular and it has afforded a much better flow in terms of those builds that I do. Untested and the ways in which we film here.
- [05:05]
Steve Burns
Okay, I have questions on Mythbusters. You know, there was kind of a Bert Nurney vibe with you and Jamie Hyneman, and you were, I believe, in my heart, largely playing a role of this mercurial force of nature to his sort of stoic, rigid scrutiny. Right. But then I'm looking around that shop, which looks to me a little chaotic, but I know that it's not. I know that you know where every wing nut, delta nozzle is in every single one of those drawers back there. I know that you know that. So you have both sides, I think. Right. You're both the mercurial person who is led by their sense of joy and anticipation and curiosity. But you also have the strict methodology side. Right.
- [06:04]
Adam Savage
It's true. They both exist simultaneously. And, you know. Yeah. By the same token, I can be completely full of crap in one sentence.
- [06:13]
Steve Burns
Right. Oh, me too. Wait till we get started, man. You'll hear it.
- [06:19]
Adam Savage
You know, I actually think of that combination as a really, like, a lucky happenstance of my brain.
- [06:25]
Steve Burns
Yeah.
- [06:27]
Adam Savage
The rigor and the enjoyment of tedium, which is, again, when I say enjoyment of tedium, I don't mean that it's fun in the middle of it. Tedious stuff is tedious for me like it is for anybody else. But I can be in the middle of it and know where I'm going and feel really secure in that space and the ability to dive into that. Okay, just do it one more time, even though you've done it five times already. Okay, do it a hundredth time, even though you've done it 99 times. The ability to sit with that tedium, honestly, might be the engine of everything else I've achieved. Right. Because it gives me this foundation to have a place like this where it's visually Cacophonous. But you're right. I know where everything is. And right now, there's, like, 12 syringes full of lapping compound, which I cannot find, and it's making me nuts for a couple of years.
- [07:16]
Steve Burns
Oh, my God. Adam. Same. Same. I have no idea where my lapping compound is. We were just talking about that. It's so frustrating. Yeah. Those two sides are so essential. It's something. The older I get, the more I realize that the chocolate and peanut butter of that is an important governing dynamic for most things. I look at it like a boat. Right. You need a sail, and that sail is energy and inspiration and ideals and crazy ideas and your curiosity and all of your passion. But you also need a rudder, or you're just going to go around in circles. Right.
- [08:00]
Adam Savage
Sometimes that rudder is your boss. It's your supervisor. Right. It's your teacher. It's someone who's helping you stay on track. And I've had plenty of employees who've worked for me with no executive skills, and I provide the structure. I feel very lucky that both came to four in my own brain.
- [08:20]
Steve Burns
Yeah, I think we're all very lucky that both came to four and you remember in that way. Okay, let's get a little bit into mythbusters, because it's my favorite show. For anyone who hasn't seen it, I can't believe there's anyone who doesn't know what you did on mythbusters, but the conceit was you would take an urban legend or a myth and you would run it through a specific methodology. Right. And the idea is you were looking for one of three results. Something could be confirmed, it could be busted, or it could be plausible. I'll use an example of my very favorite episode. I'm sure everyone does this to you, and everyone expresses their favorite episode, but the myth was, oh, that went over like a lead balloon. And y' all were like, imma make a lead balloon and see if that's a thing. And you guys spoiler you. Not only did you do it, but it was such a beautiful object. Like, as an object, it was. It belonged in the Whitney. It was remarkable. Talk to me about the methodology, the terms confirmed, busted, and plausible and what they actually mean within your methodology.
- [09:44]
Adam Savage
So busted and confirmed showed up fully formed. When the production company showed up to film the pilots, the idea that a myth would be busted or confirmed, I added plausible. Plausible came out of a. Came out of my own sense of humor, which is in my experience, I was really good at getting stuff done, but when someone would say, can you get that done? I would not say, yes. I would say that is totally plausible. This was my way of sort of enjoying the fact that the universe is totally uncertain. It ends up being the most common adjudication of myths. Was more plausible than anything else. But at the same time, the freedom that plausible gave us to thread the needle of, okay, we've shown this is possible, but we can't find a legitimate first person account, so we can't say confirmed. We can say plausible. It was a great way of framing knowledge as to what you've got in front of you. So I think it's great that most things weren't one thing or the other. They were somewhere in a liminal space between those two poles. That's what plausible is.
- [11:03]
Steve Burns
Yes. And plausible. It doesn't surprise me that although I didn't know this until you said it, it doesn't surprise me that most of the myth and urban legends and idiomatic phrases. Yeah. Were plausible. Right. I'm looking to apply what you guys did and apply it to misinformation because. Because, you know, an urban legend, a myth that's sort of like a proto meme in a way. Right. It's. It's. It's a. It's a story. It's a concept that may be more satisfying to hear than it is evident.
- [11:49]
Adam Savage
And I don't even think it's plausibly a meme. I think they are all. They are the same memes are one of the ways we're currently shaping and understanding the shape of our world with each other. Yeah, they are way. They're. They're a mode of communication. And I, I had a lot of time over 14 years of making the show to think about urban legends and why they propagate. And they propagate. They propagate for the same reason that I loved making the show, because people love a great story about why stuff happens. Yeah, we want a great story and we want the counter. We want the story. That's the one. That's the most interesting version. That's totally a human trait. I think also when it comes to disinformation and conspiracy theories, I think one of my side theories has been that people in a state of desperation want to believe that someone is in charge. And thus a conspiracy is actually semi reassuring. Right? Yeah, 100%, you know, in that, like, well, someone could affect change. This is feasible when the reality is, you know, evil is completely and always has been as banal as banal gets. I want to tell you that it was actually almost two years before we realized we were officially making a science show. There was a moment a couple of years in when I realized, wow, we are really just using the scientific method as a narrative flowchart.
- [13:19]
Steve Burns
Let's face it, most of us are multitasking most of the day. Like right now I am recording an ad read, but I'm also doing laundry downstairs. It's just the way the world works. We have to do more than one thing at once. So I was wondering, why don't our appliances do that? I mean, look at them. They're just sitting over there doing one thing at a time. What's that about? That's why I like what MyDEA is doing. They make thoughtfully designed, surprisingly practical appliances that actually keep up with real life. Take their One Touch Autofill French door fridge. You just press a button and it automatically fills up your cup while you walk away and do literally anything else. And their dishwashers have a three stage total drying system and they even just pop open automatically when they're done, which is oddly satisfying. It's the kind of stuff that quietly saves you time every day. And that honestly might be the most luxurious thing of all. So head to mydea.com to check these appliances out for yourself. Mydea makes the wow. So if you're here watching this podcast right now, I imagine that you are a pretty compassionate person. A person who knows that there are kids and families going through really hard things. And if you're like me, you want to do something about it. But the truth is, sometimes the problem seems so big that it is really hard to know what actually makes a difference. And that's one of the reasons I really appreciate what Children Incorporated does. Children Incorporated works with trusted local volunteer coordinators, people who already know the children children that they serve. They focus on the biggest barriers to education. When you sponsor a child through childrenincorporated.org your sponsorship goes directly to tangible support for real kids. Visit childrenincorporated.org to learn more and choose a child to sponsor today. Because sometimes changing the world doesn't start with something huge. Sometimes it starts with showing up for one child who just needs someone in their corner.
- [15:31]
Julia Louis Dreyfuss
Hey there, it's Julia Louis Dreyfuss. I'm back with a new season of Wiser Than Me. The show where I sit down with remarkable older women and soak up their stories, their humor, and their hard earned wisdom. Every conversation leaves me a little smarter and definitely more inspired. And yes, I'm still calling my 91 year old mom Judy to get her take on it all wiser than me from lemonada Media is out now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:08]
Shan
Only 18 states require sex ed to be medically accurate. And relationship classes. Let's fix that. I'm Shan, an ASEX certified sex educator with a master's in psych. And on my podcast Lovers by Shan, we make learning about love as mind blowing as making it. Celebrities and fascinating people share an intimate story. Then we uncover the lesson for all of us. Watch Lovers by Shan from Lemonada Media on YouTube or listen wherever you like your podcast.
- [16:41]
Steve Burns
This is why it's brilliant though in, in. In my opinion, because we know how sticky stories are, right? We know that, that we are conditioned to absorb an internalized story at the expense of fact, if need be, right? I read somewhere that a story is something like 22 times more memorable than bare facts, right? And you're presenting the facts through this hero's journey, you know, and it just makes it so much stickier. And I wonder, I wonder what you think about this. I think we're sort of at this point hyper conditioned for narrative since the radio really. I mean we've always, we've always been prone to absorb story. That. That's. That's been the way we've parsed our universe forever. Since the campfire. But then the campfire became a radio and then the radio became a television and then we stopped testing and busting these myths in reality so much and just stayed inside and listened and just fire hosed stories and narratives into our brains and then movies and TV and just the explosion of media that now lives in our pocket that we're now addicted to. I think we have conditioned ourselves in large part to only accept narrative as reality. In, in a way.
- [18:14]
Adam Savage
Look, story is I think one of the most important human things there is. I think it's one of the. I think it's how we pass knowledge down from the very beginning. The first story is like this sharp stick. If we hide behind the thing as together we can run for days and we could stop these things much bigger than us and we can eat for us for a winter. Those are facts in a linear structure. And I think you're right. I don't even. I'm not sure that we're addicted to stories, but I think they're innate in the way our brains function. And because of that we're hugely. We're just as vulnerable to stories as we are benefited by them.
- [19:00]
Steve Burns
Yeah, yeah, 100%. You say that you Know, that story passes down knowledge, but it can also pass down misinformation. You know, this is what you're saying, we're vulnerable to it as well, you know, and, and if something, if something doesn't stand, critical thinking, the scientific process, you know, rigorous scrutiny, is it knowledge, you know, and this is where I want to get into plausibility of those three adjudicating factors. Right. I think, I think we understand confirmed. I think we understand busted. But plausibility, I feel like, is the one where we get into trouble, where we get ourselves into trouble. It's the huh, huh moment that makes a crack just big enough that we can fill it with all our confirmation bias. We can fill it with all of our prior assumptions and assume that it is good enough to be true. It's actionably true to me because I find this, I find its plausibility pleasant and it confirms my bias.
- [20:09]
Adam Savage
So I want to speak to this because I'll reframe plausibility as existing within a space of both knowing and not knowing. It is existing in a space where you have an imperfect amount of information from which you can draw some conclusions, but they are not conclusive, as it were.
- [20:30]
Steve Burns
There you go.
- [20:31]
Adam Savage
And I think every artist knows and spends much of their lives in that space, works hard to spend time in that space of not knowing because really remarkable stuff can happen in there. But we work and live in late stage capitalism. And your boss doesn't give two craps about whether you know or don't know. They want yes or no. Right? Within, within the business environment, a plausible is like, no, no, no, no, no. I need to know it's yes or no, that it's no. And there's very much within the American workplace not a lot of room for like, well, we'll figure it out when we get there. Not to say that there aren't businesses in which that's a terrible approach to the plan, but I've also worked for a lot of, you know, when I've worked for bad bosses, it's because they had specific outcomes they were looking for and they didn't care how they happened, whether, you know, abuse on their staff or, you know, whatever. There's a tension between the ways in which we live our lives within this current system and within the way the human mind works. I think the human mind does best when it spends a lot of time in that not knowing space, in that liminal space. But it's an uncomfortable place to be.
- [21:59]
Steve Burns
Yeah, for sure. Like demonstrably uncomfortable. No one wants to Be there. People. People will take what is obviously plausible, which is. How did you say it? Which is a state of knowing and unknowing simultaneously. That sounds like most of life to me. And. But people will take that plausibility and they will just run with it as fact. Right. That that's what we're seeing more and more of. And it kind of freaks me out, you know, the. The degree to which people will say, well, I don't know this, but it could be true. So I'm going with it as if it is, because I prefer that, and it makes me feel good, and I think that's a dangerous thing. How does plausibility relate to falsifiability?
- [22:50]
Adam Savage
That's a really wonderful question. I mean, I want to change this and talk about debating a bad faith debater.
- [22:58]
Steve Burns
Okay.
- [22:59]
Adam Savage
Because I was a late adult when I realized if I don't understand somebody, it's mostly their fault, not my fault. Right. You've met people who, like, when you're young and you're like 20, and someone comes up and they're like. And you're like, wow. I guess they're working on some wavelength I don't understand. And in my 50s, I'm like, no, they're not. They're just full of shit.
- [23:20]
Steve Burns
Yes, yes, yes.
- [23:24]
Adam Savage
Yeah. So when you debate a bad faith debater, they go at you for, like, really specific facts. Well, what about what happened in 1978? Right. They. The kind of thing of, like, neither human in any debate can hold all the facts at their disposal at once. But we live in this kind of current debate culture where people, you know, where if someone doesn't have a direct answer to a direct question, it's like, I destroyed them.
- [23:49]
Steve Burns
Yeah.
- [23:50]
Adam Savage
And nothing could be farther from the truth for the building of actual knowledge. I was giving a talk a few years ago where I finished with this model of the universe. And really late in the talk, I don't know about you, but I always come up with my last and first rhetorical flourishes at the very last second I'm writing a talk. And the last one was, this isn't a model of our universe. It's the best assemblage of all the stories we have currently assembled about our universe.
- [24:23]
Steve Burns
Yeah.
- [24:23]
Adam Savage
And any one of those could change with new data tomorrow.
- [24:27]
Steve Burns
Yeah.
- [24:27]
Adam Savage
I think it is easy to weaponize people's fear of the unknown, of I don't know as an answer. And so they want people who know all the answers.
- [24:40]
Steve Burns
Yes.
- [24:41]
Adam Savage
And that that makes them vulnerable to a demagogue that claims to have all the answers because nobody has all the answers and everyone's an idiot.
- [24:49]
Steve Burns
All of us. I agree with all of that. I keep a. I keep a bust of Socrates back here because I love the story of that guy who went up to the oracle and he was like, hey, who's the smartest dude? And the oracle was like, you are. And he's like, that can't be. That can't be true. They're like, no, you're the smartest dude because you know that. You don't know. You know. And I've always loved that story. I was like, that is an excellent posture from which to gather information.
- [25:25]
Adam Savage
Yep.
- [25:26]
Steve Burns
Why do you think people are so uncomfortable with uncertainty? And why aren't you? You seem to embrace it. You seem to jump into it.
- [25:37]
Adam Savage
I'm just as uncomfortable as anybody else. And again, I think that there's a lot of ways in which our current culture, our late stage capitalism, a phrase I use way too much, engenders just that kind of fear. And I've had decades of experience of staying in a space of not knowing, benefiting me professionally. That's, that's, that's like that. It's a muscle that I've been able to build.
- [26:07]
Steve Burns
I keep coming back to the methodology of both Mythbusters and tested. It really is about taking something that is, if not a belief is an assumption or a commonly held assumption, testing it before drawing a conclusion. Right. And within that conclusion, you have, as you say, three adjudicating principles. It can be, yeah, that's real. Yeah, that's busted. Or there's some evidence that it could be, but it's inconclusive. Right. How do we apply that to beliefs before we share them, before we, before we drop them into the information maelstrom of the global interweb? What I'm looking for, what I want, what I've always wanted, is like a Batman utility belt full of things to do, to kind of test a proposition before I decide whether or not I believe that. And that's going to be more and more and more and more and more and more and more important moving forward. Right. It's already hard to tell what's real when we're looking at it on our phone. It can be hard for people to know if the med bed is real for some people and like it. Misinformation, AI all of this is thundering forward at an exponential pace. And I feel like we need the Batman utility belt.
- [27:51]
Adam Savage
You know, I'll say you said something. You said a phrase. There on your phone. I mean, the answer. Look, what we're really talking about, I think, is cultural biases, the ways in which cultural biases can harm each other. And the answer to that, to me, is it seems pretty evident from looking at maps of the United States, where cities, when you put people in a tight space, they tend to both tolerate and appreciate each other more. And when you separate them and the only way they talk to each other is through their phones or through their Internet, they can build much greater biases against each other. And it's very upsetting.
- [28:41]
Steve Burns
Yeah, I've often said, you know, part of the whole point of doing this and everything that I want to do is about reminding me and everyone that there's a human being on the other side of that screen. And always. And that person has a human soul, and that person is just as complex and screwed up and awesome and weird as you are. And there's got to be a way. There's got to be a way to humanize exactly what we're doing. Right.
- [29:12]
Adam Savage
The way we counter bias is collectively. That's the thing. It's collective. And, you know, we live in a country where the third space, the local pub, is like disappearing bowling leagues going away. I feel like the. The balm for so much of this is putting people back in contact with each other.
- [29:37]
Leah Greenberg
Hey, everyone, it's Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin.
- [29:40]
Ezra Levin
You might know us as two of the lead organizers of the no Kings protests. We're also the co founders of Indivisible, the grassroots movement organizing against Trump's regime.
- [29:47]
Leah Greenberg
And this is what's the Plan? Your weekly guide to the state of our democracy and how we fight back. This is not Cannes Talking Points. It's a real live discussion space for the pro democracy movement. We wrestle with strategy together. We take your top voted questions in real time, and we talk about the most impactful actions we can take.
- [30:02]
Ezra Levin
Right now, democracy is a participatory sport. The fascists win. When we sit on the sidelines, what's the Plan? Is about how we get into the game.
- [30:09]
Leah Greenberg
What's the plan? Available Friday, January 23rd.
- [30:12]
Adam Savage
Wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe, recruit,
- [30:15]
Ezra Levin
discuss, organize, and win. That's the plan.
- [30:24]
Steve Burns
Last topic here. I know at the beginning of Mythbusters, you guys used to have whole segments about urban legends. Right? There was even, like a mythologist that was on.
- [30:34]
Adam Savage
Yes, Heather. Heather Wickham.
- [30:37]
Steve Burns
Yeah. And I, for a long time, was an urban legend. And everyone, the Internet, when the Internet was just beginning to Internet, it decided that I died of of some horrible. You know, some list of horrible ways that I either crashed a car or committed suicide or that I died of a heroin overdose, and it was so demonstrably untrue, I was literally making more television that it was almost funny. But, you know, the story goes, like, after a while, it starts to feel like, oh, is this what people would prefer? Like, why are people preferring this story to an obvious reality? Yeah. Did I do something wrong? Is. You know, am I supposed to be like, what. What is going on here? And what I can say is that that urban legend, that urban myth that became indelible in my life had real consequences for me. Eventually, it had actual effects on me. And I used to sort of fantasize, like, I just want the Mythbusters to show up. They're like my rescue team. They can show up with, like, a blood pressure machine and, like, some simple medical diagnostic stuff and test with whether
- [32:00]
Adam Savage
and watch you react to it.
- [32:01]
Steve Burns
Yes, exactly. And we could go through this in.
- [32:04]
Adam Savage
In.
- [32:05]
Steve Burns
It wouldn't even be an A segment. Like, it could be a really small interstitial segment and just prove to everyone that I was alive. And that sense of not being able to assert truth against a sea of misinformation, I think feels very familiar to people right now because to me, it feels like. It feels like the truth is very much a vibe. And. And. And I don't think that truth is a vibe. And I look to you and I look to Jamie as sort of heroes of critical thinking and heroes of. Of sort of embracing that as a joyful strategy to meet the uncertainty. And I'm wondering, what is the future of truth? As we move through this digital moment that we're in of disinformation and misinformation, I'm wondering what you think we can do. Is there a way to, like, micro bust all of these little mythy memes that we encounter on the.
- [33:11]
Adam Savage
No.
- [33:12]
Steve Burns
Okay. All right. I'll see you later.
- [33:14]
Adam Savage
No, I don't think so. I think there's too many too fast. It's been too weaponized, and it's too efficient. But I also think, again, I redound to community as the greatest balm for bias. I've been doing this talk over the last few years about the origins of measuring things, the science of metrology, and the most astounding thing that I concluded, and I didn't understand this when I started writing this talk, I've only understood it after giving the talk a few times, is that the most shocking thing of the past 15 years is that the world has worked because a lot of people were agreeing to be polite. And when a concentrated group of people decide to not be polite, they can harm stuff in an abiding way and quickly. And that's shocking, Right? It's the same with measurement. There is no such thing as a measurement. Every measurement that's adjudicated on any piece of scientific equipment has a temperature at which that measurement is to be adjudicated. It's usually 20 degrees Celsius or 59 degrees Fahrenheit, but it's only true at that temperature. So the thing we think of as unassailable fact there is, which is like, how long is this pencil? I can give you three answers right now with a blow dryer. I can change its size. With measuring equipment I possess by heating it up or cooling it down. And thus measurement 2 and the measuring of everything in the world and how we collaborate on making things like LIGO or the James Webb Space Telescope, all work because we've agreed to collaborate under the same circumstances. And again, I redound that community is the greatest enemy of bias that there can be. And you can build beautiful biases in a community too. But it has both abilities. Jesus.
- [35:08]
Steve Burns
Can you say more specifically about that? You say community is sort of the antidote to. Is an antidote to bias.
- [35:15]
Adam Savage
I think diverse communities in the same way. I think it's. Mark Twain said that travel is toxic to bigotry. I mean, bring something very specific there, right. In that if you meet a lot of people from a lot of different places, it makes it a lot harder to make snap judgments or to hate them.
- [35:32]
Steve Burns
Yeah. Where do you think all this is going to, Adam? Where do you think? What's your take on the future of truth? Where. Where are we headed as it relates to beliefs being confirmed or busted or deemed plausible?
- [35:46]
Adam Savage
I. I like history. I read. I read a bunch of history. Like a lot of dudes in their late 50s.
- [35:52]
Steve Burns
Yep.
- [35:54]
Adam Savage
And I find some sometimes I think back on the screeds that washing Washington. George Washington famously had a cabinet full of people who despised each other.
- [36:06]
Steve Burns
Mm.
- [36:07]
Adam Savage
And they worked actively against each other while in his cabinet writing anonymous screeds against each other within his cabinet. And when you look at them and you read some of them and the things they are calling each other make some of what's being written today seem semi tame. So I'm reminded that polemicization is cyclical. I feel like it is cyclical. I feel like in the 20th century we watch the New Deal come in and the 1960s and 70s come in. And, you know, I look at those arcs, and I think that there will be a shift back towards a more egalitarian normalcy. I hope that is within five years instead of 10 or 15 years. But it could be a whole generation before we are agreeing to work together on some common version where everyone benefits. The only thing about my politics is that I just don't think anybody is different from anybody else. Don't get me wrong. I understand that all human beings are unique and different, but I value and want a society and a culture in which everybody has the exact same opportunities available to them from the benefits of this. This culture. And it pains me that we solved world hunger. World hunger. How to produce enough calories cheaply enough for the whole world. We solved that decades ago. The only reason there are still hungry people is because it's profitable. And that causes my soul pain. And I hope that I will be alive long enough to witness a world in which that's not the case.
- [37:53]
Steve Burns
Yeah, same. What about as it relates specifically to misinformation and the kind of technologies that we are jumping headfirst into, cannonballing into that are just so full of dis and misinformation, deep fakes, AI. What can we do?
- [38:14]
Adam Savage
You know, it's so hard because it's so difficult because we've decimated all of our local news to such a degree and consolidated local news outlets to a degree that's really difficult to recover from. I have a friend whose theory about this is first Craigslist, then fascism. And he's like, craigslist eliminated the golden goose for local newspapers. They were. Their profit margins were astounding. Before Craigslist, the classified ads was a spectacular money train. And when we got rid of that, we got. Yeah, we got rid of the main. I haven't researched this theory. I'm repeating what my friend Ben says, so I could be totally wrong about some of this. But, like, we need to get back to local coverage of local issues. You know, one of the. It's one of the things I miss most about old Twitter is that, as someone pointed out, it is one of the. It was one of the only things in the world where you could talk about global politics but also type, what was that noise? And get a response to either one of those things.
- [39:22]
Steve Burns
Well, this is what I want, Adam. This is how I want the world to work. I want to see a claim on the Global Interweb that seems sketchy to me, and I want you and the Mythbusters to arrive in that moment. And I want you to say, aha. Let's test this belief before you share it, Steve. Let your post pass through these gates, right? Like, is this true? Is it busted, or is it plausible? Let's design. Let's design some tests for it. Let's put this through our methodology. But I want that to happen every time. So if you guys, you know, so maybe you could make an app or a filter that we can just apply.
- [40:12]
Adam Savage
I want to sing the praises of YouTube right now, specifically because, like, four or five years ago, a YouTuber reached out because they were doing. They were replicating one of our stories, and they wanted some advice. And in the past five years, I've appeared on at least three other YouTube channels doing stories that we had done on Mythbusters. And it's been. It's been building. The periodicity is getting closer and closer. And I realized in my head, oh, wow. Eventually, YouTube creators will replicate Mythbusters entire canon and also carry it forward.
- [40:44]
Steve Burns
Oh, yeah, that would be great.
- [40:47]
Adam Savage
Yeah.
- [40:47]
Steve Burns
I want to make the crossbow. This man made a crossbow out of newspaper. That. That was not only a functional crossbow, it was frightening and legitimately lethal. And I think you made it out of a little bit of elastic and newspaper, and that was it. Oh, my God. There it is. Look at that thing. Oh, it's scary.
- [41:12]
Adam Savage
One of my favorite objects I ever made on the show.
- [41:15]
Steve Burns
It's scary.
- [41:17]
Adam Savage
It's 100 made out of newspaper and gelatin as it's binding glue. And my crew called it. You'll love this. They called it the dream catcher.
- [41:29]
Steve Burns
Yeah, yeah. That's fair. That's fair, right?
- [41:34]
Adam Savage
And you'll appreciate this. The question was asked, how are we going to make something out of newspaper when we can't show any ads for anything else on television? And my solution was a Chinese newspaper.
- [41:49]
Steve Burns
Hey, perfect. That thing is beautiful, dude. Look at that. You've made some really beautiful objects, you know, like, and I don't know that that was ever part of what you were trying to do, but, like, sometimes it's like, damn, that is so cool. Oh, my God. This is a dream come true. I am literally living a dream right now. This is awesome.
- [42:10]
Adam Savage
So not only did I get to make some surpassingly gorgeous objects, I was quoting some of my favorite artists. So I love Jasper Johns, mid century abstract expressionist, Big flags, big targets. And Jamie and I were doing a story about, can you shoot a gun out of someone's hand?
- [42:28]
Steve Burns
Oh, yeah.
- [42:29]
Adam Savage
And we did the math, and we figured out that I could build an aluminum gun. With a target, it would be about the same mass transfer as a bullet hitting a handgun. And so I made this.
- [42:39]
Steve Burns
That is very Jasper Johns. Look at that thing. That is gorgeous. Yeah.
- [42:43]
Adam Savage
It's a single piece of aluminum with a gun butt screwed to it. That's it.
- [42:48]
Steve Burns
Yeah.
- [42:48]
Adam Savage
But, like, this might be maybe my favorite object out of all 14 years of making the show. It's just so absurd and delightful.
- [42:55]
Steve Burns
Oh, my God. Can I tell you like. And then I'll let you go. But a dear, dear friend of mine, Jeremy, who you met, my producer. I think it was for my. I think it was for my 40th birthday or something. I had a huge party, and he showed up in a white Tyvek suit with goggles, four banana cream pies, and a catapult that he had made. And this thing was beautiful. It was fantastic. And we had. I had four chances to hit him in the face with this catapult, and the first one went over his head. Second one landed, like, right at his feet, third one over his shoulder, and the fourth one hit him square in the face and slid down. And it was one of the most perfect events that ever occurred in my life. And the object itself was so beautiful that I kept it, even though we broke it the next day, trying to shoot everything in the world off of it.
- [43:56]
Adam Savage
But, of course, of course.
- [43:59]
Steve Burns
Adam Savage, this was a fantastic experience for me. I really, really enjoyed talking to you. I've always wanted to do it. You're just as wicked and badass and brilliant as I hoped you would be. And I really appreciate your perspective on all of this, and I really think you're doing something great out there in the world by making deductive reasoning and the scientific method so full of play and so full of joy and rigor. At the same time, I think. I think you're an excellent boat with an excellent sail and rudder. And thank you so much for talking to us, man.
- [44:44]
Adam Savage
I want to say one thing about working scientists, which was, as an artist in many different mediums, I am constantly bombarded with people who think that the one medium they know is, without a doubt, the best medium there is to work in. I always find that hilarious when. When somebody thinks that that's their jam. But I. In the whole course of Mythbusters, we worked with so many working scientists, and to the last, every single one of them loved what they did and was involved in their work. And having a real life satisfaction from doing that work. That's the thing I love passing on to young people, is that, like, science Isn't an avocation. It's not like, bang, I'm struck by lightning, and I've got the mark, and that'll make me a great scientist. It's a vocation. And it's just a vocation for the. For the mildly curious up to the intensity, being incredibly crazy curious. But, you know, over any other kind of employment, working scientists were among the happiest people that I got to spend time with.
- [45:53]
Steve Burns
Oh, that makes me happy, actually. That makes me happy. See, the scientific process and. And testing your hypothesis before asserting your belief makes you happy.
- [46:05]
Adam Savage
And I say that understanding that the whole edifice is under attack right now. I get it.
- [46:10]
Steve Burns
Yes.
- [46:10]
Adam Savage
I'm aware of what's happening in the world.
- [46:13]
Steve Burns
Oh, Adam, I wish I could keep
- [46:15]
Adam Savage
you on the air. It has been such a pleasure to talk to you too. I have been looking forward to this since you pinged me from my friend Max Keiserman's phone.
- [46:24]
Steve Burns
Yep.
- [46:26]
Adam Savage
And I really hope that you can get here to San Francisco and come visit the cave so we can continue this conversation.
- [46:31]
Steve Burns
You say that, and now it's gonna happen. Now I'm going to.
- [46:35]
Adam Savage
Okay, good. Let's do it.
- [46:36]
Steve Burns
I'm going to leave this interview and head to San Francisco. Adam, thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon. All right, Bye, all. Well, that was very exciting for me. Literally, my favorite show. That was so cool. We. We got to see the crossbow. I mean. All right. Okay. Anyway, I wrote a bunch of stuff down that was fascinating. First thing I wrote down is that our brains prefer story over facts, like innately, and that's both good and bad. We definitely benefit from the stories that we tell, but they can also leave us very vulnerable to misinformation. Plausibility is living in both knowing and not knowing at the same time, and that's an uncomfortable place to be. That made sense to me, and I think because it's so uncomfortable to be there, it's very tempting to rush towards something being totally busted or totally confirmed, even though you might not have sufficient evidence to make either claim. Does that make sense? And last thing I wrote down is we can't bust every myth. There's simply too many, and they come at us too fast. Yeah. Well, let's go outside. So we know that our brains innately prefer stories over bare facts, especially when those stories reassure us or confirm our biases or provide us with a sense of certainty, because the state of not knowing is very uncomfortable, and certainty feels great. So that makes a form of sense to me. I can see why people would prefer not to have their myth busted in some cases because they'd rather live inside of it. Right. But that seems fraught to me. Risky even. What do you think? What are the risks? Risks of asserting a belief before testing it against reality. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming by. Thanks for listening. Thanks for hanging out. This really does mean a lot to me. And you look. You look great. You do. It's pretty out here. Alive with Steve Burns is a Lemonade Media original. If you haven't subscribed to Lemon on a Premium yet, now's the perfect time. You can listen to the show completely ad free, plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content from me as I reflect on this episode. Just press subscribe on Apple podcasts, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe on any other app or listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. That's lemonadapremium.com Alive is hosted by me, Steve Burns and produced by Jeremy Slutskin. Our editor is Christopher Champion Morgan. Our Associate producer is Akshayz Tharabailu. Audio engineering by James Sparber. Lemonada's SVP of weekly programming is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer, Stephanie Whittles, Wax and me. We'll see you next week. And you look great, by the way.
- [51:05]
Story Pirates Announcer
Story Pirates is the number one podcast for kids and families in the world and the newest addition to the lebanata Media Network. We take stories written by real kids and turn them into sketch comedy and songs featuring professional actors, famous guests and original music. So get ready to light up your kids imaginations with a show that you'll also enjoy. The Story Pirates Podcast new season coming November 6th.