Rory Sutherland & Gerald Ashley on Networks

How do networks influence our decision-making?

As the Human Risk podcast approached its 100th episode, I thought I’d invite back two guests whose previous appearances have been amongst the most downloaded. And I’m glad I did. Because what Rory Sutherland and Gerald Ashley delivered, wasn’t worthy of a single episode - it was worthy of two!

So on this, the 99th episode of the podcast, I’m sharing Part I of their conversation. In it, they explore a subject they’ve both written about - networks. We all naturally like to make connections between things - sometimes that can be extremely useful, but it can also lead to flawed decision-making.

As many of my listeners will be familiar with Rory and Gerald, I haven’t included introductions. You can find those, if you need them, on their previous appearances on the show.

Gerald’s first appearance is here: https://www.podpage.com/the-human-risk-podcast/gerald-ashley-on-uncertainty/

Rory first appearance is here: https://www.podpage.com/the-human-risk-podcast/rory-sutherland-on-compliance/

What makes both such fantastic guests, is that they have lots of stories to tell; in doing so, they often make references that might not be as obvious to listeners not based in the UK.

For that reason, I’ve included much more detailed show notes than usual. If you come across something you’re unfamiliar with, then the timestamps below will hopefully help.

When you’ve listened to this, look out for Part II of their discussion, available wherever you found this shortly after the initial release.


5:35 Rory references a joke involving sheep. He explains it here: - https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-wiki-man-11-september-2010

5:41 Rory mentions disgraced former children’s TV presenter Jimmy Saville. Read his story here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scandal

6:18 Rory talks about the Tube map. Londoners refer to their subway as “The Tube”, and the map of it is “the Tube Map”. You can read about its history and see it here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map

10:00 Rory highlights the Danish Mask Study, which emanated from Denmark, and showed that mask-wearing was ineffective. However, that relied on a particular (wrong!) interpretation of the data. This Twitter thread by Nassim Taleb (https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1331639626101104642?lang=en) and this British Medical Journal article explain why - https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4586


10:36 Rory talks about the tragic case of Sally Clark, a solicitor. You can read her story here - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/mar/17/childrensservices.uknews

12:01 Gerald mentions advertiser Maurice Saatchi, who ate an egg only diet. His wife Nigella Lawson, a chef, revealed some details - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1063289/Nigellas-husband-cracks-obesity-thanks-egg-diet.html

13:30 Rory highlighted how we have persisted with stemmed wine glasses, inspire of them being somewhat ludicrous. Here's an article he wrote about it - https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-ludicrousness-of-stemmed-wine-glasses

15:52 Gerald says he’s not sure what MiniDisc or Blu-Ray are. Here’s what he can read to find out more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray

16:48 Rory talks about Geoffrey Miller’s research into evolution. You can read that here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235362665_The_Mating_Mind_How_Sexual_Choice_Shaped_the_Evolution_of_Human_Nature and his website is here: https://www.primalpoly.com/

19:38 Rory mentions two UK crime series Waking The Dead and Inspector Morse. More on those here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_the_Dead_(TV_series) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Morse_(TV_series)

22:10 Gerald mentions the Rabbit phone which Rory used to own. Read about that here - https://londonist.com/london/technology/remember-phone-zones-the-mobile-experiment-that-ended-in-disaster

22:49 In his story about the Rabbit phone, Rory talks about the Happy Eater on A40 at Burford. Happy Eater was a chain of roadside restaurants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Eater), and you’ll find the story of the Burford one here: https://littlechef.fandom.com/wiki/Burford

23:45 Rory highlights Harris Tweed as an under-appreciated invention. Find out more about that here: https://www.harristweed.org/

24:35 Gerald talks about the BBC Microcomputer (what he calls the “Acorn Computer”) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro. Here’s the story from The BBC about it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15969065

25:09 Gerald talks about the Domesday Project, a modern version of the Domesday book (an 11th Century Census of England). It is often cited as a great example of technological obsolesce in action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project


26:38 Rory highlights Nassim Taleb’s Minority Rules idea, which is explained by Taleb here: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15

28:34 Rory mentions Pimms, which is an alcoholic drink, typically drunk in summer - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimm%27s

28:56 The French Complexity Scientist Rory mentions is Serge Galam. Read more about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Galam

29:49 Rory highlights KFC Australia’s Build Your Own Bucket invention - https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2336891243302188

30:08 Rory uses the term “Lindy”. It was coined by Nassim Taleb, and he explains it here: https://medium.com/incerto/an-expert-called-lindy-fdb30f146eaf

30:58 Rory talks about the NHS - the UK’s National Health Service, which is free at the point of delivery. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service
You can read more about their reliance on fax machines here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46497526

31:04 Gerald talks about Marmite, a yeast-based spread. Read about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmite and then see how they use the idea of loving it or hating it here:

33:56 Rory mentions The Wason Test, a problem-solving test, which you can explore here: https://www.indy100.com/discover/the-simple-test-that-shows-how-logical-you-are-7302601

33:57 He then highlights Cosmides & Toobey’s version of The Wason Test - https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201205/making-sense-wason

36:36 Gerald talks about Squadcast, which is the recording software I use to record this podcast - https://app.squadcast.fm/

37:47 Gerald talks about China’s Social Credit System. More on that in this article - https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained

38:45 Rory talks about the transport links in Kent, a county in the South East of the UK. Read more about it here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent

43:14 Gerald and Rory highlight some older video technologies; VHS, Betamax & Video 2000. More on those here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_2000. You can read about the video format wars here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war


43:54 Rory talks about how adult entertainment impacts technology. Read more about that here - https://thenextweb.com/hard-core-high-tech/2016/08/30/porn-pioneers-adult-entertainment-boosts-technology/