What Is Funny? & The Past, Present and Future of Water - SYSK Choice

How do spiders find their way into your house? This episode starts by revealing how it happens and some ways to make your home less appealing to spiders, so they stay outside. https://www.prevention.com/life/a32332424/how-to-get-rid-of-spiders/ Unless you are some sort of grouch, you probably laugh at something almost every day. Have you ever thought about what makes something funny? Do humor and laughter influence you in some way? Is it true that laughter is the best medicine? Why do we seek out comedy in movies, TV shows or in clubs? Researchers have studied the role humor and laughter play in our lives and what they find is fascinating. Here for a discussion on this is Caleb Warren, an assistant professor at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona, former assistant professor at Texas A&M University. He is the lead author of a study titled, What Makes Things Funny (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1088868320961909). It's interesting that water is everywhere, yet it is a precious resource. Without water, we wouldn’t be here. The amount of water on earth remains constant but the population has grown so much that it puts a strain on the water supply. Extreme weather, pollution and contamination are also threats. So, why can’t we take the salt out of ocean water and solve all the water problems forever? And what about the water you drink? Is tap water safe or should you drink bottled water? Here to discuss all this is Peter Gleick ,co-founder, president-emeritus, and Senior Fellow of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California and author of the book The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future (https://amzn.to/431foQo). People debate the question of when is the best time to exercise – morning, afternoon or evening? Before you can answer that, there are factors you must consider like the type of exercise and the kind of person you are. Listen as I explain it. https://www.livestrong.com/article/447879-morning-vs-evening-cardio/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! MINT MOBILE: Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://MintMobile.com/something⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ! FACTOR: Factor meals arrive fresh and ready to eat, perfect for your summer lifestyle! Get 50% off at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://FactorMeals.com/something50off⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ROCKET MONEY: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://RocketMoney.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ QUINCE: Stick to the staples that last, with elevated essentials from Quince! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now! DELL: Introducing the new Dell AI PC . It’s not just an AI computer, it’s a computer built for AI to help do your busywork for you! Get a new Dell AI PC at⁠⁠ https://Dell.com/ai-pc⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 0:16Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, how do spiders get into your house in the first place? And how do you stop them? Then, what makes something funny? Why do we love to laugh? And why are some people not funny at all?

• 0:31Speaker 02

  One thing that has surprised me is how difficult it is to get people to be funny. Like, try to create a funny advertisement, try to write a funny story, try to write a joke. Most people can't do it. Even, like, I study humor, but if you ask me to be funny, I'm gonna fail.

• 0:46Mike Carruthers?

  Also, when is the best time to exercise? Morning or evening? And water? Is there really a water crisis? And is bottled water better to drink?

• 0:56Speaker 03

  I've been involved in lots of bottled water taste tests with tap water. And frequently, mostly, people can't really tell the difference when there's a blind taste test. You know, it depends on where you are. But bottled water is no safer than tap water in general.

• 1:11Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 1:16Mike Carruthers?

  Now, here's something that might be worth a minute of your time. How would you like $1,000 to spend on shopping? Especially with the holidays coming. Well, the people behind Shopify have a shopping site called shop.com. And to celebrate the new shop.com, they're giving away $1 million in Shop Cash. But not to one person. A thousand people will each win $1,000 in Shop Cash. And shop.com is actually a really clever idea. It brings lots of different stores together in one place. So, instead of bouncing around from website to website, you can search across stores,

• 1:59Mike Carruthers?

  find what you're looking for, and track your orders, all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing. But with 1,000 chances to win $1,000,

• 2:16Mike Carruthers?

  I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 2:41Speaker 04

  Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something you should know. With Mike Carruthers.

• 2:54Mike Carruthers?

  Hi and welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know. And we start today talking about spiders. Because sooner or later, your home, as with every other home, will have spiders in it. How do they get in? How do you get spiders in your house? Well, they come in on clothes, they come in on packages or in packages. They can also come through the windowsill, cracks in the doorway. They find a way. Here are some ways to keep your home less inviting to spiders. First of all, remember that spiders like to hide and be left alone. So if you have piles of old clothes or other junk, that's heaven to a spider. Don't leave food out. Spiders like to hang around food.

• 3:39Mike Carruthers?

  Not because they eat it. You see, spiders eat other bugs that are attracted to food. So they hang out by the food and wait for their prey. Spiders love porch lights. Again, because other bugs are attracted to porch lights. If you can keep the porch light off, all the better. Spiders love cardboard. And spiders hate furniture polish. The vacuum is a spider hater's best friend. If you vacuum frequently, vacuum up webs and eggs and other spidery material, you'll have fewer spiders. And that is something you should know.

• 4:19Mike Carruthers?

  I imagine that every day you laugh, at least a little, or you smile because you saw something or read something funny. Laughter, humor, funny, it's all part of life. But what purpose does this serve? What, why do we laugh? What is it that makes something funny? Is laughter the best medicine? Why do we seek it out? Why do we go to comedy shows, watch comedy movies? What does it all do? Well, as you might imagine, laughter is actually a serious area of study. And one of the people doing the research on this is Caleb Warren. He is an assistant professor at Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona,

• 5:02Mike Carruthers?

  former assistant professor at Texas A&M University, and lead author of a study called "What Makes Things Funny", which, if you'd like to read it, there's a link to it in the show notes. Hi Caleb, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Hi, thanks so much for having me today.

• 5:18Mike Carruthers?

  Sure. So people obviously know what funny is because we all laugh all the time. We, we all like to laugh. I think we all like to laugh. But why do you study it? What, why is this important to study?

• 5:33Speaker 02

  The big reason that I find it important to study is that humor, comedy, laughter are a reaction that we have. Often when something seems wrong or off, or there are cultural differences, or miscommunications, or misunderstandings, something is potentially wrong. And it would be really easy to get overwhelmed by all of these often minor or inconsequential, or sometimes really even more major, bad things that are happening to us personally and in the world. And humor is one of the tools, or at least one of the responses, a more adaptive and positive response that we can have to the either minor inconveniences,

• 6:16Speaker 02

  or sometimes even more major problems that we encounter.

• 6:19Mike Carruthers?

  So what is it that makes something funny? I mean, you just kind of alluded to it, but people laugh at the oddest things. They laugh at things that are clearly meant to be funny, but they also laugh at things because they weren't meant to be funny. So what is it that makes funny?

• 6:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is one of the main questions I've been studying for over a decade now. And I want to begin with a wrong answer. And there was this whole website, I'm not sure if it still exists, but when I started, called The Secret to Humor is Surprise. I think that fits with a lot of people's innoitions. Like, well, what makes something funny? It needs to be unexpected. And that's just not the case. There are many instances of things that are unexpected that are not funny. Like, if you already get hit by a car, or you're, you know, love going where to dive. And then there are plenty of things that are expected that are funny. So The Writers of South Park killed the same character in like 77 of the first 78 episodes. And people presumably continued to find that funny.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Comedians often do callbacks to earlier jokes. And in studies that have systematically looked at this, when they had some people, they showed them stand-up routines of people like Phyllis Diller and Bill Cosby, before we knew he was a monster. And they would have, they'd have one group of people say, all right, what do you think the comedian's gonna say next? After stopping the tape right before a joke. And another group say how funny they thought the joke was when they heard it through. And the more predictable the joke was, the less surprising it was, the funnier it was. So this is sort of where I started looking at this question. So that if humor's not about what's surprising, then what is it?

• 7:59Speaker 02

  And the answer we came to is that humor tends to occur when something appears to be wrong or off, but at the same time, you think it's okay. So we call these benign violations. Maybe one of the more universal examples of humor, because, or laughter, is tickling. A tickle is sort of a, usually a light touch to a body part vulnerable from attack from someone you trust. And a tickle is basically a, it's like an attack. So there's a violation, but at the same time, it's benign. You know it's okay because it doesn't actually hurt, and it's from someone you trust. Tickling doesn't lead to laughter. The same touch doesn't lead to laughter if you try to do it to yourself.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Because there's no threat, there's no attack, there's no violation. Tickling also doesn't produce laughter if it's not someone you trust. If like some creepy dude in the street comes up to you and tries to tickle you, probably you would not laugh, you'd probably run away in fear. So that's one example of more of a physical type of violation. But violations can be linguistic, so many puns. One used in humor studies, like when is a door not a door when it's a jar? So there's a logic violation. The door isn't a jar, like the object, a jar, but there's a second meaning of a jar, which does apply to the door.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  So there's a linguistic violation mistake, but at the same time, it seems correct according to an alternative interpretation.

• 9:34Mike Carruthers?

  Is there some sort of evolutionary benefit, do you know? I mean, doesn't it seem that humor kind of takes the edges off the day? That humor kind of brightens the day? That laughter's the best medicine? That there's some sort of therapeutic effect here that it, other than just, you know, it's not serious, so it must be funny?

• 9:56Speaker 02

  The evolutionary story behind humor and amusement and laughter and why they evolved, it's still debated. So one piece of evidence is you see laughter before you see language. Babies laugh before they can speak. And laughter is also far more common when other people are around. So it suggests that some form of communication, that it might serve a communication function. And if it does, then well, what would you want to communicate that would be so important that it would be one of the first things to communicate? I mean, sort of crying, sort of help me, is the first, one of the first things, at least with babies happened. But laughter happens.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  After and before words, so it's probably still something important. And if we look at when people laugh, a lot of times it's when there's something that seems like it's a threat, that it's wrong, but it's not. And my sense is laughter is a way to signal something that could be bad is actually okay. And this is useful in a number of situations. When you hear other people laughing, you know, okay, there's no, you know, that wasn't actually a bear, it was actually just a funny, it was actually just a shadow. It can help people sort into different groups. If you appreciate the same type of humor, then you can know like, all right, they're more likely to be on my side, they're a better alliance partner, a better friend. So I think humor can have multiple adaptive benefits, but my belief is the most likely

• 11:24Speaker 02

  reason humor initially involved was as a way to communicate that something that seems like it could have been a problem is actually okay, so you can relax.

• 11:33Mike Carruthers?

  I've always thought it was interesting how, as you just talked about, how you can watch something, say, at home on TV, and it's funny, but you don't laugh. But if you're in a group watching that same thing, people seem much more likely to laugh because there are other people in the room. And I've always found that interesting and never really understood why.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's absolutely the case. There is a researcher, I believe he's passed, but he did fantastic research on laughter. And he basically went out into, rather than studying jokes, which is what, you know, 95% of humor researchers do, he went out and with a microphone and like recorded when people actually laugh. And he did diary studies or, I don't, he did a number of things to get where people were actually laughing rather than either where they said they laughed or looking in a lab where it's not a natural case for people to laugh. And by far, the best predictor of whether someone's laughing is when they're with someone else. And usually it's at these really mundane comments, like, hey, I'll see you later, which kind

• 12:42Speaker 02

  of, I think, suggests that laughter serves some sort of social function. And even if you take some of the same things, like a joke, from a stand-up routine, for example, that make a person laugh, and you put it, you know, you might read it on your own in text when there's no one else around, you might think, oh, that's funny, but you're a lot less likely to laugh. So that... That's repeating what you said, but I think the reason is that because humor serves these social functions. It helps show like, look, we don't need to worry here, or look, we're on the same page. We have the same understanding. We have the same goals. I'm friendly. I'm not threatened by you. So it has all these, I think, social signals.

• 13:26Mike Carruthers?

  And what about that phrase, you know, laughter is the best medicine? I've always felt that laughter has some benefit, that physiological benefit that you just don't get from anything else.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  I don't think laughter is the best medicine in most situations.

• 13:44Mike Carruthers?

  Well, right. I mean, if you have heart disease, a few laughs isn't going to help you much.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 13:50Mike Carruthers?

  But there does seem, you know what I mean, though, that like, when you have a like, a really good laugh, there's something that just feels good even afterwards, that there's a lingering, the stressless, God, that was funny.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Yes. I think there's two caveats to this laughter is the best medicine. The first one is it really depends what you're trying to cure. And so if we're talking, I don't know, if you just had a heart attack, there are better cures to, you know, get someone's heart beating again.

• 14:23Mike Carruthers?

  Probably.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  But caveat two is it depends on what you're laughing about. And so there are many different types of humor. When there's no victim in humor, when there's no target, when there's no butt of the joke, it's a lot more likely to benefit someone's health. The third caveat to this laughter is the best medicine. There is incredibly strong evidence that as people cope with loss, as they get over, say, the loss of a loved one, they laugh more often. The evidence for the causal direction is less clear. So it could just be that humor is more like a thermometer, meaning like, once you've already coped with something that's bad, you're able to laugh about it.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Or it could be that laughing about something bad that's happened makes you feel better about it. It helps you cope with it. Most likely, the effect goes in both directions, but it's unclear which is stronger and the evidence that humor.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Absolutely helps even mental health where I think the effects are strongest and most promising is not airtight.

• 15:28Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about what makes things funny and my guest is Caleb Warren, Assistant Professor at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona, and he is lead author of a study called What Makes Things Funny?

• 15:42Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, member SIPC.

• 16:12Speaker 05

  New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want online only at homedepot.com.

• 16:41Mike Carruthers?

  So Caleb, when you think about the people you get along with, one of the things that bonds people to get them to get along is having a shared sense of humor that, you know, if you just sit around and talk about war and disease, you know, it's hard to connect with somebody, but over something funny, it's easier to connect.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Absolutely, but even, you know, the war and the pandemic can be sources of humor after some distance time. So distance, psychological distance, which can come from time, reduces threat. So using the language I talked about earlier, it can make these threats or violations seem more benign. And that's why a lot of times when we're talking about, you know, war stories is sort of the genre name, people are often laughing about them, like these terrible things that happen when you're recounting them years later, in part because the distance has helped cope. But to go back to another point you made, like, you know, when we're meeting with friends or people we connect with, there's, you know, we often laugh, we want to laugh. I think that's very true, and I think one reason...

• 17:47Speaker 02

  One reason humor is particularly effective, whether it's a sort of measure of that you've bonded or a tool for helping people bond, is it does signal you have similar beliefs and similar values. So if what we laugh at is something that we see as wrong, but also we're okay with, it sort of gives you double information about what this person's beliefs and values are in the world and what they think is okay and what they don't think is okay. So it can help you sort into these groups of people who share the same values, beliefs, and goals.

• 18:19Mike Carruthers?

  Right, because how many times have you been with someone who has said something that they think is funny and it's just not funny to you? It's inappropriate, or it's too soon, or something?

• 18:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:33Mike Carruthers?

  And, man, you just, it's like a punch in the face that I wanna, I want nothing to do with this person.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I mean, you start hearing someone tell jokes that they think is funny, and, I mean, like, for me, they sound super racist or sexist. I'm like, ooh, I don't know that I want to, I don't know that I want to be friends with this person, or at least I question their beliefs in this area. And humor, like, one of the downsides of it is it often provides cover for that. It can provide cover for really nasty behavior, and someone can just say, oh, you know, I was joking. And maybe they were, but that is one of the, especially with this type of humor that's sometimes called aggressive humor or disparagement humor,

• 19:21Speaker 02

  it can be used as a form of social control, where, you know, you, like, even the playground bullies, like, they'll keep down weaker kids by, you know, by laughing at them, by making fun of them, and it sort of helps keep that social structure in place, where the dominant class of people can sort of, in some ways, socially oppress others and say, like, oh, it's not really oppression, it's just a joke. You know, we don't really mean it, but they do.

• 19:54Mike Carruthers?

  But there's also this, you can't say that, culture that we live in today. People are so easily offended that it makes it hard to know, you know, what's funny, where's the line? And comedians complain that they're being silenced, to some degree.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  A lot of comedians, even even ones that I see as kind of benign like Jerry Seinfeld, have been complaining like they won't perform on college campuses anymore because of there's a lot of people who are not accepting this as just a joke.

• 20:24Mike Carruthers?

  Right.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  I think in many cases, it's it's a very good thing, but it's it can also go too far where and who gets to decide where the line is is one of the problems. But comedians who are joking about things that they see as innocent or, you know, they're not they're not punching down, others will see as, oh, you know, you're making fun of this community or that's not okay to hold that belief. And it's it's really difficult to say, it's impossible to say where that line is because everyone has a different, everyone has a different view of what's what's okay and what's not. And that often comes out with humor. If you're laughing at something, there's somewhere there where you you're signaling like, that's okay with me.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  And if you're not, and the violation's clear, as it is if there's sort of a joke making fun of somebody, laughter signals a bit about your beliefs about what's okay and what's not for that reason.

• 21:15Mike Carruthers?

  What is it about this this topic that in your research, because you, you know, most people don't explore this as deeply or as seriously as you do, that you found or that you find or that people ask you about that that is so surprising? Anything?

• 21:31Speaker 02

  One thing that has surprised me is how difficult it is to get people to be funny, like when you prompt them, like try to try to create a funny advertisement, try to write a funny story, try to write a joke. Most people can't do it. And there's, and I mean, I should have, this is one where I could have internalized, like even like I study humor, but if you ask me to be funny, I'm I'm gonna fail. Comedians spend years honing their crafts, and it's not like athletes where they peak in their young twenties or mid twenties. Like, most comedians peak much later because it takes so much longer to both learn the skills, but even learn the material.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Most comedians, they they have sort of an empirical approach to building their sets. Like, they they try something out, and if people laugh, they Keep going with it and if they don't, they scrap it and come up with a new idea. So, one of, I guess, one of the surprising findings to me is that there's this idea that if we can create more laughter and comedy and amusement in the world, the world will be a better place. And I don't disagree with that, but I think it's very hard to do. And it takes a lot more than just encouraging people to be funnier. And one of the places where I think this idea is most dangerous is the workplace. So there's, you know, consultants and some scholars peddling this idea like, oh, we need to encourage people to use more humor, more comedy in the workplace. And I'm very skeptical of this idea.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Although workplaces where people laugh tend to be happier. And workers and managers who make others laugh tend to be better managers. I don't think, uh, I don't think that this is the answer because encouraging people to try to be funny. If they're not already funny, uh, is more likely to fail. And when people try to be funny, but aren't, there can be huge consequences. Uh, my go-to example is a woman named Justine Sacco, who wrote this tweet trying to be funny about before she got on a plane to Africa. Uh, and by the time she landed, the tweet had blown up. Going to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS, just kidding, I'm white, was the tweet. Uh, and it was her attempt at a joke.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Uh, and we don't know how many people found it funny. But even if it was only like 10% who didn't find it funny, they blew up Twitter. And people were like, this is so racist, you know, how could you say such a things? And she was fired from her job by the time she landed. And this sort of thing, I think, happens fairly regularly. Even if half of the people appreciate your joke, half might be offended. And the costs of trying to be funny and failing are huge. And it's really difficult to try to be funny. And even the people who are funny, who are successful in the workplace. It's probably not because they're trying to be funny more. It's probably because they have higher intelligence, higher creativity, a better understanding of the culture. They have these other skills that in addition to making them be funny are also making them good managers.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  They're not good managers because they're funny.

• 24:25Mike Carruthers?

  One thing I'd like quickly to have you talk about is humor in advertising because it's used a lot and we hear stories that it fails a lot. It may be funny, but it didn't really sell the product. So can you talk about that?

• 24:39Speaker 02

  There are all sorts of caveats. One, people laugh at the funny thing, but they're less likely to pay attention to everything else in the same environment. So if you have an ad where you're like, you do a joke and then say, oh, by the way, buy my product, people will remember the joke and won't remember your product. That's problem one. Problem two is most attempts to be funny fail. Now advertisers will hire agencies who are very good at creating humor, but even then, a lot of them, even if they're funny to some of the audience, it's likely to upset other people because in order to create humor, you need this violation and not everyone's going to see it as benign or funny. And when that happens, and even when people think it's funny, they can dislike the brand or the advertiser as a result.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  So in one of our studies, Volkswagen has these very dated old ads where they show this crunched car and everyone's okay and the message is, you know, it's a safe car, but the way they deliver it is they say sooner or later, your wife's going to drive this home. The implication is drawing on this sexist stereotype that women can't drive and presumably men found that funny. And we did an updated version of this only with men as an audience and men do think it's funny and they look at the ad and they find it funny, but they're less likely to like the brand that uses this sort of sexist advertising, even when they think the sexist advertising is funny. And I think this is also true socially. If you're using sort of put down or aggressive humor or even self-defeating humor, people

• 26:06Speaker 02

  might be laughing, but they're not going to like you anymore. And it's also true in advertising.

• 26:11Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I don't think I've ever taken such a serious look at something so light as humor, but it's fun to do it. Caleb Warren has been my guest. He's an assistant professor at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona and he's the lead author of a study called, "What Makes Things Funny?" And in the show notes for this episode, there's a link to that study. Thanks for being here, Caleb. This was fun.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Thanks so much for having me on and for taking this topic seriously.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters, so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, member SIPC.

• 27:10Speaker 05

  New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess Collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want, online only, at homedepot.com.

• 27:43Mike Carruthers?

  What is one thing that you desperately rely on every day, several times throughout the day, and yet you totally take it for granted? Water. Without water, there's no life, there's no you, there's no me, there's no nothing. And yet, as important as water is, there's a lot about it you may not know. Here to explain is Peter Gleick. He is co-founder and president emeritus and senior fellow of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California, and he's author of a book called The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future. Hi, Peter. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 28:25Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 28:26Mike Carruthers?

  Certainly, today, people are aware of how important water is, how important it is that we have access to clean water. But at what point in history, going back, did people say, you know, we've got to really pay attention to this water thing because without it, we're screwed? So when did people start to go, yeah, we need to keep our eye on this?

• 28:51Speaker 03

  So that goes back almost to the beginning of humanity, that the evolution of Homo sapiens depended on water. We had to find water where we could and we had to figure out how to survive during dry periods and and thrive during wet periods. And water really helped define even when Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa. And so I think really early civilizations knew how important water was. And you know, you can see that in the ancient legends and ancient stories of the time. And you can see it in the ancient religions that talk about the about water and the gods, how the gods manipulated water for humanity.

• 29:31Mike Carruthers?

  Well, and obviously people figured out, and if you look at a map, you'll see people are where the water is. I mean, that's kind of that's.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's exactly right. The earliest empires, the earliest civilizations really formed where the big rivers were. The rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates and Mesopotamia, the places where there was reliable water were the places where the earliest empires formed.

• 29:55Mike Carruthers?

  And so we have as much water as we have and it more or less seems to be working. So why, what's the concern? I mean, we understand that we pollute water, so we got to fix that. But what's the concern here? You can't really run out of water, can you?

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, that's exactly right. We'll never run out of water. Water is a renewable resource. The planet has as much water today as it had billions of years ago, when when Earth was really formed. The the challenges associated with water today, what I would describe as the water crisis. Part of it is that we have massively growing human populations. There are eight billion people on the planet today and no more water than there was when there were just a few million people on the planet or even fewer. We contaminate our water resources. We're destroying the ecological health of our aquatic ecosystems. We're beginning to fight over access and control of water resources.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  As you mentioned, we're contaminating much of the water that we have with human wastes or industrial wastes. And now, of course, we're actually literally changing the very climate. And as we change the climate, we're changing the demand for water with rising temperatures. We're changing when and where we get water with changing precipitation patterns. We're changing the intensity of extreme events like floods and droughts. All of those are pieces of what I would describe as the water crisis today.

• 31:24Mike Carruthers?

  What about this whole topic of water? Do you think that people don't get, or they have a misunderstanding or a misconception about, if anything?

• 31:36Speaker 03

  You know, it depends on where you are and who you are. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to grow up in a rich, developed country mostly take water for granted. You know, we get up in the morning, we turn on our taps, we take showers, we wash our clothes and dishes. We make our tea or coffee and we take for granted the fact that incredibly pure and incredibly cheap water comes out of our taps. But that's not the case for much of the world. There are billions of people worldwide today that don't have access to safe water and sanitation. I don't also think we are fully aware of the ecological and environmental consequences of our water policies, of the fact that we take a tremendous amount of water out of

• 32:21Speaker 03

  natural ecosystems and those ecosystems are beginning to suffer. You know, we're drying up wetlands, we're drying up our rivers. We're wiping out aquatic species at an incredibly disturbing rate. And a lot of that is hidden to us. We don't see it in our day to day lives or our day to day actions.

• 32:41Mike Carruthers?

  These sound like big issues, like big policy, government policy issues, much more than they are issues that I can do anything about, or I can really have any kind of significant effect.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  They are big issues. You know, who their problems for depends sort of on who you are. You know, if you care about water resources, and people do care about water resources tremendously, as the polls consistently show.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Ultimately, they can be our water problems. They may not be our water problems right now. If, again, you can turn on your tap and gray water comes out. But again, that's not always true for everyone. As we've seen, for example, with the water disaster in Flint, Michigan, where a very, you know, well-developed urban water system collapsed because of mismanagement, because of lack of adequate investment. We've seen this in Mississippi in recent, in recent months. When all of a sudden, the water that you took for granted, you can't take for granted any longer. Or it becomes an issue when extreme events like floods and droughts affect how much water you get or affect the flooding that all of a sudden destroys your neighborhood

• 33:55Speaker 03

  or destroys your water system or destroys your community. So, you know, we take water for granted until all of a sudden we can't. And that's increasingly a challenge around the world, where more and more of these water problems are becoming more and more urgent to deal with.

• 34:11Mike Carruthers?

  I know, living in Southern California, I know that there are people have, are tired in many ways of hearing all the cry wolf stories about water, that we're going to run out of water, that we don't have enough water, that you've got to cut back on water, we're in a drought.

• 34:31Mike Carruthers?

  But the rain comes, the drought's over, everything's okay. The amount of water I use is nothing compared to what, you know, we hear almond farmers use in California. That that's the problem. It's not my water use. And people get real tired of hearing this over and over and over again.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  It's certainly true in a place like California, where we have so many different water challenges, that addressing them often leads to burnout. People do hear about this over and over. And in part because, you know, California's been hit by a succession of incredibly severe droughts. You know, we had the worst three-year drought on, the worst five-year drought on record from 2012 to 2016. That was followed by the wettest year on record in California in 2017, which was then followed by three more years of intense drought that, again, just ended this year with an incredibly wet year. We have to learn how to manage these extreme events. And some people might get tired of hearing about it. But the reality is...

• 35:37Speaker 03

  When we do hear about it, people do step up. People in Southern California have done a good job of improving their water use efficiency, of cutting their water use during droughts. There's a lot that we still need to do. And simply saying that we get tired of hearing about this really sort of ignores the fact that these are problems that we still have to deal with, that we're going to have to deal with, and that we do deal with when there's a crisis, when we get the information about what we need to do. You know, these aren't fake problems, they're real problems. And, you know, you might be tired about hearing about it, but the truth is...

• 36:13Mike Carruthers?

  It's not that I get tired of hearing about it so much as I get tired of the threats that if we don't do this by this date, the world will end, your tap will run dry, and it never does. It never does.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  Well, certainly, if there are exaggerations of the problem, that's not helpful. We have solutions to our water problems. We can move to a more sustainable future. We see all around us successful examples of farmers growing more food with less water, of water districts and individuals who are using water more efficiently, in part because of the information that we get during these crises. You know, we see Southern California moving toward recycling and reusing more of their high-quality wastewater rather than treating that water and throwing it away. Southern California has its first big desalination plant, and it's a very expensive plant, and it has environmental challenges. But that's also a solution that doesn't require that we take more water out of our natural

• 37:13Speaker 03

  ecosystems.

• 37:15Mike Carruthers?

  I wanted to, because I know you wrote a book about bottled water, and I wanted to ask you, like, what, there is an obsession with bottled water. People love bottled water. I like bottled water. I mean, there's something about bottled water that seems to appeal to people.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, people do like bottled water. They like it for the convenience, they think they like it for the taste in places where they're concerned about the taste of their tap water. But they're also, they've also been fed years and years of arguments about fear, to fear their tap water, to fear what's in the tap water, mostly by companies that want to make a profit by selling bottled water. The majority of bottled water is just reprocessed tap water. You know, they reprocess it, they re-bottle it, and they sell it for thousands of times more than the cost of our tap water. And I think that's... You know, that's partly a reflection on the ability of marketing and advertising. It's partly a reflection on some of our tap water doesn't taste very good or people don't like it.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  But it's partly a reflection on the fact that we're not investing in our tap water system the way we did 100 years ago when we built a wonderful tap water system. And in many parts of the United States, we've let that system deteriorate.

• 38:26Mike Carruthers?

  Why? Why has that happened?

• 38:29Speaker 03

  Oh, it's happened in part because we're reluctant to spend money on infrastructure. You know, we spent a lot of money building a tap water system, but we're not investing in maintaining it and upgrading it because water utilities don't, you know, they'd rather not spend the money.

• 38:45Mike Carruthers?

  When you say that a lot of the bottled water is just reprocessed tap water, but it's the reprocessing of it that I think appeals to people is that you're taking stuff out, maybe you're making it taste better. That's not insignificant.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, so that's the argument of the companies. You know, we've, I've been involved in lots of bottled water taste tests with tap water. And often, frequently, mostly, people can't really tell the difference when there's a blind taste test. You know, it depends on where you are. But the bottled water is no safer than tap water in general. Again, in the book that I wrote about bottled water, I talk about all sorts of problems with the quality of bottled water. Bottled water recalls, bottled water contamination. You know, there's no guarantee that bottled water is any safer than tap water. But that, you know, that's a myth that's pushed by the bottled water companies that, again, make a lot of money selling their product.

• 39:45Mike Carruthers?

  Well, and a lot of people, even if they have tap water and drink it, put it through a filter at their home that they, you know, filter they buy at the store that supposedly makes their water taste better and filters out gunk.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, supposedly. Sometimes it improves the taste of the water. Sometimes it filters out things that aren't actually in the tap water. You know, they make claims for, you know, this filter will filter out this contaminant or that contaminant. But people don't really know if those contaminants are in their water. And municipal water systems are tested daily. The water quality standards under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act are very strict. And sometimes there are tap water problems, and we hear about them right away because that's the legal requirement. But we don't hear about the problems with bottled water quality because the requirements for testing and for reporting aren't the same.

• 40:37Mike Carruthers?

  Is water, water, is just, is all water pretty much water? And some of it has a little of this and a little of that, and maybe it smells different or tastes different. But, but there's nothing special about any particular kind of water or from any particular place?

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, water is water. I mean, it's obviously, you know, H2O, two, two molecules of, two atoms of hydrogen and one of, one of oxygen. But what's special about water is it, water absorbs minerals wherever it is. So pure water without any minerals, you can't drink. That's distilled water, and it's actually bad for you if you drink it because distilled water has no minerals. It tastes terrible, but worse, it actually leaches minerals from your body. So all the mineral, all the water that we drink, water in tap water, even water in bottled water, has minerals in it of different kinds, small amounts of salt, small amounts of different kinds of minerals. And the, the different levels of minerals determine the taste of the water.

• 41:38Mike Carruthers?

  I never knew that, not that I drink distilled water, but I have distilled water in my house, and I never knew that drinking it could be harmful.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  Why do you have distilled water in your house?

• 41:50Mike Carruthers?

  For my iron.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, so that's a good example. Distilled water is appropriate for your iron because you don't want those minerals to come out on your clothes. And distilled water is very good to clean your contact lenses, for example. They recommend that because it has no minerals in it, but it's absolutely not to be drunk.

• 42:07Mike Carruthers?

  Address this issue that I think a lot of people who are told that, you know, you have to conserve water and take shorter showers and that the real issue, the real use, heavy use of water is agriculture. It's not residential use.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  Yes, that's absolutely true. Eighty percent of the water that we use in California goes to the agricultural sector. And interestingly enough, it's about the same worldwide, about eighty percent of the water that's used by humans goes to grow food. And about twenty percent is industrial, commercial, and residential water use. I would make the point that if we can use water more efficiently in our homes with smarter washing machines and better toilets, that lets us do the things we want, but use less water. And that saves us money, it saves us energy, it saves water. And the trend has been in that direction. You know, urban water use in California has been going down for the last several decades.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  This is something you may not know, and your listeners may not appreciate, but total water use in California is less today, and in urban California is less today than it was forty years ago, even though our economy has grown and our population has grown. And this is true in the United States as well, because we've become more efficient in our water use. We're doing what we want with less water. The idea of taking a shorter shower because there's a drought emergency, that's sort of a temporary behavioral thing that we're asked to do when there's a severe drought. But that's a little different. That's conservation rather than efficiency. Efficiency is doing what we want with less water. Conservation is cutting back our water use in an emergency.

• 43:47Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it's interesting that you said, you just said that, you know, that water use in urban areas in California has dropped, and that I may not have heard about that, and I may not have, and I hadn't heard about that. But I always hear about how we use too much water. I always hear the gloom and doom. I never hear the good news. I never hear, because no one's telling people. It's always, "Cut back. You've got to cut back. You're using too much. You're using too much." Well, that's some good news you just, you just shared that I'd never heard before.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  There are all of these successful things going on out there, in bits and pieces, and that we could do much more of them. And if we were smarter about our water policies and our water use and our water technology and our economics, we could really solve our water problems. Despite all the improvements that we've made, I think what you sometimes hear during a severe drought is that there are still things that we could do better.

• 44:44Mike Carruthers?

  It would seem that, that, you know, one way to solve all the water problems would be to desalinate water from the ocean, and yet we always hear, "Well, that's very expensive." Why is it so expensive, and why can't somebody figure out how to do it cheaper, and then we wouldn't have to worry?

• 45:01Speaker 03

  I do hear that all the time. We do know how to desalinate. Desalination is a pretty well-understood technology, and there have been great improvements in recent years, and it's a lot cheaper now than it was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. It's still more expensive in most places compared to smarter conservation and efficiency, you know, better toilets and washing machines, better irrigation systems that permit us to grow more food with less water. Those things are still cheaper than desalination. And the reason is, there are two reasons. One is, the technology is just expensive. It's, it's infrastructure, it's expensive reverse osmosis membranes that have to be replaced and cost a lot in the

• 45:42Speaker 03

  first place. And it takes a lot of energy, even with the improvements in recent years. It takes a lot of energy to take salt out of water. And so for those reasons, it's still more expensive than the alternatives. And the places where desalination has really gotten a foothold, the Middle East, Israel, Singapore, are places where a lot of energy and effort has gone into conservation and efficiency already.

• 46:07Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I would imagine, too, that...

• 46:11Mike Carruthers?

  You not only have to get the salt out of the water, you then have to get the water where you need it to go.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Oh, excellent point. That's right. It's not, it's not just the cost of desalinating it, but it's a cost of, exactly as you've just pointed out, getting the water where you need it. Now, in urban areas on the coast, that's relatively easy. You know, we have our water systems. We can build pipelines that aren't very long that then inject that water into our water systems. But it's another reason why water is never, desalinated water is never really going to be cost-effective for agriculture. Because first of all, you'd have to move it very far. But second of all, farmers pay far, far less for water than we do for the high-quality water that comes out of our taps.

• 46:55Mike Carruthers?

  Why? Why do they pay less?

• 46:57Speaker 03

  Well, they pay less in part because they're not using high-quality potable water. But they also pay less in a place like California because of the way we've built our water rights system.

• 47:08Mike Carruthers?

  Well, most of us use a lot of water every day and we don't really consider and think about all the things that we've been talking about here for the last 20 minutes, all the ramifications and implications of our water use and what it'll mean for the future. And so it's really interesting to hear your insight. I've been talking with Peter Gleick and the name of his book is The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for being a guest here today, Peter.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Okay, take care.

• 47:42Mike Carruthers?

  When is the best time of day to exercise? Morning or evening? Well, studies show that if it's cardio you're doing, it doesn't really matter much in terms of performance or results or anything else you can measure. Time of day does matter for strength, flexibility, and power training. Later in the day, your body temperature is warmer and you perceive exercise to be easier, especially when it comes to really hard weightlifting. But unless you're doing that, the time of day doesn't make all that much difference. It's more important to do it at a time of day where you're actually gonna do it. What does seem to be true is that people who work out in the morning are more likely to stick with an exercise program.

• 48:26Mike Carruthers?

  Why? Well, a lot of it just has to do with preference. But, but think about it. If you do your exercise first thing in the morning, before you do much of anything else, you're more likely to get it done before the day gets the better of you. And that is something you should know. We've come to the end of this episode and usually around this time I like to ask a favor and that is to help spread the word about this podcast. Tell somebody you know about it and help us grow our audience. It's the best way to support the show. I'm Mike Herrothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 49:01Speaker 00

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