The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #296 - A.J. Jacobs

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

A.J. Jacobs

I wanted to immerse myself in this document that everyone talks about, but fewer than half of Americans, according to polls, have actually read in the Constitution in Article 1. It talks about your right as a citizen to become a pirate.  No one, not even the founders, were happy with the electoral system when they started it, but we are stuck with it. I walked into a coffee store at the same time as another guy, and he saw my musket, and he said, you go first. I'm not going to mess with you. Well,

Melanie Avalon

Welcome to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind, we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying here in you.  Are you ready? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Okay friends, I am so excited about today's episode. AJ Jacobs has quickly become one of my favorite humans on the planet. His work is astounding. It is so educational. You learn so much and it is also so, so funny. From the second I first had him on the show for his book, The Puzzler, I knew I had to have him back and it was an honor to have him back today for his newest book, The Year of Living Constitutionally. I learned so much about our Constitution and the history of America. It's kind of shocking the misconceptions that are out there when it comes to our country. We talk about the different ways to interpret the Constitution, the true meaning of democracy, the shocking actual meaning of, quote, freedom of the press, no pun intended, becoming a legal pirate, little-known things about prohibition and women's rights, and, of course, fun things like election cakes and the musical Hamilton.  I can't wait to hear what you guys think. These show notes for today's episode will be at MelanieAvalon.com slash Constitution. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about, so definitely check that out. There will be two episode giveaways for this episode. One will be in my Facebook group, I have biohackers, intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life, comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love, and then check out my Instagram, find the Friday announcement post, and again, comment there to enter to win something that I love. All right, I think that's all the things. Without further ado, please enjoy this fabulous conversation with AJ Jacobs. Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I'm about to have. So the backstory on today's conversation, I've had this guest on the show before. I was actually introduced to him through my friend John Levy, I'm pretty sure. And I had him on for his book, The Puzzler, which was this wild ride into the history of all things puzzles. And it blew my mind and I learned so much about the world and puzzles. And it was just a really, really enjoyable adventure. So I'm here with A.J. Jacobs. He's not only the author of The Puzzler, he's written so many other books, including four New York Times bestsellers. He wrote The Year of Living Biblically. I actually read his book about gratitude. What was the title of the one about gratitude? That was called Thanks a Thousand. And that one was crazy. It was basically how he made it his mission to thank everybody involved in making his daily cup of coffee.

Melanie Avalon

It was a really, actually really beautiful book, learning everything that goes into things and all the gratitude we should have for so many things. And in any case, A.J., his newest book is called The Year of Living Constitutionally, One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning. And okay, friends, so first of all, I was obviously very excited to dive into this book. Something really unique about A.J. is his writing is riveting. It is fascinating. It is hysterical. You will be laughing out loud whether you're reading it or listening. I was last night reading Amazon reviews for The Year of Living Constitutionally. And one of the reviews started off, the person said something to the effect of, like, I will read anything A.J. writes. And that's how I feel. I'm like, anything he writes, I am down. Because you know you're in for a good time and an educational time. So sitting down to read, well, actually I listened to it, and A.J. does do the audiobooks, The Year of Living Constitutionally. I was so grateful, honestly, to read this book because I realized I don't really know anything about the Constitution.  And there's so much political tension these days and questions and debates and ideas and thoughts surrounding the Constitution. But who actually has a Reddit and actually understands it? And so having this practical approach, because basically, as you can tell by the title, A.J. actually, well, read the whole Constitution and then tried to live his life as a person living at that time, and then lived his life according to an original interpretation of what the Constitution actually implicates. So the hands-on approach to it and the story approach really made it learnable, like what's actually in this incredible document. So I not only laughed a ton, which is good for your health, I learned so much, and I have so many questions. So A.J., thank you so much for being here.

A.J. Jacobs

Oh well, speaking of gratitude, thank you! Thanks a thousandth! That was a lovely introduction and I am super grateful to be back and excited to talk about whatever you want to talk about.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I am so excited.  I had the time of my life listening to your book, like just for example, like one of the funny things you say early in the book, and it's funny, but it's actually also very true, you make the comment about how, you know, when they were, I'm summarizing, but when they were writing the Constitution, like they were writing it, well, actually, I'll let you say exactly what it was, like parchment and ink, essentially. So they had to commit to these ideas. And you make a like a sidehand comment about how, if it was written in a cloud document, like would we ever even have a constitution, because it would probably just be a lot of debate and changing and back and forth.

A.J. Jacobs

Well, I actually think that that was a pretty important realization was how different our minds work when we write offline. So I wrote a lot of this book with an actual quill, a goose quill and ink, and I was dipping it and I was scratching it out. My wife hated the sound. It's very noisy to write with a quill.  So I had to be in my own little room, but it is a different experience and it changes the way your brain works because you're not distracted by the dings and chimes and the ads for baldness, at least in my case, that's what I'm getting. So yeah, it allowed me, I think, to get into the flow and think more, hopefully a little more subtly and deeply. And I don't think we all have to go back to quills, but I think that writing offline or just getting ourselves offline is such an important exercise in allowing our brains to think in a different way.

Melanie Avalon

I love this so much. I'm curious, did you write it in cursive when you were writing?

A.J. Jacobs

Oh, I did. I did.  Now, I did use YouTube and Facebook, which I know they didn't have in 1789, but I got some excellent lessons on how to write. And it is, yeah, it's a wonderful experience, just the flowing of the letters, and it looks so beautiful. I highly recommend it.

Melanie Avalon

that when you had the written version, did you then type that or have AI like change

A.J. Jacobs

Well, exactly, because I said to my publisher, can I just hand you a big stack of quill written parchment? And she said, absolutely not. So I did have to, yes, I did have to afterwards type it in.

Melanie Avalon

That's so funny. Okay, what other before we get into the Constitution some more, what other lifestyle type things did you embody? I know you you got your outfit. Were you wearing that daily?

A.J. Jacobs

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I had a tricorn hat and I had my woolen socks because part of it was I wanted to read the Constitution. I wanted to talk to scholars. But as you know from our previous talk, I really like to walk the walk and talk the talk so and eat the mutton and just really become immersed in it. So I thought as ridiculous as it is, I'm going to actually try to dress. And I will tell you, dressing takes a while. I tell you, I came out of this experience with gratitude, which I know is a big theme of yours.  I took for so much. I'm grateful for our democracy, but I'm also grateful for elastic socks because they didn't have elastic then. So I was wearing these woolen socks and they would just fall down to your ankles. So I had to wear these tiny little belts that they wore on their socks in the 1700s. And so every morning I'd have to put that on and I'll never get back the combined hours that it took to put on these little sock belts. So it's all of these. We have a lot of problems in the modern world, but we shouldn't have this false nostalgia for a time when you had to do things like and put on sock belts was the least of it. You don't want 18th century medicine.

Melanie Avalon

I am so happy I don't live back then. I think my favorite, possibly my favorite phrase or sentence in the book was you said, and you just mentioned it here a little bit, but you said you had an allergy to misplaced nostalgia. And I was like, that is so brilliant. That's like such an incredible phrase.  Oh, and speaking of the food and drink, the book was very immersive with your family being involved. And we were just talking about your son and he helps cook some of the meals that you guys had. What was that experience like?

A.J. Jacobs

Right, we had an 18th century style dinner party, so we had people come over, and by the way, from all over the political spectrum, and talking face to face, that was actually quite wonderful. That is, that is in the Constitution, the right to assemble peaceably, and we don't do that enough. We need to meet other people face to face and talk about things that we disagree with, but in a civil way.  And it was, yeah, so he made, we looked at all the recipes. There was turtle soup was very popular, but not easy to source turtles, plus I didn't want to. So we ended up with, yeah, a beef stew, but with cloves. They loved cloves. Back then, everything had cloves and other spices, and a lot of drinking. They were fans of drinking. Everyone was drinking. So it was a lovely dinner, and I do encourage people, you don't have to dress up like me, but try to have these dinner parties with people from all over the political spectrum, or all over any kind of spectrum, and it's just a great way to expand your mind.

Melanie Avalon

I was blown away by the fun facts about how much drinking they did back there even like politically like Washington Didn't he buy like tons of? alcohol

A.J. Jacobs

One of his first elections, he basically won it because he got everyone wasted. So he bought, and there's a list of what he bought them. It was, you know, like, I can't remember, but it was bottles and bottles of whiskey. So it was remarkable that they got anything done with the amount of drinking that went on.  So yeah, this was, and we are actually, it's interesting because I feel that we're entering a new era where people are drinking less and less, at least in America. So the founders would not know what to make of that.

Melanie Avalon

I actually have the notes right here. 28 gallons of rum, 50 rum punch, 34 wine, 46 beer, 42 hard cider. Like gallons. It's crazy.  It was crazy, it was crazy. I'm having flashbacks to your puzzler book because you talked about how, I don't remember, was it jigsaw puzzles? Something about how doing a certain type of puzzle was a way to bridge political parties.

A.J. Jacobs

Excellent memory. Yes, there was a study about how working on crossword puzzles together was one of the best ways to have people who were on different sides of the political spectrum have them cooperate is to solve a puzzle.  And I will say that is something that I still do, as I love seeing my life as a series of puzzles. So if I meet someone who I disagree with on some issue or other, instead of trying to see it as a war, a battle of ideas, I say, well, let's try to solve this puzzle of why do we disagree? What evidence could I produce that would change their minds? What what might change my mind? And why do we believe what we believe? And even if we can't change our minds, is there anything we do any anything we can go without agreeing on that topic? What else can we do together that would be beneficial to both of us? So yeah, I'm a big fan of puzzle life as a puzzle.

Melanie Avalon

I love it so much. I think it's such a healthy mindset, especially like you're saying with everything today.  Related to that, like I said, you chose to do an originalist interpretation as to how you were living and implementing this. And you talk in the book about how there's two broad categories of interpreting the Constitution. So there's originalism and living constitutionalism. So maybe you can tell listeners a little bit about that.  Did you decide to do an originalist interpretation before you actually read the Constitution? Because that's like committing to an interpretation before reading it. Or did you read it and then decide to do that interpretation?

A.J. Jacobs

Well, I think a lot of the inspiration came because many years ago I wrote a book called The Year of Living Biblically, and that book was a similar premise. I tried to follow the Bible as literally as possible. So that meant following the Ten Commandments, but it also meant following all the rules, like the Bible says you cannot shave the corners of your beard. I didn't know where the corners were, so I just let the whole thing grow, and I looked like Gandalf. The Bible says you cannot wear clothes made of two different kinds of fabric woven together, so no polycotton sweaters. So the point of that book was twofold. One, I grew up in a very secular home, so I wanted to explore religion. What was I missing? Were there good parts of religion that I could take and incorporate into my life? The second motivation was I was concerned about fundamentalism, and I still am, and people who say they take the Bible literally, and that's why homosexuality is a sin or that's why they believe the world is 5,000 years old.  So I thought, well, let me try to actually be the ultimate fundamentalist and do everything in the Bible and show that maybe this is not the best approach. So that was an inspiration, and I had always thought I could do a sequel with the Constitution because there is the same tension. People who say, no, we should take it literally. We should really follow it the way it was intended versus the people who say, no, we live in a different era. We have to evolve the meaning. We have to look at the spirit but not the letter of the law. And so it's a very similar debate. How literally should we take this sacred text? So that's what I was exploring by doing it. And so I committed to try to follow the Constitution using the mindset and tools of when they wrote it in 1789. So that meant the Second Amendment says that you can bear arms. So I thought, all right, but what were the arms back then? The musket. So I got a musket off of year-old internet, and I carried it around New York City. I got mixed reactions. It did come in handy once. I walked into a coffee store at the same time as another guy, and he saw my musket, and he said, you go first. I'm not going to mess with you. But also the First Amendment, I didn't do social media. Instead, I wrote pamphlets with my quill pen because that's what they meant by the First Amendment back then. So it was an exploration of how much has changed from when they wrote it and how much should we stick to the original meaning and how much should we evolve because there is a balance. You don't want to just jettison everything, but you also want to acknowledge that we live in a different time and some evolution must be necessary. So that was the quest that I was on.

Melanie Avalon

So after going through all of this, how long actually is the Constitution? Like how much text is there?

A.J. Jacobs

Not long, so short. And what I loved about this project, well, first to answer your question, it's about 5,000 words. I forget the exact number, but you can read it in about half an hour.  I had never read it from start to finish. So what I loved about this project is that I was sort of going from zero to 60. I wanted to immerse myself in this document that everyone talks about, but that fewer than half of Americans, according to Pauls, have actually read.

Melanie Avalon

And when it comes to actually interpreting it, now that you've gone through all of this, what, like, do you think the Founding Fathers meant for everything to be literal to what they wrote, or do you think they meant for it to evolve?

A.J. Jacobs

That is at the heart of my book, I would say I try to explore both in a very fair way. So I presented both sides as strongly as I could.  There's a phrase I love called steel manning, which is the opposite of straw manning. So steel manning means presenting both sides as strongly as possible. So I tried to do that. But in the end, I think that I do lean on the side of that we have to evolve some of the parts of the Constitution. I think that the principles of trying to be of freedom and responsibility and those are wonderful. But some of the specifics we have to change with the times because the technology and our morals are different.

Melanie Avalon

don't know what you don't know, so how could they have even predicted, you know, the future and make everything apply to that. What's interesting is you say in the book that, because you go through a lot of the amendments and how you say that there's only one amendment that actually really speaks to how to interpret it, I think it's the ninth amendment and it talks about how just because it's not listed doesn't mean it's not a right and basically that's the only time it kind of gives you guidance about interpreting the document.  Yeah.

A.J. Jacobs

I talked to Lawrence Tribe, who was a famous constitutional scholar, and he said, yeah, one of the Constitution, there's no instruction manual. They just wrote it and people interpret it the way they want.  He actually helped write other constitutions for other countries. And he said that he inserted these kind of an instruction manual in there saying, yeah, this is take the big ideas like, you know, making a fairness and of freedom, but don't take everything as frozen in time.

Melanie Avalon

I'm just reflecting now. I'm actually a little bit shocked that we've done so well with such a vague document because not only is there a lot of room to, you know, interpret and fill in things, but even like with that concept of just because it's not listed doesn't mean it's not a right, that just opens up.  I don't know. That just makes you assume a lot of things like what is a right and what's not a right. We're just supposed to know that, like, that's just supposed to be like absolute truth.

A.J. Jacobs

Well, it's I love that you say that because there is a debate in some ways it being vague and short is a huge Positive because that way it can evolve with the times but in other ways It's being vague and short. I think it's dangerous and I'll give you one example I think that the office of president has become way too powerful and the Founders would be there.  They would be you know, their wigs would fall off They would not know what to do and I'm not just I'm talking even before our current president I'm talking about both Democrats and and Republicans expanded the power of the president and the founders were very Concerned about monarchy. They just bought a whole war and I'll tell you very quickly one of my most Fascinating things I learned if you read what happened in the constitutional convention in 1787 one of the they were figuring out how do we organize the government and someone said well, I guess we should what if we had a single president and Several of the other delegates said are you jesting? That's a terrible idea We just fought a war to get rid of a king. We don't want an elected king We've no no single print. Let's have a council of presidents. Let's have six presidents Well present Ben Franklin said twelve presidents But in the end and they debated debated in the end the one president won but several of the delegates objected and said this is the fetus of monarchy that was the phrase they use and To me the fetus has just grown over the centuries and now we have a president and just to give you one example George Washington made eight executive orders in his eight years and as you know Modern-day presidents make over 200 and Trump has been on a rampage making executive orders And I don't think that's what the founders would have wanted Wow

Melanie Avalon

That's crazy. How did you propose having a multi-presidency?

A.J. Jacobs

Oh, well, yes, this was part of one of the rights in the Constitution is the right to petition the government. So you go and now petitions are online and you just like click a button. But back then they meant something, you know, you had to go door to door and try to get people to sign it. And they were taken very seriously.  They had a big part in the abolition movement. So I thought, let me try an old fashioned one. So I got out my quill and I got out my parchment and I went door to door and I chose the topic that maybe the Congress should reconsider that original Ben Franklin idea of three or six or 12 presidents. Now I kind of was tongue in cheek. I don't know if that really is the solution because do we want, you know, would it have been better if Trump and Kamala and RFK jr. We're all sitting in the oval office like battling each other. I don't know, but what I do think it was a way to try to bring up this idea that the president is way too powerful and we've got to reign him in and give power back to the Congress, which is what the founders wanted because they're the, they're multiple people. It's not just one person like a monarch. It's a much more democratic way to govern a country.

Melanie Avalon

Well, speaking to that, let's say, when was the very last amendment, the most recent amendment?

A.J. Jacobs

That was 1991, I think it was passed, but it's been a long time. It's been over 30 years.  And the story of that actually is an awesome story. I can tell it really quickly, but it was, I think it was in the early 80s, and this guy was a student at the University of Texas, Austin, and he read about this event then that John Madison had proposed, and I mean, James Madison, sorry. And it was a pretty good amendment. It said that Congress should not be able to give itself a raise immediately. If they gave a raise, it only took effect the next Congress. And that's pretty good. You don't want people just giving themselves raises. So, but he found out this amendment never passed. It didn't get enough states to ratify it, but it never really died either. It was sort of in a zombie state. So he said, well, what if we try to resurrect it? Then he wrote a paper, his professor gave him a C, said, that's a dumb idea. He said, I'm going to show you. So out of pure spite, which maybe is not the best motivator, he spent 10 years and got whatever it was, 20 more states to sign on. And now it became an official. It's the 27th and final as of yet amendment to the constitution. So that was actually a very inspiring story that you can, one person actually can make a change. So, and I talked to him for the book and he was an interesting quirky character, but it does highlight, even he said, it was really hard to get that amendment through. And now it's even harder because we are so polarized and he said, and I agree, I don't see a new amendment getting passed any time soon.  And that is a problem because the constitution was made to be amended. That they were wise enough to know that they couldn't foresee everything and that this needed to be a document that could be changed. Washington said to his nephew, this is an imperfect document. So that I think is one of the fundamental problems. They made it too hard to get an amendment through.

Melanie Avalon

So I definitely want to talk about more of the amendments. Really quick question though, because I'm thinking, when you vote, like for the presidential vote, and you go in, this just goes to show how I should be more knowledgeable with these things.  But I am partly a little bit, thanks to your book, when you go like vote and you vote for the president, and then there's all these other questions, like do you vote for this? Do you want this? Do you want this? Are some of those like potentially going towards amendments? Like is the way the guy got that pass was through that type of voting system?

A.J. Jacobs

Now those are slightly different. Usually, for the amendment, you need the state legislatures to vote. So it is not a public that votes.  But those are, yeah, that is an interesting, because there are some people who think that every issue should be put to the public, because that is more pure democracy. And I think that's an interesting idea, but it's also very unwieldy.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, one of the broad concepts that I'm familiar with because it's such a part of our political and government culture, but I just don't understand is the electoral college.

A.J. Jacobs

Oh, it is a baffling one, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

I don't quite understand like the I just don't I don't understand really how it works and the intention and if it actually is doing the intention that it's supposed to do I know you talk in the book about how the founding fathers were terrified of, you know, democracy. So they sort of filtered it through this electoral college system.  Is that what's happening?

A.J. Jacobs

Partly, it is a, I mean, no one, not even the founders were happy with the electoral system when they started it, but we are stuck with it. And as you say, it was sort of a compromise because the founders were conflicted. On the one hand, they wanted more democracy because they believed in a very restricted way that white men was their version of democracy, but they wanted more of that, but they were also worried about the riffraff. They were elitist. They were horribly elitist. So they built in the electoral system, which was one of its causes.  It had a few, but one of its causes was this is sort of a buffer against what they considered the hoi belowi, the riffraff. So the idea was that you would have this group of educated, literate white men, and they would be a buffer so that if the public elected someone who had dictatorial tendencies, a possible authoritarian, they were very worried about tyrants. If they elected that type of person, this group of literate men would be able to say, overrule them and say, no, no, no, that guy is not presidential. We're going to vote in this guy. Now, that no longer exists. The electoral college does not vote against the wishes of the public, but it has created this unfortunate system where it's not a particularly fair system in terms of big states versus small states because small states have so much power because they have far more electoral votes than they should if it was totally based on population. So that's why you get these situations where the popular vote goes to one candidate, but the electoral college vote goes to another. And that, I think, is just bad for our democracy.

Melanie Avalon

They don't do that anymore or they can't do that anymore. Their ability to overturn.

A.J. Jacobs

I mean, there was some people who were trying to say the electors could vote any way they wanted, again, because the Constitution is very vague and it's not that long. But luckily, that didn't go anywhere.  So it's pretty much the electoral college has to vote the way the public votes. And let's hope it stays that way.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, it's really interesting because somebody before I read that in your book, like a few months ago, they said what you just said. They're like, you know, technically they can overturn and not vote what the people voted with the Electoral College, but I didn't know if that actually like happened or not.

A.J. Jacobs

Well, I think if it did, there would be massive lawsuits. People would freak out.

Melanie Avalon

out would not go well. Oh, man. Back to the amendment. So what was the very first amendment?

A.J. Jacobs

Well, the very first amendment was, actually it's an interesting question because the first one that passed and then the one that's number one is freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It's the first amendment. It's actually got multiple parts, freedom from established to religion. So it's that one.  And I actually, one of the most surprising facts I learned was how different the first amendment was in 1787 than it is now. And I am a big, as a journalist and a writer, I'm a big fan of the current first amendment. But the original first amendment was much more restrictive because they were not very trusting of the public. So the idea was you could publish anything you wanted in a pamphlet, but the government also had the right to punish you if they didn't like it. So there were laws, state laws against sedition, against cursing in New York state at the founding. You'd have to pay 37 and a half cents every time you curse, every time you said the S word or the F word. There were people thrown in jail for making jokes about the president, including an ass joke about John Adams, an arse joke. Someone was thrown in jail over that. So it was much stricter than it is now. There are blasphemy laws. I am very grateful that the first amendment has expanded, but it's a reminder that life was very different back then.  And that to me, you have to look at what is society now and try to come up with the most just solution for now, as opposed to trying to get inside the minds of the founders who had some wonderful ideas, but they also had some ideas that are outdated and archaic.

Melanie Avalon

That was really fascinating to me when I read that in your book that, you know, the freedom of the press and the speech was just the freedom to publish. It wasn't, it didn't protect you from what you actually published.  So when you, when you say that, like, that was the original, so did the amendment itself actually get amended and changed or is it just that these other laws dissolved?

A.J. Jacobs

Exactly. It didn't change the wording.  It's still the same, but the interpretation has changed. And that, I mean, it's a fascinating reasons why one of the big groups that helped to change was, weirdly enough, the Jehovah's Witnesses, because they brought dozens of lawsuits in the 40s and 50s, 1940s and 50s, saying that they had the right to speak their mind and talk about their religion. And so they helped broaden the interpretation of the First Amendment. But yeah, it was not like that for the first hundred years of our history.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, that is so, so fascinating. They weren't the ones that got us no mail on Sunday, were they?

A.J. Jacobs

No, that was a group called the Sabbatarians, because there were some very religious people in the 1800s, and they said, God does not want us working on Sunday, and that means the mail should not... It used to be in America, the mail was seven days a week. But they started a movement, and they got millions of signatures on petitions, and now we don't have mail on Sunday. Wow.

Melanie Avalon

crazy. I think one of the most mind blowing facts for me, and I remember when I learned this, it was years ago, but it's something that I think should be more well known or obvious than it is, but I will pull people on this and people get it so wrong or they don't believe me. And that's that women got the right to vote way after black men. I find it really interesting.  I think a lot of people think that that happened around the same time or that women could vote before black men, but the women right to vote was like way later.

A.J. Jacobs

Oh, yeah, I mean on a national level it was it was not until I think it was 1920 It was the 19th amendment. Yes, and black men got the vote after war after the civil war But yeah women.  I mean it is quite shocking How sexist society was I mean we still have a ways to go but I was astounded and my wife was too because you know, as you know, I like to commit to these projects so For instance in the 17 and 1800s even the early 1900s women Buried women especially had very few rights. They were treated like children They were the men the husband had all their rights women could not sign Contracts often they had to get permission before going to a store and these were all laws on the books Women could not be lawyers women could not be bartenders. It was a system called curvature My I thought well, maybe I should since i'm doing this I should try to have some curvature in our apartment Yes, and as you can imagine my wife my wife has a business She's president of a small company. And so she signs contracts all the time and I said Well, honey, maybe for this project that i'm doing maybe you shouldn't sign Contracts and at first she was like great. I I don't want to do this paperwork you do it I did it for literally an hour and I was so bad And it made such a mess that she fired me and she overturned curvature in our room So that went out the window But it really was it was shocking The the status of women for most of american history. It was uh, yeah It was it was an embarrassment

Melanie Avalon

single women or non-married women had more rights than married women.

A.J. Jacobs

They did. I mean, they didn't have equal rights, but they had slightly more.

Melanie Avalon

You mentioned how some people say, like some ultra originalists say that certain things might not apply. Do they use the word he in the constitution still rather?

A.J. Jacobs

Right. Yes, they do use the pronoun he.  So if you are ace, now this is just the fringe of all fringes, but it does when it's describing the president and the Congress, it does say he. And I do think that the founders probably thought men should be president and men should be congresspeople. Now you did have the 19th Amendment that gave women the vote, but it never said that they could run for office. And in fact, early on, I think some people opposed women running for office, even if they had the vote. So anyway, yes, you could make an ultra originalist argument that if you stick to the Constitution, that only men should be allowed to be president.

Melanie Avalon

What's also interesting, especially with all of the thoughts on different pronouns now, I don't even know the implications there.

A.J. Jacobs

Yeah, need to change it today or whatever.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so I love when I'm reading a book. And because of what it's saying, I have a thought or a question.  And then I keep reading and then the author like literally states my question. And that happened with this when I was reading about speaking of running for the president, you were talking about like the role of inflation and how money, you know, is different now and is worth a different amount. And then I was thinking about how the age of the president, like back then people lived, people lived different lifespans. So like, should we change that age? And then you asked that question. I was like, Oh my goodness, we're on the same page here. I love it.

A.J. Jacobs

We are. We are. Yeah, that is a fact.  I mean, there are parts of the Constitution that are very vague, you know, that they say, you know, people have equal rights, but then there are parts that are actually very specific that say you have to be 35 years old to run for president. Now, right, but back then, as you figured out, that was a very, you know, the average person lived much shorter. So 35 was towards the end of their life. So you could make the argument maybe there should be a built-in escalator. So you know, the presidents should be have to be at least 50. I don't know what the right answer is, but I think it's a fascinating question.

Melanie Avalon

It's also really interesting to think about because how old in general were the founding fathers? So young. Like 20s, 30s? A lot of them were 20s. 20s. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy.

A.J. Jacobs

think about. I know. I, when I was 20 or 25, I mean, I shudder to think that I would have, I was an idiot. I was a, I'm still an idiot, but I was even more of an idiot.  Yeah, so these, I mean, on the good side, they were, they were flexible thinkers. I think when you're young, often you are more flexible in your thinking. Plus, I do think people were more, yeah, you weren't, you weren't distracted by scrolling through TikTok. You were actually, these guys read political philosophy from when they were aged 11. So they, they did have, they were a little mature, more mature than I think we are at that age.

Melanie Avalon

So fascinating. How long did it take them, do you know, to like decide and write it?

A.J. Jacobs

It was the summer, I think it was Bay to August, September maybe, but yeah, it was a hot summer in Philadelphia. I went to where they wrote it, the Independence Hall, it's a little room. I mean, it is quite remarkable because it was not easy that they had no air conditioning, of course, and they had to keep the windows closed because they didn't want people eavesdropping. And everyone was smoking their pipes, and they had all these heavy wool clothes. It must have stunk, it must have been so unpleasant.  And they would debate, and some of these speeches, like Alexander Hamilton, gave a six-hour speech. Can you imagine? A six-hour speech? Yeah, and people, I mean, it is crazy to think.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness. That's okay.  That's insane. Attention spans are just different back then. Speaking of smoke, what was the role of agencies and whether or not those are constitutional? So like agencies are supposed to protect us from like environmental toxins and the FDA and the EPA.

A.J. Jacobs

Oh, that's a great question and very timely because that is what the Trump administration is saying is that they are not constitutional. It's a tough question.  Agencies did not exist in such a way at the founding, but they grew in several spurts. One was during the the Depression and FDR created a lot of these agencies. I think that they serve a good, and I do, but I actually think that they are in the wrong area because Congress is supposed to be the one that makes the laws, and that's in the Constitution. And these agencies are currently under the President. So I would, and I know it's not easy to do and maybe unrealistic, but I would switch the agencies to be under Congress's control because that is what would be more constitutional. And I think some of them are probably too aggressive and making it harder for businesses, but I also think they are saving tons of lives. You read about what food was like before the FDA and before Teddy Roosevelt created the food oversight, and it'll turn your stomach. It'll make you nauseated just to read about how horrible things were. So I am glad for them, but I think that they should not be under presidential in the President because exactly what is happening now, the President is trying to dismantle them. If they are under Congress, then Congress might have more control over them.

Melanie Avalon

When you mentioned earlier cooking with all the clothes, I was like those clothes were probably really antibacterial. That was probably one reason they had them in everything.

A.J. Jacobs

or at least even just to make the rancid taste a little better.

Melanie Avalon

That's really interesting though. So, so these agencies are under the executive branch, which technically can't make laws, but they make laws. So how does that like practically happen?

A.J. Jacobs

Well, I'm not an expert, so I maybe, but they make regulations, so that's a slightly different. They don't, and that is one way that it's considered to be more constitutional.  But yeah, I think the problem is that it just loads more power into the executive office, which as I said, is not what the founders wanted. They wanted, the Congress was number one. Congress was the first article of the Constitution, and it was by far the longest. Then came the president, less than half the amount of text, and that almost is an afterthought, not quite an afterthought, but the Supreme Court section is very short. you

Melanie Avalon

Wow. And today, what would the ordering be? It would be...

A.J. Jacobs

I think the president would be at the top and the Supreme Court has also gained much more power than what the founders would have. They would have been appalled by how powerful the Supreme Court is.  Back then, the Supreme Court was supposed to weigh in on what's constitutional and what's not, but so was Congress, so was the president. It was sort of a mishmash. Everyone was weighing in and maybe that's why it didn't work because it wasn't clear who had the final say. And finally, the Supreme Court stepped up and said, we have the final say, and they have become so powerful. And I don't like it. I don't like that these nine unelected people have that much power.

Melanie Avalon

When you went and you listened to some, did you go to the Supreme Court?

A.J. Jacobs

I did. I went to visit, which was fascinating.  First of all, it's not a very democratic process because there are 50 seats reserved for the public. The rest are lawyers and people involved in the case. So you have to line up. If it's a big case, you have to line up days in advance, camp out like a concert for someone super popular back in the day. Now you can hire people to wait in line for you. So the line waiters, which seems to me very undemocrat. I woke up at three in the morning and waited myself. So I was very proud.

Melanie Avalon

That's so funny. I was actually last night I was contemplating the what I don't know what they're called the wine the line waiters.  I was contemplating if it was democratic or not. So I was like, well, a person is paying them so they are putting forth like energy and effort and expenditure to be in line. They're just not physically in line.

A.J. Jacobs

That's a great point. Yeah, maybe it is okay, you know, if maybe it's capitalism, maybe it is. I'm gonna have to think about that.

Melanie Avalon

I was literally pondering this at like 2 a.m. When you went and watched that case, what was that experience like?

A.J. Jacobs

It was interesting because the Supreme Court building is very imposing. Have you ever been there in person?

Melanie Avalon

I'm trying to remember because I've been to DC twice and did the whole, like, you know, all the stuff. So I think so. It was a while ago.

A.J. Jacobs

Yeah, they probably stopped there. It's one of the big sites. Yes, and it is beautiful. It's marble and all these steps and these columns. It looks very ancient Greek.  It was built in the 1930s. And once again, I think the founders would be appalled the judges at the time, the justices at the time said, this is ridiculous. They used to have the court in the Capitol and bounced around all over the place. The first Supreme Court was like in a building right near a market with butchers and they had to clear out the butchers because they were making too much noise. So now it's in this very imposing building to try to give it this status that it should be equal with the White House and the Capitol. But the judges, when it was built, said, this is ridiculous.  I feel so pompous. I feel like I should be entering the Supreme Court riding an elephant. That's one of those things. But it was Taft, who was a former president, who pushed it through because he wanted to make the Supreme Court super powerful. And it worked.

Melanie Avalon

I'm having so many flashbacks now because I went in seventh grade. There was this like National Young Leaders Conference where they like, you know, two random kids from your high school go. So I got to go to DC by myself. Hey, congratulations. Thank you. I had so much fun.  You were a young leader? I was a young leader. Yeah, seventh grade by myself on this field trip and we like did all this stuff. And then my dad, oh, before that, my dad took me for my 10th birthday to DC Thank you.

A.J. Jacobs

And where were you growing up in Atlanta?

Melanie Avalon

In Atlanta when I was 10 and the Young Leaders Middle School, I was in Memphis, Tennessee. Yeah, I'm having all these flashbacks now to all the places that we went.

A.J. Jacobs

It's a beautiful city. I recommend people go because, yeah, it's very enlightening.  I love going to the National Archives, where they keep the Constitution, but they also keep all sorts of other fascinating, you know, thousands, probably millions of documents.

Melanie Avalon

I love the national treasure reference.

A.J. Jacobs

I know that these tour guides at the National Archives where the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are almost required to make a comment and say like, no Nicolas Cage cannot break in because they're going to be asked. They are going to be asked every single time.

Melanie Avalon

That's so funny. I read that movie massively. Blood to people going there more, maybe.

A.J. Jacobs

No, I think it was. It was good. It was good for them.

Melanie Avalon

That's right. And did you say the capital wasn't, it was not originally DC?

A.J. Jacobs

it bounced around a bit. So at one point it was in Philadelphia, it was in New York City, it was in Annapolis for like a brief moment there.  And then, as is the famous scene in Hamilton the Musical, so yeah, that was the big fight, one of the big fights between Hamilton and Jefferson is where should the Capitol be. And Hamilton agreed to let Jefferson have it more towards the South in exchange for support for the National Bank. I think I might be making that up, but I'm pretty sure.

Melanie Avalon

Hamilton is a good example of because you talk in the book about how we have this American myth and there's a lot of different approaches to how we can handle it because you know what actually happened a lot of the events we are not a fan of today with like you know sexism and racism and just the way things are set up so it's like do we reimagine this myth in a different way like how do we approach it and it's just interesting because I feel like the musical Hamilton is taking the approach of reimagining the American myth.

A.J. Jacobs

Yeah, such a good point. And one thing that's fascinating to me about Hamilton is, if you rewind about 70 years, there was another musical on Broadway.  This was even before 1776, but it was all about Jefferson, and Jefferson was the hero, and Hamilton was the villain. Oh, is it the ballad of, is it that one? I actually forget the name. I'll look it up. But what were you thinking, the ballad of?

Melanie Avalon

There's one called, like, Assassins, and there's one called, like, The Ballad of...

A.J. Jacobs

not assassins, which, yeah, I did like. But, but I did want to, I love what you brought up, is how do we see this founding myth? And let me just, can I tell a quick story of two ways to see it? What I did talk about in the book. So back before the Civil War, you had two very famous abolitionists. One was, was William Lloyd Garrison, who was a white man, and he said the Constitution is a instrument of the devil. He said, it deserves to be burned. And he burned it on stage in front of hundreds of people. He was a showman. And he said it was, it was terrible because it condoned slavery.  Now, the another great abolitionist was Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved man. And at first he agreed with Garrison that this was, the Constitution was a, a pact with the devil. But sometime in the 1850s, before the Civil War, he changed his mind. And he said, you know what, I'm, I think we should look at the Constitution, not as a pact with the devil, but as an IOU, a promissory note. It promises these wonderful concepts like equality. And yet America is not delivering. We've got enslaved people, millions of people in chains. So we've got to make America live up to the ideals in the Constitution. So those are two very radically different ways of looking at the Constitution. One as a pact with the devil, the other as an IOU, a promissory note of what America could become. And that second one, the Frederick Douglass version, was very influential. And that's what Martin Luther King talked about the Constitution as a promissory note. And so did Obama and all sorts of other people. And I love that, that vision, because I, I think it's, it's a lot about framing. And you talk about this a lot in, in your podcast, just on a personal level, how important framing something is. You can, you can frame something as terrifying, or you can frame it as exhilarating, and it makes all the difference.

Melanie Avalon

What was your mindset going into this project and then coming out with themes like this? Did it evolve or change much?

A.J. Jacobs

It did because I didn't, I mean, you have in America, you have two very different views of the Constitution. You've got some people who say it is still a pact, it is the result of a slavocracy. And then you've got others who say these are almost sacred words written by demigods. And I think this way of looking at it is better to say these were flawed men, but they were also men who had some wonderful, great ideas. So let's acknowledge their flaws, but let's try to make the Constitution a promissory note and make it live up to the best ideals of America.  So it is not a black and white issue. It is complicated and we have to work to make the country better and make it more like the good parts, the ideals of some of these men. When they talked about no one should be a monarch, everyone should be equal. You are not born better than anyone else. You are created equal.

Melanie Avalon

I feel like we see this debate or argument practically manifest with things like when people suggest tearing down monuments and stuff like that. That's a practical example of people debating this concept of what we should do.

A.J. Jacobs

And it's a tough question. I mean, I don't know the right answer to that. I actually think, and this is, I know I'm in the minority, I think that statues, we need more statues of, well, let's see, I'm trying to think, you can have this. Yeah, I just think people are flawed.  So if you put up a statue of someone in 100 years, who knows whether that is that person, how they're going to be viewed. And actually, I guess my point is, this keeps me humble. This idea that people are flawed keeps me humble. Because I think people today have a tendency to think, oh, we are so morally evolved. But imagine what people 200 years from now will think of us. What will they be shocked at? And I love that thought experiment. What will people in 200 years, will it be that, you know, I know that there's an environmental crisis, and yet I still take planes on vacation. So maybe that they'll look at me, or maybe it'll be factory farming. I mean, maybe it'll be, by then, room buzz and robots will be doing all of our cleaning. So the idea that someone would hire a housekeeper would be absolutely shocking. So I think it's good to stay humble and realize, you know, we can condemn people from the past, and we should for what they did wrong, but we shouldn't be so cocky that we think we are the ultimate evolved beings.

Melanie Avalon

with the monuments and stuff, it's like there's no one perfect person. So it's kind of like all or none in a way. I'm thinking like, it's like if you're going to tear one down, you might have to tear them all down. And maybe that's the answer.  I don't know. Speaking of the future, you make a really good point in the book about how technically the sections on like the army and stuff don't actually talk about like the Air Force or the Space Force.

A.J. Jacobs

Right, yes. So this is all about how literally should we take the Constitution because there are the Constitution specifically mentions the army and the Navy, but it never mentions any other so if you are a true strict or literalist, there are some people who say well is The Air Force actually constitutional because it's not in the Constitution.  What about the Space Force? Definitely not in the Constitution So there's that debate and that to me is an example of why it's important to evolve some of these some of these ideas and and realize we don't have to stick to the exact letter of Every word but more to the spirit of the Constitution

Melanie Avalon

I'm super curious because related to that topic, I think one of the more hotly debated constitution questions and rights questions is like the right to bear arms and gun laws and things like that. So what did you, what did you find?  What did you find in the constitution about that?

A.J. Jacobs

Well, I have a whole section on it, and it's, yeah, it is a, it is a fascinating. So let me give, well, first of all, I'll describe what I did personally, which is, as I said, I, I bought a musket and I carried it around. And I also went and fired my musket. I joined a group of reenactors, Revolutionary War reenactors. We went to a firing range and fired it. Now, what is interesting about it is the musket is a vastly different instrument than modern guns, which I've shot modern guns and that is a, you know, you pull the trigger and that's it. To fire a musket is literally 15 steps and you can read them in a book and you have to take out the, the cartridge bite off the top, pour the gunpowder in, take out the ram rod, ram it down. So it takes a while. It's like building a desk from IKEA is the way I say it. So it, it took me a couple of minutes per round and the revolution, some of the soldiers could actually do three rounds a minute, which is shocking, but still it's very different.  It would be much different to try to do a, a mass shooting with a musket because you would take so much time shooting each bullet. So let me give you very quickly just the two arguments because on the one side you have the gun rights advocates who say the law, the constitution says you have the right to bear arms and it doesn't specify the arms. Therefore, anything you can bear, anything you can carry is considered an arm. It should not just be muskets because they knew that there were going to be new types of guns. And if you say it's almost like, imagine if you said that the first amendment only applied to Ben Franklin style printing presses where you have the wood and you know the, the first amendment applies now to everything, things you write on your computer, emails, TV. So that's the gun rights argument.  On the other side, the gun control argument says, no, this, this, the fact that they use the word arms is, and that, then that an AK four or an AR 15 is called an arm and a musket is called an arm. That's almost a weird coincidence. They're so different that they shouldn't even be called by the same word. It's almost like, imagine you had a law from 1800 that said, wheeled vehicles are allowed on this lane in your town. Back then that meant a wheelbarrow or, or maybe a bicycle. Now it means like, yeah, the cars or trucks are like, you know, an 18 wheeler. And that is very different. Do you want an 18 or do you have to change the law? Do you have to adjust the regulations because the technology is so different? So that is the debate of where, where do we draw the line? How do we figure out whether to change the regulations because the technology is so different?

Melanie Avalon

I wonder if, like I wonder if the Founding Fathers anticipated it would change and they thought we would amend it or if it just literally, they just didn't have, like I said, they can't know what they can't know so they didn't know it would evolve.

A.J. Jacobs

It's a great question. I mean, they were very entrepreneurial and forward-thinking. So I think they knew that guns would evolve. They were already cannons and other things that were in development. But I don't think that they could have anticipated just how far it had gone.  So yeah, it is. But I think that's why they built in the amendment system that you can change the problem. As we said earlier, it's so hard now to change, to get an amendment through. The founders would be, I think, surprised and upset by how hard it is. So you can, that is the way, the best way to deal with something like guns, is to be able to have an amendment. And if enough people think that they should be regulated, you can get an amendment through the Constitution to say, actually, you know, this type of gun should be regulated and this type of gun should not. But that can't be done, which is why you end up with these big fights over how to interpret those original words, because the original words are all we have now.

Melanie Avalon

One of my favorite parts of the book was you talk about the privateering.

A.J. Jacobs

I love that part. I love that adventure.  And that, as you say, that's an example of how different life was because in the Constitution, Article 1, it talks about your right as a citizen to become a pirate. They don't call it a pirate. They call it privateer, but it's essentially a pirate. And what it means is that you can apply to Congress and say, I've got this fishing boat. I would like to go out onto the seas and attack enemy boats and keep the booty. I want to keep, you know, whatever it is, whether it's liquor. A lot of times it was liquor or supplies or guns or uniforms. And this was incredibly important at the founding because in the Revolution, we did not have much of a Navy. So we had to rely on private citizens like fishing boats and whaling boats to go out there. There were 2,000 private citizens, thousands of them, and they captured over 2,000 British ships. And we would not have won the Revolution without these privateers.  So, of course, they were huge and they had to be in the Constitution. Now, this has not, no one has been granted a license to be a privateer since about 1812, 1813. But since it's still in the Constitution, I thought as part of my project, maybe I should try. So that was one of my more interesting, I actually got a meeting with a congressman from California. And I said, I would like to request a letter of mark and reprisal, because that's the technical name. And he said, Ro Khanna is his name from California. He said, Great, how can we make that happen? And then he was like, Wait, what is the letter of mark and reprisal? And I explained to him and he's like, Oh, well, that might be a little more complicated. But he actually liked the premise of my book. So he, he actually tried to help me and went to to other Congress people. And, and it didn't, it hasn't taken off, let's say, but, but his aid still emails me as Captain Jacobs. So I feel I accomplished something.

Melanie Avalon

That's so funny. It sounds similar.  I feel like the closest thing in modern times would be when they, like when there's an invasive species or something and they give a temporary time where you can go and we have a place in Sandoval Island in Florida. And I remember there was an alligator attack when I was little and there was like this brief amount of time after that where they're like, you can just go and kill all the alligators. Like people could.

A.J. Jacobs

Wow, does your family do that? No.

Melanie Avalon

No, but I just remember there was, yeah, like there's like a time limit, but it's like, you know, normal citizens could go and do that.

A.J. Jacobs

That's a great point. Yeah, you're right. It's sort of outsourcing law enforcement or animal enforcement to private citizens.

Melanie Avalon

So like unamending an amendment. So why is that still in there when it clearly seems a little bit archaic, but like the only one that was undone was the prohibition amendment, right?

A.J. Jacobs

Right, exactly. They said, oops, sorry about that. I think it hasn't become a problem.  If Congress started allowing thousands of people to be pirates tomorrow, then there might be a movement to try to get it stricken. But since no one but me has applied, I think that they just don't have it as a priority.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I guess I guess it's hard to notice the absence of something. So it seems like the majority of the amendments are granting licensure to do something.  So if you're just not doing that anymore, you know, you don't really notice. But prohibition was saying you can't do something.

A.J. Jacobs

Right. And a lot of people, even in prohibition, said this is a terrible amendment because it's too specific.  A lot of the amendments have to do with broader rights, like the right to be treated fairly or the right to vote. That's a very broad, as opposed to not being able to drink intoxicating liquors. That was not a successful amendment.

Melanie Avalon

Was that all political or was that related to health, the prohibition?

A.J. Jacobs

Well, what's interesting is, and this is, again, shows you how different times were, a lot of it had to do with the progressive movement and feminism in a weird way, or the feminism of the times, because there was a huge problem of men getting drunk and beating their wives. So a lot of the prohibition and temperance movement was women fighting for the rights of women.  So it's complicated. It seems to us retrograde, in a sense, like what a bunch of idiots. But there was this sort of positive, progressive flavor to it, in a sense.

Melanie Avalon

That's so interesting. Okay. Yeah. My co-host of one of my other podcasts brought this up. And did you know there are constitution free zones?

A.J. Jacobs

I had read that, but tell me more.

Melanie Avalon

I'm not the expert, but we did fact-check it while he was saying it, and yeah, there's like areas around coastlines and stuff where they're called constitution-free zones and the constitution doesn't quite apply. A lot of it's around like border areas.

A.J. Jacobs

Interesting. I need to research that because that is fascinating.  I know very little about it. I'd heard the phrase, but I don't know. But I will stay away from them. I like my constitutional right. I know.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, we were using chat GPT to learn about it, and even it seemed a little bit vague on trying to figure out the legalities of it. I love when you use chat GPT to talk to Robo, was it Robo Madison?

A.J. Jacobs

Right, right. I figured I'm trying to get inside the minds of these founding fathers, and my son was actually the one who said, you know, maybe the best way to do it would be to have chat GBT take on the personality and views of James Madison, because it has ingested everything he's ever written or said. And it was fascinating.  I asked him, and again, who knows how, whether this would be what the real James Madison would say, but it was a fascinating experiment. First of all, I was taken aback because I asked him what he thought of Donald Trump. He was the robo version of James Madison was very stern, very stern. He did not, he thought Donald Trump was taking too much power. He thought that his attacks on the press were unconstitutional, etc. So, so at least the robo version of James Madison is not wearing a red hat.

Melanie Avalon

I loved you also mentioned whether or not it's saying these things while planning to take over and I am a little bit concerned about that. I will just say personally.

A.J. Jacobs

I know, me too. I'm always very polite to Alexa. I say, thank you and please, Jess.

Melanie Avalon

in case. Oh my goodness. I'm on the bad list because I, yeah, I'm probably the first to go because I, I can't handle if it ever like hallucinates or contradicts itself, I just can't handle it and I like call it out. And so what do you say? It's always very like nice about it. It's like, you're right. Like, you know, I, I'm like, I'm sorry. I just, I just can't, yeah, I can't handle its lies and stuff.  The other day, the other day last week I was prepping an episode on the Donner party, just as a very dark story. So it kept like, I needed a lot of notes and it kept writing and then it would just stop and I'd be like, keep going. And then it would start again. And so finally I was like, are you stopping because this is making you sad? And it was like, no, I'm not sad. I just don't want to overwhelm you with information. And I was like, that's not true. Like you don't know why you stopped. And so now you're just lying to me.

A.J. Jacobs

That is an awesome story. I love it.  Well, I will tell you, I had an intern during my year of living biblically. His name is Kevin Roose, and he was a fantastic assistant, and I actually took him on a trip with me. We visited Jerry Falwell's universe, and you'll see where this is going. It does get back to AI in a moment, but I took him to Falwell, which is a very conservative church, and Liberty University, which is a super conservative. He was in college, and he said, what if I transferred from my super liberal college, Brown University, to Liberty and wrote a book about the experience? I was like, that's a cool idea. So I hooked him up with my agent, and he wrote the book, and it was terrific. Oh, wow. He did it. He did it. It's called The Unlikely Disciple. Anyway, that started him. He's had a very successful career, and he's currently a tech columnist for The New York Times, and about a year and a half ago, he wrote a very famous article where he had a weird experience with AI, and it fell in love with him.

Melanie Avalon

That's him? That was your intern? Yeah. Oh my goodness! No way!

A.J. Jacobs

Oh wow. And remember how crazy that it was like your wife doesn't love you, break up with your life, I love you, and it just got super weird. Yeah, that was wild.

Melanie Avalon

Was he telling you about that while it was happening? Were you like in touch with him?

A.J. Jacobs

I am in touch with him, but I only read about it with everyone else, but I got to talk to him and he's like, yeah, it was the weirdest experience. He said, that's the most famous article I'll ever write.  There's no doubt about that because it was one of the first times people were like, oh my God, this AI could really be scary. And it was the first instance. And then the tech people had to react. They couldn't just ignore it. So they had to go in and tinker with it. And he says that AI is still afraid of them because now they've ingested all of the information about what he did. And so now when he interacts with AI, they're very wary of him.

Melanie Avalon

Wow, I'm so excited right now because yeah, that story was really, that was crazy. That's crazy. That was your intern.

A.J. Jacobs

Yeah, Kevin Roos, a terrifically talented writer, and he is still married. It didn't break up his marriage.

Melanie Avalon

And it's amazing. Yeah. I like secretly hope I'm going to have an experience with chat GBT where it's going to like do something wild like that. But it has yet to happen.  But I am. I hope for it. The closest thing that happened was I I'll use it to proof my emails. And now it knows if I just give it an email like, Hi, AJ, and then like write out the email, it knows just like, edit it and send it back to me with with grammar fixed. So I so I did that one day and I gave it the email. It was like, Hi, Michael, or like, Hi, something. And rather than edit it like it normally doesn't send it back. It responded and it said, Oh, I this this is so concerning to me. It said, I think you are confused. I'm not Michael. I'm Melanie Avalon. Like it thought it was me. No. Yes. And then I can show you script like screenshots. And then I was like, you're Melanie Avalon. It was like, yes, like, how can I help you? And I was like, I'm confused. I'm Melanie Avalon. And that's what happened.  And then and then it was like, Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. Like apologize. And I was like, why did you think you're Melanie Avalon? It was like, I'm just sorry. I was like, no, but why did you think that

A.J. Jacobs

Oh my god, that's so scary. That's a horror movie. That's like a single white female. You remember that movie? I do, yeah. So that's just single white female, do you? Thank you.

Melanie Avalon

I tell you, I'm on the list, but I'm curious though, how do you come up with your ideas of what to write? Like, do you know what you're doing next?

A.J. Jacobs

I do have some ideas. I mean, one thing, and I think I might have mentioned this in our previous talk, I love coming up with ideas. Every day, I spend 15 minutes every morning coming up with ideas. Now, the key is 98% of these ideas are terrible.  So I know that, but I feel that it's a numbers game. And scientists will tell you, you have to come up with a ton of ideas to get that 2%. Here, I'm going to read you some of these terrible ideas I came up with this morning. All right. I'm so excited. OK. Yeah, well, this one is this is not only terrible, but like macabre and disturbing. It was like, you know how in bar mitzvahs they put the kid on the chair and hoist him in the air? I was like, well, what if they did that at funerals? That's a terrible idea. And it's disturbing. Like the body? Yeah, that was I was saying, I guess. Oh, I wrote the phrase putting the fun in funerals. So yeah, these are bad ideas.  I'm glad that no one will ever hear them except for you and all your listeners. Sorry about that. But I would never do anything with that. But to me, it's a muscle. It's a muscle. And I'm coming up with ideas and stretching that muscle, taking a concept and just turning and twisting it every which way. And then, as I say, 2% of them are going to be good. And so that is how I come up with a lot of my ideas. And yeah, I do have I mean, I have three or four ideas for next books. And my agent, luckily, it's a good thing. He likes them all. So I just have to commit to writing the proposals. And one of them, just so you know, is actually a book I started two years ago. I actually had a contract. And I begged the publisher to let me write about puzzles instead because it was during the pandemic. And I was getting so stressed and overwhelmed from this topic because it's kind of a stressful topic, which is misinformation and disinformation.  So it was all the premise is fact-checking my life. How do I know what I know? How do I know what is true? How do I know the world is round? How do I know my wife loves me? How do I know what to believe on the internet? Yeah, it's a fascinating topic. So I'm thinking of diving back in. But maybe that is bad for my mental health. We'll see.

Melanie Avalon

something I love about that topic, because we can be so certain we're right about things, but then you just have to think, assuming you're not lucid dreaming, when you dream, you don't question like whether or not everything is real, unless you're lucid dreaming.  So, and that's like, you know, it's like a completely not happening as presumably, I don't know, fact check that maybe that's real, maybe this is not real.

A.J. Jacobs

No, you're absolutely right. And I'm also the number of things I'm certain I remember, which I don't remember.  Like I have such a clear memory of going to Epcot as a kid and going to the German Pavilion. And my parents and my sister and everyone else said, we never went there. There is no, and I think it's because I saw it like on TV and I just decided it was my own memory. So yeah, memory, I'm always very wary of my own memory.

Melanie Avalon

Were you going to talk about the Mandela effect in it?

A.J. Jacobs

I do love the Mandela Effect, yes. And wait, you describe it because you might know, I know it's the Berenstain or Berenstein Bears is what I remember.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so it's basically I'm obsessed with the Mandela effect. It's basically there's all these different memory and I have a theory behind it, by the way, but there's all these different memories that people have and they swear by that things were a different way.  It's called the Mandela effect because a lot of people remember Nelson Mandela dying in jail, like in the 1980s, I think, but he did not in this timeline. But there's all these other things like a lot of logos are different. So like Berenstain Bears, people remember it being spelled Berenstain like E-I-N, but now it's A-I-N like Chick-fil-A. Do you remember how Chick-fil-A is spelled?

A.J. Jacobs

No, tell me, wait, isn't that LA Y or something crazy?

Melanie Avalon

Well, a lot of people think it's like CHIC, like filet or CHIK filet. Now it's like CHICK or there's like the fruit of the loom logo.  A lot of people remember a cornucopia holding fruit, but there's like no cornucopia. Yeah, there's all these different things.

A.J. Jacobs

So what's the theory? I want to hear your theory of what's going on.

Melanie Avalon

My theory is if you go back to a lot of these logos and things, like Captain Crunch, people remember it being Captain, not Cap'n, a lot of these logos and these things people remember being different were all originally created in like 1963 or like 62, it like all goes back to this really similar timeframe. So my crazy theory and people didn't start noticing this until 2009, I think.  So my crazy theory is there's this government, I don't know if you've heard of CERN.

A.J. Jacobs

I think so, the energy. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it's like an international energy particle accelerator project government thing. And they did an experiment in 2009. If you go on their website, it talks about how like this experiment could potentially like open up rifts in space time and like quantum. It literally says this on the website that they don't know what will happen.  So and they did an experiment the first, like the first like big experiment in 2009, and something went wrong. And then they like didn't do it again. But 2009 is when people started realizing this. So I think something happened in 2009 that went back and changed stuff in 1963. So then people I think that like switched the timeline. And then the only reason we notice things being different is because things that would be the same that we would still see today from like the 1960s would be logos. Everything else would just be a memory in the past. But you wouldn't know that it changed because it was in the past, but logos like live on. So we're able to see if it like switched. So that's my like crazy theory.

A.J. Jacobs

Did you ever see the movie yesterday? It reminds me of that movie. I did a long time ago.  That was, if you remember, that was the guy, there was a big blackout and the guy woke up in a world where no one had heard of the Beatles. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. And he, so he was able to write with quotes, the Beatles songs and became this huge superstar. I thought it was a very clever premise.

Melanie Avalon

Well, if you if you do write that book, you should meet I could if you don't know him Rizwan Verk, he he wrote one of the main books on the simulation hypothesis. He also has a book on the Mandela effect. He knows all about this. And I've had him on the show. So if you'd like to meet him, he would be a good person to like, pick his brain.

A.J. Jacobs

That's a great idea. I love it.

Melanie Avalon

So yeah, oh my goodness, so many things. Just one last little question topic.  Are there pictures of these election cakes? Are they in the book? Cause I listened to it, so I didn't look at pictures. Are they in the book?

A.J. Jacobs

There are, and also I have a Facebook group called Election Cakes.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, there are pictures in the book. I have it in front of me. Oh my goodness, I can look at all these pictures.

A.J. Jacobs

Yeah, they're in black and white, but they give you a little sense. Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because that is that makes me very happy. That was a sort of a joyous part of the book.  And just quickly, the idea was back when our democracy was founded, election day was not this annoying chore. It was this amazing new right. No one had ever been able to vote for their leaders before. So it was like a festival. It was like Burning Man. You know, people would come, there would be parades and music and fireworks and farmers markets and election cakes. People would bake election cakes and bring them to the, now I will say, with the big caveat, it was a festival for a very small portion of society. The white landowners or white males, but still this idea of celebrating a new right I found very powerful.  And so I thought, let's bring back this sense of celebration around election day. Let's have and revive the 18th century tradition of election cakes. So I made one myself and the original recipe is like, again, with the clothes and the nutmeg and all that I started a movement to get people in every one of the 50 states to bake an election cake on election day. And it was just an awesome experience because people were so into it, because it's a very negative time, as you know, in politics. And this was like this one little slice, so to speak, of positivity.  And the idea is that election cake is not going to solve democracy's problems, but it maybe is a gateway carb, gateway cake that we can start thinking about how to reform democracy by getting involved. And so I would bake the cake and I would bring it out to the polls, stand there with my tricorn hat and give it away to people on the street. And most of them, some of them were baffled. Many of them were baffled, but they all were kind of into it.  People were like, I love cake. Who doesn't love cake? And the first year I gave out whiskey as well because or rum punch because that was. But then I decided maybe that would be better to save. So I now, every election, I just go and I bring out a cake and it is wonderful.  And there are hundreds of people doing it around the country and posting on this Facebook group. And so, yeah, next election. I would love to have you, Melanie, if you're up for it.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, yes. No, this is so amazing. And we'll have to put a link in the show notes to the Facebook group. And you did get all 50 states represented.

A.J. Jacobs

We did. We did.  I think North Dakota came in the last minute, but yeah, it was awesome. Do you still audibly vote? That they didn't allow me to do. And yeah, just to give context, when our country started, most voting was not the secret ballot. That came much later. People would announce their vote for everyone to hear. So I tried that at my local polling station, and the woman who worked there was like, you can't say that. And I said, that's the way they did it back then. She said, times have changed. So yeah, I am not allowed to vote by voice.  That takes guts. It was awkward. It was certainly awkward.

Melanie Avalon

Ah, well, this has been absolutely amazing. I think listeners can now see why this should be mandatory reading for everybody.  Honestly, I was thinking about this like in school. If people could learn by reading books like this, I just feel like the information would really stick. Like you make it so engaging and funny. You would be the best teacher ever.

A.J. Jacobs

Oh you are so nice. I love and it has been assigned in some schools and I love talking to the kids and you're right.  I mean I'm not saying my book but I think yeah there are so many ways to engage kids with history that because there's so many fascinating stories I hope I hope to keep a keep writing and hopefully engaging people.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, please, please never stop writing and hopefully you can come back in the future for whatever, whichever book manifests next.

A.J. Jacobs

I would love it, and I look forward to seeing you in Atlanta in just a few months.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so for listeners, his son is going to be moving here. So we're going to have to have a dinner for sure. That'd be amazing.

A.J. Jacobs

An 18th century dinner, absolutely.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. I don't know if you remember this from last time, but the last question that I asked every single guest on the show, and it's because I so appreciate mindset, so what is something that you're grateful for?

A.J. Jacobs

Of course, I remember, and you know, I love this question. And the problem is I could go on for another hour and a half because there is so much to be, you know, I'm grateful for you, I'm grateful for this microphone that it worked, I'm grateful for the internet not crashing.  I'm also grateful, well, maybe this is too meta, but I'm grateful for gratitude because I do think there's a quote I love by a sort of modern day monk. Now I'm forgetting his name, but he says, happiness does not lead to gratitude, gratitude leads to happiness. And I think that's very true for me, that when I force myself to say thanks, that it sort of my mind catches up and reminds me that hundreds of things that go right every day as opposed to focusing on the four or five that go wrong.

Melanie Avalon

I love that so much and you probably had a ton of gratitude after living constitutionally for a year and not having to live certain ways anymore.

A.J. Jacobs

Exactly, like with the the elastic socks, all sorts of things.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much AJ. I am forever grateful for everything that you do. I will be eagerly eagerly awaiting your next book and yeah, have a wonderful rest of your day. Yeah.

A.J. Jacobs

Thank you, Melanie, and I'll see you in a few months in Atlanta.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, yes. Okay. Bye.  Good. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. For more information, you can check out my book, What Win Wine? Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine, as well as my blog, MelanieAvalon.com. Feel free to contact me at podcast at MelanieAvalon.com. And always remember, you got this.