Leah Feiger: I do. The last few days, this has popped up. You’re like, “I’ve been hearing them.” It’s like, “Oop, Zoë, your invoice is ready.” And I’m like, “What is happening over there?”
Zoë Schiffer: You’ve been hearing them. It’s embarrassing. That is embarrassing.
Leah Feiger: It’s kind of wild. No, honestly, if it’s making your life better, I’m happy to hear it. And it’s … I’m a proponent of using this for your annoying admin tools. That, to me, is not … If you were like, “And I decided to write a book with AI,” I’d be like, “That’s embarrassing for you.”
Zoë Schiffer: No, no. And Shoshana said this, too. I mean, she works with a lot of clients, and she was like, “Human writing is your differentiator.” You never want to use it for those things, but there’s a lot of things around your actual core work where it can be useful. Brian?
Brian Barrett: Oh, me?
Zoë Schiffer: Yeah.
Brian Barrett: Well, my WIRED is life out there in space.
Zoë Schiffer: Ooh, not where I thought that was going to go.
Brian Barrett: Bear with me. No, and … Look, I think it’s a obviously big mystery of the universe. Are we alone here? I think two developments in the last week, super interesting. Not saying that they mean that we’re not, but for the first time in history, astronomers detected a sugar molecule floating around in space tens of thousands of light years away. You need these kinds of molecules for life to happen. So it is not a confirmation there’s life out there, but it is a sign that like, “Oh, there’s a stew out there that could potentially work.” Similarly, just a few days after that, 48 light years away, astronomers confirmed for the first time the existence of a rocky planet with an atmosphere that’s also in the habitable zone, which means that it is a similar Earth, capable of supporting life. Probably has water, probably has all those elements. So some big breakthroughs in astronomy that suggest we’re not alone.
Zoë Schiffer: Brian, do you believe in aliens?
Brian Barrett: I don’t know … I think the idea that there’s no form of life on any other planet in the entire universe feels crazy to me. I don’t know if it’s like … Yeah, I don’t know if we’d call it sentient life. I don’t think they have Tinder, but I think there’s got to be something.
Leah Feiger: I love to hear that Brian’s version of sentience involves Tinder.
Brian Barrett: That’s the bar.
Leah Feiger: That’s the bar.
Brian Barrett: Yeah. Anything short of that, I’m sorry. No, doesn’t count.
Leah Feiger: OK, what’s your TIRED?
Brian Barrett: The opposite of that.
Leah Feiger: Oh my God.
Zoë Schiffer: OK. Leah, say this. WIRED/TIRED.
Leah Feiger: OK. My WIRED/TIRED, I have to say it’s entirely science themed. So Brian’s was a perfect entrance into this. My TIRED is I’m really, really concerned about El Niño. I am looking at maps and temperature predictions quite literally daily right now. And part of it is out of a really, really big concern for just globally, what does this mean? The impact on food security, the impact on communities that are going to be affected. El Niños are historically very, very bad for sea life, even though this is a natural process. This is going to be a super El Niño year. And across the world, you have seen areas that are generally full of life just become devoid of life during El Niño. And if this El Niño continues for a very long time, what is that going to mean for shark hot spots in the Galápagos and things like that? The Humboldt Current. So this is what I’m thinking about a lot, and I’m very TIRED of it, and I’m incredibly upset about it. If you two are stressing about El Niño and want to chat, let me know. I’m always around.
