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We survived the media onslaught fine but the real world effects linger.

In Episode #479 of Musings, Juan and I discuss: the fear & craziness of the recent Cyclone Alfred here in Brisbane, whether it lived up to it's fearsome reputation (it didn't), the panic buying & actual impact on his property, why hyper local media might be the future, why legacy media has to induce excitement/worry but won't actually show the things we're scared of and how we intend to consume information going forward.

Huge shoutout to Queen Mother for the boost & our other sat streamers. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Timeline:
(00:00:00) Introduction and Technical Difficulties
(00:04:27) Cyclone Alfred: Media Hype and Personal Preparations
(00:09:36) Impact Of The Cyclone: Personal Stories
(00:16:02) Community Reactions & Over-Preparation
(00:20:49) Perspectives: Global & Past
(00:25:46) Boostagram Lounge
(00:32:33) Lessons Learned & Future Preparations
(00:45:56) Actual Practical Media
(00:53:01) Final Thoughts/Summary

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[00:00:08] Juan Granados:

Welcome back. We are tired, but we are the mere mortals. You've got Juan here. Tired and tired over here as well. Now, this is the second take we're doing this because Juan, in his sleep deprived state has obviously turned off the microphone. Good. But thank you very much, dad, for calling me. Mom messaged me. Petar sending messages as well and everyone else who was trying to fix this up. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, 03/16/2025.   Musings, we want to talk about,   I think the title of this is like media. I think I said fear and flee the Brisbane cyclone. Fear and flee the Brisbane cyclone. Something about the media. Look, part of this, what are we talking about in musings? Amusing is we try to go in a deep particular topic, try to go a little bit lighthearted. We'll try to keep it even more lighthearted because both of us are pretty wrecked for the week to spin.   But   I'll get into the heavier topic of the cyclone and why I wanna talk about it. Some things did occur in my property.  

You know, what truly happened? Was it bad? Was it good?   But I'll get to some lighthearted stuff because I got I want to talk about   I did say media, but in general, I guess, is is the information, the way that we consume information   in the expected versus the actual in the reality. But I've got two little lighthearted functions.   So the first one, I keep sort of saying like, oh, man. I'm I'm supremely tired. I'm wrecked. And it is indeed so if I said to you as like information,   if you didn't know me, I said, wow, like, I'm really tired. I'm exceedingly tired. This is like, I haven't been sleeping well for a whole week.   If, that was kind of like the the headline of the news article and whatnot.  

You would say, okay, that's maybe catastrophizing a little bit, maybe towards the extreme. If I looked at the actual, weirdly enough on my app to see like my sleep behavior.   Yes, it's been   worse than what I've been sleeping the last few months, but   I'll say it's   15% worse, 10% worse. It's not like like I'm completely lost all all realms of sleep. It's like, ah, you're still finding it in in there somewhere.   And, to create, to top it all off, just before this as well. So, I mentioned to you before this podcast, hey, I wanted to change it to 09:30. Why? I had a run plan with a mate of mine, Toph. We're gonna do, catch up with the kids to go as well. My daughter's sick. She's not sleeping. I'm not sleeping.   I was supposed to go do a training session at midday as well with someone, new mine,   Anna's sister's,   boyfriend. And I was like, I'm gonna go do that as well. Let me have something in the afternoon. Came to a little bit. Fuck it. I was like, ah, too late. I'm not gonna do anything today apart from this podcast. But before this podcast, I went downstairs and I still ran seven kilometers on the treadmill and I felt, ready for this? It was easy. It was like the easiest run I've done in such a long time. And I was like, what the hell, man? Like, you know, it's and and it's very much,   maybe what I expected it was gonna be like I'm gonna be this is gonna be the hot hardest thing horrible   and in actuality okay it wasn't that and so I felt better from it and then sometimes again trying to connect it to this media landscape and whatnot if you see this expectation from media or information like oh, this is gonna be a worse thing ever, like, batten down the hatches and then when it comes along and it either doesn't meet it or it does meet it, obviously changes the way that we perceive it. So that's one one. The other one, because it literally just came through. It was a from our friend, Astro Joey. I was asking him, what is it with Canberra dominating the Broncos, Joey? Now,   Canberra Raiders, NRL team, Broncos, prison Broncos. So it's like sort of where we live. I haven't watched a single NRL game at all. In fact, I just saw like the score because someone else posted about it. That's the only reason I asked it and he came back and replied, you, yes Canberra are on a mission. Just the media was saying we could come last, now it's going crazy. So again, here's a comparison where the media's gone for the Canberra Raiders and said they're gonna be lost. Terrible. What a joke. Now, I don't know what inputs. Again, I'm not I haven't followed it closely at all now for so many years in saying like, they're gonna be terrible.  

On the opposite side, Brisbane Broncos, I guess where they are right now in the years, they're good. They're like, there should be like a top of the table team. But here you go competing and for whatever reason,   Canberra has dominated them or beaten them. Right.   And so again, that from a looking at it in terms of media or information, it's   okay, yes, one thing may be placed out in terms of   news or somebody saying something.   But the reality well, the actual versus the expectation, at least for media always seems to miss the mark and sometimes more   than less, I guess I would say.  

And so that's then what leads me into   cycling, cycling. So I want to ask you first of all, kind of before,   was it Alfred?   Yeah, Alfred. Yeah. Before cycling Alfred,   decided to grace us with his presence.   How do you listen to much of the cyclone or the information that was coming across in the media at all? So  

[00:04:48] Kyrin Down:

I don't consume much   news media nowadays anyway. So   I get my sources secondhand   from from other people. And   that still works pretty well, to be honest. You know, I found out if it's important, you'll get told two days before it came   plenty of plenty enough time to prepare if you if you needed to. Maybe some people needed more than two days, but,   it was. Yeah, just told like a secondhand from someone, probably brother or brother's girlfriend.   And   yeah,   I did.   And   what was my perception secondhand of that was, oh, there's got to be a big one. It's going to come. Was it because Brisbane direct because you absorbed it that way or because they thought that was what they were telling me because it was going to happen.   And especially my brother's girlfriend because she's Colombian, she hasn't been here before. So   she's never been through a cyclone. I guess I've   technically caught the tail end of one when I went up to Mackay and for the first time and so arrived there during the cyclone, I think.  

And I was just like, it's just gonna be windy and bit of rain. You know, I got nothing. Nothing too crazy.   I don't know if it's kind of like COVID where it's   is it, you know, first time we hear about it, it's just like,   it's just going to be a thing. It'll blow over soon. Probably won't affect me that much. Well, that   was turned out to be terribly wrong.   And   maybe   I should have   listened to more and I just got lucky this time that nothing bad happened to me. So   I kind of think   you can be in a vulnerable spot with   being too   lazy   to   to like easygoing,   it'll be fine sort of thing   when   there are certainly times you should   have a bit more caution, but the harder bit is finding out when when are those times when you you need to pay attention.  

Yeah, pay attention. And   I think   there's probably ones where it's like,   even just reasonable   common sense.   Where we've been at before in heavy rains.   I actually don't think the rain was even that heavy during this whole cyclone compared to other rains we've had True. Yeah, I bet you that. Yep. It has had like a little bit of water in our garage, but that's just not like a really, really local minimum low spot. And other than that, we haven't had any flooding or anything. So it's like,   well,   we it hasn't come close before. So is this one if this one does happen,   is it going to be like catastrophic   with waist deep in water in our house?  

Or is it just going to be like some minor inconveniences of maybe water entering under the doors and   have us having to deal with that? So I think there is probably   circumstances where you could be   say you've changed place, so you move to a new place here. Now one's   up on a hill. Does   one need to worry about flooding here?   Probably not. So most of the flooding  

[00:08:06] Juan Granados:

concerns about the cyclone would be totally irrelevant. That's correct. Even though so I there's a golf course that's,   maybe 500 meters away from across the road, like the main road. And on that,   the I guess, part of   a water body goes from the quarry out towards main river areas. And that heavily flooded like heavy, heavy flooded, and a lot of energy got cut off around that area. But for our area,   yeah, there wasn't there was energy cut offs, but the water ran off pretty well, which I was like, well, this is pretty amazing.   But and   to tell a little bit later, the wind, the wind is what actually does. Yep.  



[00:08:45] Kyrin Down:

So there's kind of ones where it's like, okay, well,   you'll hear a lot of stuff about you got to prepare for this, this is going to happen, etc, etc.   And there's probably only like, two out of 20 things which are relevant to you,   which would be power cutting off and maybe being careful of the wind. Yep.   And maybe   flooding   in your local area. So even though you might not be affected right here, it might be the   one street leading out of your place could get flooded. Yep. And so that could be a problem. So there's certainly like things to think about.   But when you're just blasted with this   nonstop coverage for so for those who don't know who weren't here,   I doubt there was much coverage of any other news for the two days beforehand and the two days afterwards of anything other than just cycling. The cycling stuff. Yeah. So   you certainly get   I don't know, is it overrepresented?  

I for my life, if if I was watching the news and I watched that, it would be an overrepresentation  

[00:09:47] Juan Granados:

of what actually occurred to me during my life. It would be disproportionate. Yeah. Yeah. So like, and I think the reason why I talk about it, there was a few things. So in like, kind of in the lead up to the event of getting the cyclone or the wind and the rain that came through was it was the once again, since I've decided to not pay attention to news as much again, I talk about on the podcast ages ago where I went through this phase there.   Every morning I was checking like financial reviews and this and the Russian news and the Chinese news and stuff like that to keep up. Now that's long gone now but that coming up   for whatever reason I started going oh I need to pay attention   I started checking some like even just googling about the cycle and being like okay what are they saying?  

At least for all the social media platforms I'm sure everyone kind of like locally was getting this whilst everything was just about cycling about either what was happening or what was getting destroyed or what was coming or what time. I even found myself going on to I think it's windy.com. You can go windy.com it'll show you like live tracking of all the wind in the world and you could like focus in on what time it'll do this and whatnot.   So the anticipation   was building up I guess in the lead up to it and for me as well the way I found out as well was I was at the shops.   I was at Aldi, local Aldi and I was walking around it was five days before it was supposed to hit and I wasn't aware of it at all because all of a sudden everyone was just buying everything from the shelves. I was like, this is odd. What's going on? Like, why is it so busy? Why can't I get a banana? Why where's the break going? Sure. And I was going through the aisle   and everyone was like full trolleys. I just had a couple of things. I asked like an older lady who was behind me. I was like, well, everyone's doing like big shopping on a Monday. Like, what's going on? She was like, I've gotta prepare. They've run out of water bottles for the cyclone. And I was like, what? I was like, cyclone, what's going on? So I've got to kind of like looked into it and was like, oh, okay. Now, for me, right. So just me, it's also looking after like food for daughter stuff like that. Yeah.  



[00:11:45] Kyrin Down:

The thing that confuses me is why is it not the   non perishables the things that you'd actually want?   Yeah, why why why is everyone there's still tons of tinned food, you're not gonna struggle with tinned food, you're not gonna struggle with ice.  

[00:11:59] Juan Granados:

It's apples and stuff that will go off immediately. One of the posts I saw that kind of comment on Instagram that was like, man, some people out there, like, must be like shitting 20, like twenty four seven amount of toilet paper that's taken on and stuff. So it's nuts. It's because the, you know, the thing that you should probably reasonably  

[00:12:15] Kyrin Down:

be worried about is the refrigerator signing off. So you're buying all of this stuff which Just for it to go to waste. This will just go out and it'll go off immediately. I don't understand. Like don't panic buy, don't panic buy. But so  

[00:12:28] Juan Granados:

I kind of saw that and then again, this is how I'm not as probably oblivious as you are to like general media, but I'm like unaware to most regards. I then was like, oh damn, I booked my parents   a Tangalooma holiday for the weekend of the cyclone   for them to go on like sumo dolphins and enjoy the holiday. So of course I then have to proceed to call but I got lucky, I got lucky, me and more lights because   it was within seven days, so,   seven days or more you can get a full refund, full rescheduling, all good, No, no concerns. If it's within seven days,   you lose your money. So you got to pay for it again, all that sort of stuff. I called them and it was five days. It was basically five days from the holiday. I called them up. I was like, Look,   the cyclone is coming.  

Looks like you're probably like, I was like, look, the ferries are not even gonna be working, let alone, you know, getting someone out there or like being around blah, blah, blah, blah. And thankfully, I was on the call, the lady on the phone, and I tried to be as honest as possible.   Lady on phone was like, oh, we like we just got a message from our   group or whatever about starting to let people know that we have to do changes and whatnot, if you want I can reschedule it right now for you no no charge. And I was like, yes thank goodness because like everyone would have had to get rescheduled to another time and if I called a couple of days later or if they sent an email I probably would have to reschedule them for like winter so I was able to schedule them in in a couple of weeks time so I was like that's good awesome awesome so going into it I was kind of like unaware but And knowing your parents, I've I've thought they would have maybe been willing to risk it. Well, I messaged them. I messaged them and I was like, hey guys, like,   I've actually like, I'm reaching out to the place to actually get it like changed because I don't and they were like, oh, oh, we weren't thinking about telling you this or like tomorrow we went to go see you to see if like, you know, maybe we had to change it or whatnot. But yeah, they knew about it but we're like, oh, well, I guess we'll just go to the cycling and go like in the middle of it. I was like, man, what the hell?  

So in any case Swim with the dolphins up in the sky. Yeah. Right from the right from the beginning, like even like a couple of days out from an event, let's just say, like, we weren't aware as much. But obviously, you were getting it towed from people. I started then like tuning in and listening in. And I think this is a bit I guess I want to talk about was it then starts elevating your expectations. So my expectations started going to,   woah, what's going to happen if it's a CAT two? What if we go to like category three or well category three is like 100 and sixty-one 70   kilometers per hour winds. I started doing some mathematical calculations,   if you will in one or less because I did a quick check and then the Australian standards,   for how you build buildings in Brisbane at least it's a   a group B or category B area of Australia, they only design buildings so about 200 kilometers per hour that's in like what you design to, you probably build them to like two ten, two 20. It's like, oh, what if it like picks up even more and it gets cat four man, you're gonna have like buildings falling apart because then you don't build them in Brisbane to that effect. I was like, oh, this is gonna be crazy. Okay, now long story short, didn't get category four, in fact, I went from category two down to one down to tropical site, tropical storm basically to a low, so it didn't go that way when the other way.  

So   I started going okay, well, my expectation is setting into like, oh, there's gonna be crazy. As we drove through some suburbs around here. People were boarding up their windows, people were putting sandbags everywhere. So I was you know, we started me and my partner were like are we are we not preparing enough? Like what's going on? Like we we think it'll be like okay pretty stormy and gotta be watch out for it and have food at home but I don't think we're preparing overly   as much for what's about to come. So some of that panic sets in   and then the actual, you know, what happened? I'll get quickly to actually what happened. I want to find out what happened in your area. But   for us, you know, cycling hit, it was supposed to be like Thursday   night, but it was so slow that it ended up hitting properly on Saturday. I think for some areas was like Friday night follows a Saturday night. For us on the Saturday night. Yeah, lots of rain, but it was dominantly the wind. And it was the fact that we had just lots of trees around our area that just like to start a falling but   like supremely lucky for us,   three big like, it wasn't tree, but like big branches of the tree fell down. Two of them landing, you know, a meter away from the home, the other one about five meters away from the home. Then one of them, by sheer luck, it might the way that I must have visualized it is that it snapped off, bounced off like the fence   and then bounced into our roof.  

And it took, to give you an idea of how much there was, I think it took about,   maybe like two and a bit hours between me, that and my partner to like cut it all up. They had put it into position. Dragging it down, we got like another hour. Yeah, yeah, we   did it ourselves. I called, I called SES, which   is the emergency service like line that can get you to help out, which could get you a website fixed because I applied for them to come out at like four in the morning.   At about six in the morning, I was like, okay. They're probably not gonna come out. All I wanted to help is just to get it off the roof basically.   So then I went out there in the rain to cut about myself off the roof just in case I was like creating any issues. I canceled it at that point. And they called me at like 3PM.  

SES to say, Oh, hey, we're on our way. We'll be there in five minutes. Okay. At that point, I've already chopped this tree down. So I was like, Oh, now I canceled it. Like this morning. Like I've got the like thing, my approval email saying you've got the oh, we'll cancel it for you then. I was like,   okay. Yes. Obviously, it's SES. You need to go pick that up.   But yeah, then and then we actually had to get someone out to come and pick it up and take it away because it ended up filling Joey's van like an electrician's van, it filled up that entire van. And there was still more stuff that was kind of like left to the side. So in the end, for us, it was like, we, yes, we lost power only for twenty four hours or so.   Like yes we had trees come down, yes it was scary because I guess when it was happening it was like oh my god like is it gonna get worse, is it gonna fall in the house, is what are gonna create some damages but in the end I guess   the the build up to it what everyone was saying like oh it's gonna be so ridiculously bad or at least what the picture that was painted that was gonna happen to me, to me was oh my god we need to have food for like a week, we might need to like leave to go to a hotel. I knew people who left their home and went to Hamilton Island All The Week until like the the cyclone had gone past. People were like leaving so I was like man it was gonna be like catastrophic.  

In reality for us it was a couple of trees went down, yes we lost power,   Our fridge was out for about twenty four hours. We like the good Samaritans that don't really understand what's going on. Still ate the food that was in there including yoghurt. We fed our daughter yoghurt. She was sick the entire night and threw up everywhere.   Was that why she's sick? That's what, no, that's why she was sick then. Now she's sick for whatever other reason. So yeah, learning, don't eat the yogurt that's been left out.   But then,   you know, in the end, like the reality is it's like, you know what?  

I probably   over expected by   70% what was gonna happen. The reality was   20%, thirty %. Yes, it did pay to probably prepare enough. Yes, I didn't want to be left because, the shops near us are completely like lost power for a couple of days and I tried to go to the shop. So it happened on Saturday, I tried to go to the shops on Monday to get food for the fam and there was still barely anything at the shops. So it wasn't really until like Wednesday I was able to properly get some food for the family and even places like McDonald's and stuff will either close or so for you couldn't even get into them.   So   yes, pace and prepare.  

But sometimes, especially when it's the way it usually gets presented in media with these sort of things is they will overblow it, they'll over   consider what may occur to what well, it's fear, you know, feeds the news and feeds the eyeballs. So you'd actually keep on checking and feeding into the well, I've got to be checking because if I don't check, I'm going to miss out something critical that I need to know.   Again, though, the workplaces because you know, the actual   exciting cycling,   like it was like something like 250,000   people lost power, like houses lost power.  

I knew people who that like bottom of the floors, they get flooded.   Some people who like lost power for quite a few days so not to say like it was just a fear, I'm sure it did hit people and they did hit people like really really hard but it was probably a more select few than the   apocalyptic way that the media might have you know been telling and being like everybody like absolutely take take the high ground before you get to float away. Like, okay, that did not happen. It wasn't like, get everyone get into Noah's Ark.  

[00:20:49] Kyrin Down:

The world's resetting. Yeah. If you want a visual representation,   check out some of our old videos of just type in Brisbane flooding. And there was one that we did   probably during the  

[00:21:00] Juan Granados:

the like crazy '21?  

[00:21:01] Kyrin Down:

Was it '21 or '22? I can't remember. But the there was '21 floods. It was storming   really   hard and.   Half in the park. Yeah, we're out in the park filming and then a couple of days later we went by the Brisbane River. You couldn't see the river from there, but you just got the feeling in the air of what we're talking about here.  

[00:21:21] Juan Granados:

Honestly and I guess if you're so inclined to go watch go back to those videos where it's raining and we're outdoors it was probably raining that hard that's how hard it was raining during like the cycle. I reckon even less. I reckon it was harder   then. Yeah yeah yeah yeah so   I've seen it rain harder. It was just a more prolonged amount of rain.   But if I like I would be ashamed though and this is is another part. I would think I would be ashamed if I said, yeah, I've been through a cyclone and then you go talk to someone who's been like cycling Katrina in The US. That was a hurricane. But  

[00:21:54] Kyrin Down:

the same thing.   The our friend Mantra was like his   his girlfriend was was freaking out. She's like, we got to do this. We got to do that. Got a sandbag. Got to do that. And he's   is from Fiji. And so he was he was saying like wake me up when it's category three sort of deal.   And yeah, sure enough, they had some minor problems as well. And the sandbags did come in handy for the little bit of flooding that they had. But honestly, like you could probably just use towel instead.   And   it certainly   yeah, just for me,   the it's funnel, funnily enough,   it solved as many problems as it created. So   the   big effects, I guess,   one, the gym was closed. So I had to spend two days indoors, which was not super fun.  

So didn't like that that was just straight up negative. But the actual effects, we had a little leak in our roof, so there was a little water dripping down, but the rain also washed my car.   So, you know, net negative, that's probably about the same.  

[00:22:58] Juan Granados:

There was a little bit of water that tried to flood in one of our side doors because we hadn't cleaned up. Did you try to fix it? Hold on. Did you try to fix the roof? We haven't done that yet. No. Okay. Do you want to hear a real Colombian story? Show our parents? Yeah, sure. Here we go.   Sunday morning, so it's still raining, still windy. I get this message from mom and dad and they're like,   there's, there's a like water dropping from, from the roof, right? Yeah. It's still like the bloody storm still going. It's like, I can't remember. I can't remember if it was early morning or like late night. They're like, what are coming through? I I was like, man, you're gonna have to get something like, yep. Like, dry it down. You probably have to get someone to come out and and take a look at it.   Then I get these subsequent messages.  

I I don't think I got this exactly right, mom and dad. You can't In the attic. But no, no, no. They weren't in the attic, dude. They weren't in the attic. My dad climbed the roof   of the house during the bloody storm. When my mom trying to go along with him, they stepped on a table that had glass, broke the glass. Oh, no. But my dad went up there with, like, a top   and covered the roof,   with the like the ploys that was going through and then like came back down out of it and he took a selfie afterwards. So Santa's been like   put the top up like table broken or whatever else I don't know exactly how you got broken I haven't seen it yet and I was like   man, like, no. Like, I think my my sister messaged me like, look, next time you wanna do that, like, maybe like ask someone else as well to come and help out. Sure. I know my mom and dad, this will never end. They'll be like 90 years old and they'll still be doing this. Right? But, yeah. So don't do that, folks. And the storm, please don't do that. But my parents did to try to stop that singular drop that I was going through. Yeah, Okay. No, we didn't go to that extent.  



[00:24:32] Kyrin Down:

But yeah, the other problem we had was like a little bit of water tried to come in under one of the doors. Okay.   So we had to put a towel there or something, but it also filled in a couple of the holes in the backyard that butter has been creating. So, you know,   once it was It was kinda like neutral.  

[00:24:47] Juan Granados:

Yeah. For us personally. Yeah, it was, it was totally fine. Yeah. Look, again, lots of people because I've seen some other people in social media. It did impact some people. It's quite hot. Fine. Yeah. I get it. I get it. So it's not I'm not minimizing that. I think it's just if you looked at it on the overall and they said, of the two million people who are gonna be impacted by this,   fuck. It's you're gonna get so   heavily in your brain is all men. The reality is like it was probably 10% of that that actually got that probably needed to prepare as overtly as I did. Probably said ninety percent of people overtly prepare. And then that's where all your food goes away. That's where all your problems.   Man, the amount of fuel stations before the cycling came here, like closed because they all ran out of fuel. I was like, they all ran out of fuel. I was like, what's going on, man? What are you all going to be going on road tripping while the cycling is going? You're all going to be at home. What is happening? So it was it was weird. Like there was some weird   Weird but expected. This is an expected behavior and this is   even more meta. I was talking about.  



[00:25:45] Kyrin Down:

Let's get on to that and after after the boost. Okay.   The the other thing I was just going to mention was   the if I if no one had told me this was a cyclone. Cyclone Alfred. I thought it was a storm. Yeah. Yep.   I thought it was just been storm. I wouldn't have even realized that it was  

[00:26:02] Juan Granados:

correct. Anything larger than just a you know, normal I would have been like just a really extended yeah. Real extended storm. Correct.   Now, boostgrams. So boostgrams is a chance for us to have a bit of a,   I guess, call out for the individuals who've been supporting the the channel. Did we have any this week? I'm not sure we did. Let me bring it up. We had streams, I guess, again, for Okay. Yeah. That was good. I see them. Brilliant. Thank you. So, there's plenty there. We did get the happy birthday one from Queen Mother. Oh, yeah. That's right. And that was 102 sets,   set using fountain.  

So thank you very much, Queen Mother. And then the rest have been just streams coming through from, from working hard or hardly working, does a job equal meaning.   Brilliant. Thank you. So thank you very much for all those streaming chats as well. It's very much appreciated. Me and modelspodcast.com/support  

[00:26:50] Kyrin Down:

if you want to help us out financially   after help me fix my roof. Totally. A leak. A leak.  

[00:26:57] Juan Granados:

One's one's parents' glass table. You know, that's, that's bad stuff. I think it was part little, little, little glass, like square, something like that. I need to get more details.   What was that meta thing that you Oh, yeah. So the meta view that I want to talk about was   the Yeah. With with media or just information in general, like when you absorb it,   there's this initial,   the actual versus expectation. Yes. News will generally set the expectations to be way worse, just so that you can get more eyeballs and more people checking. And And I was gonna say like the reality often   sits between   like completely avoiding the news or the information and like whatever extreme the news and the information is setting. So it's usually in the middle which is probably what happened if I'd heard like, oh there's a cycling coming, and this is gonna be really dramatic if I heard the opposing end, which I did have some people, in like my social being like, this is just gonna be overblown. It's gonna be literally nothing. I honestly could have just gone to the middle of that and gone, okay, probably gonna be a little bit of something. It is gonna be windy. It's gonna be rainy I should prepare I shouldn't prepare to be doing too much yeah I'll probably lose power for one or two days and yeah exactly what would happen rather than it being I'm gonna have their power for three weeks or I'm gonna have no food for three weeks like that's not what's gonna happen. But then I guess the meta underneath that, I guess, is   the   expectation   that I then should have the general population   was,   for lack of, I guess, better word, I thought they'd do better. Like my expectation was like, okay,   why is everyone like panicking? Why is everyone reacting? Which is dumb because the actual reality is,   is general human   emotional, you know, actions that we take. Like everyone takes again, even I   not consuming too much media, all of a sudden for a couple of days I was consuming way more to kind of keeping track on what's going on. So if I'm doing that of course most everyday individuals are going to be even more heavily   influenced or doing something about it and that might mean of course everyone going out there and buying just a little bit extra food that they need or over preparing by buying 300 water bottles just in case they lose access to all humanity for two years. So you know something ridiculous.  

And so I met her going like why why am I like, why did I expect better   of mere mortal lights out there? Even though we all mere mortal lights, I have a lot of people who work in The Philippines   and   over there, you know, I chat to them every every so often and it's like, oh, yep. We've got another cycle coming through and they have a cycloidal typhoon.   Let's say let's say once a month during the, like, wet season.   And I guess me sitting here whenever they say, like, oh, I've got another one coming through and whatnot. I don't it doesn't register   as much of concern because one, you're not in the location. Two, you don't really know how to associate with that that much. Now kind of going through,   like, a low level cyclone to say, they go through a typhoon that's like category three, category three or four, like monthly.  

Now, I guess I'm like, Damn,   I'm like, surprised that people are still working and like not panicking.   But of course, for them, it's monthly, like, you know, they might get this like five times a year. And for them, it's like, Yeah, okay, that's just how you live. So   if in Brisbane,   hopefully not. But if we had like five cyclones per year,   we'd very quickly just get very used to it in that like, Oh, yep. Okay, cool. Here comes this. Okay, category three. All right, we're gonna button this down. Make sure you bring things inside.   Make sure you get enough food for about three or four days. Okay. Cool. Perfect. But then life kind of continues on. So it's a very much,   the underlying thing is, look, immortalized are gonna react,   pretty   don't have an expectation that they're not going to react emotionally, like we are all going to react emotionally. And for the general being, they're probably going to be even more so that I would normally expect. Yeah, but it's, you know, fear of the unknowns, the usual  

[00:30:47] Kyrin Down:

usual like main culprit. That's, that's the scariest thing of all. It's the what ifs, what could happen like   could break in the glass and then you have   shards of trees flying   in followed with glass on your floor and stuff like that.   And that's that's like the real   scariest part portion of it, I guess. Like, you know, if there were   stuff, if there was an earthquake here in Brisbane,   which   Australia is like right in the middle of a tectonic plate. So I think I felt one earthquake   in Mackay when I was there and that's I don't believe I've ever felt any in Brisbane on the whole my whole life that I've lived here that you have either.   Yeah. If there was a, I don't know, a five or a six on the Richter scale here,   Those aren't catastrophic, but still you feel them.  

People would lose their shit. Oh, sure. That would, that would certainly, certainly go crazy. But when you look at like the actual   damage  

[00:31:42] Juan Granados:

and everything that happened from this, did anyone die in this cyclone? A few, but it was generally people from like in floodwater. There was people in floodwaters who died it wasn't and I couldn't imagine they didn't have access to like did they die from the cyclone or they died from just not being able to get medical? No, they died so of the ones I've heard maybe they didn't but from the ones I've heard it was people either trying to go through floodwaters and then getting carried away or   being   like in the bush or some kind floodwaters were around and they either thought they could get through it or swim across it or something like that effect and it just Okay. Floods them away. Gotcha. So like   indirectly related I guess I'd say because that could happen if you went into a fast rushing  

[00:32:24] Kyrin Down:

during a cycling. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you go into   the ocean, get attacked by a shark or, you know, get carried away in a rip tide. That's a little steal. But future view, it's future vehicle. I guess the important one of the learnings,  

[00:32:36] Juan Granados:

what are the learnings if you had to look at it again, maybe either how you reacted, when you saw people coming and talk to you about it, what actually happened,   news in general, or the way that you  

[00:32:46] Kyrin Down:

take on just like information to what you actually do with it. So I think there's a couple of types of media. So that'd be   what you'd call the Lego legacy media, because I'm not even sure it's mainstream anymore.  

[00:32:56] Juan Granados:

I was gonna say,   I think I'd call it legacy me cooking. So yeah, it's not even mainstream media anymore. Would I even call it legacy media though? Because and I say this because I'm like, I kind of find   like blogs   and maybe other sources of info that like almost now legacy media and like, yeah, the news channels, I'm like, man, that's like even beyond like, there's like old school media. I'd lump those into the same sort of category.  

[00:33:23] Kyrin Down:

The so when I say legacy media, I'm specifically thinking of   free to wear television,   in particular,   probably radio as well.   Although I think there is a maybe   a Adam Curry keeps talking about like, he thinks one of the things that will come in the future, and he's usually right about these things just too early   is   the rise again of like local, local   news, local podcasts, local   hyperlocal   as   in your suburb sort of deal. And that's the kind of thing where yeah, sure, that would be actually much more of interest.   The Morningside 1 or the the Gap 1 where Juan's at or the one, you know, West End, which gets really affected, they'd probably have different reporting on   how to prepare what things you should be doing versus like, okay, yeah, you know, your gym is going to be closed and you won't have access to certain types of food for a couple of days.  

So I think there's   I don't I don't know for sure because I don't use TikTok, but I get the feeling from TikTok if you'd typed in like Brisbane Cyclone, you probably would have got more is how to prepare   type things. Like I still imagine the   the whipping up of fear would would still be the because that gets all eyeballs that gets attention for sure. The dude just being like, I think it's going to be a fine day and you know, he could be the most technically   correct.   And   I guess,   if non technically correct as well,   is not going to be the dude who blows up and gets the big views. It's gonna be someone whipping it up and getting you stirred up about it. I go back to go back to twenty twenty one floods and  

[00:35:05] Juan Granados:

I don't use TikTok anymore but when I was posting TikTok my most watched video on TikTok which got like kind of remember if it was 50,000 or 60,000 views something like that. Oh yeah, I remember. Yeah, twenty twenty one floods and And it was something putting a shopping trolley across a roundabout so that people wouldn't drive over the roundabout because there was like a lot of water over the top and it was going into the restaurant. So it was basically them trying to block people away from doing it again.   That was the most watched thing out of like the whatever 300 things I posted on there.  

No speaking, no nothing, of course it's like   the calamity, the potential issue, the whatever it must come from that's like gets all the views similarly yeah if I had   literally, if I just video that I maybe like spoken and been like, Oh, he's doing this because they probably wouldn't gotten as much views as under script because who knows?  

[00:35:53] Kyrin Down:

The thing that I find really   a bit strange is alright, so   where we like we like fear, obviously it captures our attention.   We like   the and say this is just the general population,   the   and you can choose to not participate in that, which is what we largely do nowadays.   But there is   a kind of certain extent to it, there's a level and if you wanted to go to the full end, you would be more   looking up videos of you know, lightning strikes dude,   flood water carries baby to death and you'd be seeing like gore videos, you'd be seeing death videos, you'd be seeing like the most extreme shit happening.   I got fed through nine gag.  

It was a gift of a guy doing   a parkour and he was trying to do like a somersault over this river thing onto a rock. Yep. And basically. Do you face plant   it?   Yes. He   he does the flip. He kind of lands with his foot, but he slips under him. And so you just see like the ragdoll smack his head into the rock, into the water. He's   he like comes up in the water, but you can instantly see like he's wearing this white shirt. He's just got this massive like   red   section here and it's like is like you saw him hit his head, but why is the blood from here?   And in any case, just seeing that ragdoll made me like, oh, I didn't need to see that. You know, I think I talked about the the Brisbane stabbing video I came across on   on Twitter once upon a time and it was just like, I didn't need to see that.  

And it makes me think like, those are the most fearful, gory,   crazy shit out.   But why isn't that getting shown   on on television? And you could say, oh, because it's too extreme. It's not allowed. But if people want to see it, then it would be allowed. So obviously, we don't want to see it that much or it's not it's not that captivating.   And I'm  

[00:37:53] Juan Granados:

yeah. I don't I don't know why that's the case. I think, I think, nah, I do think it's because sorry.   Take for instance. I think I think there's a thrill in the fear. As well. Well, but it's always gonna be a real there's gonna be some basis in reality that it could happen. I I think that's the other caveat as well. So in news,   it does it wouldn't have worked if they'd gone, you know, there's a category two at the moment. But what if it was a category seven? No. First of all, that's impossible. Can't do that. But they were like, there's gonna be like category seven or six, like, but what if this happens?   No one's gonna be able to it's kind of like, okay. That's like   far beyond the the realm of it actually happening. What's going on? Like, you know, if they said   whole skyscraper is going to be flying through the air,   I think there would be a little bit of a bullshit meeting going to everyone being like, okay, that seems a bit extreme. Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about though. I'm talking about, you know, people are worried about  

[00:38:44] Kyrin Down:

houses flooding and getting electrocuted maybe.   So I've got to protect my power sockets. Let's just say something like that.   The   or I'm going to be out without food for a couple of days and, you know, I could starve to death or   or die of   dehydration.   But you don't see then   videos of people starving to death, dying of dehydration   as like, this is what could happen.   And   this is what you're afraid of. Here's a video of of what it exactly happened to someone or someone getting swept away in flood water and you see them getting sucked down a drain pipe or something you see you see the the actual thing that you're scared of.   There's no interest in that. There's no people aren't going out and searching that up or it's not being shown to them because   the the powers that dictate and I, I think there's probably like as much as there is a fear of the unknown,   it's kind of a thrill in it as well. It's like,   something you can talk about. And   it can be kind of fun, like, my brother's girlfriend,   I, for for her fear and uncertainty, I think there was a lot of probably like underlying fun of being able to talk about the cycling with their family back in Colombia. It's like, you know, it's coming. Yeah.  

So I, yeah, I think it's kind of like an equal mix   of fear and thrill, which is why   you see all across legacy media and probably like other media as well, the overblown natures of it. Sure. It's,   it's what like doom scrolling, doom porn, fear porn, that sort of stuff, the negative aspects. But it probably does provide people some positive  

[00:40:27] Juan Granados:

talking points. Yeah. Well, I think makes you excited. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's thrilling. It's there's a fear, which also creates a   whether it's negative or positive emotional state it's like it's a heightened emotional state.   But I also touch on the That's what I feel.   Two points one just on the touch of media as well it's like yes legacy media tends to do that with the maybe try to captivate with the negativity so it brings in the eyeballs but one of the things I'm starting to see more and more and again it's just in my little lens the world of the type of podcasts and   okay just say like streams or other places that I consume information from a lot of them are starting to turn their way to   things are happening in the moment   but not not localized but just,   more broader   and talking about generally has to be politics specifically Trump and sometimes I get I can like I'll listen to it but it just starts to become more and more and more of in the moment what's happening the emotional kind of like feeling to it and   it tends to it's probably why you in a more broad way you want to you read a lot of more   existing   stood the test of time books that aren't   influenced by the   in the moment now information that's available   specifically and again I've called him out and I wanted to like back away to be like oh you know sometimes Tom Billio is quite good like I talked to you that he was saying like live streaming and he does but honestly I'm gonna say he doesn't Monday Wednesday Friday I believe that he live streams 8AM in Pacific time in The US   and   maybe 20% of the time is like, good. Like it is it's good, interesting conversations that he talks about. The rest is so hyper   Trump   media, what's happening at the moment information   that   I gave it a couple more goes and I'm like again like I can't I can't tune into this like this is so   in the moment media that it's like almost looping back to legacy media   yes with a persona that I guess I'm interested in but they're just talking about in the moment things that look some people would find of interest of course it's probably finding interest and more people listening in a particular way.  

But I go in a similar way to   media of the cyclone   like   if you if you didn't talk about this, would it really be this important? Is it really that important that oh this executive thing got signed and this didn't happen but in the next week it changes all together? I kind of view it in the, like me as a person, you have to be kind of aware of what you're consuming because   media in general whether legacy or today's one,   it's going to   try to capture   your attention usually with fear or something that heightens emotions and not always   is that the funnest or best things that you want to be consuming or really it being the most effective things that you want to capture. I don't think it's great effective philosophy or learnings for you to listen about everything you're saying Trump or Elon Musk is doing or   everything that's happening in this cycle. And I just went through or every single fucking hurricane tornado that's happening in the world. Like that doesn't necessarily help you maybe.  

And this is the other point that connected it.   I think I think,   that hyper localization   state status or information in the future would be really powerful because I can get behind that being a really, really   key like, you would be informational even if it's heightened or you're emotionally hiding things, at least the fact that it's connected to your area of the world whatever it is that you're looking I think could be like really valuable and so the example I had there was someone down the Gold Coast   they used AI to basically ask the question of hey cyclone is coming, my house is this particular house, it's got this amount of height clearance from the ground   based on the existing, you know, way titles and the, you know, what could come, you're easily gonna flood my property and it gave, you know,   after lots of questions kind of gave a bit of an indication on okay, well, if it if this happens,   it was like, if this happens at the like the best case, it'll only be about to here on the street. Worst case, you'll have about 20 centimeters of oh, no, sorry, like two centimeters of water at the bottom of the house. And so   this is obviously using AI and it's got some error error bounds here, but   giving you a very hyper   localized view of, okay, now I'm informed, like I'm really informed about this. So I know that worst cases will happen, best case it'll be about this. Again,   on average, you'll probably sit somewhere in the middle and honestly, it was bang on in with the middle. I think if everyone here in Brisbane had done something similar to that,   either through AI or maybe on their own research, I think you would have found a more   real actual experience of what was to come and you would have people would have panicked less. Even me personally, I think if I'd applied that, I would have   been more,   not not expecting something different, but just I think I would have been more okay with what was about to come and plan for it. Maybe a little bit better. Maybe you get   some things. So I I chance you don't know when a tree is gonna snap or whatever else.  

I didn't put the material properties of the tree into AI for it to tell me that, the wind speed and whatnot. But, you know, you get some influence of you. And honestly, I reckon if I fed it into any AI and been like, look, I have tall trees are about 70 meters of my property. Yeah. And then, you know, whatever circumference, I'm gonna have hundred kilometer winds. It'd probably be like   look high probability mortgages are gonna snap and go on the floor. Okay, like I didn't probably need AI to tell me that but to know what is realistically   gonna come I think cuts through the noise of what   media then generally influences you and able to   like ragdoll you around with its hiding of emotions.  

I think that's kind of like my my effective takeaway, effective philosophy of it. Just try to find, try to find actual things look look for first principles,   look into the reality, don't get too heavily influenced into what media generally pulls you around with. Yeah. My  

[00:46:10] Kyrin Down:

most influential piece of media that I've consumed was probably actually last night,   where I was chatting with a guy.   And he was telling me about a car accident. He got in a year ago   where he was on an 80 ks an hour road head on and basically like this guy had   just drifted on from his lane on this curve and hit him.   And, you know, I was initially thinking like, you know, like, it's probably like equal part fold, like, they probably both got a little bit too close. And it was actually grazing rather full head on or anything.   And,   and especially because he was super drunk when he was telling me about this. So I was just like, Oh, man, if I can't take this guy's,   you know, word for it. But he then brings up this video dash cam that he had. He's like, Yeah, check this out. Twenty second long fifteen second long video of him just   driving casually as normal and, you know, a bunch of other cars coming in the opposite direction. There was obviously no   barrier in between them. And yeah, this car just, you know, comes it's probably like   less than one second   from him seeing the car to the car smashing into him.  

And yeah, sure enough, this car just drifts off its lane. Bam, hits him and video cuts out. And I've been thinking about this recently,   kind of, but just seeing that made me go, first of all, like, oh, shit, yeah, not this dude's fault at all. He had no time to react. There was no   nothing he could have done to prevent this. And like, he almost died from it. Broken ribs, stone, all that sort of shit.   And I drive on roads like that all the time. There's tons of roads around here. Rarely are they 80 ks's now, but plenty of sixties   and plenty of ones with like trucks and B doubles and stuff.  

And a lot of those roads   are either wider. So I can personally   not be right near the center. I can stay off and give myself an extra half a meter meter   or there'll be two lanes. And so I could just stay in the left lane instead of the right lane. And   a bunch of times I've been driving the right lane right next to traffic coming the opposite direction for absolutely no reason. And   yet, that piece of meter is probably the most impactful thing I'll see the all the year in terms of actual behavior for me to change. Yeah. In terms of I'm going to drive more on the left side of the road.   And,   you know, you can't keep ultra hyper vigilant every time you're driving for every car that's coming at you. So you got to do   those minor things that you can to put yourself out of harm's way. Yeah, that's very true. I was gonna be like, oh, yeah, like,  

[00:48:45] Juan Granados:

the   in that I'll probably focus on the media aspect of it. It's like, the more you know, it's the more you know, the more you're closer to what reality can be and the probabilities of that then the more you have or the more informed you are of what you can do. Like you say,   look, what's the probability that if you were driving on the left lane versus the right lane and here we're talking because it's in Australia so we're driving on the left hand side, left lane you're on the furthest away from the cars, right lane you're like close towards the middle.   Honestly probably the probability that you   avoid   a crash in that way is   probably less than 1%, let's just say. But   it's like it's costing you nothing to remove that percentage   of probability that, well, shit, if you get hit at those speeds man you're really stuffed. The other one though, because you know on the opposite end of the person drifting and whatnot,   have you ever drifted a car or have you ever gone into like a A drift or whatnot? I drifted a whole truck. A whole truck. I can do better than most. A whole truck, damn, okay. Have you ever, you know That's an actual car? Yeah, yeah, like in like the war or something like that. So this happened to me I've never hyped before. A week ago,   it happened. Yeah. And it does like I've had, aqua planning which was   I've had aqua planning like so many times.  

And there's this is interesting if you've never had an aqua planning experience   there's two things that generally happen with people, you'll either overreact which is overreactors,   you'll either try, well you wouldn't normally do accelerator but maybe you could do accelerator or the worst you'd hit the brakes, right? Do not hit the brakes when you're aqua planning.   What you generally want to do in those circumstances is you basically let it ride   until you can catch the car and then you catch it and you continue on.   In that one, maybe what happened   and what like what creates a lot of these issues with aqua planning is if you've never experienced before you get into this mode, you panic because you have no control of the car, you hit the brakes   that breaks the   wheels, you continue to slide and then you have no grip until you hit something. That's what I did. Now it was the other the other day I was like going around a corner and it was it was wet, went around the corner and actually felt the car go and I was like basically overlaying like, not   sideways. I was like, I wouldn't even say like 45 degrees. I'd say 30 degrees off the off the straight and then probably it was like that for maybe two seconds.  

And then you kind of like have to wait until you feel feel like the traction of the wheels and then boom I kind of like put it back into the drive normally.   So more to say in that it's like if you know or have experienced it a few times   then when it occurs   you know, I get cool, I kind of at least, intuitively   know how to handle it. And I think it's all of those experiences like getting yourself closer to moving away from the fear of the unknown or the   the influence by media, influenced by the emotional heightened sense. Like okay, no, if something like this happens,   okay, you can do these things. When you're driving, there are very clear easy things that you can do to be a little bit safer. You know, many many years ago, lots of people didn't drive with seat belt and at that time when seat belts came in and whatnot it was like,   definitely why would you do that like you know yes it's going to be worse if I get in a car crash but oh I'll be in a car crash it's like no actually that's really really important   in the probability that maybe you will have a car crash and it will save you otherwise you'll die and you go through the like front of the windshield So kind of similar things there. It's like, there's lots of little things that you can be informed that are hyper local to you that   it's not that you're being influenced. It's like, oh, no, you can have the reality that's in front of you. And then stay away from the hyper   media, hyper emotionally,   heightened things which are actually probably not going to affect you at all. And those are the things that avoid, you know. There's the other learning like try to focus in on the things that actually make a goddamn difference to you like driving the right way and then just avoid the other shit. There's no reason to pay attention. Like doesn't matter about you knowing what fucking JD Vance eats for fucking breakfast or like that he went to this state and they talk, nah!  

I'm telling you, no one in Australia is gonna be impacted by that. Not at all. Not really a single bit. Even if you think it does. It doesn't. It does not. Same if you wanna hear about, oh, a tornado went through America.   Okay.   For those people, hyperlocalized,   man, that sucks. I'm sure it's a lot of things. There's nothing you have to do if you're in Brisbane to prepare for that. And to get   emotionally heightened or concerned about that if it, if you're really not connected, it's just not worth it. Like there's just no value at all.   Where like, you know, the important things is hopefully you're consuming maybe some information I think that's like oh shit you know if you do this little thing around how you're driving or how you're Yeah, some demonstrative.  

Yeah, all the really important stuff that nobody   cares about because it's you know usually with media or information it's the short sharp, oh shit, tomorrow there's gonna happen to you and so you get really panicky about that. But no one cares about that, oh, you've consumed this much sugar every day of your life for the last seven years, diabetes for you month. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, but doesn't you know, you don't think about or training or all that sort of stuff. No one bats an eye, even, even when it gets talked about a lot, you're still not like,   meh, I'm not as concerned about it because I'm really fearful about this thing that's gonna happen next week. But in reality,   100% probability, you're gonna die.  

There's a great Really? There's a lot of probability. I thought you were living forever. Well, even if you live forever, either the big bang, I mean, the universe is gonna crunch down or the heat death of the universe is gonna take you, we're all dying. There's no escaping it, you know? That's so cool. And then, you know, go down from there. There's like some good probabilities of like you're probably gonna die from a car crash or a heart attack. And it's like, okay, there's lots of things you can do about that and shit, go and conceive that. Go and learn about some of the things that you can do to reduce some of those probabilities,   as opposed to spending it emotionally   heightened for other things that are just realistically not going to apply to you. Yeah. Good. Good. That's it. That's summary me and more. Do you have any comments at all from the live folks at all? All. Good question. I'm not so sure. But we are live here nine a. M. Australian Eastern Standard Time on a Sunday.  



[00:54:35] Kyrin Down:

That will be the case for this next week. And also the week after I will publish it at this time.   So yeah, the kind of coming week is going to be a little bit iffy and then we should have a decent period of   probably a month of being able to just be regular and then that's when travel season starts for Karan and Juan. So we're gonna be all over the shop. Correct. In from kind of like May onwards. That's right. That's right.  

[00:55:02] Juan Granados:

Get ready for that people. Get ready for that. It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. It's gonna be good times. And yeah, let's just again, don't panic. Don't panic. Immortal lights. We'll   be here. We'll be back. We are around, but things are just shifting and changing and moving. So standby. Yeah. Literally moving places. Yeah. All right. Memorial lights be well. Thank you very much for tuning in and for everyone being live. Bye now. Bye now. Bye.