Something You Should Know
Why Everything We Do Matters & The Importance of Big Tech Oversight - SYSK Choice
10 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
If you like something you should know, you're probably a curious person who enjoys learning about the world. And if you're looking for more places to learn, you should know about a podcast from TED called How to Be a Better Human. The host, Chris Duffy, was recently a guest here talking about why he loves laughter and how you can find more of it in your everyday life.
On How to Be a Better Human, Chris interviews scientists, experts, and TED speakers about fascinating practical topics from... How your dog experiences the world, to how to stop doom scrolling, to how to find a deeper sense of belonging. You can find How to Be a Better Human wherever you listen to podcasts.
Today on Something You Should Know, being touched or massaged feels good, but does it have real benefits? Then the tiniest, flukiest events can drastically alter the course of your life, and that could be a good thing.
I understand that the world is constantly in flux, that there are small things that can make a big difference and so on. Maybe I'll experiment 5 to 15% more in my life. There's a lot of studies that show this makes happier people, and it also makes for more resilient solutions.
Also, can fast food cause allergies? And big tech? They collect a lot of information about you, and some important people are demanding change.
What about if we just collected the information that's necessary to conduct the transaction that doesn't include your location and the last eight sites that you went to? But that's what gets collected.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.
Hi, and welcome to Something You Should Know. Most listeners know this, but in case you're not aware, we publish three episodes a week, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. And they are published in the middle of the night, so when you wake up in the morning, they're right there. I mention it only because I would hate for you to miss an episode. Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.
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Chapter 2: What are the biological benefits of human touch?
If you stayed in bed five minutes longer, your life could be very different than if you hadn't. If you put your left sock on before your right sock, that could change everything. There's a lot more to this, and here to explain it a lot better than me is Brian Klass.
Brian is an associate professor in global politics at University College in London, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, and author of the book Fluke, Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters. Hey, Brian, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks for having me on the show. So explain what I started talking about here, how everything can affect everything.
Yeah, so I think when a lot of people think about sort of thought experiments like science fiction with time travel, for example, they totally intuitively get this. So whether it's Back to the Future or a story about someone going back a million years in history, the warning is basically not to change anything, right?
Don't step on the wrong bug a million years ago because you might end up deleting humans or don't talk to someone in the generation of your parents because you might end up making yourself not exist, right? And then when we get to the present, we don't think like this, right? But the way that change happens is identical in the past and in the present.
And so the point that I'm making is that small adjustments in our lives, in our societies and so on can have really profound effects. And the origin story of this book to a certain extent was me finding out this story from 1905 in a little farmhouse in Wisconsin.
where this woman, a tragic story, she had four young children and she has a mental breakdown and kills her four children and then kills herself. And her husband comes home and finds this whole family dead. This is my great-grandfather's first wife. And he remarried to my great-grandmother and Quite literally, if she hadn't done that, I wouldn't exist and you wouldn't be listening to my voice.
And so when you start to think about those ripple effects through time and space and so on, I think there's quite a profound implication about the importance of even small actions changing the future.
Okay, and I think people have heard, you know, if a butterfly flaps its wings a certain way at a certain time, it could cause a hurricane halfway around the world. And in your case, I mean, if your great-grandfather's first wife hadn't killed her whole family, you wouldn't be here. But something else might have happened that was good, and you wouldn't be here to see it. But you don't know...
What would happen? You don't know if it would be good or bad. So what do we do with this? Is there anything other than observing this that we can take away?
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Chapter 3: How can small decisions significantly impact our lives?
So you're right. I mean, I cannot tell you whether, you know, the snooze button or the sock or whatever it is, the train that you miss is going to produce a better or worse life. I think it's just important for us not to live the lie that these things are meaningless. And I think most of us sort of go through the world
imagining that this stuff just gets washed out in the end and i i don't think it does i think that's an important thing to recognize well but it may not be meaningless but in many of these cases you are powerless that whether if you miss the train you miss the train and it wasn't intentional and you missed the train and or you put your left sock on that that you're powerless to do anything with that prior to doing anything with that
Well, I would disagree with the idea that you're powerless. I would say that you don't have good information about what's going to happen, right? And I think there's a lot of examples of this where a woman who's going to a conference in New York City gives a tie as a gift to her coworker.
And he decides to go back to his hotel room to change and put the new tie on to show his appreciation because it clashes with his old shirt or whatever. And she goes up to the conference and it turns out to be on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center on 9-11 and she dies and he survives, right?
Now, this is a random act of kindness that ultimately causes her own death and saves the life of a coworker. She could never foresee that, right? But I think that there's a lot of stuff when we think about, you know, you look at politics, you look at economics, you look at anytime you turn on the TV and people are explaining why things happen.
They're explaining them with these really neat and tidy models. There's like five variables. Or you get a self-help book and it says, if you just do these three things, your life will be better. I don't think that's true. I think it's a lie.
And I think it's important for us to recognize that because it makes us smarter when we are making decisions in the face of uncertainty to not just simply regurgitate this simplified model of a fake version of reality in which we can control everything. And instead, you know, we influence everything and we control nothing.
I think that's a very important but nuanced shift in the way we see the world.
We are talking about the chaos of life and how anything can affect almost anything. And my guest is Dr. Brian Klass. He is author of the book Fluke, Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters. So, Brian, there's a saying that everything happens for a reason. So help reconcile that saying with what you're talking about, about fluke and chaos.
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Chapter 4: What is the role of chance and chaos in our everyday choices?
I mean, I think it's something that actually gives us serendipity. It gives us an enjoyment of life and it actually produces better solutions to problems because the Google Maps way is not always the right way for every single person. And the modern world solves problems For the average person, not for you, right? That's what Google Maps is.
And I think that's something where we have to remember that some of the technological solutions we're being given are for the median person. They're not tailored to each individual.
Well, I know I have. If you've ever had something bad happen, like you get into a car accident or something, you do that thing where you think, if I had only stayed in bed... or stayed in the shower, you know, 30 seconds longer, this would have never happened. But you're putting a much bigger context around that concept, and it's really important to consider how it affects your life.
Brian Kloss has been my guest. He is an associate professor at the University College in London, and the name of his book is Fluke, Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters. And there's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Brian.
Hey, thanks so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it.
Big tech. When I say big tech, you get an image in your mind of Apple, Google, Facebook, and other monster companies that dominate a big slice of our life today. Imagine your life without your smartphone or your laptop or social media. We've come to rely on these companies for the things they produce and create.
And when there are big dominant players in an industry like this, people get concerned. The government gets concerned. There are cries to rein these companies in and regulate them. Maybe that's a good thing. But on the other hand, government has a bit of a checkered past when they start regulating things. But if not government, who? It gets complicated. Here to discuss this is Tom Wheeler.
He's a venture capitalist, author of several books, and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration. His latest book is called Tech Lash, Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age? Hey Tom, welcome to Something You Should Know. Mike, great to be with you. Thank you. So set the stage for me here. What is the problem? What's the issue?
What's the concern?
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