How To Take Control Of Your Own Destiny - George Mack - #919

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
This is a long time coming, I think. Agency, since we've been talking, is the topic, the thing that we've both been obsessed with the most. So introduce people to it. What's high agency?

**George Mack** (0:12)
High agency is, in my opinion, the most under discussed and most important idea in, let's say, the 21st century. It's one of those ideas that once you see it, you can't quite unsee it. It's everywhere. But the problem with it is, it's quite hard to define.
There's that Justice Potter Stewart line of around when he was trying to find pornography, when he was asked in a government inquiry, can you define pornography? He came back with the ultimate reply of, well, I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. So in lieu of the episode today, I know you rent out all these beautiful studios. I wanted to be the first guest ever to bring some props.

**Chris Williamson** (0:50)
You brought props.

**George Mack** (0:51)
To get people to experience high agency, and then we can define it with words.

**Chris Williamson** (0:55)
All right. Cool.

**George Mack** (0:56)
First off, is high agency in a meme, okay? So as you can see here, you have person A and person B. And essentially for the people that are listening, you have two people trapped on a desert island, identical people, but with two different fundamental frames of reality. One is using the wood to get help, the other is using the wood to escape the island. And you see this idea that two people with the exact same fundamental realities, but a completely different low agency here, high agency here. So you see high agency in a meme there. Then, and this one was quite difficult to get printed in London without people asking questions, is high agency in a moment. So again, for the people listening, you have a series of Nazis saluting to Hitler in 1936, and you have this guy in red here, who's believed, there's debate who it is, but he's believed to be a guy called August Landmasse. What I love about his story was, he originally, most people have this idea, that when Nazi Germany comes around, that they're going to be the one that puts Anne Frank in their house and stands up. But realistically, we're way more likely to be these individuals here. According to the story, August was part of the Nazi party, kind of went along with the LARP because it kind of made sense, fell in love with a Jewish woman and very much, okay, began to hit an agency test with reality. And you see all these Nazis saluting at once, and he's the one guy with his arms crossed. He ends up getting punished for marrying a German woman, ends up in a concentration camp, she dies in the concentration camp. But there's just that beauty of every single person saluting as a Nazi and him there with his arms crossed, just beautifully signifies high agency in a moment.
Next thing I would like to run through is we have two videos. So one which is high agency in a video, and another which is low agency in a video.

**Chris Williamson** (3:03)
Okay. So this is Sasquatch Music Festival 2009, Guy starts dance party.

**George Mack** (3:10)
So for the people listening at home, there's this absolute nut job on a hill, dancing like a madman, and the whole crowd is looking at him like he's lost his mind.

**Chris Williamson** (3:19)
One guy's joined.

**George Mack** (3:20)
One guy's joined.

**Chris Williamson** (3:21)
He starts dancing with him.

**George Mack** (3:23)
Yes. And slowly but surely, people begin to join the dance party more and more throughout the video. But before you know it, you begin to see the whole crowd who go from-

**Chris Williamson** (3:37)
15 people now.

**George Mack** (3:38)
Judging him to joining.

**Chris Williamson** (3:40)
Oh my God. Two minutes in, it's 150 people. And then toward the end, there's no one sat down. There's only a few people sat down. So, yeah.

**George Mack** (3:54)
That's high agency in a video. And just to contrast this now, the next video in terms of getting people to actually experience it, is low agency in a video from Darren Brown.

**Derren Brown** (4:03)
But they were actually taking part in a compliance test. The three people on the left are actors. They've been briefed to stand or sit when they hear this. Everyone else that's brought in is a genuine shortlisted applicant. They've been given no instructions other than to fill out their forms. My team and I were secretly watching from another room.