Rank Ideas

"Without the ability to create, we are nothing.  With the ability to create, we are nothing." - Dalai Lama    The Dalai Lama never said that, as far as I know. I just made it up!

All you can eat is my favourite genre. But is it the best genre for me? Probably. Depends on the price. I'm sure there are other arenas of life where the concept of a limit may apply, and I'm confident that the only limitless thing you will experience today is the quality and rigour with which Nick D and Chris E tackle the topic.

I know that you only listen to the Rank Ideas podcast, but is that necessary? What if there were other, better podcasts out there? A fun abstract thought experiment maybe, but are there places where loyalty isn't so reliably rewarded, 100% of the time, by your favourite hosts Nick and Chris? A terrifying question to ask, but if we're loyal to one thing, it's the self-soothing narrative that we're...

Luck is everywhere, just never near me am I right?! But I'm sure that all evens out and today is your lucky day. Is this the episode where a special listener will win a car? Chance would be a fine thing. Will your listening be interrupted with unseasonable hail destroying the pie you left to cool on the window? Chance would be a fine thing, indeed.

In considering this episode description I searched for 'best and worst small talk topics' and learned that 'weather' is amongst the best, and 'religion' amongst the worst. Confusingly, however, 'Jupiter, God of Weather' didn't seem to rate a mention at all. But enough about me. Have you heard any good podcasts lately?

Let's just say, this week's episode is just like when you have to make a hit podcast where you take an idea and rank it in an ever expanding list in order from best to worst. Your humble blurb-writer was never much one for creative thinking, but Nick and Chris will surely find the correct home for 'analogy' on their MasterList! 

You gotta be cruel to be kind. Not sure if that's true, but it's definitely true that you can inadvertently be cruel through being kind. There should be a platitude that says 'all proverbs are true' so that we can screw up our faces and give them the mistrust they deserve. Sorry if that's a cruel way to teach, but you gotta be cruel to be kind sometimes.

Our collective understanding of the past does a tremendous amount of heavy lifting in how we navigate our own time. It is a force that cannot be overstated. "The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding." Ariel Durant said that, but maybe others did too. The history of this quote may be incomplete.

The universal acclaim that the Rank Ideas podcast has achieved might make you assume that Nick and Chris would be instinctively warm to the idea of criticism. True listeners know however, that Nick and Chris are instinctively warm to nothing! Except of course, each other, dense meals, and other types of meals. Criticise that, we dare you.

Like all good wellness coaches, Nick and Chris begin each day with several hours of goal setting, planning, and visualising how each action taken in that day will contribute towards attainment of these goals.  There's truly only one downside to this - having to live in a society full of MORONS who refuse to be as deliberate in their path to becoming what they were always meant to be. Namaste.

We've got an old saying in Canberra. Shame me once? Fool on you. Shame me twice? The point is: you're not going to shame me again. Unless you don't like this podcast. That's a shame from which I couldn't recover. Good thing for all parties then that it's another invincibly flawless 'ep' for your considered consumption! 

Pragmatism doesn't seem to be the type of banner that people flock to rally behind. Is that what makes it good? Or even the most amazing idea of all time? Not sure. Maybe we should temper our excitement with a dose of calm consideration and fire up the ol' Rankotomatic Deluxe! (It's just Nick and Chris).

They say romance is dead, but don't worry. It definitely isn't. Should it be? Maybe do worry! Pour a glass of wine, run a bath and feather the surface with petals as your favourite hunky lotharios take each other by the hand and lead us all on an exploration to the only known place of loving care and connection: a precisely-ranked list.

When I was a child I imagined the soul was somewhere in the middle of my torso. Now that I'm a man, I am enlightened enough to know that it's sort of just all about, maybe even in the head too. The important thing is to realise that it emits a sort of golden-blue mist when I do good things, but glows an ugly dank colour when I do bad things. The science may not support me, but the beliefs and acti...

Think of the most intelligent person you know. What makes them so? What are their strengths?  As importantly, what are their weaknesses? Are they significant? Significant enough to be called unintelligent in that realm? What are we all talking about when we use this word! Let's figure out if it's useful or not, with your two favourite leaders of the unintellgentsia, Chris and Nick. 

It's amazing how far people will go when in the thrall of a charismatic environment that maps very soothingly to their needs and blind spots. My friend Jeff created a board game called 'Cult' where you can play as Jesus, Charles Manson, Oprah Winfrey or Bob Brown. Needless to say, I consider myself immune to the allure such silly people and have instead signed my life over to the cult of my friend...

Nick and Chris both love to ride their bikes without a helmet, but that's illegal in Australia for safety reasons. Chris wears one even though he hates it. Not because he's afraid for his head, but because he's afraid of police. Safety has been achieved. 

If we were to apply the scientific method to the scientific method, we might find its deficiencies. But would they be reliable? As always, the only route to meaningful truth is via the casual interrogation of two leisure class laypersons!

Chris and Nick love their ranking journey and love you for joining them on it. If you love this podcast, have that love ruined immediately with a hyper-interrogation of the very idea - it's the Rank Ideas way!

Welcome to another episode of Pulitzer Prize Winning podcast, Rank Ideas!

It's traditional for me to write something reflective, mildly subversive and vaguely informative in this episode blurb. Is that good? If I broke tradition and just gave flat-out descriptions of what we're doing in this episode, would that be better? By what metric? God, ideas. They truly are everywhere. We must tame them! As our fathers did, and their fathers before them! 

Anyone who saw the 2020 AFL Grand Final where Gary Ablett Jnr broke his shoulder in the opening stanza of the final game in his stellar career knows that pain exists. But do we understand the relationship of the distribution of pain from ourselves to others? Is it useful to act as though it's a smooth an consistent law of nature? Couldn't hurt to ask the question!

Psychology is a relatively new discipline with a very ambitious brief. Coming from the root words 'Psych' meaning 'Psychiatrist' and '-'ology' meaning 'chronology', nobody really knows what is going on.  There's no doubt a tremendous wealth to be gained from the understanding feelings, behaviours and their origins. But with a discipline that pathologised 'homosexuality' as recently as 1972, is it...

Since the dawn of time, humankind has yearned for two things and two things only: sports and electricity. That they should combine in our lifetime is truly a wonder. Is this the perfect fusion of two of our already-high ranking ideas? Well, we're early in the journey, but there's bound to be a lot to competitively unpack via our purely unbiased e-hosts, Nick "postivie KD ratio" Delatovic and Chris...

Welcome to the Rank Ideas podcast - please bear in mind that it's mine and you're just borrowing it for the next 36 minutes. Or however long this episode is. I don't know, I don't own a clock.