Rank Ideas: Recent Episodes
Chris Endrey and Nick Delatovic
Rank Ideas is the definitive list of every human idea ranked in order from best to worst.
Hosted by Australian artists, Nick Delatovic and Chris Endrey.
Hang up the boots. Give the game away. Get the gold watch and walk off into the sunset.
It'll give you more time to listen to our episode passing judgment on your conceptualisation of such things.
And, over time, all things.
Do you ask a shark to rank fearsome?
Do you ask Apollo to rank beauty?
Do you ask the moon to rank mystery?
Do you ask marionettes to rank subservience?
Of course not.
And yet! You ask us to rank style - and we don't even blink.
What's more, we do it with an impossible blend of confidence, humlity and grace that let's you know that you are listening to Number One Podcast of Ranking Ideas: Rank Ideas.
Carry on!
If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
With that cleared up we can dust off our rank coats and get adorned so that we can look the part astride our rank beasts, who are naturally resplendant in rank regalia of their own.
I say, 'of their own', but they neither procured nor maintain it. Despite this apparently uneven relationship, we persist, because they bring an aesthetic that isn't replaceable nor necessarily achievable by a more accountable regalia-purchasers.
This episode we are ranking resilience. That should be clear by now.
Born from an egg on a mountain top, punkiest Nick and Chris that ever popped. They knew every magic trick under the sun, to tease the gods and everyone and have some fun.
Monkey Magic,
Monkey Magic,
Monkey Magic,
Monkey Magic.
Confirmed true. The rest is all academic speculation/fan theory.
Whoever it was that send us the 'thank you for ranking ideas' card and bouquet of expensive nuts - we want to say, 'thank you'! And what better way to do that, than by recording yet another episode of your all-time favourite podcast.
Who knows what the theme of such an episode could be! I'm sure it will inspire a rabbit-hole of panic-learning about syncronicity.
For which I can only say, you are welcome :)
If you could travel forwards just 41 minutes you would realise what a great decision it is that you're about to make. That's right, spending the next 41 minutes eating a big huge sandwich while mapping out where in your week you can schedule the perfect time to enjoy another episode of Rank Ideas™!
Life - it's the best thing we get. And yet it is replete with suffering! Hellish paths or no, you can't enjoy a good soda water from beyond the grave.
Should life be protected at all costs? Surely not all costs. What is the limit?
Find out, as we perfectly rank yet another idea on our quest that goes until and beyond the boundaries of life itself!
I understand that a lot of people listen to podcasts as a form of escapism. What better way to escape that, than to switch on, lock in, and explicitly explore the concept itself!
I'd apologise in advance for ruining the concept, but this distressing experience could end up inspiring you to seek even better platforms of bliss, in which case, I will pre-emptively assume your gratitude and heartfully say, you're welcome :)
Is progress linear? Of course not. But is linear progress? Also no.
If you imagine everything as a progress bar, you're probably frustrated by the rate of petrol cars.
But, of course, if you're frustrated by slow progress bars, you would have been filtered out of our listenership during our inexplicable 9 month hiatus!
Good news for the true loyalists who survive - we're back on the air and on schedule.
This episode is about progress :)
Today we're ranking Ambition. But for full disclosure - we are on a mission to rank every single human idea in the correct order from best to worst, so we may be a little biased when it comes to the topic.
Fortunately for you, the self-awareness that led to the above disclosure more than offsets any risk of us getting it wrong. "Let's Rank!"
I think I may have already referenced the Tower of Power song, 'What is Hip?', in an earlier episode, but if it's not too 'cringe' to repeat myself, I will once again say: 🎶"sometimes hipness is, what it ain't" 🎶
Something to think about.
I'm starting to think that Nick is picking these topics to send me a message. What's next? 'Being really good at board games'?!
Well guess what buddy - it's gonna rank highly! Very highly indeed.
Higher than your precious punctuality? We must wait and see!
As a kid I had a varnished timber bed and it was impossible to lie there at night and not find all sorts of faces and other patterns in the knots of the wood. Similarly, it seems to be unavoidable to some degree to do the same at the conceptual level and ascribe human traits to all sorts of extremely non-human inanimate features of our lives. We even name cyclones.
Seems pretty cool. Maybe in time people will develop parasocial relationships with the random white noise sound that we release under the large language model generated podcast entitled 'Rank Ideas'. I hope so!
Who could more deserving of an elegant description of this episode than you, the person who has come to read one? And yet, there's so seldomly one to find here. Far more likely that you'll find a slathering of semi-conscious, tediously self-referential musings on the noun that forms the week's episode.
But, of course, if you'd been here before then you'd know what to expect, and what more would you then deserve?
Maybe it's all perfect after all. Of course it is.
This episode description? Wow, you found it! Well done, I'm honestly surprised. But can you read it? You can? Oh yeah, that's right - you love to read. How else would you enjoy your subscription to Dork Magazine? Haha, I'm just kidding around! You're really normal. Don't worry. You'll never have to worry about being exceptional. You honestly couldn't fit in any better, even if you had a podcast ranking all human ideas so you could talk to your good friend regularly. Your friend who for some reason refuses to live on the same continent as you. What? Shutup.
The premium way to prevent people from storming your fortress, is to surround it with a deep trench that you fill with water. I'm sorry if this is news to you.
If you think that this episode is looking at moats as a mere metaphor, then I invite you to raid our podcast HQ. But I have to warn you, you're going to need to bring a big bridge with you. Because there's a moat.
It's incredible to think that after all these years, the Rank Ideas podcast is just four trophies away from our feted EGOT. While we wait, we are lucky to have the greatest award of all - friendship. And this old soccer trophy I have that says 'best podcast co-host' in Nick's handwriting.
Are awards generally any good though? Listen up to know definitively!
I wonder if there's been a single year in the history of our species where a person hasn't taken the life of another. It would have to have been a year when there weren't many of us around. I hope we can get another such year soon! 2024 is already out, so it'll have to be 2025.
In the meantime, is the idea of murder useful in our quest for good life?
Only time will tell. Time, and this episode of your favourite podcast, Rank Ideas!
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
feel free to add your own intonation :)
Whimsy. /ˈwɪmzi/ synonyms: arbitrariness, capriciousness, flightiness, whimsey, whimsicality. type of: irresponsibility, irresponsibleness. Damn. That doesn't sound so good. Good thing the thesaurus doesn't have much of a role in modern society. Especially not in the Rank Ideas HQ, which doesn't even have a bookshelf. Purple monkey dishwasher.
Every episode we release these days is about generalisation. Same must go for every podcast. That's new media for you.
Next you'll be telling me that all new media is podcasts.
Which, also, is correct.
Excited to report that our species is almost totally connected to each other and we can finally find harmony by hearing everyone's perspective. Ceaselessly.
Don't forget to like, share and subscribe!
In writing this episode description I looked up the 7 deadly sins. It turns out there used to be more but they were cut down by combining them and then re-expanded before being picked up by Billy Graham of all people. He still holds the record for largest crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground - something like 160,000 in the 1950s. More than 7% of the entire city at the time. Insane to imagine.
Some of the sins we lost include Tristitia (despondency) and Ἀκηδία (dejection), which I think is interesting.
None of this really has much to do with this episode, but I thought I should include it just because I want to. You understand.
Time might seem like a funny thing to rank - after all it's an undeniable part of the natural world. But with a bit of digging, it seems clear that our experience of time is really impacted by our cultural framing of it. For the best? You tell us! By meeting us in the past, ideally at a time when we were better at checking our emails.
This week the guys have invented a new game for you to try!
Unashamedly, it's called Rank Ideas.
Basically, everyone on the planet gets together in pairs and ranks all human ideas on an ever-expanding list in order from best to worst. It's super fun, we just know you'll love it.
Thanks for playing! We'll go first.
To 'give up' is a phrasal verb. I learned this a couple of decades ago when I successfully lied my way into a job as an English teacher for adults. I kept it up for six months, always learning one class ahead of my students. It was really fun and I loved it, but then my girlfriend moved abroad and we broke up so I eventually gave up on my whole life at the time. 9/10 use of six months.
Rank Ideas is an important cultural project.
"rAnK iDeaS iS aN imPorTanT CulTurAl pROjecT"
War is surely bad. Peace is surely good. So, it naturally follows that Pacifism must be...
You'll simply have to listen in to find out.
In the meantime, be grateful that Nick and Chris have buried the hatchet for long enough to return for another flawless episode of Rank Ideas!
Money, it's a gas, makes the world go round, must be funny, if I were a rich man, etc.
Our ranking is based upon a small sample size. If you are dissatisfied with the result, please send more data to: Christopher Endrey
Bsb: 063254
Acc: 10305902
Thanks in advance!
Is respect important to you? I'm not sure if it's important to me. I guess it's about the context. I love to respect the ability of Jeremy Cameron to kick goals from all circumstances but I simultaneously do not respect the things that interfere with my capacity to watch Jeremy Cameron kick goals from all circumstances.
Will this come up in the episode? No.
Respect ultimately begins with respecting yourself, something you can actively practice by listening to the Rank Ideas™ podcast™ immediately!
I'm sorry I didn't get around to writing a caption for this one, I was too busy lying in the hammock where I play candy crush until the battery dies
The rational brain is the monarch that reigns supreme.
That said, it's the rational brain that's making me write this, so maybe don't trust that too much.
If you want the purest possible form of truth on this or any matter, simply listen to the Rank Ideas podcast.
And, of course, tell your friends to do the same - the rational brain commands it :)
When I think of 'folly' I think of the two most wonderful guys sitting down recording themselves ranking ideas until they get to the end of all of them.
Because such a pursuit is in any way foolish? Heaven's no!
I think of them, because it's the idea that they're ranking this week :)
This is the first time in our lives that we've ranked sitting.
Will we be swayed by the fact that we're sitting during the conversation?
Probably, but it's our only real option. Other than, of course, lying down, standing up or kneeling.
We all worship something.
Oh, you don't? What about your insistance that I'm wrong about us all worshipping something? I thought as much.
Thank goodness you don't get a right of reply to our episode decriptions.
(please forward all replies us at @rankideaspodcast)
I suppose you want to know what this episode's about. Well, it's in the title, privacy.
Oh, you need more? Okay, but where does it end? You want my address? My blood type?
Hit me up on the socials to ask, I'm not so big on privacy it turns out :)
Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot, like me?
You don't?
That's a shame, because I was hoping to illustrate the sin of envy. The Pussycat Dolls didn't seem to experience this kind of pushback.
Why must they have everything I want!!??
I will meditate upon this question until I am finally happy.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot, like me?
You don't?
That's a shame, because I was hoping to illustrate the sin of envy. The Pussycat Dolls didn't seem to experience this kind of pushback.
Why must they have everything I want!!??
I will meditate upon this question until I am finally happy.
Looking back, this will end up being one of your favourite episodes. It'll give you that feeling of before - which, good or bad, is at least familiar.
And at the end of the day, isn't family what it's all about?
For an idea that gets so much play in the public sphere, I don't feel there's a lot of corresponding mapping of what values are. Let alone what they're good for.
Thank goodness there are two loveable louts that are on-call to let us know the ultimate utility of most any idea. And they can be accessed at any time from your personal device?
Now that, my friend, is value. I mean, values.
For an idea that gets so much play in the public sphere, I don't feel there's a lot of corresponding mapping of what values are. Let alone what they're good for.
Thank goodness there are two loveable louts that are on-call to let us know the ultimate utility of most any idea. And they can be accessed at any time from your personal device?
Now that, my friend, is value. I mean, values.
In many ways, Nick and Chris are your conventional Beauty & The Beast trope but with a modern twist (Beauty & The Beauty).
It's good in theory, but in practice this is not a vodcast but a mere podcast.
We can only survive by routinely googling "Nick Delatovic no shirt" and hoping that someone is uploading some hot new content, like this episode.
In many ways, Nick and Chris are your conventional Beauty & The Beast trope but with a modern twist (Beauty & The Beauty).
It's good in theory, but in practice this is not a vodcast but a mere podcast.
We can only survive by routinely googling "Nick Delatovic no shirt" and hoping that someone is uploading some hot new content, like this episode.
I'm no expert, but Freedom seems to me an idea that gets thrown around a lot more than it gets interrogated. And I guess that's for the best. Far be it from me to tell anyone else how to live.
Except via the Rank Ideas List. Where will Freedom end up on it? Listen to find out, or don't, it's all your choice!
It can be very difficult to separate effects from causes. Especially when it can feel so good to find certainty. We at Rank Ideas HQ up on Moon Mountain are pretty cold on ideology in particular, given it seems to be the ultimate manifestation of explanaining at the expense of exploring.
This makes intersectionality is a curious proposal, given it offers both a comfortable handle to circumvent this instinct, but is also a shorthand in itself.
How will it rank? Find out, with your incrementally-allotted visit to Moon Mountain™, "It's tomorrow, today!"
P.S. Here is that essay Chris doesn't shut up about: Nexus causality, moral warfare and misattribution arbitrage. | Edge.org
We at the Rank Ideas headquarters know that people love to back an underdog. It just feels so good when the little one chalks up a win over the incumbent titan!
That's why - despite being a minnow in the podcasting world (outside of Laos) - we continuously behave as though we host the greatest show available in human history. Which we do. But we really don't want everyone else to act like that's the case. That would become tedious.
Enjoy another episode!
Equality is an interesting idea that I will readily advocate for when shortchanged a piece of watermelon, and comfortably abandon when I am the one with the surplus melon. Unless I can trade the extra watermelon for some social credit/higher value melon.
I wonder if this melon observation typed in a podcast blurb will earn me a Nobel Prize in Economics. And/or Literature. All things being equal, I guess I already have those.
Closing remarks? 'Power of Equality' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers isn't as good as their other songs. How 'Ironic'. Especially given that Flea plays bass on the Alanis album, Jagged Little Pill. What an incredible world. Equality.
It's our first major anniversary! Wow! What better way than to celebrate turning 100 than by letting our live audience select the most sexy topic imaginable to be ranked. That's right - it's boredom!
We also snuck in a bonus round where we invited everyone to challenge anything on the list. Some good condenders! Listen to the end to see how they all fared.
Thanks for joining us and here's to 100 more :)
Catch a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Sounds pretty good. Hard to think of a better system. Teach a man to deconstruct gendered proverbs, he will become insufferable for life. In fairness, chances he was already insufferable were probably good.
Is this a good caption? I'm self-taught.
Enjoy the episode!
Sometimes we voluntarily participate in systems that are designed to exploit us while being falsely presented as valuable. It's a sad, sad reality to navigate sometimes for the truly cucked.
Don't forget to sign up to Chris' patreon over at patreon.com/endrey - that's patreon.com/endrey
If these trends continue, we'll never get to the end of knowledge. But maybe we will, let's be honest, how could you know. In the meantime, it's lovely that we have the capacity to explain everything else as magic. It just feels better that way.
"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 bold.
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 actions of millions can't be wrong! Can they?????
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 Jeff.
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!
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 wise to give authority to a moving feast that is still on the run?
Lie down in the chair and hear how we feel for once!
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 "I play a lot of age of empires 2" Endrey.
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.
The Danes may have their 'Hygge', but we need to talk about 'comfort', because it's English that's colonising the world. Thanks to Friends and Seinfeld, I believe.
So, find the good spot under a blanket on your favourite couch and turn off all notifications, because the fellas are going to put on their ranking moccasins and crack open a warm cauldron of fondue to get to the bottom once and for all of whether they're wasting their lives.
Apparently you've gotta know the rules to break the rules. Just seems like another rule to me. Also I'm not convinced that toddlers know about not peeing in the pool. It certainly never stopped me (Nick Delatovic).
Weird to think that probably any behaviour or activity you can name has been legal or illegal at some society through history. From Hammurabi to Newton, we simply love to codify.
As they say, you've got to know the laws to break them, and our hosts Nick Delatovic and Chris Endrey are always on standby to commit the one crime that authorities should actually fear - ranking every idea in order of best to worst on an ever expanding list.
I listened to a lot of Tower of Power in my teenage years - I'm not really sure why - but they had a song entitled "What Is Hip?", which shared the wisdom that "sometimes hipness is, what it ain't".
Anyway, that's clearly a deeply uncool sentence in 2021.
Does that matter?
Quick! To the ranking factory!
What would you do if I told you this is one year since we started this podcast?
Would you congratulate me, for such an arbitrary thing? Like some sort of sheep? Slave to forces you haven't chosen or dissected? Would you???!!!
Thank you so much, we're very pleased to be doing it and grateful to have you along for the journey :)
When the situation changes, sometimes it's good to change.
But if it's that good, why hasn't the chameleon overtaken every other species? Is it because that's a facile reading of the aesthetic of adaptability rather than the reality?
Maybe! Maybe I should change my opinion when I'm wrong? But then, I'm not sure that's the trait of a successful podcast host at all.
If human civilisation lasts long enough, it appears likely that every conceivable behaviour will at some stage fall both on the 'compulsory' and 'forbidden' sides of what is considered to be moral.
Fortunately, you don't need to speculate because in our own timeline, listening to Rank Ideas is the only remaining defensible moral behaviour.
Thanks for doing it! Everyone else? To the hell!
In the Garden of Eden pandora's box was finally opened and suddenly everyone who was without pants had to build a church in Rome - 'This is My Rock', they'd say.
Other than that, nudity seems pretty cool to me. There are inevitable downsidesTM, listen in for the full details on our clothing-optional take!
We at the Rank Ideas podcast are humbled to have climbed the mountain of 'perfection' in our own craft - sure. But what do we do knowing that 'perfect' is just a made-up word? Is it even a useful one?
Find out in this flawed episode! Because of course, it's the flaws the make the strengths sing, in a balance that we execute in a manner that can only be considered to be, perfect.
Each day we at the rank ideas podcast stray further from God's Light. But without a path back, how will we return to Grace?
Each year we at the rank ideas podcast fail to pay any tax upon our podcast millions, but without serving time in prison, how will we return to society?
Consider this a public apology for any wrongs we may have done so that we can return to your ears and hearts and explore Redemption.
Pirates are always travelling the world with their friends, going on wild adventures and searching for treasure. But what if the real treasure is the friendships they forge along the way?
Well - it absolutely isn't. Treasure is gold and jewels and occasionally fancy cups. And it rules. How hard? Listen in for full details!
During WWII, Churchill was asked to cut funding for the arts. He replied, ‘Then what are we fighting for?’
Except he never actually said that. He probably would've thrown every last painting from the national gallery into a furnace if it helped to power a single fighter plane.
Is existence without art worth it? Shun Churchill - only Rank Ideas can tell you how to think correctly!
The idea that all of human knowledge is held and explored in the one place is cool, especially if it's a literal ivory tower filled to the brim with eccentric weirdos. Shame it's probably wikipedia/reddit.
Regardless, we've decided to rank academia, for your consideration!
Natural = Good, Unnatural = Bad.
It's a message you can find anywhere from election speeches to supermarket aisles.
But what is natural anyway?
Worship at the altar of the pristine by downloading our pre-recorded discussion and relaying it via satellite into your ears whenever you please!
Gene editing represents a huge leap forward in humanity's endless quest to customise all living beings as we see fit. It's happening as soon as now, but is likely to ramp up significantly in the coming decades.
Playing God is a famous exploration of literature, probably because it's so cool and such a good idea with no notable drawbacks.
Let's explore this topic together!
We're leaning into the inevitable and ranking podcasts this week.
We've placed 'self-awareness' highly on the list, will this arm us with the tools we need to accurately grade our own medium?
I doubt it! Our podcast rules! Number 2 in Monsterrat babyyy!!!
Consistency is important. Consistency isn't important. Constancy is impotent.
What?
Listen to Nick and Chris rank Consistency in the only way they know how - relative to other ideas on a list that will one day exhaustively house all human thinking.
Did you know that in Australia it's illegal to name a baby 'King'? But that's not the kind of name calling we're looking at here - you sun-beaten vegemite icy pole!
Listen on, if you dare, you classics-worshipping kneepad-wearing discerning podcast listener!
T or F: True and False is an essential tool that helps us converge our flawed personal systems of perception into universalities based on agreed truths.
I'm not sure myself, but if there's an itch, we're here to scratch it in the only way True Science has found - with ranking on a list!
You say you want a revolution? Well, you know - we all want to change the world. You tell me that it's evolution? Well, you know -
we all want to change the world. But when you talk about destruction? I guess that's a feature on some level. Good or bad? Not a useful metric, so instead, we rank!
Not thinking can get us into an awful mess. The solution is obvious: we must think our way out! And if that's a mess too? We simply need Bigger Brains on the job.
That's the Rank Ideas philosophy. But Rank Ideas - Philosophy? That's a whole other kettle of fish. Whatever that means.
Our Milestone Special!
Thanks so much for being on this journey, when we set out we had no idea there that might be as many as 50 different ideas out there. Here's to another 50*
*there couldn't be more than another 30 ideas tbh but we'll keep looking
The idea of 'burnout' is such a feature of modern life that it's hard to believe that it was only first coined in 1974. Is its popularity caused by great utility or is it instead a symptom of a society gone mad?
Find out in this, the return of your favourite podcast. We thank you for your patience in waiting for this episode - we took a precautionary break to ensure we wouldn't succumb to some sort of topical fatigue tipping point.
Is hyperbole the best thing you've ever heard of? Or is it literally the stupidest idea ever? Billions have asked the question - but only one podcast can answer!
There's an inherent virtue in withholding. Is there? Well, it's an idea so subtly catchy that it turns out it's everywhere!
Only good ideas end up everywhere, right? Wrong!
Break your run of refusing to enjoy life by listening to the Rank Ideas podcast now, in the lead up to our big LIVE extravaganza 50th episode :)
Nick and Chris are so biased towards loving hanging out that they created a whole podcast where they get to do it and nobody complains. It could be because the podcast doesn't have a centralised email, but it could also be because the prospective complainer also knows the value of pursuing hanging out over rage in their life.
After a brief interregnum to cater for Chris's 'life' 'outside the podcast', the team is back together in the boiler room of the ranking industry complex that serves as their prison.
Who cares about that - is cooperation good? Hard to imagine podcasts in a world in which it didn't exist. That's all well and good, but have you ever had to pitch a 6-person tent alone? Me neither.
You ever once in your whole life lose your patience and say or do something you later regretted? If not, we salute your decision to play it cool. We take a look at the idea that we can better contain our first emotional responses to situations and slot it in that list we keep going on about of all ideas ever.
Friendship is an idea surely as old as the species and one you can be confident will last until our collective end. It's a strong candidate to land at the top of the list and has been suggested by an astute listener with just this aim in mind. How do they go? Nick and Chris put their own friendship on the line to test the critical ideas for you!
My friend Jeff is a troublemaker. When visiting America, a cheeky prank he liked to pull was to demand something unreasonable in a public space, and loudly declare 'I'm a gosh darn American, and it's my gosh darn right!', which inevitably attracted approval and applause from the people around him.
The existence of this gag alone should hurtle 'rights' to the top of our list, are there other virtues? Or hidden vices? Join us on our endless journey - it's your right!
Prior to understanding cause and effect we all just floated around attributing everything to malevolent spirits. But also beneficent spirits. So maybe it wasn't all bad. Or was it? The cause of doing a ranked list of everything is having the effect that we are ranking this topic this week!
It's essential that we can speak truth to power. It's essential that we give a group power to do this. It's essential to check their power. Wait, who does that? What's going on? Is journalism a job, a process or a culture? We start tugging at our own inevitably-biased threads and end up, as always, by placing the fourth estate at the objectively true place on our master list.
Two things in this podcast are inevitable life - Nick and Chris.
Nick is immune to death and Chris is immune to taxation.
What else is there to know? Why, some 40 minutes worth, as always!
It's always struck me as weird that there are laws to prevent cruelty against animals that don't apply to the ones we like to classify as food. I wonder if that would change if enough people kept sheep just for company. Or started eating possums. What's going on?
Dive in to hear about Chris's dog and witness Nick's stone heart slowly melt as he is forced to look at lolcats throughout the episode.
As a teenager I (Chris) had a joke book with 2000 gags from Australian lounge comic, Marty Fields. One of them I remember now and then was 'I'm not much of a gym goer, my motto is, no pain, no pain'.
I guess I just share this anecdote as a reminder to be vigilant about the material you leave lying around your children - they too may grow up to shun physical exercise and think it's normal to communicate via 90s lounge gags.
In the future, everyone will be rounded up in order from most good to most evil and a line will be drawn at the halfway point beyond which everyone will be imprisoned. I just hope whoever draws the line is good. The act of imprisoning the evil half of the world can only be good :)
I chose to write this blurb in this way. Because of the intersection of everything I was born with and everything I've experienced. Purple monkey dishwasher.
"What's mine is yours, what's yours, is mine, the more you give, the more the sun'll shine"
- Uncle Charlie, All Dogs Go To Heaven
All of which reminds me, we need to rank Dogs, Heaven, and of course, All Dogs Go To Heaven.
Nothing will give you a born-to-rule mentality more than being born to rule. The idea that someone's birth station should confer political and financial power is laughable to many of us now, but it was a systemic norm that held sway in some very successful societies for millennia.
Is it really so different from the contemporary versions we find, with the same privileges being conferred through birth but without the indignity of codification? Maybe!
To be human is to yearn to boat. This much is certain. It's the pillar upon which our civilisation is built. The same can be said for being trapped with others. The same must then be contended for shuffleboard and F-grade comedians. Is there more than meets the eye to this phenomenon?
Maybe yes, maybe no, only one way to find out!
Who better to dissect fashion that two people who at first glance seem to be its natural enemy? A second glance instead reveals that fashion isn't hostile but in fact indifferent to our protagonists. But how do they feel about it?
Also Chris released his album! Do yourselves a favour right here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5lNYUnp4XSezHcIfzTAyrN
Debate is such a classic format of contesting ideas that it has come to colonise much of the mainstream discourse. This alone must be proof of its virtue. Wait - no! That thinking is a trap!
If you disagree, feel free to debate either Nick or Chris - it's surely a better way of resolving difference than a glove slap and pistols.
Isn't it?
"All the World's a Stage, and all the men and women, merely Players"
Shakespeare said it, so you know it's good.
But don't forget that Shakespeare's view is clouded as he was an actor himself.
Chris and Nick have dabbled in a little acting, will they allow their own biases and irrationality to inform their ranking of this universal craft?
Inescapably!
Ideology! It's short for 'idea astrology'. Or is it?
Find out now, with your hosts - commun-fasc-femin-apolog-capital-somnabul-ists Nick Delatovic and Chris Endrey.
Rank Ideas truly is a belief system worth dying for.
Exploring fairness seemed like a reasonable thing for Nick and Chris to do.
At first look it seems like one of the most valuable ideas going around - thank goodness these guys have more time on their hands than the average person would choose to spend putting something so innocuous to the sword.
The conversation turns to Nick's creative practices and if you're interested to see what they're talking about, do yourself a favour and check it out: https://vimeo.com/273260417
Nick and Chris discuss inheritance, which is a luxury moot point for both of them, as neither of them are capable of dying. Don't interrogate this fact, just prepare for its reality!
This episode sees Nick and Chris discuss the merits of marriage without once mentioning their own secret marriage. For you see, they are both wedded to their job! (podcast host)
Nick mentions a work he created for his partner Zev, it's really beautiful and you can see it here: https://vimeo.com/303833607
This episode sees Nick and Chris discuss the merits of marriage without once mentioning their own secret marriage. For you see, they are both wedded to their job! (podcast host)
If this episode doesn't give you everything you need, you'll probably never be complete
Do all cultures have something you're meant to say when people sneeze? In at least German and Hungarian you just say 'health'. That idea isn't explored in this episode, but don't worry, lots of others are.
Self-awareness would have saved me from a lot of the formative and stressful life events that led me to develop self-awareness skill points
You can never truly know anybody, including yourself. Except for celebrities! They're famous.
There's no such thing as loving something too much. Is there?
We realise that this topic may hit hard to those who are dedicated fans of the Rank Ideas Experience, but we continue our quest for sweet, unattainable truth.
Porn is better than ever! Or is it worse than ever?
Either way, people are getting sacked for accessing it on company time. But maybe that's a good thing?
Let us know if you lose your job listening to this relatively SFW episode in office hours.
People are more mobile than ever, and it's arguably easier than it's ever been to find yourself a whole new home. How good is that? Not sure! Let's explore!
Rules were made to be broken. Pretty dumb expression if you think about it, but it's hard to think of any human-made rules that are universally obeyed.
Cheaters can be heroes or villains as the tide turns, but what do we think of the general idea of cheating?
Nick and Chris invoke their own relationships with sport to defend what is certainly one of the most arbitrary human pursuits of them all. Season Spoiler: we think they're all arbitrary.
Do you want to live forever? Nick does, Chris isn't so sure. In literature immortality comes with a terrible curse, but literature isn't the truth so let's get ranking!
The ability to generate narratives is a striking power that lets humans store and share huge amounts of information on our path to dominate all life.
Or at least, that is the information as has been presented to me across various synthesised constructs.
We were always going to come to look at faith eventually. Or at least, that's been my belief.
Our bodies change dramatically over the course of our lives and the capacity to make intentional edits along the way is a staple of cultural ritual and individual expression across all societies.
Rank that idea? Why, we must!
So many people seem to have jobs, but you could say the same about the flu. The only difference I can see is that we didn't invent the flu, but we did invent jobs, so let's get ranking!
We will one day defeat the sun. That much is known.
Let's see what hosts Chris and Nick think of the baby steps we are able to take on the way.
What better topic to explore for the two guys who have taken it upon themselves to rank all ideas to have survived the history of our species.
Like many words, genius originally had a neutral meaning, referring to one's innate ability. It came to mean exceptional natural ability around the 17th Century, a time that also gave us the Scientific Revolution! But also the Thirty Years War, so it's probably just a coincidence.
Our first foray into Bonus Content!
Nick writes the theme song while Chris is there to hit record. It takes two and both roles are equally important.
Prisons seem to be pretty popular, but do we need them? Or are they in fact the only thing we need? Find out definitively with your inexpert hosts, Nick Delatovic and Chris Endrey.
From the dawn of time, humans have prayed for hand dryers and jaffle irons. But have we gone full Icarus?
Let the ranking begin!
All human ideas will be ranked by Nick Delatovic and Chris Endrey.
We kick off our first episode with a contest between those two hallmarks of any life well lived: lunch and the mail.
Rank Ideas hosts Nick Delatovic and Chris Endrey talk about what exactly it is they're trying to do here.