043 Exploration vs. Exploitation

In this episode, we'll be talking about "Exploration vs. Exploitation", which is a general idea of "trying new things" vs. "repeating things that are familiar." Both are important, and I would recommend that you keep this in mind as you continue your English studies!

Chapter Bookmarks:

00:00 Start
06:07 Examples of exploration vs. exploitation
14:27 The Me Section: Japanese food and tetris
25:23 When you SHOULDN'T
34:15 Recommendation for you!

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Kuli English Podcast. It's me, your host, Chris. So this is going to be episode 43. 

So we've already done a bunch of episodes. We're not at 50 episodes yet, but I'm hoping that we'll get there. I'm hoping we'll reach 100 episodes. 

But anyways, so today is episode 43, and I want to talk about something called exploration versus exploitation. Now, this is a pretty hard phrase and it's okay if you didn't really understand it the first time, but this is a phrase that I learned from computer science. So, you know, if you studied computer science, then maybe you've heard of it before. 

And if you didn't, and that's totally fine, I'm going to try to explain it for you. And we're going to take this episode to talk about it. So first of all, let me take apart that phrase. 

All right. So we've got exploration versus exploitation. So the first one is exploration. 

So exploration comes from the word explore. So explore means to like, you know, go to someplace new or discover something new, discover something that you haven't done before. So for example, I think the image when someone says explore is probably imagine like maybe somebody is like hiking in the woods, and then they're like looking for treasure or something like that. 

So they're in the woods, and, you know, they don't really know what what's in the woods, but they're just kind of like exploring, they're looking around, they're looking under rocks, looking behind trees. And then it's kind of like, oh, it's new. And you can also use it for a lot of like, just everyday things. 

Like, for example, if, let's say you booked like a cleaning service. So some people came to your house, and they cleaned stuff for you, and then you paid them. And then they're asking you, hey, do you want to pay us every week? And then we'll come back every week?

So do you want to have like a contract? How about we do this every single time? And then if you want to say like, yes, then that's fine. You can say yes. But if you want to say no, and you want to say kind of like in a nice way, you can say, oh, I'm going to explore a couple other options. 

So that just means you're going to think about some other options. So you're going to explore a couple other options. So it sounds very nice and positive. 

And it's like a nice way to say no. So anyways, that's exploration, right? Exploration comes from the word explore. And then the other one is exploitation. 

So exploitation, it's actually kind of like a negative word. And what that usually means is you're like using somebody to do work for you. And then you're not really giving them like anything in return. 

So you're just kind of using them and getting free stuff. So maybe a good example of this is maybe the same case where let's say you ask some people to come clean your house. And then they said something like, okay, so the first time we clean your house, it's going to be cheap. 

And then from the second time and onwards, then it's going to cost a little bit more. And you say, okay, so then you have them come the first time. And then you pay them a small amount of money because the first time was cheap.

And then they go back. And then the next time you want a cleaning again, and this is where you do something called exploitation. And so if you call them again, and then you pay them the full amount of money that they asked for, that's not exploitation.

That's not exploitation. That's just, you know, following the rules, that's being fair. But if you like make a new account, or maybe like you ask your friend and say like, hey, can you pretend like you live in this house, and then you have the friend, or you make a fake account, and then you ask for another cleaning, and you say it's the first time that that's exploitation, it's kind of like a, it's kind of like cheating, but it's not really cheating.

So you call that exploitation where you have something that you know that works, and then you go ahead and keep using it. So exploitation, actually, it's a little bit negative, it comes from the word exploit. So to exploit something is to, it kind of means to like abuse something.

So maybe maybe someone's giving like free balloons, and it says like one balloon per person. And then if you keep going back to that person and asking for Oh, this is my first balloon, I'd never got a balloon. And then you get a balloon, and then you go back to your car or something. 

And then you hide the balloon. And then you come back and ask for another one. That is exploitation. 

So it's kind of like you're going against the rules a little bit to get something. And it's good for you. But it's not good for that other person that's being exploited.

So in computer science, there's this phrase called exploitation versus exploitation. And I'm not really going to talk about how you use it in computer science, because probably the people listening to this podcast don't care that much about computer science. But I do want to talk a lot about how this is pretty important in real life. 

So for example, if you want to eat some food, then you always have a choice between Do you want to have some food that you've already had before, and you know, it's good. So that would just, it's not actually bad. But it's you would call it exploitation. 

So it's like, I'm repeating something that I know that I like. Or you could try something new. So you could try like a new restaurant. 

And then the new restaurant, you don't know if it's going to be good. So you know, it could be good. It could be bad.

It could be really good. It could be really bad. You're not sure you're kind of trying out a new thing. 

So you would call that one exploration. So you kind of have this choice, right? So just in the process of deciding what to eat, like, what do I want to eat today? Do I want to have like, the same thing that I had yesterday? Or do I want to try something new? That's exploration versus exploitation. And it's okay to, you know, just talk about it. 

And, and actually, like, you know, not really change what you want to do. But I think it's also fun to talk about it. So let's go and take a short little break here. 

And then I'm going to come back. And then we're versus exploitation.

Okay, so let's go and continue. 

So we talked about exploration versus exploitation. And these are pretty hard words. So let me go ahead and give a couple more examples, just so that even if you don't really know how to say the words themselves, you'll kind of understand the meaning, at least when I say it. 

So again, we have exploration, which is trying new stuff. And you have exploitation, which is like kind of repeating the same thing, even if it might not be that good. Maybe it's mean, maybe it's not good for you. 

But that's just how it is. So to give it a lot another little example, let's talk about cooking. So when we're cooking food, and I have an example, I love to cook curry. 

And when I cook curry, again, I have to decide, do I want to try some new stuff? Do I want to try some new recipes? Or do I want to go ahead and just repeat what I've done before? So this is exploration, trying new stuff, versus exploitation, which is doing the same thing as before. And so when I cook curry, I think like the best part of my curry is definitely the potatoes, because what I do is I take the potatoes, and then I chop them up. And then I boil them for like, maybe 10 minutes or so. 

And then after that, I kind of cook it in a pan with like butter, maybe some bacon and to really give it like a butter smell. And then it also has a nice texture, because it's been boiled, and then it put it back in the curry. So if you didn't understand how I make potatoes, it's okay, you can just understand it as a Oh, Chris makes potatoes, and he puts a lot of effort into it when he makes curry. 

So that part, the part where I always do the same thing with the potatoes, that is exploitation. So I'm not really exploring anything new. I'm not going on Google and searching, how can I make nice potatoes for curry? And if I did that, that's exploration, but I don't do that. 

And then, I guess, in general, I just said, you know, like, I'm good at cooking curry, and I'm choosing to make curry again, that's exploitation. Instead of if I were to do exploration, then the same thing for cooking would be instead of making curry, I say, Okay, today, we're gonna make a new Russian dish, we're gonna make borscht or something like that. And I've never made borscht before. 

What, by the way, it's kind of like a Russian soup thing. But so when when you're cooking, you have the choice between like exploration and exploitation. And I have another example here, which is going to be probably pretty relevant to language learning. 

So it's very related to language learning stuff. But when you talk to people, you have to again, so I'm assuming that you are someone who is learning English, then when you talk to people, you have to choose between, am I going to try using new words that I've learned, and this is kind of like exploration? Or should I go ahead and just try to only use the words that I've used many times before, and I feel more familiar with it. And that's exploitation. 

And this one, there's not really a good answer for which one you should do, because both have benefits. Okay. So again, the exploration version, the one where we keep trying new things. 

If every time I talk to people, I try using new words that I've recently learned, then it's actually pretty good for learning. So I would actually probably, you know, get a good chance to try all the new words that I've heard before. And then when new words come in, I use those immediately as well. 

And but the downside to this is because I'm using those words for the first time, then probably I might make mistakes when I use those words. So let's say I heard a brand new word. Okay. 

For example, let's say I have the word antique. Okay, antique means like something that's kind of like old, but because it's old, it's kind of fancy. So for example, cars, cars, you know, generally people like new cars. 

So it's like, Oh, this is a new car that came out last year. But there are also antique cars. So antique cars are like they're not recent cars. 

They weren't made recently. They're from like, you know, 1960 or 1970 or something. So over 20, over 40 years ago, these cars, you would call them antiques. 

And so, you know, if I heard the word antique in a podcast or something, then the next time someone says, Oh, like, you know, this, this meat that I'm cooking is going to be kind of old. So I'm worried if it's going to be rotten. And then I'd say, Oh, it's antique. 

So this is like, you know, it's good, because I'm trying new words. But the bad part is actually that usage of antique, it's not actually that good. You wouldn't say antique meat, okay, antique usually applies to you can't say it for food, because food is kind of like a, it's kind of a simple, like short term thing. 

Antique has to be like pretty far back. So like an antique vase or antique jewelry, antique cars, you just don't really use it for food, antique food. So the plus side is I tried using that word, and I'm learning stuff. 

The downside is I might mess up. And then I might say something that doesn't really make sense. So that person, they probably understand what I mean. 

And that's fine. They'll say like, Oh, antique meat. Oh, that's funny. 

That's an interesting image. But it's not like a normal thing that you'd say. Anyway, so that's exploration, right? If I did a lot of exploration, every time I hear new stuff, I would go ahead and try to use those new words like immediately.

And that has its good parts. It's good for learning. But now let me talk about exploitation.

So exploitation is you only use like the words and the grammar stuff that you are pretty used to. So let's say I've used the word like good and bad, like many, many times. So you know, someone asked me like, How was your day? I say good. 

And then, you know, is that friend? Like, how's that friend at tennis? And I say bad, because they're bad at tennis. And then I don't really change it up that much. This is fine, too. 

The good news is if you keep using the same word many, many times, then you'll get more familiar with it. And as you make mistakes with those words, for example, like the word antique, I just gave as an example, if you made a mistake using that word, and then someone told you, Hey, by the way, you can't say antique meat, antique is for like jewelry, or like a cars or like something that actually is, is kind of older. And then so I would think, Oh, okay, so I can't do that. 

And then at that point, then I become more familiar with the word. And if I keep using antique every time I can, then I probably get pretty good at using it, you know, so then someone else will say something like, I'm trying to sell this computer, but it sucks. And no one wants to buy it. 

And then I could say, Oh, well, why don't you try selling it and saying it's an antique computer? Because antique actually usually means like it's old, but it's like valuable. And then some people think like, Okay, wow, good job using the word antique. And so if I were to only do exploitation, I don't do any exploration, I do only exploitation, I only use words that I've used many times before, what happens is you get really good at saying certain things. 

So and I have this experience to in Japanese as well. So when I learned new words in Japanese, of course, the first time that I use those words, it costs me more energy in my mind to talk about it. So let's say I learned a new word. 

And then I use that word, then when I use that word, I always have this thought in my mind that's like, Oh, I wonder if that was the correct usage. I wonder if I pronounced it correctly. I wonder if it's a natural usage, or if it was kind of like a weird usage. 

And it's really hard to know what these kinds of nuances, for example, the word antique, like you can't say antique food, but you can say like an antique vase, antique jewelry, antique cars. And then in some cases, maybe you can say an antique computer, because I guess it could be like a collectible, some people want to collect it, even if it's old doesn't have to be a new computer, they just want to have all of them. So then, you know, like when you have new words, and you're using them, it usually does have like some benefit in terms of like you're practicing stuff. 

But at the same time, it's kind of hard to do it well. But then if you keep using those words a lot, then you get really familiar with them. And then at that point, it's called exploitation. 

And that's really good. I think I can probably give another good example here. But hopefully, that's good enough. 

And let's take a short little break here. And then we'll come back and we'll review. And then we'll talk some more about exploration versus exploitation. 

All right, so let's go ahead and move on to this next section here. And I have my notes here to the side. And I'm looking at my notes. 

And the next section says the me section, the me meaning the Chris section. So now I'm going to tell you about me. And so let me go ahead and give an example, some more examples of exploration versus exploitation. 

So again, exploration is when you try new stuff. And exploitation is when you don't try new stuff. But you repeat something that you know worked for you. 

And so as an example, let me go ahead and talk about like my moving to Japan. So I guess all of my life and all of your life to all of everybody's lives, everybody eats food, okay, everyone who has lived up until this point, has eaten food before. And if you haven't eaten food, then that's amazing. 

And you're special. And I've never met someone like you. But everyone has eaten food before. 

And most people usually have like a food preference, right? So food preferences, meaning food that you like and food that you don't like. So you know, food that I really like, I like Japanese food, and food that I don't like, I don't like certain kinds of vegetables, I don't like spinach. And what else? Well, I don't like the things that I'm allergic to, because I'm allergic to nuts. 

But anyway, so I have food preferences, right? And then, while talking about food, well, a lot of this stuff, you actually don't know if you like it or not, unless you try it. So when you try new food, this is like exploration. And I think everybody in general, I don't know why, but like, you know, in this world, in this modern society, people usually see people trying new food as like a positive thing. 

So if somebody says, oh, I like tried this new food or something, usually people are like, oh, wow, good job. Like, good for you, because you spent the effort to like try new things. Nobody's ever like, oh, that was stupid, you shouldn't have tried that. Of course, that's not going to be good. I think people are usually pretty supportive of trying new foods. 

And so, you know, like I tried foods in my life, and then I like certain foods, and I don't like certain foods. And then I found out actually, I really like Japanese food. And this is something that, you know, I don't really know when I found out, but I just found out like, over time, as I lived life, like, I think sometimes I think like, oh, it tastes good. 

And sometimes I think, oh, it tastes bad. And then like, at a certain point, I started thinking, oh, Japanese food is really good. And then so on, basically, once I went to Japan, it was like just supposed to be a vacation. 

But then I thought, oh, wow, like, Japanese food is really, really good. And then so at this point, you know, let's look again, think about what we're going to talk about, which is the exploration and exploitation. So exploration is I tried a bunch of different things, right? I tried a bunch of different foods. 

I tried like, you know, Mexican food. I tried like, you know, pizza, burger, American foods, whatever. And then exploitation is when you keep repeating something that you like. 

So one of my big reasons why I moved to Japan was actually just because I really like the food in Japan. And then so like this, you can see it as Chris. So me, I'm doing the exploitation. 

Okay, so I'm not doing much more exploring because I'm not trying other countries food. I'm not trying like, you know, more Vietnamese food or more like Filipino food. I'm trying lots of Japanese food. 

So I'm like exploiting. But you know, it really depends on how you look at it. Because if you kind of look at it from a different point of view, you can say, Oh, well, Chris lived his life in the US for many years. 

I don't know, over 28 years. I actually forget at least 28 years in the US. And then I moved to Japan. 

And so living in Japan is a kind of a new experience, right? So you can say that one's exploration. So in terms of trying life stuff, I'm like exploring things. But in terms of trying food stuff, it's definitely a bit more exploitation. 

I'm like trying to exploit something that I know that I like, which is I love Japanese food. So I'm eating a lot of Japanese food. That's another example of exploration versus exploitation. 

And then, so in this me section here, I'm going to tell you another story about myself. But yet again, we're going to, I want you to keep that in mind. Okay, so the exploration, which is trying new stuff versus exploitation, which is, you know, repeating stuff that works for you. 

And so something that I think is really important for especially kids, is to play and try a bunch of different things. So imagine if you have a kid, and then the kid's like, I don't know, let's say, five years old, six years old. And you know, so maybe you're imagining in your mind, there's like a five or six year old boy. 

And he's like, I want to play with Nerf guns or like, oh, today, I want to eat this thing or tomorrow. Oh, let's play hide and seek. But I want to try it with like, you know, with Nerf guns or something like they're always trying new things.

And when we look at this, so we as adults, I'm assuming you're an adult, and it's okay, if you're not an adult. But when we as adults look at kids, then usually it's actually a very good thing if they're trying a bunch of different things. So when kids are playing, it's important to try a bunch of different things. 

And it's not only kids, but also the way I see it. I see college students as people who are still kind of figuring out, you know, what they're going to do for the rest of their life. So most people in like middle school, if you ask them, okay, what is your goal in life? And then a lot of them will say, I got to get to a good high school. That's my goal. 

And then you're like, okay, that's fine. And then let's say we ask a high school student, we say, hey, high school student, what is your goal? And they'll say, oh, I have to do well on this test, so that I can like get good grades so that I can get into college. And by the same token, by the same token, meaning in the same way, if we ask a college student, what is your goal, then they're going to say, oh, I got to work hard and study this so that I can go get a good job. 

And then once I get a good job, I can have a steady, happy life. But the way I view this is probably a little bit different than how some other people view it. And this is just my personal opinion. 

But I think college students should be trying a lot of different things, not just college students, but all students. So high school students, middle school students, elementary school students, basically anyone who is still in college or younger, I think they should be trying a bunch of different things. So you've got to try studying like this topic and try studying that topic. 

And then try like this club, try that club, try this game, try this sport. I think it's just good to try new things. Why? Because later on in life, when you're like 30, it's harder to try new things. 

Like you're not in that environment anymore. Just because in college, there are a lot of clubs and a lot of other students, and they're all doing different things. So it's actually pretty easy. 

And it doesn't really cost you that much to try doing new things. Yes, of course, maybe you could be spending that time focusing on one thing. You could be focusing on exploitation. 

You could be focusing on one thing and studying that one thing. And then you could get good at that thing and be better at other people than it. But at the same time, I think it's really important that the stuff that you do is something that you like. 

So when you explore things, you can kind of find out what you like. And so this is my view on college students. Because for me personally, I actually did some exploring in college as well. 

And so I was going to be a chemical engineer. I'm going to say these things, and it doesn't really matter if you know what they mean or not. But like a chemical engineer, it's like a certain major that you have in college. 

I was going to be a chemical engineer. But then I did some exploration stuff. And then I actually, I was playing Tetris. 

So if you know, there's this game called Tetris, which is really famous. And then you can play Tetris on Facebook. By the way, I'm not sure if I've told the story on this podcast before. 

But this was actually how I first started like studying programming. But I was playing Tetris on Facebook. And then on Tetris Facebook, like they have this thing called energy. 

So if you like, if you play, then it costs you energy. And then if you don't play, then over time, the energy comes back over time. And it costs you five energy to play one game. 

And then you get one energy every like, I don't know, five minutes or something. And you can have up to 20 energy. But when you play this, it costs you energy, and it's fun. 

But then if you'd run out of energy, they ask you, hey, do you want to pay money, and then you can buy more energy? And my answer is like, no, because I'm cheap, right? I'm like, there's no way I'm paying that. Absolutely not. But then they have another choice, which is okay, so if you don't want to pay, we'll give you five energy if you watch this ad, the ad meaning like an advertisement. 

So it's like a video about some other thing that I usually don't care about. But if you watch it all the way to the end, then you get like credits. And so what I did was, I really wanted to like play more, but I didn't want to watch the ad.

So what I did was I kind of started programming to like, make a robot that clicks the ad, and the ad was always in the same spot, like the Facebook Tetris was like, not really made that well. So you always have the same button in the same spot, which is like play ad. And then it was always the same ad. 

And then the X button to X out to close out of the ad, it was always in the same place. So I made a robot that always clicks the same spot. And so it clicks the same spot, and then it closes out, and then I get the energy, and then I watch another ad. 

And then like, I do it overnight. So then overnight, like I wake up, I do it overnight, which means like a while I'm sleeping, I run the robot, and it keeps clicking for me. And then the next morning, when I wake up, then I have like a ton of energy, like enough energy to last forever. 

So that was how I started programming. And this one, it actually did require a bit of exploration, both exploration and exploitation, right? So I didn't study computer programming, at first, but I was still exploring. And you know, like, even though I'm not supposed to study programming or something, I'm supposed to be doing like, you know, my own classwork or something, I figured, actually, no, I want to play this game, because I like this game. 

And then I thought, but I want more stuff, but I don't want to put in the effort to get this stuff. And then at that point, then I realized, oh, if you just watch this one ad, you can get this energy. And why don't I just keep doing it back to back to back. 

And that one is called exploitation, because I'm doing the same thing to get the same reward for something that I know. And then of course, sometimes, you know, the robot breaks and starts maybe clicking other stuff. And then it's fine. 

I just like shut down the computer, restart it, and then try it again. But it's like, it's a process of both exploration and exploitation. And just in general, I think it's actually really good to try new stuff. 

So that's how I actually got started with programming. It was because I wanted to play Tetris. And then I, I like didn't want to put in the effort to watch the ads. 

So I made a robot to watch the ads for me. So this is like the me section of a exploration versus exploitation. So let's take a short little break here. 

And then we'll come back and I'm going to tell you about some more stuff.

Okay, so let's make our way into this next section here, which is when you should do exploration and when you should do exploitation. So again, you have exploration, which is trying new stuff. And then you have exploitation, which is doing stuff that you that like, you know, for sure works, and you're not trying new stuff at all. 

And I think there are a couple of examples. And I already talked about one of them, but at least for no exploitation. So when should you never do exploitation? When should you never repeat stuff? And when should you always be trying new things? And one of my opinions for this is when you are playing with kids. 

So if you ever have a job where you have to like play with kids, or like teach kids, even, I think you get really familiar with the fact that like kids, they don't like to pay attention. Like kids just do whatever they want. And then you have certain ways of like, kind of tricking them into like giving you their attention. 

But they don't actually like decide to give you attention, you can't be like, Listen, kid, you got to pay attention to me or else you're not going to be successful when you grow up. And the kid is going to be thinking, I don't care. I just want to eat McDonald's or something. 

So so kids are kind of like, uncontrollable and a little bit hard to predict. And that's just how it is, because they're still young. But I think it's actually really important for kids to try new things. 

So kids that play like a game or something, you want them to play a bunch of different games. So you want them to try playing like, you know, this sport baseball, you want them to try playing with the kid next door. And this is going to sound like this might be something that other people don't agree with. 

But kids, I think should also have experience with like problems like social problems. So if you go to school, and you see other people, like arguing with each other, like it's not pleasant, but I think it's important to experience it. So you know, someone can say, you want your kid to go to school and say like, Oh, I saw you I saw Bob and Alice arguing, and they were unhappy. 

And then I think it's a good experience. The best is if you know, it doesn't really hurt them that much. But of course, there are also experiences where it's kind of important to experience now rather than later. 

So for example, the first time someone says something mean to you. So if you're a kid, and you go to school, and someone says your shirt is ugly. And then you know, as a kid, it hurts because you're like, Oh, no, like this person said something mean to me. 

And then as an adult, well, the best situation is you're an adult. And then if someone calls, someone says your shirt is ugly, like you don't really care. It's like, Okay, well, I don't know who you are. 

And I don't think my shirt's ugly. And I don't care that you think like, that's like the best. But you know, if, if you if all of your life, you've never had this experience, and all of your life, everyone's always told you your shirt looks great. 

And then as an adult, you're like walking around, you're like, Oh, yeah, my shirt, I love my shirt. It's so beautiful. It's the most beautiful shirt in the whole world. 

And then someone on the street points to you and says your shirt is ugly. You're gonna be like, Oh, it's my first time getting told this. And then you're like, Oh, no, maybe my shirt's ugly. 

So that's not good. So I think it's good to like experience a bunch of different things. And of course, I should mention, it depends on the person. 

So some people, you know, every time they're told something, like it gets really stressful for them. So then in that case, it's different. But I'm just talking about like in the general case. 

So in general, I believe that kids, especially when you teach kids, you have to like change things a lot. So if you're trying to teach a kid, and you're like, Okay, we're gonna learn these five English words, like you'll be lucky if you can make it to number three. Because kids just don't really pay much attention. 

They're like, blah, whatever. And yeah, well, I have a story. But let's go ahead and talk about some other examples.

So another example, I think, where you should never try to like keep doing the same thing, I think is music. So when you're making music, especially if you're making music, like an original song or something, if you keep trying to repeat something, I think actually, it's not very good. Because every time you make music, you want to make something new. 

So I think you want to like, be experimenting with stuff. So for me, you know, because I play guitar, then when I play around with the guitar stuff, like what I end up usually doing is I ended up repeating a lot of different things that I hear from other songs, and then like mix it together and see how it feels. And then sometimes, you know, like I mess up, but even the mess up is kind of like part of the process. 

So then you mess up and you're like, Oh, wait, wait, this is kind of hard. Maybe is there an easier way to play this? And then you try playing some new stuff. And sometimes you accidentally invent good stuff. 

But, you know, as a counter example, so on the opposite side, if I were to try to make music, but then I didn't do any exploration, and I only did exploitation, and I only did stuff that I knew for sure would work, then like I'm not really trying new stuff. So I wouldn't really be making new music either, I would probably be and I would end up making like some music that I've already made before, or it would be really similar to something that already exists or something. And that's probably not so good. 

But now let me talk about the opposite opposite end. So you know, we just talked about how like, you know, playing with kids and teaching kids and making music, it's like good to explore and try new things all the time and not really commit to anything.

But now let's talk about the opposite, where when is it good to never try new things? And when is it good to like always do the same thing? And this one, like I actually thought I had to think about this for some time. 

But I came up with a good example. And I think that example is if you're doing surgery. So surgery, meaning like somebody is like on the operating bed in a hospital. 

And you know, they're like barely alive, they're like, beep, beep, that's the sound of the heartbeat monitor. They're like, beep, beep, beep, like, Oh, I need you to do surgery, I need you to save my life. And in that case, what you should do is you should definitely not try new things, you should do whatever it is that you have studied. 

So you know, like those people who do surgery, they have done that surgery so many times. And that's what they're good at, they just repeat doing that thing. So if it's like a heart transplant, so a heart transplant is like, it's a really common example that you might see in like books or like TV. 

But it's where somebody's heart is failing, and you have to switch the heart. So you know, the heart's really important, because if you don't have a heart, like you, you die. And so what people do is they like they switch out the heart. 

And when you switch it out, you don't want to mess up. You don't want to try something new, because well, you don't really have much to learn from trying something new, like the process for like surgery and all that. It's something that people have done a lot over time. 

So you should just trust the people that have done the same thing many times. And also, when you go to somebody, and you want surgery done, I think a good question to ask is have you done this before? Because you want someone who's done it before. You want someone who's done it before, and when they did it, they didn't mess up. Okay, you don't want someone that's like, yeah, I've done like, you know, all sorts of surgeries before, but every single time I messed up. But I've been trying a lot of different things. 

I do a lot of exploration. You don't want that. You want someone who's like, I only do one type of surgery. 

And that is exactly this. And if you do it, you will be like my 13th person or something like that. That's a great case.

That's a great case where you don't want to do any exploration, and you want to do lots of exploitation. And then let me go ahead and give one last example here, which is taxes. I think a taxes is a good example where you don't want to do any exploration. 

So you know, surgery and taxes, these are very like strict things. So if you like do it, and you follow it exactly, then probably it's fine. So with taxes, I think for most people, when you fill out the taxes, you want to just do like exactly what you've done before, probably, you don't want to try anything new, you're not going to be like, Oh, well, you know, maybe if I fill it out this way, then like they won't notice and then I'll pay less or something like that. 

And I think it actually just doesn't really work. And nobody really, I think most people don't really enjoy doing taxes. Actually, I do. 

But I think most people don't enjoy filling out taxes. And the answer to taxes, I think is usually like, it's usually pretty clear cut. It's not like music, where music is like, wow, do whatever you want, create something new. 

You know, like, follow your heart. None of that. I think taxes is just like, okay, so you answer this question, okay, and ask you, did you sell stocks this year? And then you say yes or no. 

And they're like, when you sold stocks, how much money did you make? There's no creativity to this answer. It's just yes or no. Or like, how much money did you make? How much money did you lose? It's just very, very straightforward. 

I think that's a good example. And so it's a little bit fast. But let's take one last little break here. And then we'll make our way into the last section.

Okay, so here we are in this last section here. And in this last section, I just want to talk about like, what exploration and exploitation could mean for you. 

So for you, when I say for you, I don't actually know who you are. Because you know, the people listening to this podcast are listening after I've already recorded this. I'm just talking to like this wall to this phone, and then I like, you know, edit it and stuff. 

But I mean, like for everyday people, what are things that they can think about for like exploration versus exploitation. And I think I'm just a generally good thing to do is to try to do a little bit of both. So for example, let's just talk about something really simple, like brushing your teeth. 

So by the way, I don't have any notes for this. So I'm just kind of talking off the top of my head off the top of my head, meaning I don't have any preparation for this. But when you're brushing your teeth, probably everyone who brushes their teeth brushes their teeth with one hand, and they always use that hand. 

And then so as a good example, I had a friend who like he went snowboarding. And then he went snowboarding, he did some stupid stuff, and then he ended up breaking his arm. And it's fine, because you know, he broke his arm. 

And then, you know, people heal from like, like broken bones generally pretty quickly. So he's going to be fine from that like pretty soon. But while his while his arm was broken, like he it was his right hand, and he has difficulty like brushing his teeth with his left hand. 

And so, you know, it's not I'm not telling you that you have to like brush your teeth with your left hand. But you know, if you had like done a little bit of exploration beforehand, and then you tried like brushing your teeth with your left hand, or like, I don't know, let's say you're writing with your right hand, but instead, you try writing with your left, like just having tried it like once or twice probably makes a difference. 

And, and you can think about it as like, oh, so I know that I can do with my right hand, I wonder if I can do with my left, and then you just try it once. 

And you're like, okay, well, it's hard or like, oh, I suck at it. Oh, I can't do it. And that's fine. 

You can switch back, but at least you kind of tried it. 

And then the good thing about that is like later on, if something similar to that event ever happens, like, let's say you go snowboarding, and then you break your arm, and you're like, oh, no, I can't brush my teeth with my right hand. What do I do? Do I just never brush my teeth, and then I'm going to be a smelly mouth person? Or am I going to brush my teeth with my left hand? 

And when that happens, you'll probably think be thinking, oh, it's a good thing I tried doing this. 

And this I think is, I think it's just generally good in life to try out new things. So this is like more for the exploration side, right? So like, when you try out new things, you get more experience in life. 

And so for example, let's say we're going to go out to go eat.

And then when we go out to go eat, if you ask me, hey, like, what places near you, like are good places to eat? And then I would give an answer that's probably like, I don't know, like, these are like three places that I really like, like, it's a good thing that I have three places, you can imagine, what if every single day, I only ate my favorite food, and I never tried anything else? Then, when someone asks me, hey, Chris, like, you want to try something nearby? What do you recommend that we try? I might not have a good answer. And then I'm like a little bit sad, because I don't have any good recommendations for my friend. And that would be a little bit sad. 

So, you know, it's probably good to try stuff. But at the same time, like me, when I eat like the foods that I like, like, it makes me pretty happy. And it's also easier, because like, I know how long it's going to take. 

So you know, if I go to the same restaurant that I go to, like every week, then I probably know, you know, like the menu, I probably know, like what to order. And that whole process is pretty easy. So for example, let's say I have like a plan, let's say I have a plan at like 2pm.

And I'm eating at like 1pm, then you know, like, it's probably good to not try a new thing there, because I'm like, okay, I only have an hour, I got I can go out, I can go eat something. But it should be a place that I've eaten at before so that I know it's going to be kind of fast. And you know, it depends on the person. 

I'm not saying that that's the right answer. I'm not saying that you have to do that. You can still go and try something new. 

But when you try something new, you know, just got to be careful, because you don't know how long it's going to take, you might end up being late. And then maybe if you're late, it's fine. Maybe if you're late, it's actually not good. 

But it ends up being your decision. So again, all these things are just my personal recommendations, you can try new things, or you can not, but in general, if you try new things, it might be better for your future. 

And also, I want to bring this conversation back to one thing that I was talking about before, which is like trying new things in languages. And I talked about it previous previously as a little example early in this episode. But when you do exploration versus exploitation in languages, I think it's actually pretty important to try new things.

So if you learn some new word recently, or you learn some new grammar recently, if you are able to use that, if you use it, you will remember it better. Okay, so if you don't use it, you will still have trouble later on using it, it's kind of like a matter of how much you use it. And there is this one research that I read online. 

And basically, it takes about 20 times, after you see a word being used, like 20 times, you start, well, at least, like, the actual exact phrasing is a little bit complicated. But after you see the same word a bunch of times, then you start getting really familiar with it. And how many times do you need before you get really familiar with it? Well, it's somewhere between like, you know, a few times and 20 times, like you don't need more than 20 times. 

And this is like something that they sometimes use for like language research for like, studying Oh, okay, so is Friends actually a good show to watch to learn English. And then they kind of compare it against that metric. It's a video on YouTube that I saw. 

But so if you have the same word being used in front of you, and then you use that word many times, then you can bring that word from unfamiliar, this is unexplored into familiar. So when you do this, you are like increasing your power. So later on, you're going to be a little bit stronger in terms of language stuff. 

But at the same time, every time you use a word, and it's not that comfortable for you to use, or maybe it's hard to pronounce or something, you're gonna have to spend a little bit of effort. 

So it's kind of like, well, do you want to spend the effort now? And then later on, you can be stronger? Or do you just not want to spend any effort now? And then later on, when you try to use that word, you have to spend the effort then it's kind of like you decide when you want to pay, you want to pay now, or you want to pay later, or you want to pay never and never get it. And you know, that's really up to you. 

So some words probably it's okay, if you like absolutely never use it in your life. And for those words, if you want to use it 20 times, I don't know, are you really going to use it later on. And I'm thinking of like examples of probably like medical terms. 

So if somebody's telling you about some sickness, that's like a really rare sickness. And those usually like the medical terms for words are sometimes like really, really long. And then those also like people don't even like native speakers probably have no idea what those mean. 

So if you work really hard studying that word, well, that's fine. Like you can use it, but when you use it, you'll have to explain it again later. So that one's kind of like, mmm I don't know. 

But then there's going to be words that are probably pretty useful. And a lot of those actually, I think are slang. So if you're going to talk with, you know, native English speakers, I think slang is actually pretty useful. 

And then so as you try to use more slang, you will spend a little bit of effort because you know, you might mess up, you might say something wrong, or it might be hard to pronounce, or maybe the meaning doesn't get across the first time. And that's kind of frustrating. But at the same time, when you do this kind of payment, you can think of it as, oh, I'm paying for this upfront. 

Okay, so I pay early, and then I get to use this forever. So once I pay this pain, and mess up once, twice, three times, four times, you will never mess up more than 20 times, probably, probably, if you'll never be like, you'll never mess up and then like, have it fixed more than 20 times. Like that's apparently what the research says. 

I don't know if it's true, it probably ends up depending on the person. But if you basically pay that effort, and then mess up a bunch of times, eventually, you get it, and you keep it. And then after that, you don't have to pay anymore. 

So it's kind of like a subscription. You know, you pay for like something, every single time you pay for it. And then once you've been in this subscription for long enough, once you've paid for Netflix long enough, then it becomes free. 

And real Netflix isn't like that. But when it comes to learning language words, and language stuff, I think it is. 

So if there's any one recommendation from me, it's like, you know, do your best and try to explore, try to put an effort to do different things, because it's really good. 

Because at some point, you might find something that you really like. And then that's great. When you have something that you really like, and you can exploit it, you can think of it as okay, that's good. 

I paid the effort to try to find this, and then I found it, I'm going to keep using this. But at the same time, while you keep using it, don't forget, you should keep exploring because sometimes you might find something that you like even more. And this applies not just to language stuff, but you know, to like college students when they study things. 

So people when they're trying new sports, maybe when you're making friends, really anything in life, I think a lot of it has to do with exploration versus exploitation. Okay, so I think that's all I have for this podcast episode today. So thank you so much for listening until the end of this episode. 

Again, this was Kuli English podcast, and we always have new episodes on Tuesday. And this was episode 43. So I hope to see you in episode 44, which is next week. 

And as always, if you want to support me, you can follow you can share you can do whatever you want, or you can do nothing and tune in next week if you want. So with that, thank you so much and hope to see you next week.