WEBVTT - CZM Rewind: Elon Musk Has Lost the Gamers 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.880 All media. 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:05.640 Welcome to you. 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.920 It happen here a podcast trying to figure out why 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:10.280 some of the most powerful people in the world want 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:11.800 everyone to think that they're gamers. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:13.800 It is it is your host me along with me 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.720 as Garrison Davis. I I've I've played a video game before. 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.680 I'm not very powerful, but I too have played many 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.080 several video games. See I wouldn't I wouldn't say several. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.520 I've I've played like a few many. I have played 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:34.560 too many, simply too many video games. So okay, this 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:34.880 is this. 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.000 Is in some ways kind of a lighter episode, because 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.960 Jesus fucking Christ, everything's really depressing. Is something going on 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:41.920 out there, It's all really bad, And one of the 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:45.280 people who's been making everything really really bad is Elon Musk, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.240 who has somehow managed to like piss off the gamers. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.120 The PayPal guy, the PayPal guy, the owner of X 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.720 I've I've been I've been locked in my uh in 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.360 my gamer cave for the past like five months. I've 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.560 not left. I'm just hearing about this now. Yeah you might. 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:02.920 You might. 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:04.759 You might know of him as the guy who paid 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:06.880 another guy to play Path of Exile two for him. 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:08.839 We will get to that I don't play those games. 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:13.600 Those games are gay. I only play Nintendo huh, Mecca 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:19.000 games and hell Divers two like a loser. That's that's reasonable, 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.000 that's reasonable. Those are those are those are fine games. 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.240 Oh and Sonic Oh god, okay. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:31.640 Pushing aside the subject of Sonic, So okay, I want 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:33.680 to take a look a bit about why this sort 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.400 of matters and why all of these fucking really rich 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.520 assholes are sort of trying to pretend to be gamers. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.720 And I think the place to start here is with 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.000 the fact that gaming is in one hundred and eighty 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.640 four point three billion dollar industry. Todd Harris, who is 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.920 extremely annoying guy but is also right, points out that 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.640 this is more money than TV, movies, and music combined. 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.000 So this is the largest entertainment market in the world, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.760 old by such an astounding margin in terms of just 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:04.800 dollar value. 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:06.400 Right, something like. 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.320 Three billion people play video games. It's mostly mobile games, 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.520 which makes the story I'm about to tell very weird 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.960 because the actual people who play these games, again, it's 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:20.600 a lot of mobile games, and it's also mostly people 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.799 who are women and non white. And yet, however, Comma, 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.519 when people think about like the gamer TM you are 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:28.840 not thinking about. 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.880 That, yeah, like as a political class. 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.680 Yeah yeah, you know, like when people say the word gamer, yeah, 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.960 you're thinking of a bunch of weird in cell right 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:44.600 wing dipshits who are white and suckass. And this is 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:46.880 in large part because gamer Gate was sort of the first, 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.320 like truly effective political mobilization of like the gamer as 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:51.200 a political identity. 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.399 And obviously this is you know, this is a fascist movement. Now. 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.040 Part of the reason this works, and we're gonna be 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.600 getting more into why this sort of works later, but 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:00.240 part of the reason this works is that this is 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.440 an extremely large group of people because it's new. No 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:05.720 one has sort of defined it as a political identity before, 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.760 and it's also filled with people who are extremely insecure 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.360 about their identity as a gamer because this is a 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:15.320 relatively new medium, which is why everyone fucking either wants 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:19.200 their games to be like treated like movies or some shit, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.800 or they want it to be sports because those are 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.440 sort of cultural things with enormous amounts of money, and 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:27.480 then that are taken like quote unquote more seriously. 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:28.959 Yeah yeah. 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.440 And so the effect of this is that the cultural 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.640 affect of being a gamer is extremely important to these people. 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.160 And this is true actually really both on the left 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:40.840 as much as it is on their right. There are 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.920 a lot of like sort of political figures. I don't know, 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.840 you're sort of like online people who come out of gaming, 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.280 like h Bomber guy, I guess an example, like Hassan. 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.120 To some extent, there's just like a lot of people 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.120 who are like gamers and then by sort of like 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:00.560 become political. But on the other hand, game has always 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.760 been like a not always but has traditionally been an 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.800 extremely right wing space. Oh god, Garrison, I feel like 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:09.840 you will actually appreciate how fucking shit this is. Have 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.120 I told you the story about Kebab the German No? 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:13.200 Oh boy? 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.960 Okay, so back in the dawn of Time I played 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.400 a lot of Hearthstone as a kid, and I was like, 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:20.120 I wasn't like, good. 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.479 Is that like a resource management type game for like 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.279 gae autistic people. No, this is this is the world 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:30.200 of Warcraft card game. Okay, that's that's even more embarrassing. Yeah, 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:31.280 really bad, really bad. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.880 I think I think I peaked at like two k 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.000 legend North America, which like technically speaking is like top 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.919 like half a percent of players in the world's. 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.440 Digital collectible card video game. 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:47.400 Come on, Oh yeah, yeah, but two k legend na 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:48.680 is like fucking shitter ranks. 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:49.200 It's bad. 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:51.680 I was never like good, good at it. I was 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:56.120 just like okay, kind of. But you know, this is 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:57.760 like a thing that I did growing up, and something 0:04:57.800 --> 0:04:59.960 I remember is like all of the fucking Heartstone streamers 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.760 and these were like really big streamers would play music 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.880 from this guy they called Kobob the German and it 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.960 turns out that his actual name was removed Kobob because 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.120 he was a fucking German neo Nazi. 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.120 Well many such cases, yeah. 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:17.920 For people who like are not aware of of like 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.159 mid twenty tens German fascism. Remove Kebob is like a 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.719 slogan calling for the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Turkish 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:25.520 people in Germany. 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.279 So great stuff, great stuff. 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:29.720 This is just was just sort of like the water 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:31.840 you were swimming in if you were a gamer in 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:37.960 like the twenty tens. Now this goes some way to 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.200 explaining something that I noticed kind of recently, which is 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:47.279 the absolutely bizarre obsession these tech CEOs like who want 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:49.520 to be thought of as gamers. And so the two 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.679 examples we're gonna look at are Sam bank and Freed's 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:53.520 and this is this is really technically on both sides 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:55.120 of the political spectrum. Right, We're gonna look at Sam 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.520 Banker Freed, and we're gonna look at Elon musk Are 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.120 new O. Lord, I guess, so we're gonna start with 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.920 Sam Bankmon Fried, and you know, as we go through 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.680 what's happening here, we're gonna sort of unravel why it's 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.280 so important to them to be seen as gamers. And 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:14.360 I guess it is important to know like Sam bakmon 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.240 Fried like is I guess like he is a gamer 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:19.159 in the sense that like he's like addicted to video 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.560 games effectively and just plays them fucking literally constantly. 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:24.880 Yeah, he looks the part too, no offense. 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.039 Yeah yeah, before before he was put in prison for 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:28.919 twenty five years for fraud. 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.280 Well probably not anymore. He's probably gonna get part of God. 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.360 Maybe we'll see, we'll see. I don't know. Crypto vote, 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.000 it's the most valuable voting block. Now all young Americans 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.280 are too poor to open bank accounts, so they put 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.640 all their money in crypto. So now they're gonna vote 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:45.599 for whoever makes line go up. 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.320 I'm gonna become the joker, So okay, then think about 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.520 Sam magon FRIEDA for people who have forgotten who SBF is. 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.360 He is the guy who was the founder of FTX, 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:58.560 which was like a crypto change that was actually effectively 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.839 a giant scam where he took everyone money embedded on 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:02.000 the stock market and lost it. 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.680 And you know, Robert did a sort of behind the 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:06.440 bassarides on him. 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.160 And one of the things that happens constantly is that 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:10.600 he's just like always fucking playing video games. He's playing 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.640 this really dogshit game called Story Big Bralgy Meetings. He 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.920 is a League of Legends addict, which is like as 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.600 as as any gamer will know a person who plays 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:21.160 League of Legends all the time, like one of the 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.640 worst categories people who's ever existed. And one of the 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.640 things that that SBF did as as a sort of 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.080 pr thing right was let the author Michael Lewis of 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.560 the Big shorts We're gonna get to Moneyball in a second, 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.520 blindside other books. 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.600 Reparatable financial advice books, is what I'm hearing. 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.920 But you know, like a very very powerful, influential and 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.600 wealthy American journalists just let him sort of tag along 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:54.160 and and Michael Lewis's sort of angle on understanding him, 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.200 and this is something that like ICBF was like you know, 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.640 was like projecting right in order for this to be 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:01.680 the image of him, was him as like the gamer. 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.760 And this sort of just like baffles Michael Lewis right 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:09.120 because he just like doesn't understand someone who just has 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.480 ADHD and plays video games all the time and doesn't 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:11.880 give a shit. 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:13.920 So he plays video games stream meetings like no one 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.000 has ever been like this. I have no idea what 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:16.360 you mean. 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.280 I actually don't play video games stream meetings because it 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:20.040 is too obvious. 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.760 But I play. I play video games a once a week. 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:26.920 That's that's that's kind of my Oh. 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:28.760 God, this is the one part about sam Bakmon Free 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:30.680 that's relatable to me. I play so many video games. 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.520 It is my like antidepression strategy, basically, like when I 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.120 need to not think for a while, there's just MEO 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.280 playing Actually pat the faxtyle too. One of the games 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:40.280 that we're gonna be fucking talking about today, something. 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:40.839 That I play a lot of. 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.240 I've done so much fucking gaming, Like god, I used 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.320 to play this game called Smite, which is like a 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.280 it's like a mob like League of Legends, but like 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.320 third person and I played so much Smite that they 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.840 were pro showing my casual games. When the Zoomer Revolution 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:55.840 comes and they execute the gamers and they execute b 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:57.840 I'm gonna be like, yeah, you know that's reasonable. 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.800 Like I can't argue with that. All in form the council. 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.520 I'll aet our next spokes Council meeting. I'll bring it 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:06.240 to the table. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.240 But you know, so, so what what what what happens 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.199 with this sort of thing is that is that Michael 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.920 Lewis's image of SBF becomes as this gamer who's doing 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.360 these completely incomprehensible things. He's mind must be so unbelievably 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.439 brilliant totally because he's just like playing fucking. 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:22.240 Video games all the time. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:24.760 And and this gets to one of the aspects of 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.520 why these people do this, this sort of like pretending 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:30.000 to be a gamer thing and and like and like 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.720 SBF like is a gamer, right, but like why they 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:34.400 why they make us part of their cultural image, which 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.640 is that a lot of the traditional media people, even 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:41.439 though gaming is an enormous industry, it's it's extremely profitable 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:46.960 and is enormously culturally powerful. It doesn't have the same 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.000 kind of critical culture around. It doesn't exist that you would. 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:54.040 See for something like movies or like respectability in some way. Yeah, 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.200 except in like the reversed Sam Bankman freedway, where like 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.560 the schlubbiness is part of what makes him like an 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.080 extent your genius, right, like like like that era of 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:08.000 like Silicon Valley guy. Yeah, that's like he's he's so different, right, 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.560 Like he's he's he's not like put together, and this 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:12.920 like shows how he's like a new and innovative thinker. 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:14.400 So it's kind of like it's kind of like a 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.320 double edged sword in like that specific way. 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:19.520 Yeah, well, this this is all a feedback loop, right, 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.840 because like part of it not being respectable is that 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.880 someone like Michael Lewis, right, who was like as establishment 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.199 of a journalist as there's ever been. These people don't 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.440 play video games. They're one of the figures people who 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.600 just like don't game. Are these like traditional mainstream sort 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.240 of access journalists, right, And so they run into this 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.400 shit and they have no fucking idea what the hell 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.560 is going on, And it's just really really easily just 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:42.720 sort of like bamboozle them by just doing something that 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.360 any gamer like you know you like you show a 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.600 gamer like a League of Legends addicts, and they will 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:49.800 instantly be able to just like read this person like 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:51.720 a fucking book. Also, by the like gaming addiction like 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.200 is like kind of a fake thing. I'm like mostly 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.920 joking here, but also like leg of Legends makes you 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.760 a worse person. It simply does. You just get mad 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:02.680 all the time. I know too many League Legisp players 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.760 of my goddamn life. Holy shit, terrible game. Yeah, but 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:11.240 arcane though, right, all right, oh god, Okay, we're gonna 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:12.719 take an ad break, and then when I come back, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:14.679 I'm going to explain part of why this worked, which 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.640 is the unique incompetence of Michael Lewis. 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.200 Well, I look forward to that. I love hearing about 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:20.160 unique incompetence. 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.920 So we are back now, Okay, Obviously, part of the 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:34.760 reason this works too is, you know, as I've been 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.400 talking about, right, like these these really out of touch 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.560 sort of like mainstream journalists who just don't understand an 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:41.720 enormous market. 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:42.200 Right. 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.760 But Lewis is in some sense kind of a special 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:51.440 case because he is really truly an unbelievably globle, dumbass. 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:53.920 And to get an understanding of this, I'm going to 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.440 go into something that Lewis in theory understands a lot better, 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.720 which is sports. So he Lewis has written two of 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.600 them famous books ever written about sports, right. He wrote Moneyball, 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:05.200 which is just the book that we're gonna be talking about, 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:06.640 which we'll get to in a second. And he wrote 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:08.840 The Blindside, which is another book that they talk about 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.480 on Behind the Bassarge and go listen to that, But 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.400 I want to go in on Moneybomb. Moneyball is supposed 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.920 to be this book about how this underdog an athletics 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.480 team invented like baseball metrics, and they use sabermetrics to 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.120 like like build this roster out of nothing that like 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.360 went to the playoffs and did really well. And like 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.400 I'm not going to get into the extent to which 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.280 this was kind of a mirage about that Oakland A's team, 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.880 Like whatever, I'm not gonna argue about baseball statistics. What 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.800 I will argue about is that one of the characters 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.240 in this fucking book, right, who's one of the sort 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.360 of like underdog geniuses, and like Michael Lewis loves to find, right, 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.080 is this guy named Paul Pedesta, and he is he 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.120 is like one of the main figures in this book. 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.280 He's like, he's kind of like an assistant coach. Basically, 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:52.720 what baseball team is this? Oh? 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.840 This is the Oakland Athletics are now the last Vegas 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:56.800 Athletics or some shit. 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:58.160 I don't know that they moved to Vegas. I don't 0:12:58.160 --> 0:12:59.800 know what they're called the athletics now. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:01.559 No, no, no, they were originally called the Athletics. I don't 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:03.080 know what they're called now. They've always been the well 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.520 except what just calls them the Oakland A's. They've been 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.599 the A's forever. But yeah, they've they've also been stolen. 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.280 Las Vegas has now stolen both the football team and 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.000 the baseball team of Oakland. 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.520 Oh see, I was thinking of the football team, yeah, 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.440 because I was like, wait a minute, didn't didn't Las Vegas. 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.840 Theators go there too? Yes, yes, they stole both of them. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:22.800 That's what I was thinking. 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.240 And I am more of a baseball head than a 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:26.120 football head. 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.719 But yeah, so okay, unfortunately we're gonna talking about football here. 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:31.560 So this guy, right, Paul Podesta's like one of these 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:36.160 sort of geniuses. She later goes on to be it's 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:38.480 kind of unclear exactly what he was doing in the organization, 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.960 but he is hired by the just absolutely wretched the 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:44.840 football franchise, the Cleveland Browns. 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.640 Now to get an understanding of how wretched the Cleveland 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:48.240 Browns are. 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.600 My opening statement for him on the Browns is it 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.920 is genuinely unclear how responsible Paul Podesta is for the 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.320 Browns over the course of two seasons going one in 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.520 thirty one, which is a feat of like just absolutely 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:05.079 sucking shit that is unrivaled in any other major American sports. 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.840 I think until the fucking moon crashes into the Earth, 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.080 no one is going to fucking go one in thirty 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.680 one into cluss two seasons of football again, so again, 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.200 that is a one in fifteen season followed by an 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.320 oh in sixteen season the second oh to sixteen season. Ever, 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.360 unclear how responsible for this he is, but what he 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:26.480 is responsible for is the Shawn Watson trade. Okay, it's 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:28.000 like mea, why the fuck you're talking about this? Part 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.000 of this is also like these people are just evil. 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.240 Deshaun Watson is a serial sexual predator. I couldn't get 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.600 an accurate estimate of how many women, specifically massage therapists 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.000 mostly have accused him of sexual assault. He is like 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.560 one of the worst people in the entire NFL, which 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.160 is a league of a lot of people who absolutely 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.880 fucking suck shit, So so that that's the first thing 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.120 you have to understand about Watson's He is just really 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.560 fucking like morally reprehensible, right, He is like a bad 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.720 enough sexual predator that the NFL actually fucking suspended him. 0:14:57.640 --> 0:14:58.160 For a season. 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.480 And Paul Podesta, who again is the guy whom Michael 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:04.600 Lewis is supposed to be like touting, is like this 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.160 genius analytics guy, decides that he is going to set 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.480 up this deal for his team to trade for Deshaun Watson, 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.560 who've been on the Texans, And again, like Garrison, like, 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:15.960 imagine how evil you have to be for the Houston 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.400 Texans to trade you on fucking moral grounds. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.360 Nia, Do you expect me to know anything about the 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:23.560 Houston Texans. 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.400 It is a team from Houston, Texas. 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.680 That's all you need to know about this. And they 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.880 traded this guy. Hey, at least it's not Austin. No 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:33.760 offense to our Austin listeners. 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.160 They fucking traded this guy, right, and Popadesta orchestrates this 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.960 trade that is three is it is the worst trade 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:42.080 in the history of football. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:43.280 It is three first. 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.280 Round picks, two thirds, two third round picks, and a 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.560 fourth round pick. And they hand this guy who, again 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.040 I kind of emphasize this enough, is a serial sexual predator, right, 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:55.480 they hand him two hundred and thirty million guaranteed dollars, 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.240 the largest guaranteed salary the history of the NFL. So, okay, So, 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.600 how does Shan Watson, like again this guy who's being 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.080 held up by the guy who like is now laundering 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.320 being a gamer as like the great symbol of sort 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:08.040 of like cultural like being. 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:08.880 A rogue outsider. 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:13.040 Right, how does Deshaun Watson his greatest fucking project due 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.440 on the field. So in his first season he basically 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.440 got injured immediately In his second season in weeks one 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.400 through five out of out of seven hundred and fifty 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:26.280 nine quarterbacks. Since the year two thousand, to start weeks 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.800 one through five out of again seven hundred and fifty 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:32.960 nine quarterbacks, he ranks seven hundred and fifty three out 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.360 of seven hundred and fifty nine EPA for dropback seven 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.040 hundred and fifty three out of seven hundred and fifty nine. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.240 They traded three first round picks for this guy. He 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.760 has a mind boggling an EPA of negative point three, 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.560 which means every time the serial sexual predator drops back 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.360 to make a pass, they are expected to get point 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.440 three less points than an average team would. 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.520 How did you trick me into being on a sports episode? 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.480 I only agreed to this because I thought it was video. 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.320 Game, don't We're we're we're almost we're almost done with 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:07.480 the sports part of it. But there, I promise there 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.280 is actually a reason why I'm doing this, which is 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:12.439 which is the argument, that's that that sports and the 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.320 sports and gaming actually serve very very similar cultural roles 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:15.800 for the right. 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.879 Yeah, of course, yes, I understand that. I can I 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:21.040 can see that. Yes. 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.040 Also, I've always wanted to fuck you complain about this 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:24.520 on area and this is this is the best fucking 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.439 chance I've ever gonna get, So Jesus fucking because that's. 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.640 Like what I talk about, like movies or something. Is this, yes, Yes, 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:32.359 this is what it feels like. Is this what I 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.480 sound like? Yes, it is. It is absolutely what you 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:35.840 sound like. 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.040 So this guy is like a generationally awful quarterback, they 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.720 sign away basically the entire future of this team hand 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.920 this guy who is a serial sexual predator two hundred 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.360 and thirty million dollars. And this is the guy that 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.560 fucking Michael Lewis expects you to think is like a 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.560 fucking analytics genius. And this all comes back to again, like, 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.879 you know, the sort of mythology, the basic mythology of 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.880 the nerd is that they're like picked on, like by 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.160 the jock or whatever. Right, Like that's like the fundamental 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:03.119 base of their mythology that there' are like oppressed by this. 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.480 But like it's just like the same masculinity bullshit all 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:09.879 the way down. And you can watch, like, just like 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:14.040 the worst people in fucking history, this trick literally exactly 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.440 the same people into thinking that they're fucking geniuses by using, 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.000 by using both of these fucking affects. So I want 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.160 to read something, you know, in looking at the way 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.679 that this stuff functions, the way that gaming functions, like 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.360 specifically in the culture, and and you know why these 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.920 people choose to use gaming as like, you know, as 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.000 as this sort of affect they're trying to project into 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.160