Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from
Speaker 1: this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles. We
Speaker 1: are thrilled to be joined in our third seats by
Speaker 1: an author, a documentarian who MIT called one of the
Speaker 1: world's ten most influential intellectuals. He's published many twenty books,
Speaker 1: including the one we're going to be talking about about
Speaker 1: today's survival of the richest escape fantasies of the tech Billionaires. Please,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show, Doctor Douglas rush Cover.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Thanks for having me, Thanks so much for
Speaker 2: joining us. Yeah, like we were saying before, we're we
Speaker 2: talk like we always like to have experts on on
Speaker 2: certain things. And one thing we always keep hearing about
Speaker 2: is like the scaries that billionaires get when they think
Speaker 2: about the poor people rising up. And we've like we've
Speaker 2: touched on like people buying properties in New Zealand and
Speaker 2: like these like billionaire escape bunkers and things like that,
Speaker 2: And so when we were wanting to sort of discuss
Speaker 2: this further, it was like it was just great to
Speaker 2: like sort of see your work sort of completely overlap
Speaker 2: with that, but also have like a larger look at
Speaker 2: like it's really not so much about the bunkers themselves,
Speaker 2: but the flawed thinking around even wanting a fucking bunker
Speaker 2: to escape it all. So, yeah, we're really stoked to
Speaker 2: have you on that.
Speaker 3: Cool no, and thanks for that too, because some you know,
Speaker 3: I write this book and there's this opening scene right
Speaker 3: where I meet the billionaires who all want advice on
Speaker 3: their bunkers, and most of the journalists and newspapers and
Speaker 3: stuff who've covered it, they're like, oh my god, the
Speaker 3: billionaires are going to leave us behind. It's just happening.
Speaker 3: And it's like, dude, read the book. These guys are pathetic.
Speaker 3: None of this is working. The whole point of that scene,
Speaker 3: it's a comedy. It's a comedy. This is laughable. These
Speaker 3: guys are nuts, right Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it kind of leaves that behind pretty quickly, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then focuses on, you know, like tells the story
Speaker 1: of how we got here, why we are here. If
Speaker 1: you needed any evidence, any more evidence that we are here,
Speaker 1: there is a sixty minutes piece I think last this
Speaker 1: past week where they were talking about Sam Bankmin Freed,
Speaker 1: and like Michael Lewis was like, man, he's a great guy.
Speaker 1: Like the world needs a Sam Bankment freed to like
Speaker 1: save us from ourselves type shit.
Speaker 3: Oh no, he was saying that, I know he's got
Speaker 3: a new book, Michael Lewis, you know he's like Moneyball
Speaker 3: great right or yeah, the Big Short and he's he's
Speaker 3: got a book coming out like next week or the
Speaker 3: week after about Sam Bankman Freed. And people don't know
Speaker 3: that's the crypto crazy he you know, giant crypto crash,
Speaker 3: zillions and billions of dollars of people's money with him
Speaker 3: on this. Uh basically, I mean maybe he meant well,
Speaker 3: but it was a crypto pyramid scheme that he was running.
Speaker 3: And but the weirder thing is like he's an effective altruist.
Speaker 3: He's he's basically one of these people who believes that
Speaker 3: the human beings alive today, like the eight billion people
Speaker 3: around we're just like the Larval stage of humanity. We're
Speaker 3: like the maggots on the original medium, and the ones
Speaker 3: that matter are the posthuman ais that are going to
Speaker 3: spread throughout the universe. So if you have to make
Speaker 3: choices now that cause pain and suffering for these little
Speaker 3: eight billion worms. It's okay because the super ais are
Speaker 3: going to be are going to be happier, and.
Speaker 2: We will be we will be come back.
Speaker 1: How many people there are going to be before like
Speaker 1: after that? The direct quote from michae lewis there is
Speaker 1: still a Sam Bankuin Freed shaped hole in the world
Speaker 1: that now needs filling. Say, maybe not so, but but
Speaker 1: yeah there is. I mean you talk in your book
Speaker 1: about when Jeff Bezos went to space and like this
Speaker 1: big media kind of orgasm that they had about just
Speaker 1: this idea of like a private person. We're now at
Speaker 1: a place where a private person can get so rich
Speaker 1: that they can go to space. It's like the the
Speaker 1: ultimate deliverance of the American dream, like on a cartoonish scale.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's like people, really it does seem to
Speaker 1: be of the zeitgeist to like buy into this shit still,
Speaker 1: like we're starting to see some of the magic wearoff
Speaker 1: thanks to Elon Musk being a public dipshit, but it's
Speaker 1: it's still a mess. So we're going to dig into
Speaker 1: all of all of that stuff. What is something from
Speaker 1: your search history?
Speaker 4: Well, if I skip over all the moms with huge
Speaker 4: jugs searches thumbnails obviously thumbnail thumbnail, jpeg, jpeg jpeg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one's kind of embarrassing. It was. Let me
Speaker 2: look it up here.
Speaker 4: It's David Foster Wallace on being entirely yourself. Now, that
Speaker 4: is something that a man of my age would quote,
Speaker 4: who wishes he read more and want and wants to
Speaker 4: figure out who they are, would Google. This is a
Speaker 4: midlife crisis of a search. Yeah yeah, do you.
Speaker 1: Write something good on being yourself? It's just a YouTube video.
Speaker 1: It's a commencement speech.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, and it it.
Speaker 4: It's probably the most embarrassing thing I've ever And I'm
Speaker 4: just alone in my home office being like, how do
Speaker 4: I know who I am?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me watch this guy tell me? Yeah, this
Speaker 2: guy who wore a bandana? Was he really stuck guy?
Speaker 2: That ship? Yeah? I mean, does you think he was
Speaker 2: copying Brett Michaels or was Brett Michaels copying him? It's
Speaker 2: it feels like impossible.
Speaker 1: Did Captain Leue Albano come first? Like we really don't know?
Speaker 1: He can say like I do, like what I wish
Speaker 1: somebody had asked to Davin Foster Wallace like why maybe
Speaker 1: they did haven't liked? Does he touch on it in
Speaker 1: his on Being Yourself commencement, like, for instance, look at
Speaker 1: this fucking thing that I'm wrong.
Speaker 4: One was like, uh what why?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's whatever.
Speaker 1: Davin Foster wall is foremost intellectual of your generation. What
Speaker 1: the fuck with the bandana? Yeah, but that bandana is
Speaker 1: not it is.
Speaker 4: Except who you are and be yourself unless you're balding
Speaker 4: that up.
Speaker 2: It's shameful.
Speaker 5: Like rock and roll.
Speaker 2: There's a picture of him in two thousand and six
Speaker 2: and he's rocking a full head, full head of hair. Yeah,
Speaker 2: two years before he passed. So you know I didn't
Speaker 2: I made Is it entirely aesthetic? I don't know. David
Speaker 2: Foster Wallace fans dial in, let us know about the dfd.
Speaker 1: Oh and the lines are lighting up? My lighting up,
Speaker 1: David Foster Wallace fans who all use land lines. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like I got I got into a real
Speaker 1: David Foster Wallace hole in like my early thirties and
Speaker 1: like were starting to take his books out of the library,
Speaker 1: tried to read infinite Just yeah, that's what you do,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I got really dedicated, Like I really tried.
Speaker 1: I got like a couple of hundred pages in okay
Speaker 1: to that shit. Like, you know, I don't know that
Speaker 1: anybody's ever made it that far. I haven't checked the
Speaker 1: record on how far the furthest anyone ever made it
Speaker 1: into infinite jests before.
Speaker 4: But a fun thing to do is when someone says
Speaker 4: they've read David Foster Wallace and an infinite jest, you go, especially,
Speaker 4: you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think of the ending? Crazy? Right?
Speaker 2: Watch them?
Speaker 3: Do you think of.
Speaker 2: All the spaceship were crazy? Dude? Wasn't expected, dude. The
Speaker 2: his non fiction was really good though.
Speaker 1: There the the I think Big Red Sun is his
Speaker 1: like magazine, like long ass magazine piece on the porn industry.
Speaker 2: I highly recommend that.
Speaker 4: Did he read Did he write one an essay on
Speaker 4: on taking a cruise?
Speaker 2: I think he did?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a supposedly fun thing that I'll never do. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that too. Yeah that was good.
Speaker 2: That was good. So we're learning people. Yeah. I Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I haven't read a say. I had to
Speaker 2: read his whole.
Speaker 1: Damn name as too many as too many names.
Speaker 2: So anyway, my life's in shambles. Yeah, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: OK, what is something that you think is overrated?
Speaker 5: More than overrated?
Speaker 6: I feel I've never seen more positive affirmations or motivational
Speaker 6: messages in public spaces in my entire life.
Speaker 5: I mean from a point of view of capitalist branding.
Speaker 6: You walk into i don't know, a Starbucks or whatever,
Speaker 6: there's the positive messages everywhere, and I believe positivity has
Speaker 6: fallen in much like the American flagged. Positivity has fallen
Speaker 6: into the wrong hands. Yes, because it is uh, it's.
Speaker 5: It's like mind control.
Speaker 6: So I think there's a lot of like gratitude. We
Speaker 6: all have to be more gratitude. By the way, gratitude journaling,
Speaker 6: I don't think. I don't know if you guys do it.
Speaker 6: Have you ever gratitude journal No.
Speaker 2: I'm not. I'm not grateful for fucking anything, So I
Speaker 2: don't thank you. Point I would, but my life fucking suck.
Speaker 2: I have nothing to be grateful for.
Speaker 6: Yeah, right, it's like all of this stuff, like, come on,
Speaker 6: just be thankful for the little morsel that you've been
Speaker 6: given to by your overlords. Anyways, I hate the I
Speaker 6: think it's all. I think none of it is real.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 5: Overrated I think none of it is real.
Speaker 1: I have personally, like I feel like I can it's
Speaker 1: better for me when I am focused on the people
Speaker 1: around me as opposed to myself and like my own shit,
Speaker 1: Like it's better for me to just be like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's let's like hear what they're interested in, what they're
Speaker 1: what's going on with them, and like that, thinking about
Speaker 1: things like in a grateful gratitude and old that's not
Speaker 1: a word. I like it. I like it can sometimes
Speaker 1: help me do that. But there is definitely like we
Speaker 1: have a shampoo in air shower that says there the
Speaker 1: greatest study. It says, release that which no longer serves
Speaker 1: you right on the fucking shampoo on the shampoop.
Speaker 2: That's like all it says. It doesn't really like I
Speaker 2: don't even know if it's shampoo. It's just the you know,
Speaker 2: and it's just like such a bottle.
Speaker 1: It's such a bummer like that, like all these ideas,
Speaker 1: like any good idea just gets fucking taken and stamped
Speaker 1: onto a bottle to sell you something that is just
Speaker 1: chemicals in a bottle.
Speaker 5: It's just chemicals in a bottle that.
Speaker 6: If you like the gross that's gut.
Speaker 2: Wow. I love.
Speaker 1: These head chemicals tell me to release that which no
Speaker 1: longer serves me.
Speaker 6: And I gotta tell you, as a woman, this stuff
Speaker 6: is like shoveled at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, It's like it feels like kind of like
Speaker 2: the Fall of Rome. It's like bread and circuses and affirmations. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just to kind of stave off the ene exactly. A fuck,
Speaker 2: the bread and the circuses aren't working. We need another
Speaker 2: thing to kind of get them to focus on, not
Speaker 2: the fucking fall right now.
Speaker 6: I am with you, Yeah, I am totally with you.
Speaker 6: I'm like shiny, shiny everybody, happy, happy, big smiles, big
Speaker 6: smiles everybody.
Speaker 2: And I think that's where we're all realizing it's book,
Speaker 2: because everyone's reaction to it is like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I've read this really fun thing at Starbucks. It's like,
Speaker 2: shut the fuck up Starbucks.
Speaker 7: A reaction to those things. So I don't know if
Speaker 7: they're working. I don't know if they're working. I like,
Speaker 7: shut the fuck up Starbucks. It's like that's the story. Yeah,
Speaker 7: just a T shirt, just.
Speaker 2: Fucking a middle finger at the African it's the album cover,
Speaker 2: middle Finger Starbucks, Shut the fuck up Starbucks.
Speaker 5: My new ep that's just with the hair around it
Speaker 5: of the old Starbucks.
Speaker 1: You know, I will say, it sounds like both of
Speaker 1: you have not yet today this morning released that witch
Speaker 1: no longer, sir, know we.
Speaker 5: Have not clearly haven't had my coffee.
Speaker 2: That's right. Okay, let's go to something a little bit different.
Speaker 2: What do you think is something that is underrated?
Speaker 8: Okay, something that I think is underrated is listening to
Speaker 8: classical music at the gym. And this is something I
Speaker 8: only started doing kind of recently, and it's been a
Speaker 8: huge game changer. It's like it's really meditative and energizing
Speaker 8: at the same time. Beethoven's fifth goes especially hard.
Speaker 9: Interesting, that's basically house kind of yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very like that's Beethoven's fifth.
Speaker 8: Excuse me, yes it is. Yeah, dun dun, dundun.
Speaker 9: It's a very arousing, and I mean that in the
Speaker 9: just it's a very sick okay, stimulating, like it's on.
Speaker 8: And like to the point.
Speaker 9: Where I was like, like, I didn't, I don't. I
Speaker 9: didn't know too much about Beethoven's history, and I was like,
Speaker 9: this kind must have been like the guy of his day, right,
Speaker 9: like he's probably doing. He's like the usher in Vegas,
Speaker 9: you know what I mean of his time. So I
Speaker 9: looked it up and uh, that is not the case.
Speaker 9: Turns out it was like the exact opposite, and he
Speaker 9: was actually a very romantic and love sick person who
Speaker 9: like didn't consummate his love with the many women that
Speaker 9: he fell in love with.
Speaker 8: Which interesting that you created a romantic king. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 8: I mean exactly this other thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, are we claiming him? You know, because the
Speaker 2: other rumors that Beethoven was black, Okay, I have seen
Speaker 2: hilarious and they're like, look at this, he might be
Speaker 2: light skin and I'm like, okay, sure, maybe a very
Speaker 2: interesting internet of like Beethoven was black. Oh sure, I guess.
Speaker 8: I mean I love a black Ludwig.
Speaker 2: But yeah, what about Okay, so you got Beethoven bumping
Speaker 2: through the headphones? Is it?
Speaker 9: Like?
Speaker 2: Is that like good? For just in general? It just
Speaker 2: puts you in a good place to focus. Because for me,
Speaker 2: whenever I've listened to music, I kind of needed to
Speaker 2: be like a motor that drives my limbs to keep going.
Speaker 2: It's usually in the context of like running, but again,
Speaker 2: that's my very narrow experience with it.
Speaker 8: I think it has that vibe.
Speaker 3: You know what it is too.
Speaker 8: It's the absence of lyrics I think help you focus too,
Speaker 8: and you really are kind of like focusing on the
Speaker 8: rhythm and the tempo and and you know, the various
Speaker 8: instruments coming together, and it could propel you to like,
Speaker 8: you know, lift or run or whatever. I find that
Speaker 8: it like, Yeah, it's effect of like just keeping you
Speaker 8: motivated and kind of tuned into your body.
Speaker 1: Also got you what other classics are you spinning someone?
Speaker 8: If you're picking a workout playlist, who also show it.
Speaker 2: Up classical workout?
Speaker 9: I really like a Tchaikovsky, Yeah you like so you
Speaker 9: like the aggressive ones? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Divorces New World Symphony, You're like, okay, there bangers?
Speaker 8: Yeah, you know some Vivaldi.
Speaker 2: Love Vivaldi, love the Love the Four Seasons, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean.
Speaker 8: I might recommend Maurice Ravel's Bolero is a good warm
Speaker 8: up track.
Speaker 2: It's my classical music nerds out here. I used to
Speaker 2: play in a youth orchestra, so I was all I
Speaker 2: was all about the classical music back in the day. Okay,
Speaker 2: but you said lyrics distract you, so who is an
Speaker 2: artist you can't listen to or else you're gonna just
Speaker 2: be just completely singing along or completely distracted by the lyrics.
Speaker 8: That's a great question. Okay, okay, I'll just reveal it.
Speaker 9: I'm just gonna say so, I've gotten really to also
Speaker 9: the Venga Boys. Yeah, I'm back to that like nineties
Speaker 9: early two thousands, like you know.
Speaker 8: Electro whatever.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's so hard not to sing along and be
Speaker 9: like boom.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, class Okay, so wait we're like vengel I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm avengl I'm a Venga head.
Speaker 8: Yeah okay, good, I'm in with my Kindred Spirits.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. Where are they from? Like they were
Speaker 2: like from all over, weren't they? Are they really Dutch
Speaker 2: or something? I feel like the most European Yeah, because
Speaker 2: of the era when like every like nobody was from
Speaker 2: America back then, like all that electronic music was either
Speaker 2: coming from like Sweden or Germany or you know.
Speaker 7: Euro dance group Like yeah, okay, they're Dutch.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 5: Also Deepen and Dennis vander Dreichen, they're very touch all right.
Speaker 2: So yeah, wait, what was the l I said?
Speaker 8: USO?
Speaker 9: I did live in Holland for a little bit, and
Speaker 9: I don't see that much touch.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, there we go. Let's go, let's go.
Speaker 3: That's it. That's how I though offer this one.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take a quick break and just figure out
Speaker 2: what's going out with Joe going on with Joe Brandon's
Speaker 2: now Joe Brandon's wall. I guess we will figure that
Speaker 2: out when we come back after this.
Speaker 1: And we're back. We are, And this story has been
Speaker 1: knocking at our door for days now, and we've been
Speaker 1: trying to resist. We've been saying we don't hear you,
Speaker 1: we don't care about you House Republicans. But there it
Speaker 1: seems like something might actually be happening.
Speaker 2: I mean, like so all last week, right we didn't
Speaker 2: really talk about like the potential government shut down because
Speaker 2: the Maga Republicans are like, we don't want any money
Speaker 2: for Ukraine or this or that or whatever, and we'll
Speaker 2: shut it down. We don't care if kids like miss
Speaker 2: out on their like social you know, safety net programs
Speaker 2: and things that we don't care. We don't care if
Speaker 2: the people that serve us in the cafeteria of the
Speaker 2: Capitol are laid off, like we look in the eyes,
Speaker 2: so turns out it all it all ended up working
Speaker 2: out because Kevin McCarthy at the last minute pulled off
Speaker 2: a squeaker and funded the government with the help of
Speaker 2: the freaking Democrats. So because of that, Matt Gates is
Speaker 2: now like he's taken upon himself to represent all the
Speaker 2: maga freaks in the in the House and be like
Speaker 2: that's it. He's he's crossed us one too many times,
Speaker 2: and we hate that he's working with the demon crats.
Speaker 2: He's like, he's actually a puppet of the Democrats, is
Speaker 2: what he's been saying. Yeah, okay, but now he's basically
Speaker 2: saying that it's time to call it on his speakership.
Speaker 2: And if you recall, Kevin McCarthy is not a good negotiator, uh,
Speaker 2: not only because not only because he is an untrustworthy
Speaker 2: scumbag that's lower than snake nipples, but also because he
Speaker 2: is a terrible negotiators, just terrible, like even understanding the
Speaker 2: dynamics or leverage of a negotiation. So on his way
Speaker 2: to get the votes to this become speaker, if you recall,
Speaker 2: you'll like they a call like fifteen votes before we
Speaker 2: find It's like, what do you want dude? Like, oh,
Speaker 2: name my kid, Maga McCarthy. If you want, like just preaze,
Speaker 2: let me get this. He basically said, here, I will
Speaker 2: hand you the Maga freaks, a big red button in
Speaker 2: the form of being able to oust me if one
Speaker 2: member wants to pursue a motion to vacate the speakership
Speaker 2: aka get me out of here, then if you got
Speaker 2: the votes, then fine. And we've come to that moment
Speaker 2: where now Matt Gates is like, we're doing it. I'm
Speaker 2: doing it. I'm not going to do it. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do it. And he needs, like he less than ten
Speaker 2: votes right now from his Republican colleagues to be able
Speaker 2: to oust Kevin McCarthy. Yeah, and so it looks like
Speaker 2: he's going to be ousted. Well he Here's this is
Speaker 2: where it gets fun. He would need the Democrat. I
Speaker 2: already stopped listening. Yeah, you would here.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I stopped listening when he turned into
Speaker 1: James Carbon and said lower in snake nipples, nipples, step
Speaker 1: loaded snake nipples. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. I just had to. I've been
Speaker 2: trying to put that in a cart and I was like,
Speaker 2: I had to. That's the thing when you're dealing with
Speaker 2: somebody like that. They're lowdered the snake nipples and you
Speaker 2: can't trust him. But the thing is the Democrats would
Speaker 2: have to save him, and most Democrats have just laughed
Speaker 2: at this notion where they're like, hey, would you vote?
Speaker 2: They're like what, and like you Alexandria Kazuo Cortez was like,
Speaker 2: the only way I would even think about it is
Speaker 2: if he came with some kind of deal to be done.
Speaker 2: But then still preface that was like, but this guy's
Speaker 2: lowered than snake nipples, So there's no way we can
Speaker 2: believe him what he says, because the second he works
Speaker 2: with us, he goes around and says the opposite thing
Speaker 2: on Fox. So he would need the votes. We will
Speaker 2: see what happens. But like when you look at quotes
Speaker 2: like this from Democrat Jerry Connolly of Virginia, this is
Speaker 2: like you would you would imagine the deal would have
Speaker 2: to be gargantuan aka impossibly, we said quote upon examination,
Speaker 2: I do not understand what any Democrat would find of
Speaker 2: redeeming value to allow him to persist in the speakership.
Speaker 2: We should not enable aid or a bet his continuation
Speaker 2: in office. You know, when someone pulls out the word
Speaker 2: of bet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's it does sound like this was like
Speaker 1: a twelve year old trying to write a sentence that
Speaker 1: sounded official.
Speaker 5: It's all twelve year old.
Speaker 6: They had like a little Twitter war x yeah yeah,
Speaker 6: or where it was like.
Speaker 8: Bring it on.
Speaker 6: Just did it, like they're having little back and forths
Speaker 6: like on a school yard.
Speaker 2: This went on. Yeah, just did it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, really like it's already been just did it. It's
Speaker 1: already been brought.
Speaker 2: It didn't go for that. I'm of a retweet that
Speaker 2: would have been yeah yeah yeah, So we'll see where
Speaker 2: this ends up. But I mean, like if the vote.
Speaker 1: Happened and he didn't get the he he does not
Speaker 1: have the votes McCarthy correct, which seems to be the
Speaker 1: only place he's comfortable.
Speaker 10: Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean not having the votes beautiful
Speaker 10: back to my sweet spot. Yes, oh yeah see eyes
Speaker 10: of right now. They tried it, but yeah, just by
Speaker 10: the he just barely got out, so.
Speaker 1: Oh so he's still in. But he also the it
Speaker 1: was not an encouraging.
Speaker 2: Vote, no, no, got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah sorry, but just the notification well yeah, recording the
Speaker 1: story anyways, guy like that, he's he's only comfortable when
Speaker 1: he's down in the muck getting mugging it up with
Speaker 1: them other boys.
Speaker 2: Because yeah, just.
Speaker 5: Trying to figure out how to best represent the American people,
Speaker 5: That's right. That's always trying to do.
Speaker 1: Everybody, it's all trying to do.
Speaker 5: That's all I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2: Didn't know that was a crime. Didn't know crime?
Speaker 1: Hey, speaking of didn't know that was a crime. That's
Speaker 1: what Amy Coney Barrett's going to be saying, because the
Speaker 1: FBI is apparently interviewing several individuals alleging that they were
Speaker 1: abused by members of the People of Praise, the Christian
Speaker 1: cult that Amy Coney Barrett belongs to. That got a
Speaker 1: lot of attention in the run up to her confirmation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not mentioned once.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it got attention from the activists and other people
Speaker 2: who were just so shook to their core that a
Speaker 2: creature like this would ascend to the Supreme Court. But yeah,
Speaker 2: and the hearing people were like, and you're a family woman, right,
Speaker 2: It's like, oh boy, we need not our grandparents to
Speaker 2: be in those confirmation hearings.
Speaker 1: So apparently the group encourages members to speak in tongues,
Speaker 1: make prophecies about the future and expel gay people. So
Speaker 1: apparently that group not totally on the level, which I
Speaker 1: think we all find shocking.
Speaker 6: I mean, I feel like the gay people are getting
Speaker 6: the best deal of all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're not allowed Like cool, oh.
Speaker 9: He that?
Speaker 2: Oh no, you're like, oh no, way, okay.
Speaker 5: This is terrible news.
Speaker 1: But private schools closely affiliated with the group have admissions
Speaker 1: policies that in effect ban the children of gay parents
Speaker 1: from attending.
Speaker 5: Very frightening and what right, wow.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, though, like, it's not we're not
Speaker 2: sure if it's active, right, because the one thing we
Speaker 2: know is like it was I think the Guardian confirmed
Speaker 2: that like five people were interviewed, were so, but we're
Speaker 2: still not sure if they're like is this going somewhere
Speaker 2: or is it one of those things like yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: look into it and then do nothing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they tend to they have the ability to just
Speaker 1: ignore the ship out of some pretty well.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're like, yeah, we interviewed people, but we
Speaker 2: didn't really follow up.
Speaker 1: Like, so they've been contacted by this group people of
Speaker 1: what's it called po People of Praise, People.
Speaker 5: Of Praise, People of Praise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people of Praise. There's also the group People of
Speaker 1: Praise Survivors. That sounds like a first draft. Don't you
Speaker 1: think that's a first draft of a name for a cult?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Man, I bet it was the result of the longest,
Speaker 1: most boring meeting of all time when I came up
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 2: Holy shit.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so this group People Praise Survivors are a
Speaker 1: group that's like designed to call attention to the claims
Speaker 1: of sexual abuse survivors, and members have been in touch
Speaker 1: with FBI have been apparently confused that the FBI hadn't
Speaker 1: reached out sooner following press reports about alleged abuse, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just all further illustrates how strange it is that
Speaker 1: her membership in People of Praise never came up in
Speaker 1: a Senate hearing to confirm her as an appeals court judge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's like, on one side, Republicans, there's no
Speaker 2: way they would bring it up because it's like get
Speaker 2: her in there right the scales of the of the court.
Speaker 2: And then I'm sure Democrats it's like an optics thing
Speaker 2: where it's like they don't want to like because this
Speaker 2: is how they're probably thinking about it. If I question
Speaker 2: People of Praise I'm going to open myself up to
Speaker 2: being painted as an anti Christian like atheist person, and
Speaker 2: I just don't have the spine for that. I'm also
Speaker 2: lower than snake nipples, it turns out, so I just
Speaker 2: don't touch it.
Speaker 6: I just want Yeah, I tried to get into People
Speaker 6: of Praise and they rejected me so.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and I don't want to mess up my chance
Speaker 2: in the future by casting aspersions on them publicly.
Speaker 1: That's right, They're just jealous.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I want to offer an official overrated from from me. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know we usually save those for Monday, but yeah,
Speaker 1: Roman Concrete, there's a new AP story about how they're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out the secret to Roman concrete and
Speaker 1: they just made a breakthrough earlier this year in a
Speaker 1: study where they found out that it is self healing,
Speaker 1: that it's able to heal its own cracks.
Speaker 3: That story.
Speaker 1: We've like covered that story multiple times like over the
Speaker 1: past five years, like it keeps coming up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The last time was the beginning of this year, okay,
Speaker 2: where they're like they've cracked the code, and when I
Speaker 2: was like, this is like nine months old. The story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: at the very least because for people don't know, we're not.
Speaker 2: Roman concrete isn't like a new street drug. We're talking
Speaker 2: about the concrete that the Romans used, Yeah, that they
Speaker 2: were using because everyone's like, look, thousands of years it's
Speaker 2: still standing. They must have a secret to their superior concrete.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, like just yesterday there was a new ap
Speaker 1: story being like another breakthrough, and it's the same shit
Speaker 1: that we've seen before that like nothing has changed about
Speaker 1: the story. The acknowledging the story also some things that
Speaker 1: we didn't have before, like that it couldn't hold over
Speaker 1: three stories like it if you tried to build a
Speaker 1: building out of Roman concrete today, it would crumble.
Speaker 5: Noah, it sounds like all the buildings in New York, right,
Speaker 5: the Roman concrete.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so part of the reason it survived as long
Speaker 1: as it did is because Rome was basically abandoned for
Speaker 1: like it went from the center of the world to
Speaker 1: like thirty thousand people and like livestock just roaming the streets.
Speaker 1: It just immediately like there's the fall of Rome, and
Speaker 1: then nobody wanted to live there anymore. So nobody was
Speaker 1: building new buildings, like nobody was trying to knock down
Speaker 1: the old buildings to build the new buildings. So like
Speaker 1: in the article or in an article I read, they
Speaker 1: compare it to London, which, like all the old buildings
Speaker 1: in London for the most part got knocked down like
Speaker 1: because they were building new buildings. But like Rome, nobody
Speaker 1: was fucking So that's why we have the ruins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you have to go to like Bath
Speaker 2: to see like Roman relics anywhere like in it, or
Speaker 2: at least that's the closest thing I've heard of.
Speaker 5: The crackout Poland that wasn't it has the super old
Speaker 5: you know, buildings and architecture purely because it wasn't bombed
Speaker 5: to shit, right y.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, And so it's.
Speaker 6: Like, oh, it's like, well, actually it's just it wasn't destroyed. Yeah,
Speaker 6: not that it made it, it wasn't destroyed.
Speaker 2: Just nobody was really fucking with Rome like that.
Speaker 5: But the one thing I love about the Roman cement
Speaker 5: Roman concrete, I'm sorry, cement is the street drug that
Speaker 5: is the that is wild.
Speaker 8: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: It will optimize your workflow. Actually, it makes you so
Speaker 1: effective at spreadsheets.
Speaker 6: HR meetings with that. Let me tell you, they just
Speaker 6: fly by. Is that so it was like, right, they
Speaker 6: have these limestone chunks in it. Is that it and
Speaker 6: that's why it's self healing. There's like chunks in it.
Speaker 6: And that's one of the theories.
Speaker 5: That's one of the theories.
Speaker 6: But I just love it when people look at the
Speaker 6: way things were constructed in the past and they just go, oh,
Speaker 6: you know, like in this case, they're like it's all
Speaker 6: lumpy because they were dumb and they just didn't stir well, right, Like, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 6: that's that's They weren't just bad stirs in the past,
Speaker 6: and it just evolved to be better at stirring.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's my take. I mean, that's that was
Speaker 2: our secret.
Speaker 1: But so the API article points out that like a
Speaker 1: lot of their cement mixtures are different, Like you check
Speaker 1: one sample and a different one and like they're like,
Speaker 1: it's weird. They put like a bunch of beer in
Speaker 1: this one, and then this one has like a lot
Speaker 1: of piss in it, and we're not sure why. It's
Speaker 1: basically like the experts in this article are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't. They were just like trying different shit, like
Speaker 1: seeing what worked, and obviously the buildings that worked are
Speaker 1: the ones that lasted and everything else crumbles, and we're
Speaker 1: giving them credit for like being masters of concret But
Speaker 1: they were just like trying a bunch of different shit
Speaker 1: out seeing what stuck. The stuff that stuck was able
Speaker 1: to last because nobody was trying to like knock it
Speaker 1: down to build a highway to help with you know.
Speaker 6: Luxury housing. There was no luxury housing going up. I
Speaker 6: would put the beer one neck near the piss one.
Speaker 6: I'm sure those two different mixtures were happening. Pretty sure
Speaker 6: it was across the street, across the street. But yeah,
Speaker 6: I guess what.
Speaker 1: One of the things that doesn't get brought up a
Speaker 1: lot is like you can find examples of this where
Speaker 1: architecture has lasted for a long time, but it's in India,
Speaker 1: and you know, India doesn't the colonial brain doesn't like
Speaker 1: to think about India having figured stuff out. They like
Speaker 1: to think about Rome, right, men are supposed to think
Speaker 1: about Rome every day? Is that? Is that what we're
Speaker 1: being told with Ruse?
Speaker 6: The Romans didn't have any any slaves working on those things.
Speaker 6: It was all people that were pretty they.
Speaker 2: Were seeing good jobs.
Speaker 5: Yeah, volunteered happily.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they just believed in the project. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a shame we don't have that kind of work ethic.
Speaker 2: Now you believe in something I know.
Speaker 1: So like just a quote from the article describing the
Speaker 1: two processes Cecilia Pesche Materials Scientists at the University of
Speaker 1: Sheffield in England said they'd toss just about anything into
Speaker 1: their mixes, talking about Roman architects as long as it
Speaker 1: was cheap and available, and the ones that didn't work
Speaker 1: out have long since collapsed. But some materials seemed to
Speaker 1: show more intention, like in India, where builders crafted blends
Speaker 1: of local materials to produce different properties. According to like
Speaker 1: a civil engineer at the the Lore Institute of Technology,
Speaker 1: in human areas of in India, builders use local herbs
Speaker 1: that help structures deal with moisture. Along the coast, they
Speaker 1: added jaggery, an unrefined sugar which can help protect from
Speaker 1: salt damage, and in areas with higher earthquake risks, they
Speaker 1: used super light floating bricks made with rice husks. They
Speaker 1: know the region, they know the soil condition, they know
Speaker 1: the climate, so they engineer a material according to.
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, but how much piss is in it? Though?
Speaker 5: Exactly how much vodka?
Speaker 11: Yeah, just dumping it in I should put in that one.
Speaker 11: I'm drunk man of no idea. How did we lose
Speaker 11: the recipe for Roman concret because you gave it to Darryl.
Speaker 5: You gave it to Darryl. Daryl did not pass it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 6: It's it's kind of funny that this nothing was passed
Speaker 6: along stories. Tons of folks tales, we have mythology, but
Speaker 6: not one. No one decided to write down how you
Speaker 6: were making your cement.
Speaker 2: Not a person, Yeah, just pee, just some pee man,
Speaker 2: you know what it is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no limestone or volcanics. And I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it's just just piss. I think it's my
Speaker 2: magic piss.
Speaker 1: Is that anything?
Speaker 6: The one man who piss into all of us structures?
Speaker 2: Could you imagine? Like if that really really Someone's like
Speaker 2: it's yeah, I think it's the piss dude.
Speaker 1: Right, But then they're too embarrassed to pass it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The generation wasn't writing that one down.
Speaker 5: Huh yeah, wait till they find out it wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 6: Uh, it wasn't you know, the leader, and it wasn't
Speaker 6: the strongest man.
Speaker 5: It was the librarian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, we.
Speaker 6: Would get Mabel out here, should be I don't know
Speaker 6: something about it.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of cats, might be I don't know.
Speaker 5: Is that the t she likes tea?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Anyways, apparently we're supposed to be thinking of Roman the
Speaker 1: Roman Empire every day, and I just this is my
Speaker 1: excuse for why I don't think about the Roman Empire
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 2: I just think it's just never occurred to me to
Speaker 2: think about the Roman Empire. And like when I first
Speaker 2: saw that thing, like the TikTok trend of like dude,
Speaker 2: dudes be thinking about Rome, I'm like, maybe is it
Speaker 2: is that. I don't know, how who is the white
Speaker 2: guys that are thinking about Rome?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I guess just a good model of something else that
Speaker 6: has fallen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do think, like, you know, there
Speaker 1: it's an ancient culture that is also you know, a
Speaker 1: like full of self devouring cannibals of consumption like we are,
Speaker 1: and exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, towards the end of Rome, they had an insatiable
Speaker 2: urge for micro militarism to go outside their borders and
Speaker 2: just deplete their resources. I don't know, it doesn't sound
Speaker 2: like the US at all anyway. Anything. Anyway, guys, release
Speaker 2: all that to you, which is no longer useful. Thank you,
Speaker 2: and also watch season three of Love Is Blind and
Speaker 2: enjoy National Taco Days.
Speaker 5: Do you like your hair shiny?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Chemicals?
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and we will
Speaker 1: come back and talk about our Roman concrete, the Las
Speaker 1: Vegas sphere, the monument to I think this is the monument,
Speaker 1: like the ultimate, the furtheringest of capitalism.
Speaker 2: That we've gotten. This is the peak, and.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily a good thing. We'll be right back,
Speaker 1: and we're back, and just to kind of summarize what
Speaker 1: we were talking about before, like this, because I did
Speaker 1: find the book ultimately hopeful, because like it really clarified
Speaker 1: this idea that I think we all assume that there's
Speaker 1: something happening with resources and the earth that is inevitably
Speaker 1: leading toward a climate apocalypse. And you talk about how
Speaker 1: that assumption is purely based on like their mindset of
Speaker 1: like this extractive kind of their addiction to ten x
Speaker 1: growth is really what's driving this inevitable move towards a
Speaker 1: unsustainable world and climate. And like if you, if people
Speaker 1: are able, if like the zeitgeist is able to switch
Speaker 1: over to this more these more circular economic models. We
Speaker 1: have enough water, we have enough resources. That's what we've
Speaker 1: found over the past Decadeyeah, you know, but it's hard,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I get that it's hard, you know.
Speaker 3: And I talk to you know, middle class people and
Speaker 3: they're like, yeah, I'll do the kind of things you're saying.
Speaker 3: Once I've got like a million dollars in my four
Speaker 3: oh one k plan, right then I'll stop. Or just
Speaker 3: I just need to work two more years at this
Speaker 3: bad job that I know is just drawing the planet
Speaker 3: and then I can stop. And when I listen to them,
Speaker 3: they sound like addicts, you know, where it's like, dude, hold,
Speaker 3: I just got to drink until this project is done,
Speaker 3: just until this, just until the next thing. And there
Speaker 3: is no it actually it's it's now, it really is now.
Speaker 3: There is there is no next first, there's no next
Speaker 3: big thing that's gonna save us. I was talking to
Speaker 3: a billionaire who says, Oh, I've got this carbon capture device.
Speaker 3: We're gonna put it right on the back of the
Speaker 3: car and right on the back of the truck and
Speaker 3: it's gonna suck the carbon out so we don't even
Speaker 3: have to go to EV's Like, oh, good, the fuck
Speaker 3: luck with that, you know, or oh, a eco city thing.
Speaker 3: It's like a pill and you drop it into the
Speaker 3: water and the city is going to grow out of it.
Speaker 3: That's you know, magical, crypto perfect city for children and
Speaker 3: regenerative agriculture, and there's a stack for this and a
Speaker 3: stack there's no thing. But it's hard to tell people
Speaker 3: like right now, how do they start?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And that for me, if we talk about it and
Speaker 3: and I've given up with this, if we talk about
Speaker 3: it as oh, a new economic system or a thing,
Speaker 3: then they're like, oh, no, it's a socialist or something.
Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, you know. And if we could sort
Speaker 3: of take the ism off socialism and just make it
Speaker 3: like social yeah, social like and it's interesting, you end
Speaker 3: up in the same place, but you win the argument.
Speaker 3: So I do that thing about, you know, instead of
Speaker 3: buying a drill from home minimum viable product drill from
Speaker 3: home depot and making all this waste and using it once,
Speaker 3: go to Bob's house, knock on Bob's door and say, Bob,
Speaker 3: can I borrow your drill? Right? And Bob is gonna
Speaker 3: bring a big, thick matterfucking drill plugs in the wall.
Speaker 3: The way God intended. And he's gonna come over and say, Doug,
Speaker 3: you're a fucking nerd. You don't know where to you
Speaker 3: don't know where to find a stud. I'm coming over
Speaker 3: and drill in the hole for you. Right, He's gonna
Speaker 3: make the hole. It's gonna be great. But then like
Speaker 3: three days later, that weekend, I'm supposed to have a
Speaker 3: barbecue at my house. Bob's gonna smell the barbecue, and
Speaker 3: Bob's gonna think, wait a minute. I went over and
Speaker 3: helped Doug drill a hole in the wall, and he
Speaker 3: didn't invite me over to the barbecue. So now I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have to invite Bob over. All right, So I
Speaker 3: invite Bob to the barbecue. That's fine, and Bob turns
Speaker 3: I know. It turns out he's nice, and his wife's
Speaker 3: kind of nice, and his kids are cool, and they're like,
Speaker 3: all right, well that's so bad. But now the other
Speaker 3: neighbors smell the barbecue, and they're like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: why is Doug inviting Bob to the barbecue, not us.
Speaker 3: Before long, we're gonna have a block party and everybody's
Speaker 3: gonna be having fun at this barbecue, right, that's the nightmare, right,
Speaker 3: that's the downside the brand thing. It's like, But now
Speaker 3: that we're all together and talking, how did we meet? Well,
Speaker 3: you know, I borrowed Bob's drill. Now people on the
Speaker 3: block say, you know, I wonder I was gonna need
Speaker 3: a new lawnmower. But instead of me buying a new lawnmower,
Speaker 3: what if we just like use two or three lawnmowers
Speaker 3: for the whole block and we just share the ones
Speaker 3: we have because I don't use it more than a
Speaker 3: couple hours a week. So now we're buying less lawnmowers,
Speaker 3: buying less drills, and we have more money to start
Speaker 3: doing stuff. I'm teaching Bob's kid algebra because I'm paying
Speaker 3: him back for the favor that he gave me, and
Speaker 3: it's all working out. Someone invariably gets up when I
Speaker 3: do that in the talk and says, well, yeah, but
Speaker 3: what about the drill company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bad for sales.
Speaker 3: What about right, and the person who was the job
Speaker 3: at the drill company and the old lady? Someone said,
Speaker 3: what about the old lady who has a pension fund
Speaker 3: that's dependent on the stock and the drill company for
Speaker 3: her to uh for her to survive. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: luckily we're going to be taking care of that old
Speaker 3: lady because now we have a neighborhood, and hopefully we're
Speaker 3: gonna wind this down. That's why we're not doing it
Speaker 3: in revolution. I'm not saying everybody today stop buying drills, right,
Speaker 3: it's not gonna work like that. But slowly and surely,
Speaker 3: as we replace some of that activity, the power of
Speaker 3: these giant mega corporations kind of diminishes. This huge, you know,
Speaker 3: ridiculous global supply chains end up kind of shrinking down,
Speaker 3: and and we we slowly kind of turn the corner
Speaker 3: towards something more social, more circular, more on the ground.
Speaker 3: We we take some of the weight of government and
Speaker 3: social service programs to take care of us. We we
Speaker 3: take some of the weight off the climate, off the economy,
Speaker 3: and all that stuff all at the same time. The
Speaker 3: that's what I meant by you know, I have more
Speaker 3: hope in people that people could kind of flip and go,
Speaker 3: oh this is fun. Right, Yeah, I'm okay with this.
Speaker 1: What if life was actually fun? Like that's yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of a crazy idea. But how many drills do I have?
Speaker 1: But I need drills? Drills there's this David Wayne movie
Speaker 1: The Ten where like he and his neighbor or two characters,
Speaker 1: like two neighbors get in a cat scan buying frenzy
Speaker 1: where they just like they get competitive about buying cat scans. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, but yeah, you like, just
Speaker 1: to the point of the socializing you reference a couple
Speaker 1: times in the book, like these powerful, unconscious connective forces
Speaker 1: that are happening at the level of like mirror neurons, right,
Speaker 1: and you also mentioned that like the powerful, the more
Speaker 1: powerful people get, the less likely they are to have
Speaker 1: this exchange to engage in the mirroring of others. So
Speaker 1: it almost feels like that we're being delivered from this
Speaker 1: very powerful, you know, way that we become part of
Speaker 1: a network connected to other people, made up of other
Speaker 1: people that's very natural, very human, like how humanity got
Speaker 1: this far. We're being delivered from that by these powerful
Speaker 1: people who are like mapping onto us. They're weird thing
Speaker 1: that is like that doesn't value that, that doesn't see
Speaker 1: the intrinsic value of that, and it's making us miserable,
Speaker 1: right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the way like a Marshall McClue in
Speaker 3: or somebody immedia theorist would look at it is what
Speaker 3: you're talking about are the values of the television age. Right,
Speaker 3: We got television, and we use television to paint pictures
Speaker 3: of the world that made us feel inadequate about where
Speaker 3: we are that we need to get that other thing.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 3: The television is sort of what put us in competition
Speaker 3: with each other and kind of desocialized us because the less,
Speaker 3: you know, the less satisfied people were, the more likely
Speaker 3: they were to go buy stuff. So television was this
Speaker 3: really terrific influencing machine and it's supported markets and companies
Speaker 3: and consumption and all that. And now we've moved into
Speaker 3: a digital age and we're kind of using that same
Speaker 3: industrial age television era. Oh, let's use it to influence
Speaker 3: people and get them to buy more stuff and all that.
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, maybe that's not the digital thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not sustainable. It's too when a digital
Speaker 3: algorithm can can reconfigure itself in real time to influence
Speaker 3: your behavior, it's like, this isn't gonna work anymore. This
Speaker 3: isn't just gonna get people to buy forward cars, right,
Speaker 3: because people don't even have jobs at Ford where they
Speaker 3: can afford a Ford car. It's like this is this
Speaker 3: is flipped in a different place. So I think we
Speaker 3: have to stop kind of using media to get people
Speaker 3: to do stuff and start looking at using media and
Speaker 3: technology to provide people, you know, some of what some
Speaker 3: of what they need, which is it's a it's a
Speaker 3: big it's a it's a big mind shift. But you know,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, This is like a very
Speaker 3: different media environment that this stuff works differently than industrial
Speaker 3: age stuff. We're not just coaxing people. It's as if
Speaker 3: television was more like social media, which is more like
Speaker 3: say the missionaries, they go to a population and they
Speaker 3: propagandize them, They get them to worship the new God,
Speaker 3: and they do a lot of intelligence on them, and
Speaker 3: then the missionaries send the intelligence back to the crown.
Speaker 3: And who comes next The conquistadors, right right, They know
Speaker 3: how the beta population works, they've got the intempts. They
Speaker 3: go in and they get them. That's kind of what
Speaker 3: the AIS and the digital things are. They're the conquistador
Speaker 3: is not just coming to influence us, but coming to
Speaker 3: annihilate and replace us. And that's wait a minute, that's
Speaker 3: not that's not going to work. So that's why we
Speaker 3: have to flip the script and say, well, what you
Speaker 3: how can they how can they serve us instead? And
Speaker 3: this technology could you know? I once you start saying
Speaker 3: wait a minute, once you get out of the framework
Speaker 3: of how do we retrain people for better jobs once
Speaker 3: the ais come, and start thinking instead, how do we
Speaker 3: retrain people for lives of meaning and pleasure and leisure?
Speaker 3: And it's like, ooh, that would be that'd be kind
Speaker 3: of fun.
Speaker 2: Right, because I feel like so much talk even like
Speaker 2: with like universal basic income, it's always just like offset
Speaker 2: the damage that tech innovation is gonna do. It's not
Speaker 2: because humans like we just because we're so productive, we
Speaker 2: should begin shifting to something that resembles more like leisure
Speaker 2: time or family, like, right, the ability to just commune
Speaker 2: with nature because you want to. It's always like, well, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: when this tech comes online, everybody's fucked. So the only
Speaker 2: way we can keep them at bay is by giving
Speaker 2: them like a pittance every fucking month. And that's universal
Speaker 2: basic income. And it's always interesting to see, like in
Speaker 2: your analysis, like a lot of these things that we
Speaker 2: are we're getting preached to us by like these tech people.
Speaker 2: It's always like it's never actually to solve anything. It's
Speaker 2: it's a solution that is just it's it, but it's
Speaker 2: a it's a new product packaged as a solution that
Speaker 2: is never actually tended to address what's happening. So we're
Speaker 2: in this snow, like this constant, like this never ending
Speaker 2: thing that only leads to increased like to your point,
Speaker 2: depleting our resources, you know, degrading the environment. Which for them,
Speaker 2: it's like, well that's the end game is then it's
Speaker 2: gonna all break because I'm too good at capitalism, and
Speaker 2: then I got to shoot the pores.
Speaker 3: I know. It's like for programmers who are so big
Speaker 3: on disrupting systems, you think they would consider disrupting corporate capitalism,
Speaker 3: they would consider something other than running to Morgan Stanley
Speaker 3: with every new invention they have, But they're ultimately so reactionary.
Speaker 3: They're so conservative, they don't challenge the underlying assumptions that
Speaker 3: their companies are based on. I'm going to go disrupt
Speaker 3: the taxi market. I'm going to disrupt the book market.
Speaker 3: But what about disrupting the market market asrupting that with abundance?
Speaker 3: You know, it's like this is this is so much
Speaker 3: easier than then writing another clue to make this current system,
Speaker 3: you know, churn another ten years while you look for
Speaker 3: a way out. And and the other side, you know,
Speaker 3: like the Koch brother side of this thing. You know,
Speaker 3: those guys are the big climate deniers. You go to
Speaker 3: an actual Cooke Brothers conference. They all believe in climate change.
Speaker 3: They've got all this stuff on what's going to happen
Speaker 3: and the methane gas and the this and the that.
Speaker 3: But their objective is, don't let us be the only
Speaker 3: ones who know what's happening so we can prepare for it,
Speaker 3: while the rest of society is is is told that
Speaker 3: this is a myth.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, the very like elitist thinking that's happening.
Speaker 3: That's like it's really cynical, Yeah, yeah, of the mind.
Speaker 3: And the more that that happens, and the more paranoid
Speaker 3: people get, then they get into QAnon and five g
Speaker 3: Towers and the Great Reset and that COVID was here
Speaker 3: to reduce the population of the world. And you know,
Speaker 3: because I get it, it's comforting to believe there's like
Speaker 3: an Avengers style Doctor Evil super villain, George Sorow's Jew
Speaker 3: you know, who's who's controlling the world with is you know,
Speaker 3: from the Italian embassy with space lasers or something. But
Speaker 3: it's like, I know, however comforting that is. It's time
Speaker 3: to grow up and say, no, no, we are we
Speaker 3: are in charge here, We're actually this is much simpler.
Speaker 3: This is much simpler than it looks. The only time
Speaker 3: we really get into problems is when we're trying to
Speaker 3: operate at scale, you know, like Zuck or Musk or whoever.
Speaker 3: If you want to operate locally, like ninety nine point
Speaker 3: nine percent of us can operate locally, and we could,
Speaker 3: let's just dedicate one million people to thinking at scale,
Speaker 3: you know, is that enough? We want ten million people
Speaker 3: thinking at scale? It's like, let them go do that,
Speaker 3: so we could just take care of each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like funny too because like for for
Speaker 2: all of like the ways I think we're just you know,
Speaker 2: propagandaized into thinking, oh, you know, there is no solution,
Speaker 2: Like the only solution is to just hit the fucking
Speaker 2: pedal harder and go through this, rather than like slowing
Speaker 2: down or looking at it. Like we have so many
Speaker 2: examples even in our recent history that shows that, like
Speaker 2: you know, like you bring up the Greenwood District in Oklahoma. Like,
Speaker 2: black people were completely excluded from the mainstream American economy,
Speaker 2: so they figured out how to do it on their
Speaker 2: own outside of it. And it was something that was
Speaker 2: cooperative and just like, well, if we only have us
Speaker 2: to rely and then like, let's make this work. And
Speaker 2: sure enough, it got to a point where it invited
Speaker 2: all this resentment that we had that race massacre.
Speaker 3: Right well, because the whites were confused. Wait a minute,
Speaker 3: if these black people were cut off from the economy
Speaker 3: and they're not allowed to participate, why are they doing
Speaker 3: better than us?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Right? So they went in and killed them, right right,
Speaker 3: But we got to look back at that and go, oh,
Speaker 3: they were doing better then that The blacks are doing
Speaker 3: better because being cut off forced them into local, circular
Speaker 3: economic activity. They started relying on each other, and yes,
Speaker 3: doing better. Now, do you need to be cut off? No,
Speaker 3: there's a balance, right, you shouldn't have to be completely
Speaker 3: cut off either. But boy, oh boy, when you see
Speaker 3: a lesson like that, when you see the way American
Speaker 3: farmers got out of the depression, you know, through stuff
Speaker 3: that really look like communism and cooperative land ownership and
Speaker 3: local currencies, you realize what we need is a more
Speaker 3: balanced set of economic instruments, you know, different ways of
Speaker 3: operating where we're doing favors for each other. Doesn't look
Speaker 3: like wrong on some level. You know, people these days,
Speaker 3: can we want to do a clean transaction. We'd rather
Speaker 3: have someone we don't know come in and clean our
Speaker 3: house for money than the neighbors kids are trying to
Speaker 3: you know, right, do something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the I mean the dumbwaiter effect, which you've already
Speaker 1: made reference to, like the invention of the dumb waiter
Speaker 1: by Thomas Jefferson, which in you know, elementary school history
Speaker 1: classes is claimed to be. Oh, he wanted to save
Speaker 1: the quote unquote servants at his house from having to
Speaker 1: walk up and down the stairs with heavy plates, and
Speaker 1: it's actually no. He wanted to hide the fact that
Speaker 1: he had and cost slaves behind the you know, hide
Speaker 1: it from people on a lower floor. There's this anecdote
Speaker 1: in the book that really drives home like what we're
Speaker 1: up against, where so it's the people assembling our iPhones
Speaker 1: for Apple are made to use this toxic fingerprint cleaning
Speaker 1: solution to make the new product, to just make sure
Speaker 1: there's absolutely no smudges on an iPhone when you open
Speaker 1: it in the box. When it comes out of the box,
Speaker 1: it is toxic. It poisons them, but.
Speaker 3: You get premature babies come out of them and stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's really bad but completely like but.
Speaker 1: It's such a good example also of the genius of
Speaker 1: capitalism as this like singularity, like you're rasing even the
Speaker 1: subliminal clues of the exploitation behind our most beloved products,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't even like enter into our minds like
Speaker 1: they're they're doing this like five levels deep thinking because
Speaker 1: and it's like you know, the people like these Harvard
Speaker 1: educated people are like going to work for Apple and
Speaker 1: coming up with that innovation of like we have well,
Speaker 1: like what we found is that if they see the smudges,
Speaker 1: then like they start to become like get a vague
Speaker 1: sense of unease with the world. So it has to
Speaker 1: look like this perfect gleaming cube that that was just
Speaker 1: like delivered down from on high and like with Amazon
Speaker 1: does it less artfully but like more blatantly. It is
Speaker 1: their entire business model to remove the workers at the
Speaker 1: store from our lives by replacing them with packages that
Speaker 1: just show up and you know, I mean, and they're
Speaker 1: not high, Like they have a company called the Mechanical
Speaker 1: Turk named for like that that's a historical event where
Speaker 1: like a robots beat everyone at chess, but was really
Speaker 1: just a chess master in a like suit that was
Speaker 1: made to look like a robot. So like it's we're
Speaker 1: up against a lot of very complex things that like
Speaker 1: knows exactly what it's doing, that is really going out
Speaker 1: of its way to try to deliver you from having
Speaker 1: the thoughts that you're talking about of like maybe I
Speaker 1: should like hang out with people in my neighborhood, Like maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe this isn't as simple as I
Speaker 1: wanted to be. Maybe the thrill that I get from
Speaker 1: opening this box and having an iPhone there that looks
Speaker 1: like the object from two thousand and one, you know,
Speaker 1: like that that isn't a thrill that I should be pursuing,
Speaker 1: but that they're They're working hard, but it does feel
Speaker 1: like we're getting further and further away from like just
Speaker 1: fully being absorbed by their bullshit. But I don't have
Speaker 1: a ton of evidence for that.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that's why I try to write a
Speaker 3: book about them that makes us laugh at them, so
Speaker 3: you can see, Okay, if these are little nerd people
Speaker 3: who are scared of human beings. Then that's why they
Speaker 3: project onto us the fear of a fingerprint, the fear
Speaker 3: of knowing, you know, the fear of the people and
Speaker 3: the dirt and the women and the nature and the
Speaker 3: all that stuff. It's like, I get it, you know,
Speaker 3: And there there are there are pills that can help
Speaker 3: us emotionally survive in a world where we don't have
Speaker 3: that human contact certain whatever SSRIs and antidepressants and all that.
Speaker 3: But there's also ones that are sort of encouraging complexity.
Speaker 3: There's all the new people out microdosing and trying mushroom
Speaker 3: therapy and doing other things. Although I'm still confused that
Speaker 3: you could take a fucking tech bro, send them down
Speaker 3: to South America and have them to do a bunch
Speaker 3: of ayahuasca and you would think it would bring their
Speaker 3: great reckoning and they'd go, oh, you know, I've got
Speaker 3: to reconnect with the world and the people and the thing.
Speaker 3: But it's like some where between their their ayahuasca trip
Speaker 3: and their their G five flight back to San Jose,
Speaker 3: they reverse engineer that the friggin' social network they've made
Speaker 3: is that solution.
Speaker 1: The product they're already working on, is actually the thing, right,
Speaker 1: if they can just find this one like tweak to
Speaker 1: the algorithm, that's actually what is going to right.
Speaker 3: But when their focus is on post humans rather than humans,
Speaker 3: which a lot of for a lot of them, it
Speaker 3: is right. You don't post humans don't have those fingerprints.
Speaker 3: Post humans don't have the the you know, the aborted fetuses.
Speaker 3: The post humans are are this sort of idealized idea
Speaker 3: of the human, the kind of the tech bro idea
Speaker 3: of human as information as perfectly auto tuned, soulless, you know, abstraction, right,
Speaker 3: which which I understand. I understand the yearning for that.
Speaker 3: You know, anybody who's fallen in love with an anime
Speaker 3: character knows what that is. But it's a stage, right,
Speaker 3: It's a stage of adolescents, not a fruitful place for
Speaker 3: us to go to the civilization.
Speaker 1: Yeah Jesus, all right, that's gonna do it for this
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