WEBVTT - This Country is Cons All the Way Down Ft. FoldableHuman 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:09.280 Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:14.440 it it being bad things happening here here being you know, 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.960 wherever you are. We're talking specifically about wherever you are. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:23.280 I'm Robert Evans, one of the hosts of this podcast, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.280 and with me today is a guy I have a 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:32.400 lot of admiration for probably my favorite YouTube documentarian, which 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:34.640 I guess would be the fastest way to sum up 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.200 who you are and what you do. Dan Olsen from 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:39.120 the channel Folding Ideas. 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.200 Dan. Hi, Hi, how you doing. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.400 I'm doing well? Thanks for thanks for inviting me. 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:49.400 Yeah. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.120 No, Dan, you and I have like a topic of 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.240 shared interest to discuss. But the first thing I wanted 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.680 to talk about is your name on the internet is 0:00:59.160 --> 0:00:59.960 foldable human. 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:00.600 Yeah. 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.760 You. I don't feel like I could fold you very well. No, Okay, 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:09.000 So back in high school, I used. 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.800 To be like I was a really small guy, Like 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.720 I was a really skinny guy. And you remember the 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.600 you remember all the ads from the nineties for exercise equipment. 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:22.000 I do remember some of that. Yeah. 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.000 So the tagline that they always used for like the 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.440 as scene on TV exercise equipment was that it folds 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:33.959 for easy storage. Ah and being being dumb ass kids. 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.520 You know. It's like one person in our friend group 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:38.600 like has a car, but there's like seven of us, 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:40.840 and so someone's got to ride in the trunk. And 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:42.920 it's like, well, Dan gets to ride in the trunk, 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.000 Like we're going to stick Dan in the trunk because 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.080 he folds for easy storage. Because I was a small 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:53.720 guy and so it so I don't know why. When 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.440 I was like busy eric like trying to brand the channel, 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:02.480 like you know, a decade ago. Uh, I was like, 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:05.920 I had this phrase that I was using with students 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:07.840 that I was interacting with, was like, well, let's unfold 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.720 that idea, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, But like that. 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:12.400 Was kind of like on my mind. 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.000 So I was like, ah, well, we'll like call the 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.960 channel like unfolding ideas. Unfolding didn't really like just sound good, 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:20.480 so it's like, oh, folding ideas. 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.320 Uh. And then well. 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.480 Esthetic parallel to that, you know, foldable human. I don't 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.919 know it, it just it it came to me and 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.360 it sounded good, and it was nowhere on the internet. 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.280 There was like no overlaps. So I'm like, all right, interesting, 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:43.040 We're good to go. SEO locked in that's. 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.640 An example of a thing that I you know, we're talking, 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.800 We're gonna be talking a lot about stuff that's unsettling 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.560 about our modern era and how the Internet has sort 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:54.600 of altered human dynamics. One of the things that I 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.880 think is kind of neat about it is its ability 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:01.280 to kind of preserve an amber aspects of you from 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.920 the deep past. Like I have one of my emails, 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.919 like my personal email is a Gmail that I got 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.040 back when you had to get an invite to get 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.359 a Gmail, right like right when Gmail first became a thing. 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.080 And it's like, I'm not going to say it on 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.359 here because then my email will get bombarded with shit. 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.680 But like it's like a stupid joke that doesn't really 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:23.960 make any sense. And every time I give it to someone, 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.040 their like, why is that your email? Because I was 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.400 like twelve, Like I don't even remember why I set 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.160 this thing. It's just this like moment of something I 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.800 thought was funny when I was pre Pewbescent frozen in 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.040 amber forever. Because that's the Internet does that in little 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:39.080 ways for each of us. 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:44.600 I definitely abandoned my original something Awful account because some 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.360 like's like, you know what, maybe. 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:48.040 Not that user name anymore. 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:54.960 Yeah, yeah, so you are so Dan if people are 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.600 not familiar with you, and I'm going to guess a 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.560 significant chunk of our listenership is kind of one of 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.680 the biggest touchstones for you recently was you put out 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.880 a video about the NFT craze that a lot of 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:11.120 people have credited with helping to kill it, me among them. 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:12.800 It's a wonderful, wonderful video. 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.560 Line go up was the actual title line goes yeah, 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.120 line goes up, very good breakdown of how they work, 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.520 why it was a con And you've been doing you know, 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:24.800 I think kind of the first really the first time 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:26.719 I became aware of you was you did a Flat 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:28.919 Earth documentary, which is is very good. 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:30.279 You know. 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.200 I did an article recently on like AI kids books 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.200 that was partly inspired by an investigation you did into 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.359 these kind of audible slash kindle grifters, the Mickelson Twins. 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.200 So you do that kind of thing, right like you 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.680 you you Bay, You kind of run across things that 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.760 are troubling or confusing to you, and then you investigate 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.880 them to a pretty impressive extent and put together very clear, 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.800 uh video investigations. You know, that's that's uh, I think 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:00.479 in a nutshell, probably pretty accurate. 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:05.520 Yeah, that's kind of where the where the channels ended up. Yeah, 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.080 it's it's been a few different things over over the years, 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.320 but that's kind of the phase that it's in right now. 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.719 Is this kind of like I don't know, like yeah, documentarian. 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:15.720 Place. 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.600 Yeah, and you know, a lot of your stuff seems 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.160 to focus on basically like the topic of kind of 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.800 online grifter culture and and sort of its intersection with 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:32.200 like different weird cultic milieuse like there's kind of a 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.120 cross especially like with NFTs, a real big crossover betwixt 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.240 the two, right, Like, it's kind of I think a 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.080 lot of crypto culture was kind of this intersection between 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:48.520 old school cons and kind of internet cult dynamics. So 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:54.880 I wanted to talk today about the problem of scam 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:59.640 culture in the United States because and I, by any 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.760 sort of like objective reckoning, I've been looking into this. 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:08.000 There are more scams and more fraud than right now 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.440 in the United States than at any point previously, and 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.720 basically from all sides, like phone scams are at the 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.120 highest rate they've ever been. 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:16.320 People are getting. 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.200 Like, like I think the statistic I've got is that 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.760 in March twenty one, I think is kind of when 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.480 that peaked at like four point nine billion robocall scams, 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.960 which is like like just kind of an outrageous increase 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:34.920 over where it was a few years ago. The rate 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.560 of like fraud against elderly people seems to be in 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.080 an all time high, at least in terms of dollar amount. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.360 One of kind of the unsettling quotes that I came 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.480 across when I was looking into the degree to which 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.440 old people are being scammed, and it's often through various 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.520 email scams that are kind of based on getting trust 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:55.760 or frightening them that like someone else is trying to 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:57.839 scam them and so they need to give in from it. Anyway, 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.760 the thing that the quote I came across was a 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.320 regulator talking about this and being like, yeah, it's not 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.840 it's no longer like smaller even medium dollar cons. People 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.480 are stealing generational wealth, which was really interesting to me. 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.120 And then there's kind of like phishing attacks are at 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.160 pretty close to an all time high. I mean, there's 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.000 a I'll send you there's a graph that I came 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.600 across in a what was the source on this? In 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.080 a comparaateech article that I mean, it's just a straight 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.960 line up from January twenty twenty nine to like the 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.920 end of twenty twenty two. And so I'm I'm, I'm 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.200 kind of looking at all this, and there's a couple 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.480 of different causes, right, Like some of the stuff the 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.760 SEC did under ajit PI gets blamed for why it's 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.800 gotten even worse with with phone scams, although that's not 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:53.000 the whole story. AI powered tools have been a big 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.720 part of like why phishing attacks have increased so much. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.080 But then like you've got like the degree to which 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.280 the elderly are being conned, which is like this kind 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:03.800 of at this intersection of a few different things. How 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.640 much more online old people are today than they were, 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:08.040 you know, ten to fifteen years ago. 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.920 For population bubble, yes, you know, multi valent dynamics. 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.400 Yeah, but kind of the commonality is that like scams 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:19.040 are all around, like people, we're all kind of being 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.000 assaulted by scams. 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.560 I mean time, I just I just grabbed my phone 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:28.400 and like of my last like fifteen text messages. 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.640 Maybe it's like. 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:37.040 Your pickup is available a couple like three with you know, 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:42.199 four with actual friends and then interact you just received 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.160 an e Interact transfer high long time, no talk, just 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.240 got your money, Okay, we'll send soon. Three hundred and 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.960 eighty nine can now be routed to your institution. Submit 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:55.160 Why the Canada Revenue Agency has sent you money? Your 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:59.840 verification code for visa transfer is And it's like it's 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:00.679 like it's just. 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.280 Constant, constant. I hadn't even because like. 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.280 I'm not going to be shocked at all if I 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.960 get a phishing text message during this conversation. 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:15.040 Yeah, like between my email and and like my text 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.480 messages or just phone calls, right, I get every day 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.680 I get two or three calls from scam likely, you know, yeah, 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.719 my good friend scam likely. Yeah, my old buddy, he's 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:30.200 always got always got something cooking. But yeah, it's and 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.480 I this kind of like I started focusing on this 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.600 more a couple of months ago because you know, I 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.040 had vaguely noticed, boy, it's just like nothing but fucking 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.000 scams coming into me through my phone these days. And 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.040 then a couple of months ago, I got a phone 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.240 call from my bank and it was one of those things, 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.920 like everyone else my cell phone lets me know when 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.839 like a call is from scam likely, or when it's 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:55.480 from like you know, and it had the name of 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:57.800 my bank on there. It was the right number, you know. 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.880 So I pick it up and human being is on 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:02.720 the line and they're like, is this you know, Robert 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:04.960 Evans And I'm like yeah, And then they're like, we've 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.720 seen some like fraudulent activity on your account. Can we 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.280 ask you a couple questions? And that is I've gotten 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.160 that call before. Legitimately, you know, it's not a weird 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.400 thing for your bank to be like, hey, let's talk 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:17.839 about these cuss. 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.439 Are you in the country right now? It's like no, 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.720 I'm I'm in New York. It's like, okay, so we're 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:23.280 seeing activity out in New York. 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:23.640 That's you. 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.400 Yeah, did you just buy something in Florida? No, I 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.760 never go to Florida, but uh so yeah so And 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.720 I didn't actually get to see where they were going 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.440 with this. Nothing suspicious had happened. But like after they 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.320 say that, I'm like okay, yeah, like what's what's the charge? 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.199 And then my phone disconnects right like it's you know again, 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:44.959 my where I live, you know, Oregon is the middle 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.720 of nowhere, so like sometimes connectivity is not great. So 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.080 I call them back, you know, and I get on 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.640 the phone with a person and they're like, yeah, what's 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:54.960 what seems to be up? And I'm like, well, you 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.000 guys called me saying that like that there was some 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.680 possibly fraudulent activity that we needed to talk about. The 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:02.719 lady on the other end is like, no one here 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.120 called you. Like, I'm looking at your record. I can 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.240 tell when someone's getting a call. We don't have any 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.200 record of that. And I explained what happened, and she 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.960 like goes back, talks to a supervisor and is like, 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.360 so that was a scam. They've this is something we've 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.720 seen more and more lately. They've they're able now to 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.720 actually just spoof our banks and this is my bank 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.440 is a significant sized institution. They're able to spoof our 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.000 phone number now and so you can't tell through the 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.280 caller ID, And like it was this whole thing where 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.480 like obviously I know, don't give certain things over the phone, 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.400 even if they're pretending to be your bank. We never 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.400 got to that point where anything was actually compromised, but 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.880 it was just like, well, shit, like what are you Like? 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.360 That's this is now well beyond a thing where like 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.440 you're getting called and someone's offering you you know, to 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.040 make a bunch of money, you know, holding a Nigerian 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.559 prince's wealth or something. If you sit in your bank account, 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.720 this is your bank calls you and your phone tells 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.199 you that it's your bank, and a human being who 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:04.120 sounds just like the bank teller like it's it's gotten 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.040 so and I think kind of the broad obviously, each 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.920 of these individual vectors by which scamming has increased is 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.839 a worthy story and a separate story in a lot 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.199 of ways, but they also come together in this like well, 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.480 you know, it's not it's not like weird at this 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.479 point to note that everybody seems angrier, and everybody seems paranoid, 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.920 and you hear more stories about like people opening fire 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.160 on folks pulling into their driveway to turn around, and 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.840 there's you know that story. Obviously there's guns and stuff 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:37.960 that's also connected to that. But I wonder how much 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:43.559 of the paranoia and anger is at least exacerbated by 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.480 the fact that everyone is fighting off a million scammers 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:47.120 at all times. 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.679 Yeah, I think that's a good observation, like that, just 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:58.480 we're seeing this erosion of public trust in reality. Yeah, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.960 And and some of that is like deliberate and political. 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.880 Uh And a lot of it is just coming from 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:12.559 like the fact that technology has enabled spam in in 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:17.520 unprecedented new vectors and the fact that you can like 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.280 that you can automate bombarding people with. 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.040 Noise. Uh. 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.840 Is is just kind of it's eaten away at all 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.520 of us because it's like, how do I how do 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.040 I trust anything? I mean so like and this is 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.200 the thing is it's like, Okay, so I've been I've 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.240 been keyed into this and thus paranoid for like a 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:42.680 decade now. So if I get a message that's like, 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.000 you know, like that from my bank, if it comes 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.400 in text, then it's like I don't interact with the 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.640 original thing that it came from. I then go like 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.600 on the website. It's like all right, I like call 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.440 my bank to uh to to inquire about it. Like 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.200 never you know, it's like never communicate through the channel 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:03.560 that you're first contacted in. 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.560 Yeah, if you're dealing with your bank. And it's like 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.880 and it's like, but is that level of paranoia healthy? 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.240 And it's like that takes that also takes effort. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.400 That means you have to have the foresight to be like, 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:18.400 do not panic see the thing process it consciously go 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:23.800 somewhere else and like, you know, activate a different channel. 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.280 You know, if they contact you through text, you know, 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.480 go through like email or or like live chat. If 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.480 they contact you through email, call them on the phone, 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:35.880 not with the phone number that was at the bottom 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:37.600 of the email, go to the website. And it's like 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.320 that's effort, that's effort. I don't even have that much 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:43.880 energy in me sometime, and a lot of other people 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:48.440 just like absolutely don't. And and that leads to like 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.640 just exhaustion, vulnerability, you know, all of the things that 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:57.680 feed into like paranoia, distrust, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.600 et cetera. And it's it's relentless. Like online advertising is 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.880 basically useless at this point. Oh yeah, because like if 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.720 you ran, if you ran a legitimate ad, you know, 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.880 unless you have the money to run like a real 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:21.280 proper you know, basically TV commercial. Yeah, like banner ads. 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.560 I haven't I've seen like I don't know one legitimate 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:29.840 banner ad for like a car company in the last year. 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.880 Everything else is like a hearing aid scam or you know, 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.000 liquefy your belly fat using the metaverse. 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:42.240 Yeah, and it's it's this constant like number one, It's 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.880 led me to the situation where when I see an 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.520 ad on social media in particular, but with any sort 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.960 of like print in online ad, my assumption is it's 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.680 probably a con right. Yeah, even if it's like, oh wow, 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:55.960 that shirt looks nice, well, that company is probably not 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.040 going to ship me that shirt right like, or it 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.920 won't be right like, yeah, it'll be that photo is 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.640 absolutely not from the company that is running this ad. 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.240 Yeah. You just you assume you distrust as a as 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.680 a first measure. You see you see a banner ad, 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.720 you see the aesthetics of advertising, and the assumption is 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.040 that it's like, ah, that's gonna you know, that's gonna 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.960 get me to sign up for some subscription that's going 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.440 to be buried in like recurring payments that yeah, I 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:24.760 will never be able to cancel. 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.680 And it's it's interesting because I, I mean, I'm not 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:30.880 sure if this has been your experience, but like I 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.480 can acknowledge, I think I morally have to acknowledge, like 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:39.080 part of my success financially as a creator has been 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.800 as a result of that. Because one of the things 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.640 that we've seen in the ad market is that text ads, 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.880 ads for print and shit do not work, do not 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.200 function in any way, shape or form, and a lot 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.640 of like random innersitt ads don't work well, but creator 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.480 ads work well, and so there's money in it, right 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.400 because people listen to like people have a degree of like, Okay, 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:03.560 well this is like number one. It's just like the 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.000 process of consuming a YouTube video or a podcast is 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.160 different from an article. But like the ads work better 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.080 because it doesn't feel the same as like the scrum 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.719 of shit that like is getting pushed into every conversation 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:16.639 you have on Twitter. 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.399 Yea a human that I can confirm existence has at 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:21.320 least taken. 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.600 A look at this, like this is not at least 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.080 like not a complete con or whatever, right yeah, or. 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.520 If it is, then like then the host has also 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:33.840 has also been. 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.240 Kind of like gone by that and whatever, Like it. 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.520 Ends up, yeah, we're in this together. Like it ends 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.520 up being at least like a little bit sort of 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:47.679 sort of distant distanced from that, you know, like the freakin' 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.840 you know, by by a square foot of land in 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.840 Scotland and become a lord and that whole thing is 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.400 like a scam being run out of China. Yeah. 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:57.880 Yeah. 0:17:58.040 --> 0:17:59.600 I Mean one of the one of the kind of 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:01.760 like weird ironies for me is it's like, okay, so 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:06.119 line goes up, came out, well, the crypto ecosystem was 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.960 in its like biggest ad blitz ever. You know, they 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.560 had the Super Bowl ads coming up just like a 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:17.480 month later, actually weeks, like weeks afterwards, and so you know, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.760 like the vast majority of the like mineral ads that 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:27.440 ran on that video were crypto dot Com, were ftx, 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:33.440 were binance, and and the ad rates that they were paying, 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.439 like the CPM that they were paying to run on 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:43.600 crypto relevant videos was insane. It was like it was 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.960 like twenty eleven all over again. 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.399 Twenty eleven was the only good time to be in 0:18:49.480 --> 0:19:06.159 digital content creation. There's like a lot that's unsettling about that. 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:07.920 I think one of the things that is like most 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.399 frustrated to me is the degree to which it's meant 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.919 that we've we've gone backwards. Like there was this people 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:19.240 who like study tech and kind of the way socialization 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.040 around big tech works talk about this thing called the 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.480 trow of disappointment, right, which is when you get a 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.480 new technology, everybody we're in like the hype phase for 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.159 like AI right now, right, yeah, And then at a 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.200 certain point it becomes clear which aspects of the hype 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:35.359 were right, you know, the degree to which the technology 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:37.960 is capable of doing things that kind of the evangelists 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:40.440 were claiming, and to which extent the hype was wrong 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.439 right in what areas is the tech always going to 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.280 fall short? And that's called like the trow of disappointment 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.480 when people start to reel and then you know, things 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.520 kind of are supposed to level after that's dot com 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:56.520 is not in fact magic, Yeah, exactly, exactly. You can't 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.320 just keep shoveling money into this shit forever and the 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.239 hopes of exponential returns. Or as a consumer, like at 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.560 a certain point, I can remember the time when phones 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.520 were exciting and I was, as especially as a journalist, 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.120 like really interested every new year at like what new 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.720 things they're capable of. And then after a couple of 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.320 years it was like, well, every phone is like there's 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.920 no difference. Now there's no excitement in getting a new phone. 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.240 It's just like, well this my old phone is broken, 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.000 so I need a new phone. But like I'm not 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.760 like wow, the new capabilities of this device, but I 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.000 feel like there's another I don't even I don't really 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:32.840 know what to call it. But there's also this kind 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:37.280 of thing where we the Internet helps to create, or 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.280 is the method through which is disseminated a new labor 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.080 saving device, and then the scams reach such a density 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.160 that the amount of labor you're able to save is minimal, right, 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:53.000 Like that's that's I feel like there's like a that's 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.520 at least one of the things that I've noticed, especially 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.680 with like digital communication, with just communication in general. Right, 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.640 my smartphone made it easier to stay in touch all 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:06.040 the time, and now my smartphone like it. Obviously I 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:08.720 still carry the damn thing everywhere, but like my text 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.680 messages are mostly scams, and my emails are mostly scams, 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:13.600 and most of the calls that I get are scams. 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:15.920 Like yeah, yeah. 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.640 I've actually been finding myself drifting back towards email as 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.800 a communication medium just because the spam filters are better, 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.720 you know, mature and sophisticated and for the most part 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.360 they work. Yeah, like they're yeah, it's like I can 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:31.720 actually people can actually reach me by email. 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:34.000 Yeah, that's pretty cool. 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.720 And you know, like there's there's a whole tech like 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:41.400 really kind of the big thing is there's this whole 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:42.840 technological element to it. 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:44.960 And you know, when you when you. 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.320 Sort of pitched the idea of this conversation with the 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.440 first two places, my brain went to where John Romulus Brinkley, 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:57.040 the goat testicle doctor yes, yes, yes, and pioneer of 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:04.399 new media radio and and of course uh and Marshall mcluan. Yeah, 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:06.240 you know, like those those were the those were the 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.840 two things that my brain immediately was like, this is 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:10.840 this is sort of like relevant to it because like 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.439 Brinkley was, he was a pioneer of radio. He he 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:21.800 absolutely advanced sort of the format of like what radio 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.480 could be and how you could use radio to not 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:29.640 just extract money from people, but get them onto your 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.280 side such that after they have given you their money, 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:38.040 like they're they're not just they're not just your your victims, 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.000 You're you're not just rolling into town and selling them 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.680 some some snake oil and then like skid daddling as 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:48.840 fast as possible, you have made them into your fans, 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:52.560 into your followers. And you know the way that he 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.760 did that by connecting his scam to like a sense 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:59.439 of identity. You know that he wasn't just this fake doctor. 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:01.480 He was also so effectively a pastor. 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:05.639 Yeah yeah, people who had defend it after there was 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:09.680 no longer any chance of them, Like after it had 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.359 been sort of proven that the thing that he was 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:15.639 promising was not real, right, Yeah, like once there was 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:17.879 no more. It's almost like you know that play the 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:21.080 Music Man, Yeah, yeah, if you if you at home 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:22.000 or not, Like I'm not. 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:24.160 A huge musical theater guy. This is a pretty famous play. 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:27.080 But like the basic idea is this guy tells everyone come, 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:29.680 this con man comes to town, tells everyone he's gonna 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:31.919 make like a big band and raises money for it, 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:34.400 and his plan is to like take the money and run. 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:36.960 It's kind of what the Monoail Sketch and The Simpsons 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:40.760 is based on to a significant extent. And if I'm 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.640 remembering correctly, I shouldn't have brought this up, maybe because 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:45.960 I'm actually not that knowledgeable about musical theater. But my 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:48.399 recollection of the way it goes is that like he 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.000 falls in lover some shit and feels bad, and you know, 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:54.280 they wind up he winds up becoming not a con man. 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:56.760 But like I think the modern version of that is 0:23:56.800 --> 0:23:59.600 he just he gets people to like adopt as a 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:03.040 religion and the idea that these fucking trombones and uniforms 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:06.119 and tubes and shit are on the way, and like, 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:10.119 you know, then they attack the local newspaper and string 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:12.320 a journalist up in the center of town for telling 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:15.159 them that there were ten years into this city, hasn't 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:17.920 started a bay anyway, whatever, Yeah, yeah. 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:21.719 And so so the other mccluan, you know, his his 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:24.879 famous postulate, the medium is the message, which remains a 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.800 radical observation to this day, is just that it's this 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:34.120 assertion that the medium itself is more important than any 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:37.439 given message on it, or even the like the the 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:42.840 combined weight of the individual messages. Now, I think in 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:46.560 some regards mccluan kind of went like overboard with that 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:49.240 because he said that it's like content doesn't matter at all, 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:52.439 and it's like, ah, I think content matters. But the 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:55.520 point still stands that like the medium itself, the like 0:24:55.680 --> 0:24:59.120 the invention of radio, the invention of television, the invention 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:04.000 of the internet, the invention of social media had a bigger, 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:06.840 like has had a bigger impact than any given thing 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:11.040 on it, because that's the thing that ultimately we warp 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:15.320 our lives around that, we restructure our homes around, we 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:20.680 restructure our physical environment around, we restructure how we spend 0:25:20.880 --> 0:25:24.880 our days like that, our time usage gets warped around 0:25:25.000 --> 0:25:29.800 the medium itself, and thus the medium becomes the portal 0:25:29.840 --> 0:25:31.440 for information to travel. 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:35.120 Through absolutely and it also I mean, I think there's 0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:38.280 an extent to which that is true of kind of 0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:42.879 the way parasocial dynamics impact things like political belief. I 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:44.920 think there are a lot of people, and I think 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:47.080 there are a lot of things that people a lot of, 0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:50.480 especially when it comes to like radical politics, that people 0:25:50.520 --> 0:25:55.320 adopt because somebody who they had come to already like 0:25:55.600 --> 0:25:58.760 expresses those politics, right, and so something that maybe never 0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:02.120 would have gotten any purchase with them suddenly is able 0:26:02.160 --> 0:26:04.479 to get purchased with them because like a dude that 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:08.399 they are, a lady, that they had a parasocial relationship 0:26:08.560 --> 0:26:11.199 express this kind of stuff. And it just it's not 0:26:11.280 --> 0:26:13.399 that it like hacks their brain. It's not that like 0:26:13.520 --> 0:26:19.159 people are you know, little robots. It's that, uh, this 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:21.480 is kind of the way influence works. It's the same 0:26:21.520 --> 0:26:25.520 reason why like your you like, people often wind up 0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:28.600 believing similar things to their parents or similar things to 0:26:28.640 --> 0:26:29.399 their friends group. 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:31.480 You know, if your friends are. 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:34.200 All saying like you know, on the positive end of things, 0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:36.720 if you're if you grow up like like I did. 0:26:37.040 --> 0:26:38.600 I don't know about your high school, but if you. 0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:41.320 Are like I like that. I was just thinking the 0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:43.840 same thing. Like my vocabulary in high school. 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:47.280 Was yeah, yeah, there is there's a slur that starts 0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:49.359 with F. That was like every third word out of 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:52.000 not just my mouth, but everyone I knew. No. The 0:26:52.040 --> 0:26:55.800 movie super Bad captures this to a significant degree of fidelity. 0:26:55.800 --> 0:26:58.760 To be honest, that's just the way shit was. And 0:26:58.880 --> 0:27:02.720 like the early aughts, and then you know, the people 0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:05.600 I hung around with, suddenly there were more people who 0:27:05.640 --> 0:27:08.840 were openly queer. And suddenly people weren't talking that way, 0:27:08.960 --> 0:27:11.879 and I stopped talking that way. It's just how people are. 0:27:12.000 --> 0:27:15.120 Yeah, just from like somebody that I admired being like, hey. 0:27:15.200 --> 0:27:16.879 Yeah, I don't say that. I don't think that's cool. 0:27:17.240 --> 0:27:19.959 Oh that is kind of fucked up. 0:27:20.040 --> 0:27:23.760 Yeah, And then you know, and it's it's not an 0:27:24.040 --> 0:27:25.919 like yeah, I can I can go to my the 0:27:25.960 --> 0:27:28.360 subreddit for my show and see people being like yeah, 0:27:28.359 --> 0:27:31.600 I started getting interested in like anarchist politics and history 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:34.000 and stuff because of something Robert said. And I don't 0:27:34.040 --> 0:27:36.640 think that's bad, because I think anarchist's history and politics 0:27:36.680 --> 0:27:39.520 are useful even if you're not an anarchist, Right, it's 0:27:39.600 --> 0:27:43.879 valuable to understand that history. It's often undertold. But this 0:27:44.040 --> 0:27:47.040 is the same dynamic, This thing which has benefited me 0:27:47.080 --> 0:27:49.159 and to some extent benefited some of the ideas that 0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:52.040 I think are should be more widely known. This is 0:27:52.080 --> 0:27:54.560 also why there's more Nazis, right, like it's it's it's 0:27:54.640 --> 0:27:56.760 cuts every where which way. 0:27:57.200 --> 0:27:59.080 And so so mccluan. 0:27:59.200 --> 0:28:01.760 You get these new you get the Internet, you get 0:28:01.760 --> 0:28:04.560 the subdivisions of the Internet, like you get social media, 0:28:04.640 --> 0:28:09.200 you get email, you get you know, instant messaging and whatnot. 0:28:09.359 --> 0:28:14.600 And because those technologies have this gravitational effect around them 0:28:15.000 --> 0:28:19.400 that alters the trajectory of how we structure our lives, 0:28:21.200 --> 0:28:26.280 they become because they are potent, because they are valuable 0:28:26.320 --> 0:28:33.000 communication vectors. They become prime targets for grift. And the 0:28:33.040 --> 0:28:35.840 thing is is that all of these technologies that have 0:28:35.960 --> 0:28:40.520 accelerated communication, you know, people have long been pointing out 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:44.160 like the negative impacts of social media, and just like 0:28:44.880 --> 0:28:49.680 the the effect on like self esteem, self perception of 0:28:49.800 --> 0:28:56.280 just being exposed to other people's curated, idealized version of 0:28:56.360 --> 0:29:02.200 themselves so constantly. You know, it's like this like that's 0:29:02.240 --> 0:29:07.800 already you know, uh, impactful in potentially negative ways. 0:29:08.240 --> 0:29:08.360 Uh. 0:29:08.440 --> 0:29:11.240 And that's when you're dealing with like real people. 0:29:11.800 --> 0:29:11.920 Uh. 0:29:12.520 --> 0:29:16.560 And but then you add on to that that it's like, oh, 0:29:16.680 --> 0:29:19.240 you go on Instagram and like you can be following 0:29:19.920 --> 0:29:22.800 a bot and not even know it. You know, you're 0:29:23.000 --> 0:29:25.720 you're getting you know, and the algorithm is going to 0:29:25.760 --> 0:29:28.080 float this stuff. And so particularly if you're looking down 0:29:28.120 --> 0:29:34.080 these like these addictive infinite scroll feeds, uh, you know, 0:29:34.400 --> 0:29:39.560 you don't have the filter of pre interaction to to 0:29:39.640 --> 0:29:42.480 gauge those things. So like so like I follow you 0:29:42.560 --> 0:29:44.880 on Twitter, and I know that if I see, like, oh, 0:29:44.960 --> 0:29:47.640 Robert Evans has retweeted this thing, that it's like okay, 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:51.000 so like he's taken a look at it, uh and 0:29:51.000 --> 0:29:53.440 and it's been through like the filter, the filter of 0:29:53.480 --> 0:29:56.800 his brain, and so I can probably just like, you know, 0:29:56.920 --> 0:30:00.360 take my trust in that thing up like one notch, right. 0:30:00.800 --> 0:30:03.080 But if I'm just like scrolling down the like the 0:30:03.280 --> 0:30:08.000 algorithmically curated like this is what our computer has determined 0:30:08.160 --> 0:30:12.040 is similar to things that you have already looked at. 0:30:12.640 --> 0:30:17.200 It's it's just it's so much more fraught. But there's 0:30:17.400 --> 0:30:21.040 it's really easy to be complacent and just be like, oh, 0:30:21.240 --> 0:30:25.000 I trust this thing, I trust this platform. And that's 0:30:25.000 --> 0:30:28.040 where we get into the trow of disappointment. Is yeah, 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:31.120 this like, I trust these algorithm. These algorithms do a 0:30:31.160 --> 0:30:34.480 really good job of like, oh, I watched Dan and 0:30:34.560 --> 0:30:37.880 so the YouTube algorithm introduced me to like a bunch of. 0:30:37.840 --> 0:30:40.360 Other really good creators. Cool. 0:30:41.040 --> 0:30:45.000 Uh oops, I watched one video on flat Earth and 0:30:45.240 --> 0:30:51.000 now my my recommends are full of like COVID denihialism 0:30:51.040 --> 0:30:56.440 and anti maskers and you know, the Trucker movement and 0:30:56.440 --> 0:30:59.840 and all of these other like wedges to just sort 0:30:59.840 --> 0:31:01.480 of slowly rot in my brain. 0:31:03.000 --> 0:31:06.640 Yeah, it's like it it's it's like kind of the 0:31:06.680 --> 0:31:09.560 way our parents told us, or dare or whatever told 0:31:09.640 --> 0:31:11.920 us drugs worked, you know when we were little kids, 0:31:12.200 --> 0:31:14.920 where someone's like, oh, you want some pot. Here's some 0:31:15.120 --> 0:31:17.840 straight up heroin, right, like you want some of it is too, 0:31:17.920 --> 0:31:21.960 like you want some crack cocade? No, and I it 0:31:22.080 --> 0:31:23.960 is you know you were talking about like yeah, you 0:31:24.000 --> 0:31:26.800 see you follow someone and you see them share something, 0:31:26.840 --> 0:31:28.920 and if they're a trusted source for you, you know, 0:31:28.960 --> 0:31:31.760 it bumps it up a notch. And even that you 0:31:31.800 --> 0:31:34.480 know that's the way it, like it works for me 0:31:34.560 --> 0:31:36.840 as well. But there's a degree to which I find 0:31:36.880 --> 0:31:40.920 it like problematic, especially because like we all fuck around 0:31:41.000 --> 0:31:43.160 on the internet too. I had a thing go crazy 0:31:43.240 --> 0:31:47.120 viral recently where like someone someone posted an obviously photoshopped 0:31:47.160 --> 0:31:50.680 image of like a control, like a Logitech controller at 0:31:50.680 --> 0:31:53.120 the bottom of the of the sea and was like, look, 0:31:53.160 --> 0:31:55.840 the controllers survive, and I like, I shared it to 0:31:55.840 --> 0:31:57.840 make a joke, right, and the joke was that, like, well, 0:31:58.320 --> 0:32:00.360 the joke was that like, well the control or we're 0:32:00.360 --> 0:32:02.240 gonna find out was one of the more functional things 0:32:02.240 --> 0:32:04.480 about that terrible sub and that was And I even 0:32:04.520 --> 0:32:07.040 posted underneath it this obviously this is not a real image, guys. 0:32:07.080 --> 0:32:10.320 But like then I saw, like I wound up finding 0:32:10.640 --> 0:32:12.680 it went. The post that I did of it went 0:32:12.760 --> 0:32:15.960 so viral that like it wound up like screen captain 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:18.280 in some different Reddit communities for people to talk about, 0:32:18.360 --> 0:32:20.600 and they it was only the first post, not the 0:32:20.600 --> 0:32:22.840 one where I was like, obviously this is fake, and 0:32:22.880 --> 0:32:24.840 like it was a joke. You know, it was it 0:32:24.880 --> 0:32:26.680 was a it was a it was a ship post. 0:32:27.240 --> 0:32:30.520 We were banton online. Yeah yeah yeah. But also I'm like, 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:33.880 I wonder how many people now think that literally there's 0:32:33.880 --> 0:32:36.000 a Logitech controller that they found at the bottom of. 0:32:36.000 --> 0:32:36.920 The sea because of that? 0:32:38.680 --> 0:32:40.800 What is what are the ethics now of like making 0:32:40.840 --> 0:32:44.280 a making a ji a jape as like somebody who's 0:32:44.320 --> 0:32:46.440 got like a following, like where does that come into? 0:32:46.480 --> 0:32:48.560 And like I don't know, and I don't I'm certainly 0:32:48.600 --> 0:32:51.200 not like clear on it because I seem to be 0:32:51.240 --> 0:32:54.080 incapable of not shit posting. I spent too much time 0:32:54.080 --> 0:32:55.200 on something awful as well. 0:32:57.360 --> 0:32:58.560 But it's so. 0:32:58.680 --> 0:32:59.959 It's so hard to give up. 0:33:00.120 --> 0:33:01.000 I miss it. 0:33:01.080 --> 0:33:03.160 I miss the days when I could just make like 0:33:03.400 --> 0:33:08.600 tasteless jokes on on on Twitter and you know, a 0:33:08.640 --> 0:33:12.120 couple hundred people would see them and go like that's funny. Uh. 0:33:12.160 --> 0:33:14.880 And now it's like, ah, if if I'm a little 0:33:14.880 --> 0:33:17.600 too ironic, someone's going to be like, oh crap, are 0:33:17.760 --> 0:33:20.320 are you like that happened? It's like, no, no, that 0:33:20.360 --> 0:33:22.200 did not happen. But that did not happen. This is 0:33:22.280 --> 0:33:22.880 this is fake. 0:33:22.960 --> 0:33:25.160 I am. I am telling you lies for it was 0:33:25.200 --> 0:33:26.400 a bit, but it was a bit. 0:33:26.880 --> 0:33:30.120 I was doing a bit, but no, And that's like, 0:33:30.520 --> 0:33:33.960 you know, something awful, which is kind of the the 0:33:33.960 --> 0:33:37.240 the digit It's like the oh crap, now I've forgotten 0:33:37.240 --> 0:33:38.600 a very basic science team, you know. 0:33:38.560 --> 0:33:41.040 The big the big puddle of boiling goop. 0:33:41.120 --> 0:33:45.480 That life came out of the prim It's the primordial, 0:33:45.520 --> 0:33:49.880 primordial of digital culture. That's what Something Awful was. It 0:33:49.960 --> 0:33:53.200 was a forum website that gave birth in various ways, 0:33:53.240 --> 0:33:56.640 some direct and some indirect to four Chan, to Reddit, 0:33:57.560 --> 0:34:00.000 to Twitter culture, you know, to all of these different 0:34:00.080 --> 0:34:03.320 to anonymous, to all of these different things have a 0:34:03.440 --> 0:34:07.840 you can trace a lineage back to Something Awful. And 0:34:08.440 --> 0:34:11.280 the motto of that website, as written by the terrible 0:34:11.320 --> 0:34:13.920 person who founded it, was the Internet makes you stupid. 0:34:15.080 --> 0:34:20.640 And I at the time what that kind of meant was. 0:34:20.960 --> 0:34:23.880 And if you're younger, or if you just weren't very 0:34:23.960 --> 0:34:26.040 online in the late nineties early two thousands, you may 0:34:26.080 --> 0:34:28.440 not remember this long period, but there was a fairly 0:34:28.480 --> 0:34:32.120 long period where the default assumption in regular society was 0:34:32.840 --> 0:34:37.880 whatever happens online doesn't matter, right, like, it can't matter. 0:34:38.000 --> 0:34:42.760 Probably fraudulent, it's almost certainly like made up. You can't 0:34:42.960 --> 0:34:45.400 you can't trust anything online. 0:34:45.160 --> 0:34:47.960 And real people are not on the internet, right, Like 0:34:48.480 --> 0:34:51.359 it's kids, it's nerds, but like, you know, guys who 0:34:51.440 --> 0:34:54.160 run banks aren't online. You know, Like the idea that 0:34:54.200 --> 0:34:56.359 the richest man in the world would spend all of 0:34:56.400 --> 0:35:01.879 his time shit posting was absurd, Like, so. 0:35:02.840 --> 0:35:05.560 He really should be busier than he observably is he? 0:35:05.680 --> 0:35:07.799 Certainly it seems like it, although I guess so should 0:35:07.840 --> 0:35:10.000 I if I if. 0:35:09.920 --> 0:35:14.240 I'm being fair, But yeah, it's. 0:35:15.600 --> 0:35:21.319 There's this, uh, this degree to which digital culture is 0:35:21.360 --> 0:35:24.719 still very much a huge chunk of it. Like we 0:35:24.760 --> 0:35:27.200 all want it to not matter. We all want a 0:35:27.200 --> 0:35:30.240 place where we can just shit post and bullshit because 0:35:30.239 --> 0:35:33.279 shit posting and bullshiting comes out of like the very 0:35:33.320 --> 0:35:36.120 same impulses that like determine a lot of how we 0:35:36.160 --> 0:35:38.640 interact with like our friends, right, you know, we all 0:35:38.640 --> 0:35:40.600 need some times where you can just sit down, have 0:35:40.640 --> 0:35:44.000 a couple of beers or whatever and like say shit 0:35:44.120 --> 0:35:46.440 with your with your buds, you know, and it's not 0:35:46.960 --> 0:35:50.480 it's not being recorded, it's not going up any everywhere forever. 0:35:50.600 --> 0:35:53.160 You can just kind of like talk. This is the 0:35:53.480 --> 0:35:56.080 it's a it's a field almost social experimentation is a 0:35:56.160 --> 0:36:00.359 huge part of maturity of growing up, becoming a person. Uh, 0:36:00.400 --> 0:36:04.840 and I think we all get kind of there's a 0:36:04.880 --> 0:36:08.080 degree of like the accessibility of the Internet that makes 0:36:08.160 --> 0:36:11.160 that impossible to entirely get over even though it is 0:36:11.200 --> 0:36:15.200 demonstrably untrue. What happens on the Internet matters quite a lot, 0:36:15.560 --> 0:36:19.080 and you can have a real significant you can influence 0:36:19.120 --> 0:36:22.279 your own life in very negative ways by saying. 0:36:21.960 --> 0:36:24.000 The wrong thing on the Internet at the wrong time. 0:36:24.280 --> 0:36:38.000 Yeah, I mean lots of people have observed just this 0:36:38.080 --> 0:36:40.200 fact that it's like on Reddit, you can you're not 0:36:40.239 --> 0:36:42.799 on Reddit, I mean on Reddit too, but you know, 0:36:42.880 --> 0:36:47.560 on Twitter, like once, you know, once a month, Twitter 0:36:47.640 --> 0:36:55.560 elects some ten follower anime profile pick with who with 0:36:55.560 --> 0:36:58.759 with a single tasteless joke and makes it the full 0:36:58.800 --> 0:36:59.719 crim of reality. 0:37:01.200 --> 0:37:04.879 Yeah, and it's like that's a and. 0:37:04.880 --> 0:37:07.120 The thing, I don't think this is actually that far 0:37:07.160 --> 0:37:11.759 off topic, just because like it's this warping of reality, 0:37:11.880 --> 0:37:15.520 this warping of like what is real, what is trustworthy, 0:37:15.920 --> 0:37:19.160 what are the like impacts of things, And the fact 0:37:19.200 --> 0:37:23.719 that like you know, ten follower account can become can 0:37:23.760 --> 0:37:29.680 become international news. Yeah, has to sit alongside the endless 0:37:29.680 --> 0:37:35.799 bombardment of Dick pills and global leaders. Like I had 0:37:35.800 --> 0:37:37.759 this joke that I was trying to formulate over the 0:37:37.800 --> 0:37:42.279 weekend of like World War two with Twitter, where it's like, 0:37:42.440 --> 0:37:45.279 you know, just a joke hinging on the idea that 0:37:45.360 --> 0:37:49.000 some like follower bought would observe this like, ah, it's like, 0:37:49.320 --> 0:37:51.279 you know, two posts in a row, Like it's like 0:37:51.320 --> 0:37:55.320 the USSR has rolled into Berlin, Stalin has unfriended the President. 0:37:55.560 --> 0:37:59.719 I hope this doesn't mean anything, you know that it's 0:37:59.719 --> 0:38:04.200 like the you have, like you have international politics happening 0:38:04.760 --> 0:38:09.000 in the same space as fake international politics, as the 0:38:09.000 --> 0:38:13.000 same space as just like this endless bombardment of you know, 0:38:14.200 --> 0:38:20.239 of curated reality, fictionalized reality, unreality and spam, and no 0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:23.680 one knows what's real anymore, no one knows what to trust, 0:38:23.760 --> 0:38:27.160 and the instinct and a lot of people is to 0:38:27.280 --> 0:38:29.799 just give up trying to parse the difference. And that 0:38:29.960 --> 0:38:32.480 makes us like increasingly vulnerable. 0:38:33.520 --> 0:38:36.320 Yeah, And I think. 0:38:37.960 --> 0:38:42.360 A big part of what's what's kind of at the 0:38:42.360 --> 0:38:45.000 core of the problem here is what you've said here 0:38:45.080 --> 0:38:46.840 makes us vulnerable. The degree to which this can be 0:38:46.880 --> 0:38:51.279 weaponized is really significant, Like the you know, one of 0:38:51.360 --> 0:38:52.920 the things that we saw that I think is kind 0:38:52.920 --> 0:38:57.080 of low key a significant moment in sort of info conflict. 0:38:57.120 --> 0:39:01.239 Shit is this last this weekend, last weekend from you 0:39:01.280 --> 0:39:04.879 know where we're talking now, there was a mutiny by 0:39:05.000 --> 0:39:09.840 the Wagner Mercenary forces in Ukraine and southern Russia against 0:39:09.840 --> 0:39:12.840 the Russian government, or at least that's what it appears 0:39:12.840 --> 0:39:15.120 to have been now right, this is Russia. A lot 0:39:15.160 --> 0:39:16.719 of this is really weird. So I'm not going to 0:39:16.800 --> 0:39:20.120 say we know, we don't. We certainly don't know entirely 0:39:20.200 --> 0:39:23.200 like what happened there, like what's going on there? But 0:39:24.239 --> 0:39:27.760 a couple of things happened very quickly. For one, folks 0:39:27.800 --> 0:39:29.880 on the right, and there were also a lot of 0:39:29.960 --> 0:39:33.480 kind of like shit had left people who adopted this 0:39:33.520 --> 0:39:37.160 too decided that liberals were cheering on the head of 0:39:37.200 --> 0:39:42.000 Wagner Yvjiny Pregoshin because like they believed he was a 0:39:42.040 --> 0:39:44.040 reformer and that like they'd all thought this guy, who 0:39:44.080 --> 0:39:46.920 was like objectively a piece of shit and a fascist, 0:39:47.000 --> 0:39:49.080 is like they're cheering him on because they hate Putin 0:39:49.160 --> 0:39:51.640 so much and they've convinced themselves that he's you know, 0:39:51.680 --> 0:39:53.560 going to fix Russia, and he's like, no, no, I 0:39:53.760 --> 0:39:57.080 didn't see that. Like, look, I love calling people out 0:39:57.120 --> 0:39:59.920 when they have shitty takes, specifically on this specific war, 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:02.440 because I've been covering it since twenty fourteen, But like, 0:40:02.680 --> 0:40:04.960 I didn't see that, and none of the people talking 0:40:04.960 --> 0:40:08.560 about how liberals were doing this provided any evidence of it. 0:40:08.600 --> 0:40:11.000 And it happens all the time, right Sometimes people will 0:40:11.000 --> 0:40:13.640 like take a post that has like thirty likes and 0:40:13.680 --> 0:40:16.120 be like, this is what the left is saying, But 0:40:16.239 --> 0:40:18.399 like with this, there was even less. Like I didn't 0:40:18.440 --> 0:40:21.560 see a single post where someone was like, Pregosion's gonna 0:40:21.600 --> 0:40:24.120 like fix you know, corruption in Russia or whatever. No 0:40:24.160 --> 0:40:27.520 one was saying that they just invented that this was 0:40:27.560 --> 0:40:29.840 going on. And it part of it is that, like, 0:40:30.719 --> 0:40:32.520 you know, the way Twitter works now made it a 0:40:32.560 --> 0:40:35.439 lot easier for dis info to spread from this thing, 0:40:35.520 --> 0:40:38.120 Like there was very famously a guy who is an 0:40:38.239 --> 0:40:41.400 absolutely a con artist just started sharing up bunch of 0:40:41.520 --> 0:40:44.759 videos from there with like bad commentary that was inaccurate, 0:40:44.880 --> 0:40:45.520 and Elon. 0:40:45.400 --> 0:40:47.080 Musk was like, this is the guy I've come to 0:40:47.120 --> 0:40:48.920 trust about. You can say Elon Musk. 0:40:49.120 --> 0:40:52.680 Yeah, we can say Elon Musk I don't know. It's 0:40:52.719 --> 0:40:54.080 a problem, Dan, So. 0:40:54.200 --> 0:40:56.319 You beat me to Elon Musk because I was going 0:40:56.400 --> 0:40:58.279 to say this like the con artist was. But then 0:40:58.320 --> 0:41:00.480 it turns out that he was just retweeting that is, 0:41:00.520 --> 0:41:02.680 like he got of course he got involved anyway. 0:41:02.840 --> 0:41:07.759 Yeah, yeah, And it's the I don't think this the 0:41:07.800 --> 0:41:10.960 solution was not because we lived, you know, our parents 0:41:10.960 --> 0:41:13.239 and grandparents lived to the day where most people would 0:41:13.280 --> 0:41:16.080 be like, well, you know, folks who are in politics 0:41:16.160 --> 0:41:18.040 maybe need to care about this. I might want to 0:41:18.040 --> 0:41:21.280 get the broad strokes of it, but like random people, 0:41:21.600 --> 0:41:25.480 you know, shouldn't be influencing what's going on with these 0:41:25.520 --> 0:41:27.880 international relations. And that's how you get shited, like the 0:41:27.960 --> 0:41:30.759 Dulles brothers carrying out coups all over the world on 0:41:30.840 --> 0:41:33.120 behalf of the US government, where most Americans are like. 0:41:33.040 --> 0:41:34.160 What did we do in Guatemala? 0:41:34.200 --> 0:41:36.680 I didn't know we had guys in Guatemala and that 0:41:36.760 --> 0:41:39.960 wasn't great. But also this new thing where if you 0:41:40.040 --> 0:41:44.840 are a personality, if you are in media, then you 0:41:44.920 --> 0:41:48.200 are obliged to be a part of every big thing 0:41:48.239 --> 0:41:52.319 that happens everywhere, even if you are demonstrably incompetent at 0:41:52.320 --> 0:41:55.360 that and everyone is demonstrably incompetent at that past a 0:41:55.400 --> 0:41:55.960 certain point. 0:41:56.080 --> 0:41:56.239 You know. 0:41:57.040 --> 0:41:59.759 Yeah, and that's been Oh boy has that. That's been 0:41:59.800 --> 0:42:00.759 a lot to deal with. 0:42:01.120 --> 0:42:04.160 And it going back to the original thing that started 0:42:04.160 --> 0:42:06.879 this conversation. That's part of how so many of these 0:42:06.920 --> 0:42:12.320 cons perpetuate is that, like people are only competent, including 0:42:12.360 --> 0:42:16.960 famous people, including people with followings in limited areas, and 0:42:17.000 --> 0:42:19.480 once you get out of your area of competence, it's 0:42:19.520 --> 0:42:21.759 easy to get fooled. And if there's a bunch of 0:42:21.760 --> 0:42:23.640 people who trust you because of the things you were 0:42:23.719 --> 0:42:26.600 right about, then they can very easily get fooled when 0:42:26.600 --> 0:42:27.360 you get fooled. 0:42:27.880 --> 0:42:31.879 One of the big hazards there is that, and this 0:42:31.920 --> 0:42:36.760 is a long standing observation, is that huckster's con artists 0:42:37.360 --> 0:42:40.719 are going to be more willing than anyone else to 0:42:40.880 --> 0:42:45.200 pretend to be up to date on it. They have 0:42:45.280 --> 0:42:47.359 no compunction about being It's like, oh, yeah, I know, 0:42:47.440 --> 0:42:55.319 I'm an expert on submarines and Ukraine and Russia and belarush, yeah. 0:42:55.239 --> 0:42:56.440 You know, so there. 0:42:58.680 --> 0:43:00.800 The reason it's a con man is it's a confidence 0:43:00.800 --> 0:43:03.759 man because they get your confidence because they act confidently 0:43:04.239 --> 0:43:07.160 and give you reason to give you reason to trust them, 0:43:07.320 --> 0:43:09.719 and they have no moral compunction about lying to you. 0:43:10.360 --> 0:43:10.480 Uh. 0:43:10.960 --> 0:43:15.920 And and they are always going to be faster with 0:43:16.160 --> 0:43:19.880 the take, faster with the confidence statement, faster with the solution, 0:43:20.160 --> 0:43:23.719 faster with the with with a call to action to 0:43:24.120 --> 0:43:25.400 buy their book or dick pills. 0:43:26.440 --> 0:43:29.759 Yeah, and it's it's the And often I think part 0:43:29.760 --> 0:43:31.439 one of the things that's made this all so much 0:43:31.480 --> 0:43:33.520 harder to catch and so much more durable is that 0:43:33.560 --> 0:43:36.160 it's it used to be as obvious. You used to 0:43:36.160 --> 0:43:37.799 be able to see like, Okay, well, this guy's a 0:43:37.840 --> 0:43:40.799 con man, but like, I'm not a person who can 0:43:40.840 --> 0:43:44.319 be conned by someone selling diet pills. That's not my vulnerability, 0:43:44.360 --> 0:43:46.719 so I immediately recognize this guy as a con man. Or 0:43:47.000 --> 0:43:49.000 I am not a person who can be conned by 0:43:49.560 --> 0:43:51.880 Christianity stuff because I'm not a Christian, So I'm not 0:43:52.640 --> 0:43:55.840 vulnerable to this con man. And now so much the 0:43:55.960 --> 0:44:01.280 cons are downstream of the fot and of the fame, 0:44:01.520 --> 0:44:04.319 and so a lot of people are getting taken in 0:44:04.360 --> 0:44:06.920 by conman. And maybe you know the fact that person's 0:44:06.920 --> 0:44:09.080 putting in a link for their their's supplements. You know, 0:44:09.200 --> 0:44:12.640 on every viral post you don't buy their supplements, but 0:44:12.680 --> 0:44:14.920 they'll come up with something else for you once they 0:44:14.960 --> 0:44:18.560 get you in, once you're in the funnel, or even 0:44:18.560 --> 0:44:21.279 if they never convince you to buy anything, if you're 0:44:21.320 --> 0:44:24.200 sharing their content, that's bringing more people into the funnel, 0:44:24.480 --> 0:44:26.399 you know, and that really wasn't the case. That wasn't 0:44:26.440 --> 0:44:28.759 the case with you know, you go back ten years 0:44:28.760 --> 0:44:30.799 talking about like Young Living, right, or some other like 0:44:30.880 --> 0:44:34.160 multi level marketing company where they're selling you know, essential 0:44:34.160 --> 0:44:38.360 oils with fraudulent health claims. They weren't getting random people 0:44:38.480 --> 0:44:41.799 to spread their business without paying for shit. And now 0:44:41.840 --> 0:44:43.840 you can do that. If you're a con man and 0:44:43.920 --> 0:44:46.640 you've already got followers because you bought a bunch and 0:44:46.719 --> 0:44:49.320 you're you're on the Ukraine, shit, you just grab whatever 0:44:49.400 --> 0:44:52.759 videos and say whatever about them, you know, frame them 0:44:52.760 --> 0:44:55.000 in whatever way is likely to get people to share 0:44:55.000 --> 0:44:58.120 them the most. Then suddenly you gain two thousand, three 0:44:58.160 --> 0:44:59.920 hundred thousand followers in the space of a night or 0:45:00.120 --> 0:45:02.920 to and your ability to scam people and get money 0:45:02.920 --> 0:45:05.759 out of them has increased several times. You know, the 0:45:06.120 --> 0:45:10.560 con is downstream of the of the platform, right, so 0:45:11.680 --> 0:45:14.560 you know that's you get this guy and maybe he's 0:45:14.560 --> 0:45:17.080 shilling thing X or thing. Why he's got a couple, 0:45:17.200 --> 0:45:20.960 you know, whatever different con he has. But regular people 0:45:21.200 --> 0:45:23.960 can be in the in the business of spreading his platform, 0:45:24.040 --> 0:45:27.400 of increasing his profitability, even if they're not vulnerable to 0:45:27.440 --> 0:45:29.000 the con. Maybe they're not the kind of person who's 0:45:29.000 --> 0:45:32.640 ever going to buy weight loss pills or supplements or 0:45:32.680 --> 0:45:36.560 whatever kind of thing. But if this guy starts, you know, 0:45:37.000 --> 0:45:39.760 sharing all of these videos on the fighting in Ukraine, 0:45:39.920 --> 0:45:41.520 you know, at a moment when it happens to be 0:45:41.600 --> 0:45:44.440 the opportune moment to do that, and they go crazy viral, 0:45:44.840 --> 0:45:47.719 well then that guy is able to triple his following 0:45:47.920 --> 0:45:51.000 and you know, and have people who are not interested 0:45:51.000 --> 0:45:53.840 in his con spread his shit, which gets him followers, 0:45:53.840 --> 0:45:56.480 which brings more traffic to whatever the money generating part 0:45:56.520 --> 0:46:02.000 of the con is. Yeah, it's it's all a sales funnel. 0:46:02.320 --> 0:46:06.759 Are just anxiety lives we have. 0:46:06.719 --> 0:46:10.560 Built our society into just like a giant nested series 0:46:10.600 --> 0:46:14.560 of sales funnels. Yeah, I don't know that's bound to 0:46:14.600 --> 0:46:16.799 be a solid foundation. I don't see if you go wrong, 0:46:16.920 --> 0:46:18.760 that seems like that will go well for us. 0:46:18.960 --> 0:46:20.839 How do we get any ideas on how to fix 0:46:20.880 --> 0:46:23.839 it or should we just should we just state a 0:46:23.880 --> 0:46:25.080 problem and then run away. 0:46:25.480 --> 0:46:28.480 I mean, the easy thing to do would be to 0:46:28.520 --> 0:46:34.200 restore trust in our public institutions. You know, if we 0:46:34.280 --> 0:46:39.640 could uh have sort of like I don't even want 0:46:39.680 --> 0:46:43.120 to say, like a unifying cause, but just a sense 0:46:43.160 --> 0:46:47.640 of common of like shared commonalty and and trust in 0:46:47.800 --> 0:46:52.560 like our local our local society, you know, strong like 0:46:52.960 --> 0:46:57.440 not necessarily strong families, but like strong family units constructed 0:46:57.760 --> 0:47:01.440 or natural or however you want to like defin our constructors, 0:47:01.440 --> 0:47:05.160 but like local with like good infrastructure around us, so 0:47:05.200 --> 0:47:09.600 that our physical spaces are you know, appealing and comfortable 0:47:09.640 --> 0:47:12.239 to live in and and provide us a sense of 0:47:12.320 --> 0:47:14.440 like enrichment and fulfillment. 0:47:14.760 --> 0:47:15.840 You know, the easy stuff. 0:47:16.400 --> 0:47:20.680 Yeah, just just fix infrastructure, fix society, fix media, and 0:47:21.120 --> 0:47:22.839 uh and then I think we're good. 0:47:23.600 --> 0:47:23.960 Yeah. 0:47:24.040 --> 0:47:26.680 Yeah, so that's that's good. So if we fix everything, 0:47:26.719 --> 0:47:30.280 then we won't have any more problems. That's great. We're 0:47:30.320 --> 0:47:32.640 on the same page now. I mean it is really 0:47:32.719 --> 0:47:35.600 like and this is there's it's also there's also this 0:47:35.680 --> 0:47:37.879 kind of like problematic element of when you're like, well, 0:47:37.880 --> 0:47:40.759 we want to like a problem is that there's zero 0:47:40.800 --> 0:47:43.840 trust in institutions objectively a problem because it means that 0:47:43.880 --> 0:47:46.960 when say the CDC is like, hey, guys, there's this, 0:47:47.120 --> 0:47:49.000 there's a plague, we should probably do this and this 0:47:49.080 --> 0:47:51.719 and this, it immediately becomes a culture war thing. And 0:47:51.800 --> 0:47:55.719 so you can't actually you can't actually confront serious problems 0:47:55.719 --> 0:47:57.600 the way that you need to be able to confront them. 0:47:57.840 --> 0:48:03.319 It's just not possible anymore. Likewise, Like, but the other 0:48:03.360 --> 0:48:05.560 issue is that like, well, for a significant chunks of 0:48:05.560 --> 0:48:08.680 the population, there's never been any good reason to trust 0:48:08.880 --> 0:48:11.880 you know, the institutions because you know, they're marginalized groups 0:48:11.880 --> 0:48:15.200 and whatever, you know, when the institutional trust was higher, 0:48:15.280 --> 0:48:17.080 like the government was fucking them in this way and 0:48:17.160 --> 0:48:21.120 that way, and yeah, you know that's also so I wonder, 0:48:21.800 --> 0:48:24.160 like I think there's a significant extent to which we 0:48:24.239 --> 0:48:28.640 need new concepts of like what an institution is and 0:48:29.160 --> 0:48:31.960 should be, Like we need It's it's such a ground 0:48:32.000 --> 0:48:35.200 floor problem because like I don't know, we're never getting 0:48:35.239 --> 0:48:37.920 back to a point where Americans trust the CDC. Like 0:48:38.000 --> 0:48:40.640 that's just not going to happen, you know, Like whatever 0:48:40.760 --> 0:48:45.080 the way forward is on us having less the overcoming 0:48:45.120 --> 0:48:48.719 the anti vax anti science shit around medicine it's not 0:48:48.920 --> 0:48:51.480 getting everyone to love the CDC. You know, that's just 0:48:51.560 --> 0:48:52.960 not ever going to happen again. 0:48:53.120 --> 0:48:53.560 Yeah. 0:48:53.719 --> 0:48:56.200 And part of the complexity here is that it's it's 0:48:56.239 --> 0:48:59.160 really easy to sort of say that, you know, it's like, Okay, 0:48:59.200 --> 0:49:03.960 well the solution is like strong central institutions, and it's 0:49:03.960 --> 0:49:09.360 like that's not that's not correct at all either, because 0:49:09.400 --> 0:49:12.000 like I mean, the my go to example for that 0:49:12.040 --> 0:49:13.600 would be that it's like look at look at the 0:49:13.680 --> 0:49:15.920 LDS Church, look at Mormons. They have a very very 0:49:15.960 --> 0:49:21.080 strong central institution that provides this like social anchoring point 0:49:21.400 --> 0:49:25.360 for a lot of their lives, and yet Mormon communities 0:49:25.400 --> 0:49:30.400 are incredibly vulnerable to affinity fraud and and MLM's you know, 0:49:30.520 --> 0:49:36.200 like Utah Salt Lake is like the locus of MLM culture, 0:49:36.640 --> 0:49:40.880 and so like it's not the sort of like strong 0:49:40.920 --> 0:49:43.319 man like, ah, this is why we need strong like 0:49:43.400 --> 0:49:48.960 you know, strong leaders is not isn't the answer in 0:49:49.320 --> 0:49:51.319 its own way, even if it's a very tempting sort 0:49:51.360 --> 0:49:53.400 of like answer to gravitate towards. 0:49:53.440 --> 0:49:58.400 Yeah, And that's that's I don't know, I don't actually know. 0:50:01.440 --> 0:50:03.839 Part of the problem is that like there are little solutions, right, 0:50:03.880 --> 0:50:05.799 there are little things that you can do, stuff like 0:50:05.920 --> 0:50:11.400 advocating for you know, a more functional idea of like 0:50:11.520 --> 0:50:13.719 a more a more functional legal definition of like what 0:50:13.760 --> 0:50:16.839 an auto dialer is and what counts as like illegally 0:50:16.960 --> 0:50:19.640 sort of like flooding phone lines with with with cons 0:50:19.640 --> 0:50:22.440 and stuff or restricting you know, the ability of people 0:50:22.560 --> 0:50:26.440 like bill collectors and stuff to utilize you know, the 0:50:26.480 --> 0:50:28.359 phone system and some of the ways that they do, 0:50:28.480 --> 0:50:31.400 like the and that can make stuff better. Just like 0:50:32.680 --> 0:50:35.920 you know, at a certain point, we will develop tools 0:50:36.040 --> 0:50:38.920 that mitigate some of the harm AI is doing in 0:50:39.000 --> 0:50:41.279 the con space. Some of its ability to automate and 0:50:41.719 --> 0:50:44.840 push shit to people at scale will get reduced at 0:50:44.880 --> 0:50:46.760 a certain point. That will happen, right, because it happens 0:50:46.800 --> 0:50:47.280 with everything. 0:50:47.320 --> 0:50:47.480 You know. 0:50:47.520 --> 0:50:48.720 AI is not unique. 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:52.080 This is the It's it's a you've heard the you've 0:50:52.080 --> 0:50:55.120 heard the red Queen hypothesis, right, Yeah. It's kind of 0:50:55.120 --> 0:50:56.680 a way of like for it's kind of like a 0:50:56.719 --> 0:50:59.600 way of looking at evolutionary theory. There's this this point 0:51:00.040 --> 0:51:03.120 in Alice in Wonderland where you know, the Red Queen 0:51:03.200 --> 0:51:06.400 kind of like traps Alice in this situation where like 0:51:06.480 --> 0:51:08.640 she's got to keep running as fast as she can, 0:51:09.600 --> 0:51:13.440 but it's like a situation like a conveyor belt sort 0:51:13.440 --> 0:51:15.680 of situation, So no matter how how hard she runs, 0:51:15.920 --> 0:51:18.279 she never gets ahead. Right, And that's kind of the 0:51:18.280 --> 0:51:21.759 way that like the evolutionary arms race works, right, Like 0:51:22.160 --> 0:51:24.719 you know, one one animal develops a defense against a 0:51:24.760 --> 0:51:27.160 predator and the predator develops a way around it, and 0:51:27.239 --> 0:51:32.399 like the the like, that's kind of the best case 0:51:32.400 --> 0:51:35.160 scenario for how we adapt to cons I think actually, 0:51:35.200 --> 0:51:38.919 like technology just moves too fast now for us to 0:51:38.920 --> 0:51:40.880 to be able to keep up, right, Like we're not 0:51:41.280 --> 0:51:45.000 We're not just standing in place. We're consistently following behind. 0:51:45.239 --> 0:51:48.959 And I don't know, I don't know what we do here, uh. 0:51:49.040 --> 0:51:51.400 I mean yeah, so like there will there will be 0:51:51.480 --> 0:51:56.160 technol technological solutions to specific manifestations. I mean a big 0:51:56.200 --> 0:51:59.360 one like in there, like to not to not bant. 0:51:59.239 --> 0:52:00.759 Is that you know, the uh. 0:52:02.600 --> 0:52:06.719 At A, the legal system, the governments, Like governments need 0:52:06.800 --> 0:52:10.400 to do something about the robocalling and the text messages 0:52:10.440 --> 0:52:14.839 because they're rendering a vital piece of like sneak infrastructure unusable. 0:52:15.239 --> 0:52:21.200 Yeah, people don't trust their phones anymore, and that's that's bad, Yeah, 0:52:21.719 --> 0:52:24.160 because it means they stop using it. You know, it's like. 0:52:24.280 --> 0:52:30.160 There's yeah, there's very real like consequences. Uh, and we 0:52:30.560 --> 0:52:34.279 need to be able to trust that we're talking to 0:52:35.640 --> 0:52:38.320 people who aren't just trying to get our money. 0:52:38.960 --> 0:52:40.440 Yeah. 0:52:40.840 --> 0:52:45.319 Yep, Well, Dan, anything you want to plug at the 0:52:45.360 --> 0:52:49.160 end of this here YouTube channel Folding Ideas everyone should 0:52:49.239 --> 0:52:50.680 check out if you have not already. 0:52:51.280 --> 0:52:53.799 Yeah, the YouTube channel that's going to be the big one. 0:52:54.400 --> 0:52:57.520 I'm still on. I'm on socials at Foldable Human, though 0:52:57.520 --> 0:52:59.560 I'm trying to wean myself off of them because they're 0:52:59.560 --> 0:53:02.720 broken and being broken purpose and they're. 0:53:02.560 --> 0:53:03.440 Bad for my soul. 0:53:04.000 --> 0:53:07.320 So I still I'm addicted, So I still keep coming back. 0:53:07.400 --> 0:53:09.799 But I'm a lot less active than I used to be. 0:53:10.239 --> 0:53:12.680 Oh sorry, I didn't hear you. I was too busy 0:53:12.920 --> 0:53:19.640 getting anxious because of a thing on Twitter. No. Yeah, Dan, 0:53:20.040 --> 0:53:21.839 thank you so much for coming on today. I really 0:53:21.920 --> 0:53:24.840 appreciate your thoughts on all of this. I'm looking forward 0:53:24.880 --> 0:53:29.480 to your next video, your next investigation, whatever that happens 0:53:29.520 --> 0:53:33.040 to be. Folks should check out. If you haven't, line 0:53:33.080 --> 0:53:36.200 goes up your documentary on NFTs. You should check out 0:53:36.840 --> 0:53:42.000 entrepreneurs Is. I think what you called your Michelson Twins documentary. Yeah, 0:53:42.200 --> 0:53:45.200 check out everything Dan has done. Thank you Dan, And 0:53:45.360 --> 0:53:48.440 that is the episode. You can all go home now 0:53:48.880 --> 0:53:52.200 and deal with the fact that your bank information just 0:53:52.239 --> 0:53:58.360 got stolen by somebody in Macedonia. 0:53:59.480 --> 0:54:02.000 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 0:54:02.080 --> 0:54:04.800 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 0:54:04.800 --> 0:54:07.919 coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 0:54:07.960 --> 0:54:10.520 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 0:54:11.040 --> 0:54:13.200 You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated 0:54:13.239 --> 0:54:16.360 monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 0:54:16.480 --> 0:54:17.320 Thanks for listening.