WEBVTT - Listener Mail: Vale's Lonely Walk 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.560 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:12.920 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener Mail. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:14.080 My name is Robert. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.920 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And today is Monday, 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.080 the day of each week that we read back messages 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.160 from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:24.919 you would like to get in touch and maybe have 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.840 your own message featured on a listener mail episode, you 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.680 can reach us at contact at stuff to Blow your 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:34.479 Mind dot com. All types of messages are welcome. We 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.239 especially like if you have something interesting to add to 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:41.440 a topic we have recently talked about. Let's see, rob 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.319 should we kick things off with some responses to our 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:45.760 series on authenticity? 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:47.040 Yeah? I was good. 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.880 All right, I'm going to start with this message from Louisa. 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.000 Luisa says, hi, guys, I've enjoyed your Authenticity series so 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.040 very much. The part that really got to me was 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:07.880 that we somehow equate being authentic with being good slash virtuous. 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.120 You're pointing out that this is not necessarily true. Reminded 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:16.680 me of a Max Frish play called The fire Raisers. 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:21.880 In German, it's called Biedermann und d Bronzetifter, and if 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:23.840 you're trying to look this play up, I think sometimes 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:27.760 in English it's just called the Arsonists. Luisa goes on, 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.319 if you're not familiar with it, it's basically about a 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.560 group of men who set up in her Biedermann's attic. 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.240 He asks them what they are planning to do with 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.080 the gasoline they bring home, the incendiary devices they haul 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.640 up the stairs, and other such things. They tell him 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.800 outright that they are planning on setting the city on fire, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.080 and he either doesn't believe them or pretends he doesn't. 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.040 It's a fascinating play, and I think it addresses some 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.240 of the complex issues you raised in the series. As always, 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.440 thank you so much for the podcast. It always leaves 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:03.600 me with so many interesting ideas. Best regards, Luisa. Thanks Luisa. 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.480 I'm I was not familiar with this play beforehand, but 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.520 I went and read up about it, so yeah. The 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:13.960 plot is, as Luisa describes, basically, like some guys, initially 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:19.119 posing as salesmen, talk their way into this guy, this 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.560 you know, regular guy's house and talk him into letting 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.720 them stay in the attic, and then they increasingly are 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.400 doing obviously suspicious stuff like you know, bringing in all 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.200 of this this stuff that would clearly be designed to 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.280 start fires with, and he ends up helping them and 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.200 all this and and it's pretty clear what they're doing, 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.640 but for some reason he just won't accept that they 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.600 are actually the arsonists who have been starting all the fires. 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.040 Hmm. Yeah, I'm not familiar with this work, but just 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.400 looking around, it looks like there have been numerous TV 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.280 movie adaptations of this over the years. I think a 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.160 number of them were for like Swiss television. But yeah, 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.160 it seems to be one of his works that has 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.720 resonated really well and has thus been adapted. 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.960 I think it is often taken as a commentary on 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.160 the rise of extremist political factions within democracies, with the 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:14.160 idea that like people would make excuses as the Nazis 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.160 are coming to power. It's like, oh, it's just talk, 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.359 They're not really going to do any of that kind 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.720 of thing, which I would argue is not a good 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.760 mindset to have. You know, if a political faction is 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.240 making scary threats, I would say take them seriously. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.480 All right. This next one comes to us from Wayne. 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.400 Wayne writes sentence says, Hi, Robert, Joe and JJ, your 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.680 recent episodes on authenticity made me think of some issues 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:48.480 that artificial intelligence has been bringing up in the last 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:50.320 year or two. And just as a side note, we 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.160 did I hear from a number of people sort of 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.720 nudging us about the topic of artificial intelligence and AI 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:02.480 generated art and imagery and so forth in response to 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:08.680 these episodes. Anyway, Wayne continues here in particular, is AI 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.960 generated art really art? I feel like one quality of 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.080 good art is that it connects the viewer with the 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.279 mind and soul of the artist in an authentic way. 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.479 They had to make the art or they wouldn't be 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.520 true to themselves. With AI generated art, there is no 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.320 mind and soul behind it, where at best the average 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.719 version of the whole Internet. Whenever I see a really 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.800 cool image such as and Wayne shares an image here 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:36.880 and a Joe, You're going to jump in on it 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:38.800 in a second, he says. And then I found out 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.000 it's been created by a program like mid Journey, it 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:42.520 immediately feels empty to me. 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.880 Thanks Wayne, Yeah, thank you Wayne. So, folks, if you 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.800 want to look up the image that Wayne shared with us, 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.240 the one he attaches is oh, it's got a French name. 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.760 It's called a Teatra de opera spaciale or like theater 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.679 de opera spatial and it was created by mid Journey 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.640 based on prompts by someone named Jason Michael Allen. And 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.279 apparently this image was sort of in the news because 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.960 the prompt engineer here Alan submitted it to a digital 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.960 art competition. From what I understand based on what I 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.400 was reading, apparently being fully transparent, that the entry was 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.279 created by AI. So it wasn't like, you know, trying 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:23.880 to pass it off as something he had done with 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.479 his own hand, but saying, yeah, here's an AI image 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:32.479 that I prompt I created with prompts, and the image 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.000 won a prize, and so there was some controversy I 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.000 guess over whether it should have won a prize, whether 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.799 it really counts as art, you know, whether it should 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.480 have been allowed to enter, whether AI generated art can 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.040 should be allowed to compete with the art created by 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.040 human hands. But anyway, I would say yes, Wayne, at 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.919 least to some extent, I agree with you whether or 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.560 not we think AI generated creative objects like artworks and 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:03.719 music and fiction can ever have qualitative parity with with 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.640 works created by humans, whatever they're you know, the quality 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:09.919 like the technical qualities are that we appreciate in these artworks, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.480 whether it can essentially pass as a human art work 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.640 or not. I think there is probably still going to 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.560 be a preference in most contexts to interact with art 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.800 created by humans simply for the reason that it was 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:29.480 created by a human. So I in this particular case 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.920 of the art work you mentioned, the Tatra de Opera spatial, 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.479 I enjoy it like I like this digital AI image 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.760 more than a lot of AI generated art that I 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.520 come across. A lot of times that these AI generated 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.640 images like that they even in a sort of direct 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.640 sensory capacity, a kind of lack character or personality. They 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.159 often look too smooth and kind of samey. But I 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.240 do like this image. However, despite the fact that I 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.279 like it and just like a pure sensory way, I 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.200 like the you know what the pixels are, Knowing that 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.320 it was made by an AI causes an emotional change 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:11.200 in me that does make me less interested in it. 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.640 And I would say one difference is that for a 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.040 scene like this, so this is like an imaginative scene 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:19.680 that looks like it could come from a kind of 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.880 a science fiction world, there are characters in it, there 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.440 is a setting that looks sort of unlike our world, 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.040 and it raises questions in the imagination. So when I 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.760 see an image of a scene like this, or really 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:37.960 any imaginative painting, it suggests a broader imagined world, Like 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.680 if the image was created by a person, I would 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.400 be tempted to wonder about the story behind it. You 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.760 see this scene, but I wonder what else is happening 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.880 in this imagined world, And that sort of depends on 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:55.200 the creator having a broader imagination. Now to qualify you 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:59.320 certainly could prompt the AI to generate more images from 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.240 the same world, and it would, you know, confabulate as needed. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.840 But that is not as emotionally exciting to my mind 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:09.600 the same It's not the same way it would be 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.280 to imagine what else a human artist was imagining. 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.760 Yeah, because to your point, there is no story behind it. 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:22.080 There is just a yawning, grotesque emptiness. And that is 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.080 That's ultimately what I keep finding myself confronting nowadays when 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.480 I look at something or listen to something as is 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:34.480 now currently in the news, to something created by AI, 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.560 even if to varying degrees, yes there is a human 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:43.160 I'm involved in the loop giving it words, deciding exactly 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:45.560 how it's going to be calibrated, again with varying degrees 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:50.040 of detail depending on the system, but still the results 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:55.240 almost always ring hollow in and of themselves, and if 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.960 they don't ring hollow in and of themselves, it's that 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.599 additional knowledge that this was created by a machine that 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:04.400 just kind of like sucks the life of it in 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.720 the same way, in a similar way anyway that the 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.120 life might be sucked out of a piece of art 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.040 if you found out something just particularly awful about the 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.439 human behind it. Now, even then, depending on the artwork 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.920 and your exact relation with the you know, sort of 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.080 the algorithm of separating the author and the artist, it 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.120 might not change it too much, or it might change 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.360 it in a way where it was still interesting, you know, 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.120 at least you're like, well, this is a very disturbed person. 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.560 I don't really enjoy this work anymore, but it is 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.520 perhaps some interesting inside. There's no insight to be gained. 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:39.920 It's insight into an algorithm which is just completely devoid 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.120 of humanity on the surface of things. 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.360 Yeah, well, I might not say there's no insight to 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.560 be gained, but it's a different kind of insight, and 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.880 it's not like a it's not an exciting, warm, human 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:55.240 emotional insight. It's more an insight into systems and how 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.680 machines work, and things about the you know, the corpus 0:09:58.720 --> 0:09:59.960 of the Internet and that sort. 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:03.480 Of yeah, yeah, things like oh well, this is what 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.120 this is, sort of like the tortured and re tortured 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.280 remnants of what happens when you get an aggregate of 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.040 the Internet's vision of reality and things like that. I mean, 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.000 there are a lot of interesting things going on and 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.040 how these systems are working and malfunctioning. But god, it 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.319 just at the end of the day, it kind of 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:23.440 ticks me off more and more. 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:25.280 Do you want to talk about the music you were 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:25.880 sharing with me? 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.480 I don't want to name the program or the website 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.160 that is used. I mean, it's out there. There's like 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:35.280 a Rolling Stone article about it. But yeah, we had 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.679 one of our listeners sent some examples to me and said, hey, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:41.080 check this out. So of course, you know, I wanted 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:42.800 to check it out so then I could have some 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.160 frame of reference to talk about it. And yeah, it 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:48.360 was kind of horrifying because it did a much better 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:52.800 job than I expected, and yet at the end of 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.200 the day, like the things that came up with were 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:57.000 solidly mediocre. 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.920 Yes, that was my feeling as well. I was both 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:05.720 with incredibly impressed and really deflated so hearing these AI 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:10.959 created songs with vocals that had supplied lyrics. On one hand, 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.960 it was much better technically than it had any right 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.840 to be, like it was frighteningly passable as music actually 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.880 created by humans. On the other hand, I hated all 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:23.719 of it, like it's the kind of music that if 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.080 it was created by humans, I would not be interested 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.440 in listening to more. It had this this kind of 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.319 horribly generic personality free equality to it. 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.480 Yeah, and I have all sorts of questions about how 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.760 it is ultimately sourced, what sort of guardrails are on 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.559 there currently, because I know with this particular system you 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:48.640 can't put in or you're not supposed to put in, 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.439 or it doesn't recognize or it's made not to recognize 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.960 the names of individual artists, and so yeah, I'm not 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:01.320 sure how all that works out exactly. And also I 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.800 just can't help but imagine some scenario like, Okay, if 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:08.200 you have an AI just endlessly creating new songs in 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.040 different genres, and then there is any level of like 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.720 legal right to those songs that it just turns out 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.560 constantly like what does that mean for just like the 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:23.200 legal aspect of song creation moving forward, you know, which 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.360 is you know, already a very crowded realm of tunes 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.240 and melodies and riffs and so forth. 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.600 Oh are you saying, like the musical equivalent of if 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.439 you just have a machine create the library of babble 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.200 and then file for copyright on every book in it, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.200 so any book that a human rights afterwards already exists 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.880 in the library and that we already did that. 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.480 Yeah. Yeah, it's like you have automated AI copyright trolls. Yeah, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.640 and maybe there ends up being a situation where oh, 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.640 there has to be a human in the loop for 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.199 it to count. But then maybe there's just this one 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.440 human there's a name on a document, and that humans 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:58.440 in the loop, so that human has the copyright to 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:03.040 all the I don't know, I'm fine here, I'm this 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.000 is just technological anxiety, maybe to a large extent, And 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:10.599 maybe folks who have more insight on the legalities of 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.240 all of this can chime in and set us straight. 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.800 Oh yeah, I know, we have there are lawyers that listen, 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:18.880 and so I'd be interested to hear your perspectives. But 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:23.240 it seems to me that AI is currently stress testing 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.560 or testing the boundaries of our concepts of authorship and 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.040 intellectual property and all things like that. 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:33.680 Now, of course, if you listen to the great you 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:37.120 know all of the more positive and optimistic views, like 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.079 AI is supposed to be changing all of our lives 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.760 for the better, and AI is going to be our assistant, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.760 our collaborators and help us overcome wicked problems in the world. 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.200 But I don't know. It seems like most of what 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.160 we see is it creating bad art these days? All right, 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.680 that's the end of my butler and rant there. 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:06.280 Sorry, all right, I think we're going to shift over 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.240 because we got a bunch of stuff in the mailbox 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.520 about Weird House cinema, so we need to address some 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:16.120 of that. First of all, this is just we don't 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.080 need to read this whole message, but we did get 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:22.240 a message from listener Jeff amending a previous comment about 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.960 the Netflix adaptation called Delicious in Dungeon. This is where 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:30.040 like some adventurers in Dungeons and Dragons basically are going 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.600 through a dungeon fighting monsters and then cooking them, and 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.600 so it was like a combination fantasy adventure show and 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:41.200 a cooking show. And Jeff had previously told us that 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.920 this show was appropriate for kids. Jeff says that was 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.760 a true at the time he sent the original message, 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.720 but since then some more episodes have been released and says, now, actually, 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:56.360 maybe maybe this is not a fully family friendly program. 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:57.920 Maybe parents check it out first. 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.800 Yeah, yeah, fair enough. We have encountered similar situations before 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.600 with shows where like the rating seems a bit high, 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.440 particularly with some anime type stuff where uh, you know, 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.600 in isolation, one episode may seem very cute and charming 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.280 and not you know, too serious, but then it'll go 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.320 off the rails in the next. So yeah, it's always 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.080 good to I've become the sort of person who always 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:29.560 goes and looks at the IMDb users submitted like parental guidelines, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.360 or sometimes I'll check out does the Dog Die to see, 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.680 you know, some of the potential trigger points on given 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:37.320 pieces of media and so forth. 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.240 Yeah, what was the movie we watched for a Weird 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.920 House that had appearance guide warning about a character being 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:47.640 implied to nude off screen? 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.040 Yeah? Oh yeah, implied nudity. Yeah, that one definitely sticks 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.400 with me. Sometimes the youth Again users submitted parental tips 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.400 for films and TV shows on IMDb. Sometimes it can 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:02.720 be quite hilarious, but oftentimes it broad and more broadly speaking, 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.880 it can be very helpful for helping to choose something 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:07.920 for your own viewing, for family viewing, and also for 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.400 weird House sometimes. I mean that's one of the first 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:13.880 things I check when we're thinking about watching something for 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.120 Weird House, just to see what sort of stuff happens 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.240 in the movie and it's. 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:19.280 Going to be a gross bummer. 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:21.560 Yeah, Yeah, I just sort of to see, Okay, is 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.240 there anything here that just probably disqualifies it? And if so, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.640 then I'm just gonna move on to something else. Though 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.040 again it's user submitted, so it's not all It doesn't 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:32.880 know everything either. Yeah, all right, This next one comes 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:40.360 to us from Pat. Pat writes in and says Rob 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.880 Joe the Weird House Dune set was great, A lot 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:44.880 of fun diving into the dune world and the world 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:49.240 of David Lynch more Lynch movies, please one missed point. 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.360 Saint Aliah of the Knife is played by Alicia Witt, 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.080 familiar to my fellow Hallmart cheesy Christmas movie fans, and 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.120 a creepy character from Walking Dead. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.080 Oh okay, I I don't really know Walking Dead. I 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:06.280 do watch some cheesy Christmas movies seasonally with Rachel. That's 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.280 kind of a fun thing we do sometimes. But I'm 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:13.800 more familiar with like the bad Netflix Christmas movies. I 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:16.000 don't think I know the Hallmark ones as much unless 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:17.240 there's some overlap there. 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.359 Yeah, and I think I fell off of watching Walking 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:24.719 Dead before her character was introduced. And as far as 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.000 Christmas shows go, Yeah, I have to have a ghost 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.600 or a monster in my Christmas movies. It's just how 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:30.800 I am at this point. Sorry. 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:33.280 With some of the Christmas movies, you can kind of 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.800 imagine a monstrous plot behind them, like it's unstated. But 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.639 these are characters that are all like I don't know, 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:45.560 like virtual personalities created inside inside, like a virtuosity kind 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.359 of scenario, that are about to become sentient and it 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:49.520 could happen any moment. 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:51.879 We'll see. I'll allow that a nice sci fi element 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.240 is good, but yeah, otherwise it's like I'm watching a 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.280 Christmas movie and it needs to be a fantastic element. 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.399 It needs to be magic or monsters. It's not that 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:01.600 big of an app It can be a Grinch, it 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.640 can be a ghost of Christmas past, president or future. 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:07.440 It can just be the existence of Santa Claus. That's 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:11.600 why again I applaud the ted Lasso series for creating 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.600 a universe in which Santa Claus definitely exists. And I 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:16.720 think that's something we have to remember anytime we watch 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.000 an episode of ted Lasso. This Santa Claus definitely exists 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.680 in this universe. Who don't know what will happen next. 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:24.639 Like he's physically at the North Pole. 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.760 Yeah, yeah, this is a This is a universe in 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.160 which Santa Claus is real, is at the North Pole, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.840 does fly around every Christmas in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.320 And so you know that magic is real, that magic 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.200 is possible. So who knows? Every time I go into 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.359 a ted Lasso episode, I'm like, what's what's going to 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:46.919 happen next? The gates of Hell could open and it 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.399 will be in keeping with what we've established, though it 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:54.760 never does anyway, pack continue expected it. One point you 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.720 made referred to over emphasizing the power of the spacing 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.879 Guild disagree. A major theme of the novels is the 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:06.000 political problem of the overlordship of the Guild in space travel. 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.720 Every group of human culture in Herbert's universe struggles with 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.840 this at the highest levels. When Paul Assum's control over 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.640 the Guild by threatening Spice production, he becomes a stronger 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:19.919 emperor in all of Herbert's history. This leads me to 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.959 one problem I have with the Newsdoom in that he 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.359 plays down this aspect. The story falls apart if it 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.480 is not taken that Aracus is the only planet with Spice, 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.040 a galaxy wide empire powered by the Guild's ability to 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.720 provide transportation. All of the film adaptations downplay the galactic 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.800 addiction to Spice. Herbert's books make it very clear that 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.119 all of the nobility are addicts. Science fiction fans know 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.520 that intersolar systemic travel is a silly idea. There is 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.760 no extent theory that would allow this. The fun of 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.320 science fiction is in what if, in this case, the 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.639 Space and Guild's ability to fold space thissability is an 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:57.840 offshoot of spice addiction. 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.000 Hmm, okay, Well, to defend what we said, I don't 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.720 think we were making the case that David Lynch should 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.439 not have emphasized the spacing Guild. I think we were 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.399 talking about that there are like, because the novel is 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.680 so huge and the world is so big, you kind 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:15.639 of have to like pick what you're going to focus 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.560 on in a movie adaptation, unless the movie adaptation is 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:20.080 going to be like a you know, ten hour mini 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.920 series or something. But you know, if you're going to 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:26.639 do something within movie length range, you've really got to 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.359 You've got to just select things to zoom in on 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.120 and leave some other things by the wayside. So the 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.600 Lynch movie really picks the spacing Guild to focus on 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.520 the expense of focusing on like the Benny Jesrett and 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.879 other things, whereas the newer movies focus more on the 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.879 politics of the Benny Jesret. They're different choices, and I 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.760 think the Benny Jesert focus works really well in the 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:48.440 new movies. 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.520 Yeah, I think so. Yeah, he had to the team 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:54.480 in general had to decide on what they were going 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:56.520 to focus on, and they focused on the Beni Jesterrett 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.680 and they did a really good job with them. Yeah. 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.879 I love the space and Guild. I would have liked 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:04.919 to have seen more from them, but you just have 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.280 to make these choices in adaptation. By the way, and 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.840 I say this in part because I've gone back and 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:15.000 started rereading Doom, but I believe it's actually the Holtzman 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.199 effect that allows for the folding of space, and that 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:21.119 spice enables the guild steersman or navigator to just choose 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.800 the safest, safest path through space. But solid point on 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.120 the life extending properties of the spice. It is said 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.960 in the books especially that like, if you can afford spice, 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.640 you are probably on spice in part to prolong human life. 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:40.159 Yes, now, do I remember correctly that the whole thing 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.720 about the guild navigators needing spice, as you say, it 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.520 allows them to see the safest path through folded space. 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.880 It's like it's essentially that the spice give grants some foreknowledge, 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.040 like you can kind of see the future, right. 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:56.400 Yeah, Like the way I always think about it again, 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:58.919 it comes back to we can't have computers. We need 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.280 human minds that can do the things that computers would 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:05.480