Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from
Speaker 1: this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Anyways, Miles,
Speaker 1: we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat
Speaker 1: by a hilarious stand up comedian, actor, musician with the
Speaker 1: seven point four rated album on Pitchfork to his name.
Speaker 1: That's right. You can listen to his podcast called brew
Speaker 1: Got Me like anywhere fine podcasts, or give it away
Speaker 1: for free. His new book, The Advice King Anthology, available
Speaker 1: anywhere fine books are sold or given away for free.
Speaker 1: At the library, you know, the poetry window is open
Speaker 1: because it's Chris motherfucking Craft did what's up?
Speaker 2: Good to see you guys.
Speaker 1: What's up? Man? I noticed something about it.
Speaker 3: You look like you have your your fist over your
Speaker 3: chest like you're doing half a Waconda salute.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, I broke my scapula Thursday. I got
Speaker 4: an email from or No. I sent an email saying, hey,
Speaker 4: I would like to go back on The Daily Zeitgeist.
Speaker 4: Didn't and I got an email back that said hey, you.
Speaker 4: We were thinking about it on Tuesday and I said, sure, Wednesday,
Speaker 4: Today's Wednesday, I guess in the podcast world, but a
Speaker 4: little podcast ruin every over, ruin everything. I've ruined everything.
Speaker 4: So anyway, when I email to start the whole show over,
Speaker 4: when when the when I sent that email, I did
Speaker 4: not have a broken scapula. I had never even heard
Speaker 4: of a scapula. And then when I when I got when,
Speaker 4: I confirmed, yeah, sure I'll do it. Tuesday I was
Speaker 4: on like, you know, morphine. But I figured by Tuesday
Speaker 4: i'd be all right. But I broke my scapulaay afternoon,
Speaker 4: and I broke my rib and uh so Nashville has
Speaker 4: been like this ice skating rink for a week and
Speaker 4: now it just went away because it just got finally
Speaker 4: went up to like forty or fifty or whatever, right,
Speaker 4: and so all this stuff melted. But for a week,
Speaker 4: I guess Nashville has like a couple snowblouse.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you me literally like two.
Speaker 2: They have a few, I guess. But it was not cool.
Speaker 4: It was like everybody was falling down. My neighborhood was
Speaker 4: like a fucking circus. Like it was like the whole
Speaker 4: the street was an ice sheet for a week, so
Speaker 4: people were trying to go to work and have to
Speaker 4: turn back. My neighbors a guy, a drunk guy, came
Speaker 4: down our street. Like, first of all, our street, it's
Speaker 4: got no sidewalks or anything. So like if you go
Speaker 4: off the street, you're in a lawn, right and so
Speaker 4: and so this my neighbors, like I did. I was
Speaker 4: asleep because it was after I broke my scapula, So
Speaker 4: I was in bed.
Speaker 1: But I woke up.
Speaker 2: My roommate was like, that's right, I said, roommate, my roommate.
Speaker 1: Your buddy, my buddy. Yeah. My wife, my mother, my
Speaker 1: beautiful wife.
Speaker 4: Was doing animation on the new Fast and Furious movie
Speaker 4: in the living room of my well appointed Silver Lake.
Speaker 1: Je Fast and Furious whatever.
Speaker 2: She pays the bills.
Speaker 1: So I was asleep.
Speaker 4: I was asleep. She pays the bills. I live right
Speaker 4: next to the Silver Lakes.
Speaker 1: Got this note from Vin Diesel.
Speaker 4: I'm friends with Jimmy Kimmel. It's unbelievable. So me and
Speaker 4: Jimmy Kimmel we are taking a nap in the same bed,
Speaker 4: and my wife was animating Fast and Furious twelve or
Speaker 4: whatever it is. Yeah, and no, okay, I'm gonna go
Speaker 4: back to what's really happening. My roommate said that the
Speaker 4: next door neighbors, He's like, did you see what happened?
Speaker 4: And I was like, no, I was in there, and
Speaker 4: he said.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this car came down the street, lost
Speaker 2: control and went into my neighbor's yard. They it slid
Speaker 2: on the ice and landed in their yard.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then it was a drunk person too, even though
Speaker 2: it was the middle of the day.
Speaker 4: And yeah, because I always think drinking is nighttime thing, right,
Speaker 4: but not for this guy. And so then while he
Speaker 4: was trying to get out of the yard, which he
Speaker 4: also couldn't get out of because it was ice too,
Speaker 4: and it's down in a gully like our streets on
Speaker 4: kind of a hill, and like it's it's just a
Speaker 4: very you know, this was not an ideal piece of
Speaker 4: land for houses when they put them in here. So
Speaker 4: the so this car, this car like smashing into the
Speaker 4: people who lives there. He's trying to back up and stuff,
Speaker 4: and he smashed into their car.
Speaker 2: And then they eventually had.
Speaker 4: To go out there and take his keys away from him.
Speaker 4: And then they gave him a blanket because it was
Speaker 4: so cold, and they gave him some water and then
Speaker 4: they then the police came and I guess I didn't
Speaker 4: see the police, but they he said the police were
Speaker 4: very mean to the guy who he didn't speak English.
Speaker 4: So you know, anyway, Nashville is like needs more snowplows
Speaker 4: on the double. So if anybody out there in Delly's
Speaker 4: Guy's world has an extra snowplow, you might I call
Speaker 4: up the city city hall.
Speaker 1: Here, how's your rib? How's your scapula? That's what I'm
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 4: The thing is, I've broken so many fucking bones that
Speaker 4: it's really just embarrassing. Like I was more embarrassed I
Speaker 4: hit the ground than anything else because I heard or
Speaker 4: I hit the ground, I hit the steps, but I
Speaker 4: heard things crack, so I knew it's something. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: And it's just like I haven't broken that much stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah I have, but I haven't. I mean,
Speaker 2: I broke my hip.
Speaker 4: In twenty eighteen, you know, roller skating, you know, and
Speaker 4: everybody thinks that's funny, but you know, it's not funny.
Speaker 1: Only left it's funny.
Speaker 4: It's funny. That's LA's fault. That's because people in La
Speaker 4: grown people go roller skating because they're reliving their childhood
Speaker 4: that they didn't get to have in Wisconsin because they're
Speaker 4: mean dentist.
Speaker 2: Father never talked to them or whatever.
Speaker 1: Right, so they moved out to La roller skating.
Speaker 2: We're crazy clothes now, even I'm forty.
Speaker 4: So then hell, these socks are yeah, exactly at least
Speaker 4: crazy socks.
Speaker 2: I got them on the internet, you know, and.
Speaker 1: Uh, the film on there.
Speaker 2: So I broke Yeah, so I wrote, I'm doing a
Speaker 2: YETI Fuck film.
Speaker 4: We're pitching it to Adult Swim.
Speaker 5: It's gonna be called YETI Fuck film. But we're gonna
Speaker 5: censor put stars instead of the fuck. You know, it's
Speaker 5: gonna be f and then three stars. And yeah, I
Speaker 5: know somebody an Adult Swim. He's like a lower down guy.
Speaker 5: But I know the guy put the roof on Adult Swims. Uh,
Speaker 5: he replaced the roof and he talked to one of
Speaker 5: the guys there.
Speaker 1: So didn't they switch buildings though? Yeah, but he still
Speaker 1: got the guy's number.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well he also Yeah, he's just like in the loop,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, he's got the guy's number.
Speaker 6: I don't know how it's gonna work, but it's pretty
Speaker 6: much all set. Yeah, yeah, it's all set. So I
Speaker 6: fucking I don't even know I'm talking about it anymore.
Speaker 6: But it was like the my roommates said, the day
Speaker 6: had happened. My roommate's car got stuck in the middle
Speaker 6: of the road and it was stuck, and he came
Speaker 6: running in and he said, oh my god, Oh my god,
Speaker 6: oh my god, car stuck in the middle of the road,
Speaker 6: and somebody has come over the hills. We live over
Speaker 6: a hill, and he's like, somebody's.
Speaker 2: Running to my car. And I was like, oh, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 2: I love jobs, you know what I mean? Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I like helping this.
Speaker 4: I was like, shit, you was standing barefoot in the
Speaker 4: kitchen eating a cold case of DIA and I put
Speaker 4: on my sneakers and he said, the stairs are slippery.
Speaker 4: But that was the only thing I holed against them,
Speaker 4: because the stairs were not slippery. They were impassable, unusable.
Speaker 4: Each one was a solid fucking piece of ice. So
Speaker 4: I went outside and happily put my foot on the
Speaker 4: top step and immediately flew up in the air and
Speaker 4: landed in the air. I realized, oh my god, I
Speaker 4: am fifty four years old and hovering over set of
Speaker 4: concrete fucking steps, and I am like fucked. And so
Speaker 4: one step broke my rib and the other step broke
Speaker 4: my scapula, which is the piece on the back of
Speaker 4: your shoulder, the wing. And you know, I didn't even
Speaker 4: feel the shoulder thing because the rib hurts so much.
Speaker 4: So my only thing was I actually thought I probably
Speaker 4: broke my back. So when I stood up, I was happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, it's a miracle. It was really lucky
Speaker 1: I hadn't. Yeah, that sounds like it could have been worse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it felt like.
Speaker 2: The mundane way.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, the no one plans on getting
Speaker 4: paralyzed or I mean, it's like that's what it felt like.
Speaker 2: It felt like, oh fuck, this is really dangerous.
Speaker 4: Like when I was when I was in the middle
Speaker 4: of slipping, I was like, oh my fucking god.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, credit to you, man. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're doing well.
Speaker 3: And also I'm glad you know you listen to our
Speaker 3: email where you said, get the fuck over it. You
Speaker 3: said you'd wanted to were doing this show.
Speaker 7: You want.
Speaker 1: To be in the big time. You're gonna slip big time.
Speaker 2: This is Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought you were a professional with the never talked.
Speaker 2: To you again. If you don't get on this zoom,
Speaker 2: what do.
Speaker 1: You mean something's broken? Like I get I believe you,
Speaker 1: but like, why are you telling me that? What does
Speaker 1: that have to do with me?
Speaker 2: Anything? By tell it to your personal assistant you, oh man,
Speaker 2: So I.
Speaker 4: Have a go fund me anyway, if anybody I already
Speaker 4: made the I made the goal though, and and people
Speaker 4: from Daily Zeitgeist and you guys whoever's in charge of
Speaker 4: your social.
Speaker 2: Media retweeted my go fund me.
Speaker 4: So I'm very grateful as usual to the Daily zeit
Speaker 4: Gu's community because you know, they've just been a huge.
Speaker 2: Part of my life in the last three four years.
Speaker 2: So that gang, yeah amazing.
Speaker 1: Canceled my health insurance because I feel like I can
Speaker 1: just like reach out to them.
Speaker 2: Good idea. That's a good idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's probably the best idea you've ever heard.
Speaker 4: Your wife's I'm sure your wife is an animator for
Speaker 4: one of the major movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so well her work on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's a stunt coordinator for the New Avengers flick.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know how Hollywood works.
Speaker 1: Kevin what's his name fi? Yeah, yeah, he gives he
Speaker 1: gives us good health insurance. What is something from your
Speaker 1: search history that's revealing about who you are?
Speaker 7: Oh gosh, I don't really know if I like what
Speaker 7: this reveals about me. But you know, we need to
Speaker 7: get like really obsessed with something. And it's not even recent,
Speaker 7: it's not trending, like there's no reason why, but for
Speaker 7: all my search history for the last two days and
Speaker 7: just really wild deep dives on the twenty nineteen film Cats,
Speaker 7: you know, the awful one with all the like cgi
Speaker 7: fur and you know, all the superstars kind of crawling
Speaker 7: around at all fours And I don't know why, but
Speaker 7: for some reason, like a specter just came back and
Speaker 7: wanted me. And I was like, today, I need to
Speaker 7: like listen to an hour and a half YouTube video
Speaker 7: on the making of Cats, the movie twenty nineteen and
Speaker 7: why it was a disaster. And so I'm not busy enough.
Speaker 7: I think it's I need more hobbies and I need
Speaker 7: more productive uses of my time. But I am now
Speaker 7: an encyclopedia on terrible cgi slash why you shouldn't try
Speaker 7: and make very weird Broadway musicals into films.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was immediately like trying to connect the dots.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, I I think I remember
Speaker 1: that they used AI technology to remove the cat assholes
Speaker 1: from like was that one of the things where it
Speaker 1: was about to come out and they did a test
Speaker 1: screening and everyone's like, they're a pink cat assholes are
Speaker 1: in our face the entire movie? Or are we going
Speaker 1: to just do that? And I went back and digitally
Speaker 1: removed them. But now, were you into the movie when
Speaker 1: it came out? Were you anticipating it or you just
Speaker 1: kind of have it?
Speaker 7: So I love I'm a dancer, so like I love musicals,
Speaker 7: and like you know, I was one of the only
Speaker 7: people that was like un ironically excited and thought of
Speaker 7: the Cat's musicals. I realized that's like four people who
Speaker 7: like actually would have wanted to see this.
Speaker 8: And then the trailer came out and it was just
Speaker 8: so frightening.
Speaker 7: What it was a really good example of it's like
Speaker 7: in like AI and robotics, either term the uncanny valley.
Speaker 7: This might be something you've heard of, this idea of
Speaker 7: like the closest something looks like to a human or
Speaker 7: to like a living creature, but like being different enough
Speaker 7: that you can tell, like it's not quite human. Like
Speaker 7: the creepier and so this original robotics experiment Matito Mari
Speaker 7: or the person who like writes thisay about this us
Speaker 7: the example of like a mechanical hand that moves, and
Speaker 7: it's like, that's super creepy, Like no one wants to
Speaker 7: see that. And all I could think of is this
Speaker 7: like essay from this Jefpaness robots this. But I saw
Speaker 7: those cat humans things moving and I was like, it's
Speaker 7: going to be so bad, like no one wants to
Speaker 7: see this, whether or not the pink assholes are there
Speaker 7: or not, you know, and they just end up being
Speaker 7: all smooth doubt, which is also awful.
Speaker 8: So yes, it was a kind of terrifying disappointment.
Speaker 3: Because yeah, there's kind of a strisiand effect. I feel
Speaker 3: like when people are like, but where are the assholes?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And then people were like, well, we actually, like I
Speaker 3: don't know, might have been better with them.
Speaker 1: How do you?
Speaker 3: Speaking of cats and an interesting, uh sort of obsession
Speaker 3: with them, have you listened to your fellow compatriots podcasts,
Speaker 3: Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt's podcast called My Week with Cats,
Speaker 3: where they keep watching cats over and over and talking
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 8: No, but this sounds exactly up my street. Yeah, yeah, yeah, now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had them on the show.
Speaker 3: Guy is one of our favorite guests and fellow Kiwi
Speaker 3: And yeah, like to such an absurd podcast to just
Speaker 3: keep revisiting Cats over and over.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, have you listened to the iconic Kiwi
Speaker 7: podcast who shout on the floor at my wedding with
Speaker 7: kind of viral? I still haven't listened to it yet,
Speaker 7: but that's also on my listening list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one that I've heard many times. Be like,
Speaker 1: have you come up?
Speaker 3: And I saw all the write ups about it too,
Speaker 3: are like, it's absolutely the most riveting thing that we've
Speaker 3: listened to this year, is what I feel like most
Speaker 3: people say about that.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So are you how many viewings deep are
Speaker 1: you of twenty nineteen Cats or is it just like
Speaker 1: you watched it once and then it's all YouTube like explainers?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I watched it once. I don't know if
Speaker 7: I could do it again, to be honest, Like I
Speaker 7: did it once on like a trans atlantic flight and
Speaker 7: that will was, you know, myself trapped in the middle
Speaker 7: Tube had this moment with Pats when I was like,
Speaker 7: oh it is as bad as everyone said. And then
Speaker 7: now it's just extremely scathing movie reviews on YouTube.
Speaker 8: And in print.
Speaker 7: So I'm like single handedly keeping the movie YouTube review
Speaker 7: economy alive at this point.
Speaker 1: What's something you think is overrated?
Speaker 9: Authenticity?
Speaker 1: M M, what do you mean what you're saying here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm over it.
Speaker 9: Just at first I was going to be specific and
Speaker 9: talk about like gray hairs and personal grooming, but then
Speaker 9: I realized, just in general, I'm over authenticity.
Speaker 1: Give it.
Speaker 3: Give us an example of how you are bucking the
Speaker 3: scourge of authenticity.
Speaker 9: Okay, number one, please take a note of my attire today,
Speaker 9: folks at home. I am man flannel covered in eggs, banana, avocado.
Speaker 2: And apple.
Speaker 1: Yeah I did. I was gonna say, wait, don't forget
Speaker 1: the apple, but yeah, okay.
Speaker 9: Yeah it from last week.
Speaker 1: Yeah oh yeah, oh yeah, wow. That's not stains on
Speaker 1: the Swia shirt and wearing right now now.
Speaker 9: I also have like all my grays peeking through a
Speaker 9: little bit of sunburn on one side.
Speaker 1: One side, you don't want to know that they're breaking
Speaker 1: up the parenting by being a lung haul trucker. Is
Speaker 1: that where.
Speaker 9: The I don't want to be fucking authentic. I don't
Speaker 9: want to be authentic. I watch you at home, just
Speaker 9: imagining that I look fucking glamorous, that my hair is
Speaker 9: like blown out, my makeup is contoured and perfect. My
Speaker 9: Snapchat filter is like, really, how I look? You know
Speaker 9: what I'm saying, that I'm like a Kim Kardashian mom
Speaker 9: that's just like together.
Speaker 3: All the time time, even I'm always on my banana
Speaker 3: phone having long, like three hour long phone calls that like,
Speaker 3: Mommy's busy, Mommy's busy. Anyway, Rothy, get back to the team.
Speaker 9: We all know it's not true, but isn't it better?
Speaker 9: You know, I've already been on the show talking about
Speaker 9: how important lying is, right m hm, and this is
Speaker 9: really just part two event. Just keep the lies going.
Speaker 9: You don't need to know how people are doing. Really,
Speaker 9: whenever people are like, how are you doing? Like, it
Speaker 9: doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell you. Look, I'll tell you if I'm
Speaker 1: doing bad. How about that? Otherwise, let's just presume I'm
Speaker 1: balling out of control.
Speaker 9: Okay, I'm just out here just killing it, just slaying. Yeah,
Speaker 9: you know, drinking from my hydroflask that should have been
Speaker 9: a Stanley.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I did.
Speaker 3: We did clock that before we started rolling, and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, you came with the Stanley and then
Speaker 3: you turned it around.
Speaker 1: Set the record straight.
Speaker 3: It is a hydroflask, but it looks functionally exactly the
Speaker 3: same as a quencher.
Speaker 1: And you say you were not Stanley.
Speaker 9: You know, I screwed up. I should have lied.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the one area that we have to disagree.
Speaker 1: Authenticity isn't good damn it. If it's a Stanley quencher
Speaker 1: or a hydroflat, it needs to be a Stanley. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: for us to be okay, because we're gen Z. We're
Speaker 1: gen Z gen Z. That's why did you not know?
Speaker 1: I forgot It's very important. So fucking cringe, like you
Speaker 1: don't even know your gen Z.
Speaker 9: S Like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Oh my, did you try a Stanley?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 1: Wait for real, though? Did you try a Stanley?
Speaker 9: Said Stanley?
Speaker 1: I didn't like it, okay, so break it down house
Speaker 1: not using it really well?
Speaker 9: Stanley is narrower, m okay, And I was extra conscious
Speaker 9: of how it might tip over.
Speaker 1: Oh it didn't feel stable, like.
Speaker 9: I care about my center of gravity. I also don't
Speaker 9: have as much collagen in any of my joints anymore.
Speaker 1: Things are wobbly y. Yeah, just thought you were a
Speaker 1: great dance that's true. I mean it's narrow. So this
Speaker 1: might answer the question that I was asking yesterday because
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, the stanley being the size of
Speaker 1: a cup holder makes sense. Why do so many of
Speaker 1: my cups not fit into a cup holder? What are
Speaker 1: you thinking? And it's for stability in non cup holder situations,
Speaker 1: it would seem girth matters right, like a good wild cup,
Speaker 1: all the way down to the base. Right, The girth
Speaker 1: matters all the way down exactly.
Speaker 9: This fits. This fits in everything.
Speaker 1: It does in my car.
Speaker 9: If it's in my vagina, I try.
Speaker 1: To still got it every night, just making sure.
Speaker 9: I could put the baby back in.
Speaker 1: I probably could.
Speaker 9: We didn't talk about this last time.
Speaker 1: I don't think we did know I had a.
Speaker 9: I should say vaginal birth. Yeah that took twenty minutes.
Speaker 10: Oh that We did talk about it off mic though,
Speaker 10: but I think we weren't prepared to be like yeah,
Speaker 10: twenty yo shoutout, shout out to a quick good for
Speaker 10: you man.
Speaker 9: My doctor asked me if I would like to do
Speaker 9: this professionally right?
Speaker 3: And also and uh going to the bathroom with this
Speaker 3: Stanley mug really quick enough.
Speaker 1: It was easy. Sure you haven't done this before? That
Speaker 1: was wow?
Speaker 9: I had no issh. Also, this fits in my vagina.
Speaker 1: Now my.
Speaker 9: Hydroflask and Stanley.
Speaker 3: Oh man, jacki'e gonna get a Stanley though you said
Speaker 3: you you you're hearing I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's it's definitely U underd.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you're just waiting for hydroflass to be more popular.
Speaker 1: That's what our household has a Stanley in it. I
Speaker 1: am just not permitted to use it or look at it,
Speaker 1: but you know it's we have one. We've invested in
Speaker 1: a Stanley and now you know, it just takes some time.
Speaker 1: Whether we are at to Stanley household is just a
Speaker 1: thing that you you kind of have to have a
Speaker 1: conversation about with your loved ones. That's for every family.
Speaker 1: That's it for every family.
Speaker 9: Stanley also has a rim Do you know how easy
Speaker 9: it is to wash this rimless hydroflask flat face? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah? That that like that.
Speaker 9: It's so easy to wash this. I just hold it
Speaker 9: under the sink and just easy to wash. Yeah, I
Speaker 9: have you have to like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a little yeah, we don't have time for that.
Speaker 1: Do detailing. Yeah, I don't want to have to do detailing.
Speaker 9: It sounds like when I washed dishes.
Speaker 1: Same same for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's definitely my internal monologue.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I open like an old bottle and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I have it here, clean it quickly.
Speaker 1: I do every household chore like Paul Rudd picking those
Speaker 1: things up in wet, hot American summer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, putting his utensils away, exasperated, zero energy with every movement.
Speaker 9: Right, Yeah, that's how orgasm now, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2: It?
Speaker 1: Was it good for you?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Whatever? Give me the Stanley, just hand me the Stanley,
Speaker 1: Give me ten minutes.
Speaker 9: And my phone, give me my banana phone.
Speaker 1: My banana phone, and my and my hydroflask. Let me
Speaker 1: get right real quick, get right with the lord France osca.
Speaker 1: What's something you think is underrated? Though?
Speaker 11: Okay, so I have to correct something that I said
Speaker 11: last time, which was underrated not sleeping with your cat
Speaker 11: or your husband in bed. And I realize I've you know,
Speaker 11: it caused some pangs of panic. Nobody knew how to respond.
Speaker 11: Put everyone on blasts that. Yes, sometimes you know, we
Speaker 11: have to sleep in different beds, so everyone gets a
Speaker 11: good night's sleep, even though it was terrible. Let nights
Speaker 11: sleep last night. So underrated is my loving, wonderful husband,
Speaker 11: the father of my daughter, Matt Leeb, who is great,
Speaker 11: who even though we sleep in different beds, we have
Speaker 11: a very robust we have we have a perfect sex life.
Speaker 11: To quote Alan Dershowitz, and and that is who you
Speaker 11: want to be quoted. No, no, but but but just
Speaker 11: to say, look, it doesn't mean that you're going to
Speaker 11: get a divorced, doesn't me you don't love each other.
Speaker 11: Everyone should feel secure out there. Don't you hear the
Speaker 11: security in my voice?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Just h yeah.
Speaker 11: Miles Uh and Jack were very they used are both
Speaker 11: awkward when I said we were like not sleeping in
Speaker 11: the same bed, you guy like, but I'm here to say,
Speaker 11: I'm here to say that it's okay and that I
Speaker 11: love him no matter what. And one day we're gonna
Speaker 11: get one of those king beds. They're like, actually separate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh Jack, this sounds like damage control to me. Man,
Speaker 1: is all the times I just kept saying mm yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is no.
Speaker 11: This is one hundred percent damage control, and it's directed
Speaker 11: at only Matt Leeb.
Speaker 1: So yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh man, Yeah, I need I definitely need my own blanket. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm definitely the more I get to that,
Speaker 3: that Scandinavian style was like, bro, you need your own
Speaker 3: blanket because the fights that occur over the blanket tussling occur.
Speaker 12: Yeah wow, especially because you're taller and so like Myhillary,
Speaker 12: the fights that you.
Speaker 1: And Bill over the sheets.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm surprised you didn't do a tweet
Speaker 3: like that. She's like, you know, despite what is according
Speaker 3: in power, it's like, oh no, no, no, no, no Hillary.
Speaker 1: Hillary, Hillary put the Barbie down. Yeah. I think it's great.
Speaker 1: I've definitely taken some time to sleep in separate room.
Speaker 1: I think it's wonderful for your sleep. Sometimes it just depends,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, it really does just depend.
Speaker 3: I mean also, like I think for anyone who like
Speaker 3: actually reacted to that, they being like.
Speaker 1: Oh my fucking god, they sleep like it's the fucking death. Now,
Speaker 1: that's a fucking death rattle relationship. It's like, come on, y'all, like, no,
Speaker 1: it isn't. Well, no it's not.
Speaker 11: And that's why I think it's But it's okay to
Speaker 11: here because here's the thing. If all the audience found
Speaker 11: out after, like or if you guys found out, anyone
Speaker 11: found out after like I didn't say it, they'd be like, oh,
Speaker 11: now you're like why are you keeping it a secret
Speaker 11: kind of thing. That's why I'm like telling my friends
Speaker 11: so that when when they you know what I mean.
Speaker 11: So it's like so so that they don't find out
Speaker 11: later and like I didn't realize you guys have been
Speaker 11: being separate, but like that, it's not about that.
Speaker 8: It's like no, no, she's like.
Speaker 11: Here, I'm pro I know, I'm getting very warm even
Speaker 11: just something it's like a pro sleep move, you know,
Speaker 11: it's just about sleep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, I mean that's not there's not the
Speaker 3: real for me. I get into bed like this second,
Speaker 3: I'm about to sleep. Like I'm not one of those
Speaker 3: people who hangs out in bed and does a ton
Speaker 3: of shit. So it's not like that's really not a
Speaker 3: venue where like my relationship with her Majesty is like
Speaker 3: we're making like dreams and memories and shit like that.
Speaker 3: It's more just like, yeah, here's the place I sleep exactly.
Speaker 2: That's sleep.
Speaker 11: The problem is that I think also it's a little
Speaker 11: bit of a flex It's like saying you have like
Speaker 11: seven kids or whatever, or like seeing in suburb beds
Speaker 11: or separate rooms. It's like you guys have two rooms,
Speaker 11: Like who has a luxury to do that?
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, that's called the time out bedroom.
Speaker 11: Yeah, exactly, but you know it's it's good, Mike. My
Speaker 11: cat's still pissed. She's been peeing all over the place.
Speaker 11: Luckily Matt does not pee all over the place to protest.
Speaker 1: So but and that is a flex also that you
Speaker 1: have a husband who doesn't pee all over the place. Yeah, yeah, congratulations, wow,
Speaker 1: because yeah, Jack and I are like looking nervously at
Speaker 1: each other right now. Yeah. Yeah, no, my wife would
Speaker 1: say the same thing, right I don't pee in the
Speaker 1: linen closet. Yeah, and she's very proud of me for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We're going to David Busters later to celebrate. I've been
Speaker 1: about that. Would you like to go to Dave and Busters?
Speaker 9: She should.
Speaker 1: I can play whatever I want. Yeah, I can play
Speaker 1: the Jurassic Way. Halo for like five hours in a
Speaker 1: row is fucking awesome. In the arcade. Yeah, dude, Halo,
Speaker 1: that's that's the big game. Yeah, you can play Halo now,
Speaker 1: and like it's they've got like this giant like wide
Speaker 1: screen experience.
Speaker 3: Well, they do have that big shooter game, you're right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you play that with your kids.
Speaker 1: I don't play it, but my seven year old will
Speaker 1: play it until I like drag him away because he
Speaker 1: is suffering from malnutrition.
Speaker 3: Like, he will just play wizering away Like, Yeah.
Speaker 9: I just imagine a seven year old like a beer
Speaker 9: a very long beard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so wispy. It's good though, because I always know
Speaker 1: where he is, you know, just follow the long beard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to take a quick break. We're
Speaker 1: going to come back and we're going to check in
Speaker 1: with our good friends at Exon who we can trust
Speaker 1: to solve this climate thing. NBD, we'll be right back,
Speaker 1: and we're back. We're and freedom not friendulum just for
Speaker 1: the rescreen. We knew that, and we knew that. We
Speaker 1: knew that, and we knew that, and we knew that
Speaker 1: all along and well passed congratulations. As we all know,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has repeatedly amplified anti Semitic conspiracy theories on Twitter,
Speaker 1: allows hate speech to proliferate all over the face of
Speaker 1: his social media platform, with some Nazi loving accounts even
Speaker 1: earning money through its ad revenue sharing program, So in
Speaker 1: order to save face, he instituted some serious new policies
Speaker 1: to kind of clamp down on No way, I'm sorry, No,
Speaker 1: that's incorrect. No, he traveled to Auschwitz for a nakedly
Speaker 1: self serving publicity stunt. My bet I was shocked here.
Speaker 1: He didn't change anything of substance about how he operates.
Speaker 9: You see, wouldn't it be nice if Elon wasn't so
Speaker 9: on brand.
Speaker 1: Right, right, But then he wouldn't be Elon Musk now. So,
Speaker 1: beginning on Monday of this week, he participated in a
Speaker 1: two day conference themed around combating anti Semitism, hosted by
Speaker 1: the European Jewish Association, and predictably, it was a complete
Speaker 1: shit show. He got a private tour of Auschwitz along
Speaker 1: with Ben Shapiro, who was also at the conference, and
Speaker 1: like later interviewed him and just lobbed him a bunch
Speaker 1: of softballs that didn't raise any of his history. That's
Speaker 1: even disrespect to a softball. Yeah, meatballs.
Speaker 3: They were like hot and candy dreams in the shape
Speaker 3: of a sphere basically, and he had a tennis racket
Speaker 3: to just think that, I mean, beyond that quote unquote
Speaker 3: interview where they're like, because you would have thought any
Speaker 3: serious examination of anti Semitism dealing with the person who's
Speaker 3: running Twitter, you'd be like. And also in our next
Speaker 3: segment called this you here's some of the posts that
Speaker 3: you have been putting up for the last couple ye years.
Speaker 1: Really would like to talk about that. But it was
Speaker 1: not the case. You've been putting up retweeting, liking, retweeting
Speaker 1: with comment being like this is weird about like antisemitic
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. Yeah, he also brought his three year old,
Speaker 1: so the you know, the website for the Auschwitz Memorial
Speaker 1: says it is not recommended that children under fourteen visit
Speaker 1: the memorial, which seems like one of those things that
Speaker 1: absolutely goes without saying, but I guess needs to be said.
Speaker 1: But you see it and you're like, yeah, no, of course,
Speaker 1: of course he brought his three year old and was
Speaker 1: like giving him shoulder rides like it was fucking the circus.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, is it the daughter? How wait? Is shen
Speaker 1: x twelve or whatever that name is. That's that's his
Speaker 1: son or daughter. That's the sun according to sources who
Speaker 1: I'm looking at, Okay, how do we desert it? We
Speaker 1: have a what are we what are we calling? How
Speaker 1: do we pronounce that jumble of no. I think you
Speaker 1: just nailed it. She nailed it so hard that I'm
Speaker 1: not even going to attempt to reproduce Okachi. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah. So after the Tory sat down for an
Speaker 1: interview with Ben Shapiro, and Shapiro just didn't in no
Speaker 1: way mentioned his history of anti Semitism. The talk even
Speaker 1: opened with a video produced by the European Jewish Association
Speaker 1: that imagined what the Holocaust would have been like if
Speaker 1: social media and specifically X had existed at the time,
Speaker 1: and ended by posing the question, if we had had
Speaker 1: X in nineteen thirty nine, could have been saved? We
Speaker 1: had X inn, I mean if they.
Speaker 9: Were talking about like ecstasy like molly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Maybe yeah, rather than like math yeah there mainly on
Speaker 3: myth yeeah, mainly on like very rudimentary myth.
Speaker 1: And I feel like generally people are less likely to
Speaker 1: commit mass genocide when they're on MDMA rather than rudimentary myth.
Speaker 9: But also like Twitter is stoking Nazism.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, oh you notice that? Okay, yeah, shit, I
Speaker 1: guess we didn't really think about that.
Speaker 3: Well, but did they answer the question how many lives
Speaker 3: would have been saved for absolutely unuseful question.
Speaker 1: Useless question they implied. They implied an answer they had
Speaker 1: in one of the videos, like fake tweets. They had
Speaker 1: an official account posting about Auschwitz's thriving inhabitants, only to
Speaker 1: have that claim debunked by excess community note. That is
Speaker 1: so fucking grim?
Speaker 3: Are these doctored tweets from at Auschwitz Camp official? This
Speaker 3: is such a grim thought experiment. Then, I'm like, who
Speaker 3: does this fucking benefit? I mean, it's just really just
Speaker 3: like creating more cover for X, which is a legitimate
Speaker 3: I mean at this point four chan, eight chan and
Speaker 3: now X or whatever we want to call this thing.
Speaker 3: It's just like a terrible it's a sesspit. But yeah,
Speaker 3: community notes would have come through and been like, m yeah,
Speaker 3: actually this is this is actually the site.
Speaker 1: Of untold horror. Is that what they're saying?
Speaker 3: Because the community notes right now, I feel like half
Speaker 3: the community notes just being like this is from a
Speaker 3: drop ship company and you can get this product for
Speaker 3: much cheaper and another outlet for like this consumer good.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's the most community notes I see recently.
Speaker 1: He literally claimed this is a quote. If there had
Speaker 1: been social media, it would have been impossible for the
Speaker 1: Nazis to hide. Elon Musk said that like tried to
Speaker 1: imagine literally any other CEO making that argument about their products,
Speaker 1: Like if the head of Pepsi Co was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think Hitler would have had a hard
Speaker 1: time rising to power with the refreshing taste of Mountain
Speaker 1: dews Baja blasts.
Speaker 3: Okay, Jack, let's not let's not just saying let's that
Speaker 3: may but let's let's let's create a space where that
Speaker 3: is possible.
Speaker 1: Though you know, maybe Baja blast in a stand bad
Speaker 1: example because that's probably tr Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: bad example. Bad example, a bad example. Yeah, just the
Speaker 1: wild ash shit.
Speaker 3: If it would have been impossible to hide, Like well
Speaker 3: right now, they're not even hiding on your website.
Speaker 1: They're like fucking full force.
Speaker 3: So I don't even understand that or is he trying
Speaker 3: to say that like X Also, because of like sort
Speaker 3: of like open source intelligence, people who like kind of
Speaker 3: begin to like identify who Nazis are, are you siding
Speaker 3: with those people who actually do try and drag Nazis
Speaker 3: out into the sunlight? Like that's it's so wild. I'm like,
Speaker 3: what version of Twitter are you celebrating?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 9: This is wild to me also because like, you know,
Speaker 9: everything that's going on right now in terms of just
Speaker 9: like talking about genocide in Israel is anti Semitic, right,
Speaker 9: But right Elon Musk having this conversation where you just
Speaker 9: like wax is poetic, right while he stokes anti Semitism
Speaker 9: on his platform.
Speaker 3: It's such a weird thing because the revenue from it, right,
Speaker 3: And I know that people like at the ADL were
Speaker 3: really upset with the leadership there because on one hand
Speaker 3: they're like we they've called out Elon Musk's anti semitism,
Speaker 3: and then the other hand be like they're a great
Speaker 3: partner in the fight against anti Semitism, and it's like
Speaker 3: a very it's just like it's really really inconsistent, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it you begin to wonder, like because you know that
Speaker 3: there's like this whole thing right where the Israeli government
Speaker 3: is like we've completely lost the digital battlefield in terms
Speaker 3: of like sentiment on social media, and like there's now
Speaker 3: like a real concerted effort to really address that because
Speaker 3: they're like, I don't know what happened like on the
Speaker 3: Internet like we so they may see like having the
Speaker 3: power of Twitter, harnessing the power of Twitter, or Elon's
Speaker 3: desire to try and like you know, whitewash his anti
Speaker 3: Semitism away as a as like a potent tool to
Speaker 3: begin like battling that messaging. Because you also have a
Speaker 3: lot of like these accounts that are like the apparent
Speaker 3: that are like that are They're like there's like one
Speaker 3: called at defund Israel Now or something like that that
Speaker 3: apparently Elon Musk like actually is the one who's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you that like silver gold, blue
Speaker 3: like badge or whatever that apparently he has to have
Speaker 3: like a say in verifying, and that account is like
Speaker 3: basically doing all this stuff to be like Hitler's talked
Speaker 3: about so like poorly.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile there's a real genocide happening that Jews are
Speaker 1: doing and you're like, what is this all content? Oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 3: So it's like he's like he's like playing every single angle.
Speaker 3: And I think cynical people are saying that accounts like that.
Speaker 3: We're not cynical, but like the cynical read on promoting
Speaker 3: account like that is to just tie any stance that
Speaker 3: is anti apartheid or genocide as being part and parcel
Speaker 3: of like full blown Nazi stuff, like.
Speaker 1: Full blown antisemity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to completely tie that those two ideas together, so
Speaker 3: they're like inextricable. So then like the shorthand for people
Speaker 3: to be like, oh, you're saying that means they're like
Speaker 3: actually a Nazi.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: See, yeah, just to I mean maybe maybe this doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be said, but X, Like even if there
Speaker 1: magically was like a social media platform at the time,
Speaker 1: Jewish citizens wouldn't just be able to leave Germany after
Speaker 1: seeing some tweets because the Nazis revoked their right to
Speaker 1: free movement long before the death camps were built. And
Speaker 1: also much of the world did know about what the
Speaker 1: Nazis were doing but turned to blind eye, which I
Speaker 1: think is important to keep in mind at this time
Speaker 1: because that feels like what we're going through right now
Speaker 1: is a lot of the world just kind of turning
Speaker 1: a blind eye and just being like, well, that's not
Speaker 1: really my problem, is it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well it's weird too because the social media has allowed
Speaker 3: more people to sort of engage with, like engage with
Speaker 3: the topic. While governments for sure, it's like that's why
Speaker 3: they feel like there's such a tension existing in many
Speaker 3: countries where people like, I'm sorry, what are we what's
Speaker 3: our part in this as a nation?
Speaker 1: Can we do something about that? And like, oh, you
Speaker 1: saw that.
Speaker 3: We were just hoping to like let that pass until
Speaker 3: there's some other global controversy that can kind of keep
Speaker 3: this thing moving. But yeah, like just to say like
Speaker 3: it it's just the tweets would have changed everything. It's
Speaker 3: just disingenuous and just makes like an utter mockery of
Speaker 3: like everything that's happening. Because right now I feel like
Speaker 3: like while people are like a lot of media is
Speaker 3: unable to really contend with what's happening, especially in Gaza
Speaker 3: in the West Bank. Now it's like now it's more
Speaker 3: like everyone's being like, would you see what Hillary Clinton
Speaker 3: had to say about Greta Gerwick and Margo Robbie, you know,
Speaker 3: not getting snubbed and like that's getting to it's just
Speaker 3: we're we're in a bizarre, upside down world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean he did make kind of an
Speaker 1: air type case that he can't be doing in anything
Speaker 1: that would be confused with anti Semitism, because he said
Speaker 1: that he has Jewish friends. Oh no, oh yeah, then
Speaker 1: that that Okay, Nope, Actually two thirds of my friends
Speaker 1: are Jewish. I'm like Jewish by association, yo, problem.
Speaker 3: He said, I'm asked, he said, I'm asked that full
Speaker 3: quote is I'm Then he said, I'm aspirationally Jewish. Dude,
Speaker 3: you are out here like retweeting that kind of stuff
Speaker 3: where you're saying like it's that like fake ass, non
Speaker 3: not real voltaor quote about being like you should be
Speaker 3: worried of, Like it's to the effect of, like you
Speaker 3: have to think about the people you are not allowed
Speaker 3: to criticize in a society, and like that's where you
Speaker 3: know where the power lies. But that's really just comes
Speaker 3: from an anti Semitic fucking creep. But they're like those
Speaker 3: actually a full taiar, Like you're doing that kind.
Speaker 1: Of as Foltaire one said, and then quoting a straight
Speaker 1: up like four chance not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're like that from a Reinhardt Hydrich speech that
Speaker 3: he gave to the book.
Speaker 1: Okay, whatever, Sure, but despite his oddly specific fraction of
Speaker 1: Jewish friends and calculated photo ops, X still not solving
Speaker 1: its anti semitism problem. Several antisemitic posts on X which
Speaker 1: have been identified as anti Semitic. Moderators have refused to delete,
Speaker 1: claiming that they do not violate the platform's rules, so
Speaker 1: they've been reviewed and not deleted. There's been a spike
Speaker 1: in anti Semitic posts in the country that must just
Speaker 1: visited in Poland because of an incident in December in
Speaker 1: which a far right MP used a fire extinguisher to
Speaker 1: snuff out a menora during Hanukkah, which was a major
Speaker 1: news story and inspired a slew of what supremacist means.
Speaker 1: And they're just like, yeah, I mean, what what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do? It's you know, so they they're just
Speaker 1: very selective and where they care about this. That's why
Speaker 1: it's such a it's so this is so fucking dangerous
Speaker 1: to play around with what is hate or what is
Speaker 1: not hate speech? You know what I mean, Like it's
Speaker 1: completely well, it's gonna lose meaning because.
Speaker 3: It's if it's if it's almost yeah, like to the
Speaker 3: point where like it's it's flying like I don't it
Speaker 3: really It really blows my mind because I do not
Speaker 3: see how beginning to weaponize anti semitism in like a
Speaker 3: very cynical way makes anyone safe.
Speaker 1: And it's just used to sort.
Speaker 3: Of like stoppo any kind of discussion or debate or
Speaker 3: dissent or whatever. But meanwhile, you have somebody who is
Speaker 3: so open about like what they're like, They're philosophic view
Speaker 3: is supposedly be like the standard bear for the fight
Speaker 3: against it.
Speaker 1: It's just like, wo, what on earth? Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: it just for me and just say like it.
Speaker 3: I only see this getting worse, like to begin to
Speaker 3: just to fuck around like this constantly. But again, I
Speaker 3: think like there's clearly there's clearly been this thing of
Speaker 3: like online the sentiment, whether there's like young people or
Speaker 3: whatever it is to blame people's just general disgust for
Speaker 3: what is happening or them being completely taken aback by
Speaker 3: the violence that's happening against innocent people.
Speaker 1: And I don't know.
Speaker 9: I'm just like, well, this is the problem with like
Speaker 9: the FCC not being on top of this shit right right,
Speaker 9: And this is why I just want to bring us
Speaker 9: back again to the fact that authenticity sucks. We don't
Speaker 9: need to hear about these like hate filled assholes and
Speaker 9: their antisemitic bullshit, Like they don't get to have this
Speaker 9: much voice and presence and energy like we are supposed
Speaker 9: to censor shit like that, you know, or is it
Speaker 9: censure you know or both? Like it's that's not okay,
Speaker 9: and you don't get to just like walk around. And
Speaker 9: in fact, half the reason why we're having to deal
Speaker 9: with this all again and again and again is because
Speaker 9: X isn't on top of regulating it as well as
Speaker 9: other media platforms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why I'm like, yeah, I remember in the
Speaker 3: beginning that like it felt like the EU was really
Speaker 3: being like, yo, you need to fucking answer for the
Speaker 3: kinds of garbage that's on this website, because like we
Speaker 3: see that as like a threat to our like stability here.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure like where that's headed. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Again, I mean, I understand why the US especially doesn't
Speaker 3: have a reckoning with hate speech, because it's it's so
Speaker 3: such part and parcel of the culture that they there's
Speaker 3: no way like that we could begin to do that
Speaker 3: and have people come out of the woodwork and.
Speaker 1: Be like, it's it's all of our free speech, not just.
Speaker 9: Saying that people possibly we can't even get gun control.
Speaker 3: Together, yeah right exactly, They're like, man, we can't even
Speaker 3: control objects like that.
Speaker 1: We could easily control. Yeah, like words, Nah, you gotta say,
Speaker 1: we can't even fucking fit.
Speaker 9: There's no regulation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, like I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, the FCC obviously is dealing with stuff that's
Speaker 3: like broadcasted, so I don't know who you know obviously,
Speaker 3: right is the real regulator there.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's just we thought that maybe the.
Speaker 3: Advertiser exodus would do something, but it just seems like
Speaker 3: now we're just watching it fall apart. But it's like
Speaker 3: watching like a star collapse on itself and then it's
Speaker 3: probably gonna end in something really fucking gross.
Speaker 9: What I'm saying, Miles is I don't know why they
Speaker 9: don't let me do it.
Speaker 1: Let you be the charge ass kicker on Twitter.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I would be really good at it. You don't
Speaker 9: get to play here anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is the banana phones final word. Click. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back. And we're back. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that your new book, doctor mcnernie, you talk about is
Speaker 1: what is good technology and is it possible? And I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm so used to this hyper capitalism paradigm
Speaker 1: that I don't think we can have technology without having
Speaker 1: like loss of jobs and free will. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've seen this like recent reappraisal of like the Luddite movement,
Speaker 1: which is just a phrase that I grew up using
Speaker 1: to be like anybody who didn't want to use a
Speaker 1: computer and you know, was slightly resistant to technology technological progress.
Speaker 1: And now people are like pointing out, you know, they
Speaker 1: didn't just want to destroy all machines. They were focused
Speaker 1: on the ones that took jobs and led to wage losses.
Speaker 1: But we turned them into like old man screaming at
Speaker 1: cloud because of our paradigm of like, yeah, but that's counterprogress,
Speaker 1: that's unrealistic. Like so what is my closed off capitalist
Speaker 1: mind missing out on when I think about like the
Speaker 1: direction that technology can take, Like what are the good
Speaker 1: things that aren't just like basically AI being McKinsey.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, no, I mean first, I do love this
Speaker 7: reappraisal of the Lutist movement. I know Brian Merchant has
Speaker 7: a book out called Blood in the Machine, which is
Speaker 7: like specifically try to reframe the ludes this movement. It
Speaker 7: gives what a mation in the UK as the origins
Speaker 7: of the revolution against Big pick. And I do love
Speaker 7: this because I do think the Luddites have been unfairly
Speaker 7: maligned as these tech paters. But yeah, second, you know, so,
Speaker 7: myself and my work wife, doctor Eleanol Drage co edited
Speaker 7: this book called The Good Robot, which is the same
Speaker 7: as our podcast on this provocative question, and we mean
Speaker 7: it very much as like a suggestion and idea, not
Speaker 7: like an inevitability that technology, you know, maybe can be
Speaker 7: good in a lot of spaces. That definitely doesn't sound
Speaker 7: like a particularly radical idea, particularly in the like tech
Speaker 7: type spaces we've discussed, but like for people like us
Speaker 7: who spend our day to day looking at these really
Speaker 7: awful effects technology like either because they have been designed
Speaker 7: to be really awful, like predictive policing tools, or because
Speaker 7: they're being exploited and used in like really harmful ways,
Speaker 7: like the way that technologies used to perpetrate gender based violence.
Speaker 7: It can be really easy to be unable to see
Speaker 7: any kind of positive possibilities for a lot of these
Speaker 7: new technologies. But while I definitely, you know, think that
Speaker 7: there's a real place for just the total refusal of
Speaker 7: people like the Bloodites or the neo Luodite movement, which
Speaker 7: is kind of trying to bring back a lot of
Speaker 7: these ideas. We want to challenge ourselves and all the
Speaker 7: guests we have in our podcasts to say, like, you know,
Speaker 7: what does.
Speaker 8: What would it mean for technology to be good?
Speaker 7: And so for us that's feminist and pro justice and
Speaker 7: afformed by all these different kinds of ideas about equality
Speaker 7: and fairness and also what would that look like sort
Speaker 7: of grounded in our everyday lives. So for me, for example,
Speaker 7: a lot of thinking about good technology is trying to
Speaker 7: reclaim technologies that we might not think of as being
Speaker 7: very like high tech, often because they've been associated with women.
Speaker 7: So like I knit, and I have a pair of
Speaker 7: knitting needles on the table next to me, and knitting
Speaker 7: is often not understood as being like a very high
Speaker 7: tech practice. But in the nineteen eighties, when people are
Speaker 7: trying to get more girls and women back into computer science,
Speaker 7: there was this idea that if you can knit, you
Speaker 7: can code, because if you can read a knitting pattern,
Speaker 7: then you can use a coding program like and so
Speaker 7: sometimes in our computer science conferences you'll see people put
Speaker 7: a knitting pattern up on the screen and just say
Speaker 7: what coding language is this? And then usually only one
Speaker 7: or two people. Often one of the few female attendees
Speaker 7: will say, oh, that's a knitting pattern, because they're the
Speaker 7: only ones that can unders stand that kind of code.
Speaker 7: So I think there's something really beautiful and like reclaiming
Speaker 7: those particular kinds of technologies that have been maybe excluded
Speaker 7: from the way we talk about tech on my again
Speaker 7: work wife, who co edited this book, well she edited
Speaker 7: most of it actually, so who really did the heavy
Speaker 7: lifting on this book? Eleanor talks about the whisk as
Speaker 7: her example of a good technology, and she says she
Speaker 7: loves the way it looks, she likes how she can
Speaker 7: use it in all these different ways, and she says,
Speaker 7: you know, she's sure there's ways that you can misuse this,
Speaker 7: but you know, she's it's something that just like makes
Speaker 7: her life better and is designed well in a very
Speaker 7: simple way. I unfortunately have already undermined this good technology
Speaker 7: for her because I then told her about when I
Speaker 7: was about fourteen, my school went to a trip at
Speaker 7: the technology museum in Auckland.
Speaker 8: It's quod Motet.
Speaker 7: If you're from New Zealand, everyone's in Auckland's been to
Speaker 7: this museum because it's not that much to do.
Speaker 8: For a school trip.
Speaker 7: And then one of the girls in my class wound
Speaker 7: the hair of another girl into like an antique egg beater.
Speaker 8: Couldn't get her out, she got stuck.
Speaker 7: You know, children can make full technologies bad. But apart
Speaker 7: from that, you know, I think like trying to find
Speaker 7: these like little examples of technology that aren't about the
Speaker 7: kind of like big hype of AI, but maybe bring
Speaker 7: us back into the ways that we use technology to
Speaker 7: reshape how worlds and make things a bit better. Is
Speaker 7: what I like to do with this question.
Speaker 3: Is when you think of like you know, I think
Speaker 3: that the one version is like, well, this generative AI,
Speaker 3: like it democratizes certain things, and I think while on
Speaker 3: one hand it may allow people access to like create
Speaker 3: things that they haven't before, it also makes other Like
Speaker 3: you're saying, it's the use of it that makes things
Speaker 3: that sort of ultimately determines whether or not a technology
Speaker 3: is good or you know, used in a positive or
Speaker 3: negative way. Is there like when you look at all
Speaker 3: like for all the people that are preaching and proclaiming
Speaker 3: about how AI is opening the door to something new,
Speaker 3: what like as it relates to sort of these large
Speaker 3: language models, what are the ways that that can't Like,
Speaker 3: is that more about a use case or we need
Speaker 3: to lean more into the regulations to make sure that
Speaker 3: AI isn't wielded by nefarious powers, Like how do you
Speaker 3: look at that specific technology and think, Okay, while there's
Speaker 3: definitely like a lot of biased or weird uses of it, like,
Speaker 3: there's also another way to look at this and not
Speaker 3: just kind of like lean into the skynet version.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I would take this in a lot
Speaker 7: of different ways. Like my first and sort of most
Speaker 7: important route in is I would say who makes these
Speaker 7: models and who has control over them and who can
Speaker 7: afford to because you know, one of the big changes
Speaker 7: I think that's happened in the last few years is
Speaker 7: that language models have gone from much smaller models that
Speaker 7: maybe like one researcher with a reasonable budget could train
Speaker 7: themselves a lab, to being these absolutely huge models that
Speaker 7: you need a massive amount of energy, a massive amount
Speaker 7: of data, and a massive amount of money to create.
Speaker 7: And so what that means is that companies with a
Speaker 7: first move advantage like Google, like open ai are the
Speaker 7: ones who can afford to make these models. And I
Speaker 7: think increasingly it's going to be harder and harder as
Speaker 7: the models get bigger for small firms to enter that market.
Speaker 8: So what we end up with them is a monopoly.
Speaker 7: And I think we're starting to see some of the
Speaker 7: effects of that monopoly right now when you have a
Speaker 7: few big tech firms kind of having a hand on
Speaker 7: like most of the most powerful and effective models. And
Speaker 7: so I think, like, even though people say, oh, this
Speaker 7: is going to democratize AI because everyone can generate text
Speaker 7: with these models, It's like, yes, but you know, very
Speaker 7: few people are profiting from it. And also, you know,
Speaker 7: I think very few people then have control as well
Speaker 7: over how long we're able to use those models for
Speaker 7: one day. Will they just all be turned off or
Speaker 7: will they be shifted in a way?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 7: So I think there's still kind of a concentration of control. Yeah,
Speaker 7: And I think second, like you mentioned kind of biases
Speaker 7: and like weird stuff in the models super important, like
Speaker 7: large language models are trained on data scrape from the Internet.
Speaker 7: The Internet can be not the best place, as we
Speaker 7: all know. It can be right for like all kinds
Speaker 7: of information, but it's also full of a lot of exclusions.
Speaker 7: So like, for example, again when I was working talking
Speaker 7: to these data scientists and engineers at this big tech
Speaker 7: firm with us things like, oh, well, where do you
Speaker 7: pull your training data from? And they'd say Wikipedia for example,
Speaker 7: and you know, would say, oh, but like Wikipedia is
Speaker 7: not a very equitable place. Like women are really really
Speaker 7: vasically underrepresented on Wikipedia pages, both in terms of who
Speaker 7: writes them and also in terms of who gets Wikipedia
Speaker 7: pages written about them. So the physicist es Wighed here
Speaker 7: in the UK has had this long running project where
Speaker 7: she just adds a woman to Wikipedia like every day,
Speaker 7: and she's done that I think now for like years.
Speaker 7: But that it kind of just shows like how inequitable
Speaker 7: though that distribution is. If you're training a model on
Speaker 7: data from Wikipedia, implicitly, you might not be trying to
Speaker 7: do this in any way. Like you're also training that
Speaker 7: model to believe in a world where say, like women
Speaker 7: make up the population, not fifty percent plus. So there's
Speaker 7: a lot of like Bia Saeson harms that come just
Speaker 7: from exclusion. Another example of this is, you know, I
Speaker 7: have a good friend who is a linguist, and something
Speaker 7: she talks about is communities that don't have written languages
Speaker 7: are already automatically just not going to be able to
Speaker 7: partake in whatever benefits might come from large language models,
Speaker 7: whether that's signed languages or languages that are only oral,
Speaker 7: and so you know, I think there's just a lot
Speaker 7: of different ways that even beyond these kind of immediate
Speaker 7: harms of like the AI has produced something that we
Speaker 7: think is really offensive or gross, that we could see
Speaker 7: the use of large language models maybe creating further inequities.
Speaker 1: Now, a lot of the AI like promise, like the
Speaker 1: developments that are being promised. So even at Davos, like
Speaker 1: this past Davos, at this page I had to miss unfortunately,
Speaker 1: and I hate to miss Davos because I learned so
Speaker 1: much there. But you've been to four davi, havn't you?
Speaker 1: DIVI my fourth dive, I was the best man. We
Speaker 1: all did mally and just had a cuddle puddle. But
Speaker 1: Sam Altman, I don't know if he's like consciously scaling
Speaker 1: back people's expectations, but he was like, soon you might
Speaker 1: just be able to say what are my most important
Speaker 1: emails today and have AI summarize them. I was just like,
Speaker 1: all right, Like doesn't like outlook already have an offer,
Speaker 1: like offer a shitty version of that already. So it's
Speaker 1: like it just feels like the versions of AI that
Speaker 1: I'm hearing, Like there's this older New Yorker article that
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not that worried about AI. I think
Speaker 1: it's from like the kill us all perspective. I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be like a little McKenzie in everyone's pocket,
Speaker 1: Like it's going to be this like economic optimization tool
Speaker 1: that like everybody has access to, and that's going to
Speaker 1: just make everything shitty and boring. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: like I'm just curious for your thoughts on that, and
Speaker 1: like if there are examples of just like functionality from
Speaker 1: AI that actually like capture your imagination where you're like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, that would be like cool. That's a cool
Speaker 1: idea of like something that would be fun and you know,
Speaker 1: improve people's lives, even if it's just like make their
Speaker 1: video games better or whatever.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I mean maybe the email thing appeals to some people. Personally,
Speaker 7: I want fewer emails. I don't want a summary of
Speaker 7: my emails. I just want my inbox to quietly shut
Speaker 7: down with the hours of like five pm to like
Speaker 7: in the am every day and just be like I'm
Speaker 7: email free. And then the run at em Bogast I
Speaker 7: think has this idea of hyper employment, which is like
Speaker 7: the technologies that say they're going to make our lives
Speaker 7: easier and more stress free actually make our lives much
Speaker 7: busier and we now waste a lot more time. So
Speaker 7: he talks about emails as a way of, you know,
Speaker 7: saying like, oh, we're gonna have far fewer meetings and
Speaker 7: we're gonna like have to spend less time like sending
Speaker 7: each other letters or whatever. Sorry from the post internet generation.
Speaker 7: But then now we spend like so much time like
Speaker 7: answering emails. And I think AI feels a bit like this,
Speaker 7: Like when people say, like AI is going to save
Speaker 7: you so much time, I'm like, you are not a
Speaker 7: teacher an educator because the amount of time we have
Speaker 7: wasted this year trying to figure out what to do
Speaker 7: with AI generated essays like absolutely not. Yeah, And so
Speaker 7: I feel like things like the AI email summarize I
Speaker 7: since could end up in a very similar pile.
Speaker 8: But you know, kind of to come to the more
Speaker 8: positive side.
Speaker 7: Of your question, like what makes me excited, I think
Speaker 7: a couple of things like one is like anything where
Speaker 7: like AI can genuinely scale up in a way that
Speaker 7: is not too ecologically damaging or costly a process that
Speaker 7: is already going well, where the statistics and the procedures
Speaker 7: in place are working for us. Because AI is able
Speaker 7: to scale things, you know, it's not necessarily able to
Speaker 7: do new things always. So if we know we have
Speaker 7: a sorting or categorization process that works, that's when I
Speaker 7: think AI computer these kinds of systems can be really useful.
Speaker 7: Where it doesn't work is when you're asking AI to
Speaker 7: do something that like we don't actually have good processes
Speaker 7: in place to do so, Like when a tool says, oh,
Speaker 7: I can like power candidate's personality from their face, Like, no,
Speaker 7: you can't do that. That's just a straight up phrenology.
Speaker 8: Please don't do that.
Speaker 7: But also secondly, like you know, if we had easy
Speaker 7: ways of telling if someone was going to be good
Speaker 7: for a job, like humans will be able to do
Speaker 7: it already, Like this is a much much more complicated
Speaker 7: than you're making it out to be. A second kind
Speaker 7: of use I think I find really exciting or makes.
Speaker 8: Me like you're really happy.
Speaker 7: I think it's particularly tools around trying to kind of
Speaker 7: like support particular community there's needs in a way that
Speaker 7: is really driven by that community. So for example, in
Speaker 7: New Zealand where I'm from, there's been a lot of
Speaker 7: effort put into different kinds of like AI powered tools
Speaker 7: and data sovereignty programs around Maudi traditions, the Maldi language
Speaker 7: or three A Maudi and like, I think, you know,
Speaker 7: this is an example of where like that's been led
Speaker 7: by Maudi people and is in a response to kind
Speaker 7: of the way that in colonial New Zealand, like Threa,
Speaker 7: Maudi was like very deliberately stamped out, and there's been
Speaker 7: a huge movement to try and kind of protect and
Speaker 7: revive the language.
Speaker 8: And I think it's like when your.
Speaker 7: Projects like this, that makes me a bit more hopeful
Speaker 7: about the way that AI machine learning could be used
Speaker 7: to you know, promote these pro justice projects. But you know,
Speaker 7: I think those projects that always have to exist in
Speaker 7: a little bit of tension with like big tech. And
Speaker 7: we've seen this like with other organizations, for example, like Masacana,
Speaker 7: which is the amazing grassroots organization which aims to bring
Speaker 7: the like four thousand different African languages into our natural
Speaker 7: language processing models or large language models.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 7: But I know that these kinds of groups often do
Speaker 7: struggle with this idea, like do we commercialize because then
Speaker 7: will we be brought into this hyper capitalist world? Do
Speaker 7: we keep this to ourselves? But yeah, I think it's
Speaker 7: it is important sometimes to step back and be like,
Speaker 7: there are really interesting community projects which are trying to
Speaker 7: use these techniques and these kinds of knowledge in ways
Speaker 7: that push back against like the email summarizing bought right?
Speaker 1: Is there a historical present Like I was reading some
Speaker 1: articles about the competition between the United States and China
Speaker 1: and how the US is like trying to freeze export
Speaker 1: of like certain chips to China because they think that
Speaker 1: will allow China to catch up with them. And it
Speaker 1: feels like we're there's going to be inevitably an argument
Speaker 1: where they're like we need to just go pedal to
Speaker 1: the floor on AI development because this is the new
Speaker 1: Manhattan project. Trust us. You talk a lot about just
Speaker 1: like this, this alternate possibility of like what what if
Speaker 1: we didn't use this technology for hypercapitalism and militarism? Are
Speaker 1: there examples where like from history that you're aware of,
Speaker 1: where like technology hasn't been has successfully been like protected
Speaker 1: from those sorts of things. Are there any even a
Speaker 1: very small examples where people have been able to keep
Speaker 1: technology like fenced off from that sort of thing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, No, I mean this is something that really preoccupies me.
Speaker 7: I spend a lot of time mapping and tracking with
Speaker 7: the AI now institute, this narrative of an AI arms
Speaker 7: race between the US and China and how that story
Speaker 7: is super damaging because it can cause us like race
Speaker 7: to the bottom and lead to US trying to develop
Speaker 7: AI faster and faster without necessarily trying to make it.
Speaker 8: Better or safer.
Speaker 7: And do you know, I think we've seen some positive
Speaker 7: movements when it comes to AI regulation recently, from like
Speaker 7: the US's commitment or declaration around AI through to the
Speaker 7: Bletchley Declaration in the UK and the EUAI Act. But
Speaker 7: at the same time, you know, I think that this
Speaker 7: sort of racing narrative like still looks and it's still
Speaker 7: sometimes used to try and push back against regulatory measures,
Speaker 7: particularly by people with investments in big tech. But yeah,
Speaker 7: at the same time, I also think this question of
Speaker 7: like can we look to history to find ways to
Speaker 7: tell different stories about AI maybe bring about different futures
Speaker 7: is something that really interests me. I think the comparison
Speaker 7: that is most often made between AI and another technology
Speaker 7: when it comes to like regulation and governance is nuclear
Speaker 7: and specifically nuclear weapons like and like you mentioned Manhattan Project,
Speaker 7: certainly kind of this sort of language of like an
Speaker 7: Oppenheimer moment when it comes to AI, and this kind
Speaker 7: of idea of being like the cusp of a new
Speaker 7: cold water will be AI driven rather than nuclear weapons
Speaker 7: driven is a very common media narrative. But something I
Speaker 7: try to do, like with my own research, is to
Speaker 7: try and look for and support different kinds of historical
Speaker 7: analogies that maybe offer maybe less kind of less hawkish
Speaker 7: futures when it comes to international politics. So for example,
Speaker 7: my Indian who's a fantastic researcher at the Lievi Human
Speaker 7: Center where I'm at, looks to like histories of feminists
Speaker 7: cyber governance in the early two thousands as a way
Speaker 7: of saying, like, actually, we have a lot of precedents
Speaker 7: for thinking about the ethics of the internet. Why aren't
Speaker 7: we bringing this into thinking about AI? Or Matischmas who's
Speaker 7: a legal researchers the histories of technological restraints, so like,
Speaker 7: when did we choose not to make a technology even
Speaker 7: though we could because we thought that it actually wouldn't
Speaker 7: be good for the world? And for societies, and so
Speaker 7: I think, you know, like making sure we have examples
Speaker 7: outside of nuclear because wild nuclear can be still useful
Speaker 7: in some ways, like it's only one metaphor, and metaphors
Speaker 7: are inherently limited. They tell us something about the world,
Speaker 7: but they can't tell us everything. And I thinks having
Speaker 7: these alternative historical examples can be really useful for thinking
Speaker 7: a bit differently.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, it's just funny because in the end, it
Speaker 3: always feels like thing with potential to create like unforeseen
Speaker 3: levels of productivity or powers, and then we made it
Speaker 3: a weapon.
Speaker 1: Then we like put it in the bomb, you know, kind.
Speaker 3: Of like and yeah, like we really do have to
Speaker 3: sort of break out of that thinking. I mean, I
Speaker 3: wonder precisely because our brains are filled with sky Net
Speaker 3: and Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, that that's we're just
Speaker 3: we're just in this really weird pattern of always looking
Speaker 3: at something that has the potential to unlock new levels
Speaker 3: of something are inherently going to always be like, but
Speaker 3: how do how do our enemies kill us with it?
Speaker 3: And then we begin to lose the plot there. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm yeah, look to these other examples to try and
Speaker 3: again open my mind to looking at it less of
Speaker 3: like and then how they make and then how they
Speaker 3: make global domination with that?
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, I mean I think it's either it's like
Speaker 7: how do we kill someone with it? Or as I
Speaker 7: think the history of like how tech is represented in
Speaker 7: Hollywood would show.
Speaker 8: Us like how do we have sex with it? And
Speaker 8: this is like a very classic trip in sci fi.
Speaker 7: Right, It's like you get like a dude in his
Speaker 7: basement who makes like a sex spot. And I remember
Speaker 7: it Jack Harbuston, who's like this very famous feminist and
Speaker 7: queer theorist with Eleanor on the podcast, and he was
Speaker 7: talking about the film x Markina. Have you seen this
Speaker 7: since from like twenty fourteen. It's like a kind of
Speaker 7: a kind of an indie film but had quite a
Speaker 7: lot of prestige I think success particularly.
Speaker 8: Like tech circles.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, And so I remember we were talking about
Speaker 7: x Markina and Jack Harbison was saying like it sort
Speaker 7: of shows like the limits of the imagination, like particularly
Speaker 7: like the tech bro imagination that he has like all
Speaker 7: this expertise at his fingertips, all this data and he
Speaker 7: basically just makes like sex robots and like that's really good,
Speaker 7: really thing to do with it. And I think, you know,
Speaker 7: to some extent, like we're still a little bit trapped
Speaker 7: in that imagination, which is why I think like both
Speaker 7: like different projects to do with AI, but also different
Speaker 7: stories about AI are really crucial.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, we have to get out of the
Speaker 3: fuck or fear paradigm. Right that we have the technology,
Speaker 3: it's going to do one of the two, man, So yeah,
Speaker 3: we need a new way.
Speaker 1: I'm here to do two things. Fuck something or kill
Speaker 1: it because I'm scared of it. Yeah, all right, that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it. For this week's Weekly Zeitgeist, please like
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Speaker 1: the world de Miles he he needs your validation, folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you Monday. Byett Doctor Doctor