Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host, Joshua Tapulski,
Speaker 1: and we have got a doozy a humdinger of a show. Guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm using these words. They're not
Speaker 1: good words. They're like words from nineteen fifty six. Very
Speaker 1: strange that I would go there. Anyhow, we have a
Speaker 1: great show today. I'm not even going to bother with
Speaker 1: a long drawn out, speculative, self referential bullshit intro. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to get into it. The man behind Garbage
Speaker 1: Days on the show today. His name is Ryan Brodrick.
Speaker 1: He's a genius writer. He's a scholar of the Internet,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk to him about what the
Speaker 1: fuck is going on online. Let's just get into it.
Speaker 1: First off, thank you for coming on the show. Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I
Speaker 1: want to say I love your newsletter, Garbage Day. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's probably the newsletter that I most read. Thank you.
Speaker 1: You know, it's probably the newsletter that I read most often,
Speaker 1: top to bottom. Okay, I'm just I'm gonna hold it
Speaker 1: in place. I like, I feel good, So yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's probably also my most my most read newsletter although
Speaker 1: I have to read some for work. Obviously, I have
Speaker 1: to have to read some every day, so yours has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with my work, and I pay for it.
Speaker 1: And I'm a member of the juven named for the
Speaker 1: garbage day community. They call themselves bin heads, but I
Speaker 1: do not. I think a good day for them would
Speaker 1: be dumpster divers. I think they missed an opportunity. That's nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that been discussed all should I bring it up
Speaker 1: in the discord? You know, we've we've tried to have
Speaker 1: the conversation about like what the stand army is called,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's just waiting in a territory
Speaker 1: that like I'm not prepared for yet. You know, that's right,
Speaker 1: that's down the road conversation. That's fair enough. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's fair enough. But garbage day, how would you describe
Speaker 1: it to a LED person if I wasn't me, You
Speaker 1: just met me at a party, or I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe we were waiting for the subway together and we
Speaker 1: struck up a conversation and I go, what do you do?
Speaker 1: I say, I'm a free speech warrior on substack dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm part of the intellectual dark Enlightenment. I'm a reactionary centerist.
Speaker 1: Substack is the free speech wing of the free speech Party.
Speaker 1: That's right. My pronouns are sub and stack, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I write a newsletter about web culture, and the whole
Speaker 1: point of Garbage Day is sort of just an attempt.
Speaker 1: I don't say I succeed every time, but it's an
Speaker 1: attempt at sort of remembering why I use the Internet
Speaker 1: and why I've used the Internet for years, and why
Speaker 1: my personality is built around things I've seen on the internet, right,
Speaker 1: and try to like talk about the Internet in a
Speaker 1: language that doesn't feel overly serious but also like doesn't
Speaker 1: feel super pointless either, right, right, and in the same
Speaker 1: way that like, you know, probably most people these days
Speaker 1: have a group chat where they're sending stuff back and
Speaker 1: forth with each other, and that's sort of the feeling
Speaker 1: I try to capture, or attempt to capture. But you know,
Speaker 1: some days they're easier than others for that, Right. But
Speaker 1: your newsletter is I mean, it's more than just a
Speaker 1: group chat in the sense that first off, it's pretty
Speaker 1: one directional in the sense I mean, I know, you
Speaker 1: do put things in there that people find that they
Speaker 1: point out to you, but it's like you're kind of like,
Speaker 1: here's my thoughts on things, right, I mean, it's from
Speaker 1: Ryan's mind, is how I might describe it. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was sort of it's sort of an editorial experiment actually,
Speaker 1: with the idea of like, okay, stuff on the Internet
Speaker 1: feels increasingly like it doesn't come from people, or it
Speaker 1: comes from people who are trying to become brands. And
Speaker 1: so when I was sort of like developing what garbage
Speaker 1: Day is currently and kind of working through it, you know,
Speaker 1: over the weeks and months, I was like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I should just make it as me as humanly possible
Speaker 1: one because it's easier and to like, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be like a thing that you click on on Facebook.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not. It's not it's not that feeling.
Speaker 1: And my hope was that people on the internet want
Speaker 1: more of that stuff. And so far, so good. Right,
Speaker 1: So the garbage Day brand is extended now into I
Speaker 1: noticed I didn't realize you were doing this, but you
Speaker 1: now make YouTube videos as well. Yeah, well, like my
Speaker 1: hero mister Beast, I want to be mister Beast, mister
Speaker 1: best who you who you emulate and look up to
Speaker 1: as a mentor and a hero, right, I think what's
Speaker 1: so amazing about garbage day not to just this whole
Speaker 1: podcast will not just be about how much I love
Speaker 1: garbage ka. I got to say, I am profoundly uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and I'm doing my best with this. But I am
Speaker 1: a guy from Massachusetts and you're giving me compliments and
Speaker 1: I'm becoming increasingly awesome that I want. I'm actually I
Speaker 1: want to make you as uncomfortable as possible. Thank you.
Speaker 1: You're doing a great job. Good good and from Massachuset
Speaker 1: sits I guess I didn't know that, And now that
Speaker 1: I've heard that, it's going to color my opinion of you.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna try to move beyond it. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of like coverage of the Internet and internet
Speaker 1: culture or web culture as you referred to it, or technology,
Speaker 1: tends to veer into very serious like these bad robber
Speaker 1: barons are destroying the planet or whatever, which, like I
Speaker 1: think you do cover by the way, right, but you
Speaker 1: do in a way that seems lighthearted, like a lighthearted
Speaker 1: romp through the destruction of humanity. Yeah, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: just a guy, you know, Like, no matter what I
Speaker 1: say to like a billionaire doesn't really matter, and so
Speaker 1: I feel like that's part of it. But then also, yeah,
Speaker 1: the thing that you're touching on, I've seen it referred
Speaker 1: to as like the dystopia beat or like you know,
Speaker 1: people who are talking about like sort of like the
Speaker 1: Internet causing brain worms, right, And I think that that
Speaker 1: stuff is true, and we are, you know, living at
Speaker 1: the end of history, like the people who are covering
Speaker 1: the right wing. I'm sure sure when I say that
Speaker 1: there are people who are like my Internet beat is
Speaker 1: like the darkest recesses of the worse hatred. Sure, and
Speaker 1: those like cycles, you're not exactly doing that, well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean I think a lot of people who do
Speaker 1: that are really good, and I think that skill set
Speaker 1: has like increasingly evolved into just being like like a
Speaker 1: totally different job. Like you know, you're no longer a
Speaker 1: tech reporter in my opinion, You're like you're you're an
Speaker 1: extremism reporter, and you you cover it through the lens
Speaker 1: of technology perhaps, but like my interests sort of lie
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction, one because I'm not really good
Speaker 1: at it in two, like it's really punishing, and I
Speaker 1: think also like one of the funniest like kind of
Speaker 1: equalizers about the Internet is that, like, even the right
Speaker 1: wing goons are kind of experiencing the same network effects
Speaker 1: that we are. And so I do think that sort
Speaker 1: of like macro view can cover a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think to be honest about that macro view,
Speaker 1: you do have to kind of accept that, like, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, most stuff on the Internet
Speaker 1: is inherently stupid. Even the fraud games that are being
Speaker 1: used by neo nazis right, So right, I mean, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure you phrase the right wing goons
Speaker 1: are experiencing the same network effects as us, can you
Speaker 1: can you expect and that a little bit? What do
Speaker 1: you what do you mean when you say that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think the five seven years ago we
Speaker 1: would probably say that, like the Internet is like radicalousing
Speaker 1: you with rabbit holes. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: as time has gone on and we've sort of better
Speaker 1: understood that, I think what's really happening is that we're
Speaker 1: all part of an ecosystem that's like somewhat connected and
Speaker 1: reacting to each other. And you know, we're all part
Speaker 1: of our own little corner, but our corners are not
Speaker 1: existing in a vacuum and so you know, most often
Speaker 1: if you say, like okay, like why is this pocket
Speaker 1: of horrible people doing this horrible thing? Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: like ideological or interpersonal reasons. But then also the stuff
Speaker 1: that I'm usually more interested in is like the larger
Speaker 1: system level thing. So for instance, a really good example
Speaker 1: would be like, okay, so like a section of Fortune
Speaker 1: gets shut down, they move to Reddit. Okay, So what
Speaker 1: happens when those people move to Reddit? Like what do
Speaker 1: they cause on Reddit? Or do those people then move
Speaker 1: over to Twitter and buy Twitter blue and start like
Speaker 1: appearing in Elon Musk's mentions? Then what does that do
Speaker 1: to the wider community on Twitter? And I find my
Speaker 1: brain works better when I approach it that way rather
Speaker 1: than sort of like take everything super seriously, because I
Speaker 1: just think it's sort of like drunk people in a
Speaker 1: concert sort of swearing back and forth, like you can't
Speaker 1: really stop it from one side to the other. And
Speaker 1: so I like to think of the Internet as this
Speaker 1: sort of large arena that's like always moving back and forth. Right,
Speaker 1: I think it helps right now pretty much always at
Speaker 1: the whim of these like Elon Musk characters. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have a video about this Silicon Silicon Valley's midlife
Speaker 1: crisis is destroying the Internet, which is a very subtle
Speaker 1: non YouTube title for the video. I will say just
Speaker 1: very you know, not reactionary or anything not. I was
Speaker 1: going to do Rise and Fall of the Internet, the
Speaker 1: Rise in full, you know, like they love that's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Love that that's pretty good. It needs to be saying
Speaker 1: where like why the Internet will never work ever? Yeah,
Speaker 1: or they did this and then just a picture of
Speaker 1: you looking at the Internet like with surprise, Yeah, doing
Speaker 1: that they did. They did what was just like you
Speaker 1: looking at the web browser exactly the Internet Explorer log. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it does seem to be like it's your point
Speaker 1: about the right wing people and normal people and whatever.
Speaker 1: It's like we're all kind of I don't know. It
Speaker 1: feels like we're on a ship, a ship together, a
Speaker 1: horrible ship that somebody else's piloting. It does it feels
Speaker 1: like we're entering this like very weird new era of
Speaker 1: how we use the Internet that feels not defined yet,
Speaker 1: which is exciting to me because we don't really know
Speaker 1: where we're going. But it does feel like the sort
Speaker 1: of like central players, the companies, the people that like
Speaker 1: built the current status quo have lost interest with it,
Speaker 1: and right, I thought it'd be fun to call it
Speaker 1: a midlife crisis. Like I sort of think that, like
Speaker 1: the obsession with NFTs is to me no different than
Speaker 1: like the obsession with like, you know, buying a boat
Speaker 1: or a convertible or getting a new wife or something.
Speaker 1: And a lot of these guys are kind of in
Speaker 1: that demographic that look like the kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, they are midlife like like Mark Zuckerberg is,
Speaker 1: how old is he? I mean he's fifties, right, No, Zuckerberg,
Speaker 1: it's like thirty five or something. If you told me
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg was fifty five or fourteen, I would believe you.
Speaker 1: He's thirty eight. Okay, that's actually older than I thought,
Speaker 1: but he's very young. Thirty eight wow, Okay, like Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is probably fifty two. Maybe. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: say that's just throwing that out there, but yeah, it
Speaker 1: is like midlife crisis zone, right, And like it does
Speaker 1: feel like people ran out of ideas sort of like
Speaker 1: with the Internet. I mean, like like Mark Zuckerberg only
Speaker 1: had one basic idea about the Internet and then like
Speaker 1: as an example, and you actually you wrote about this.
Speaker 1: There's a video what is it called folding ideas? This
Speaker 1: like you tube bird that does? Who did this video
Speaker 1: about the Metaverse and what a ridiculous failure the Metaverse
Speaker 1: is and how all of it's you know, biggest players
Speaker 1: are just complete jokes and don't really have any any
Speaker 1: plan or any idea of what they're trying to build.
Speaker 1: But then you did this video about this some midlife crisis,
Speaker 1: and I feel like the things are connected where it's
Speaker 1: like like Mark Zuckerberg didn't have another great idea after Facebook.
Speaker 1: He wasn't like I mean, I guess buying Instagram could
Speaker 1: be seen as in buying Watsapp could be seen as
Speaker 1: like good ideas, like let's acquire things that look like
Speaker 1: competition to us and then you know, turn them into
Speaker 1: our part of our product. But like Twitter is a
Speaker 1: great example, like Elon Musk bought it with a lot
Speaker 1: of big talk about how he was gonna do exciting
Speaker 1: things with it, and it's just been like an embarrassing
Speaker 1: shit show, like the Metaverse was an embarrassing shit show,
Speaker 1: Like it's not these aren't good, fully formed ideas, Like
Speaker 1: have any of these, you know, titans of industry who
Speaker 1: run huge parts of like the technology sphere come up
Speaker 1: with anything that isn't a bad idea in the last
Speaker 1: like ten years. I mean, I think doge coin is great.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great investment, and we should all
Speaker 1: that's not you buying it, that's not no. I to
Speaker 1: your point, though, I think I think there are good
Speaker 1: ideas having on the Internet. I think that the these
Speaker 1: sort of like centralization of power and influence at the
Speaker 1: topics levels has meant that like the good ideas and
Speaker 1: the good cultural stuff that's being built still on the
Speaker 1: Internet isn't reaching those places, and when it does reach
Speaker 1: those places, it no longer resembles itself. You know, Like
Speaker 1: you can spend an afternoon digging around Twitch or YouTube
Speaker 1: or discord or Twitter still and you're you're gonna find
Speaker 1: the cool stuff, and you're gonna find cool communities and
Speaker 1: cool people making stuff. And that hasn't gone away. It's
Speaker 1: just that like the barrier between that and the most
Speaker 1: point zero one percent who are in charge of how
Speaker 1: we use the Internet is just so vast. Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is a fantastic example, I think because he thinks that
Speaker 1: he does understand this stuff. He like he thinks he's
Speaker 1: like a late epic, you know, Memur, and he has
Speaker 1: no idea. And what's even crazier is that he has
Speaker 1: such a bad idea of how the average person uses
Speaker 1: the Internet, that he created a system where you can
Speaker 1: pay to get better placement, and his replies to tell
Speaker 1: him right, because they can't process the idea of socializing
Speaker 1: or creation without financial gain or financial exchange. And it's
Speaker 1: it's actually very sad, right, but in a really funny
Speaker 1: way to me, right, No, I mean, it's definitely funny,
Speaker 1: but it's also there's a certain dystopian feel to everything
Speaker 1: on the Internet right now. Like maybe I'm crazy for
Speaker 1: saying this, but it feels like we're at the end
Speaker 1: of a long process that's like started with this huge
Speaker 1: explosion of social media and all this expression and you know,
Speaker 1: all these like exciting moments where you like, you're like,
Speaker 1: this is the future, and now it's getting whittled down
Speaker 1: into this very kind of dark, unfun, boring place to be.
Speaker 1: Like what I wondered, I mean, as a student of
Speaker 1: the Internet and perhaps a teacher in some ways, does
Speaker 1: it seem like there's a fundamental like change happening online?
Speaker 1: Like again, maybe I'm old, right, I mean, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: hitting my Mark Zuckerberg midlife phase. But does it feel
Speaker 1: like the fabric of the Internet is changing in some
Speaker 1: in some ways? Or is there a generation gap here?
Speaker 1: Is there? Like I mean, and I don't know, Maybe
Speaker 1: you can't answer that, but I feel like you look
Speaker 1: at this stuff enough to have some idea, So I
Speaker 1: do think you always have to acknowledge like there probably
Speaker 1: is some kind of generational gap, and like you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm thirty three, Yeah, I'm thirty three eight right now,
Speaker 1: and yeah, the Internet is different than it was when
Speaker 1: I was twenty three, and it's different than it was
Speaker 1: when I was thirteen. I will say that the biggest
Speaker 1: difference to me is the difference between the way it
Speaker 1: felt at twenty three and thirty three, which is that
Speaker 1: the machinery of the Internet feels like it no longer
Speaker 1: is serving its function or like succeeding at its goal.
Speaker 1: Like I have a harder time understanding what's going on
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, even though I'm spending more time
Speaker 1: than ever using the Internet, And that to me makes
Speaker 1: me think that like the way that it functions is breaking, right,
Speaker 1: and that's not just even Twitter. That's just like you
Speaker 1: open up any random app on your phone, you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna have a less of a coherent idea of what's
Speaker 1: happening than you did using maybe that same app ten
Speaker 1: years ago. And I think that is telling, right? Are
Speaker 1: you saying like Instagram Instagram is a good one. Instagram
Speaker 1: is a good one? Like you mean that you open
Speaker 1: up Instagram and you're presented with like this non chronological
Speaker 1: feed of random people who you're not following. Instagram is
Speaker 1: a really funny one because I would I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you open it for? Now? What
Speaker 1: is even the central purpose of that app? Because I
Speaker 1: know that ten years ago I would open it essentially
Speaker 1: to share photos of parties. I was at check out
Speaker 1: what was happening with friends of mine who were not
Speaker 1: my parents on Facebook? Right, and this was like twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: let's say, but that was already happening, Yeah, and maybe
Speaker 1: check out like some cool restaurants or something. I opened
Speaker 1: Instagram now, and I'm not even sure from a ux standpoint,
Speaker 1: like what I'm supposed to do? You know, I suspect
Speaker 1: the answer is different for everybody, which is even crazier.
Speaker 1: But Instagram, I look at I think I remember, there's
Speaker 1: something I can look at that feels less stressful than
Speaker 1: the other social networks I see, like usually towards the
Speaker 1: end of the day, if I'm in bed and I'm
Speaker 1: like catching up because a lot of times, like for instance,
Speaker 1: I was actually gonna say, I haven't looked at the Internet,
Speaker 1: I haven't looked at Twitter, I haven't looked at a
Speaker 1: ton of stuff today, and so I have no idea
Speaker 1: right now what's going on because I've been kind of
Speaker 1: heads down working. But yeah, I'll look at Instagram kind
Speaker 1: of like, oh, I know there's something here that will
Speaker 1: be just basically less stressful, and like, yeah, but to
Speaker 1: your point, I'm definitely confronted with a ton of content
Speaker 1: that I did not sign up for. Although it definitely
Speaker 1: seems to be like if you watch one dog video
Speaker 1: on a like an Instagram like real that is suggested
Speaker 1: to you, the algorithm is so bad, you know, like
Speaker 1: we're TikTok's algorithms seems so sharp that like it'll pick
Speaker 1: up on the most minute things that you seem interested
Speaker 1: in and it'll just give you more of that. Like however, weird,
Speaker 1: whatever point you jump out, somehow it knows like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is why you started watching, this is why you
Speaker 1: finished watching. I'm gonna give you something that fits right
Speaker 1: in there. Instagram is like, we don't know for sure,
Speaker 1: but like it has a dog at it, and so
Speaker 1: maybe you like dogs. Like yeah, It's kind of like
Speaker 1: when you're shopping on Amazon and you buy like a ladder. Right,
Speaker 1: you buy like a ladder, You're like, I need an
Speaker 1: eight foot ladder to change my light bulbs or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then like you go back on Amazon, they're like,
Speaker 1: check out more ladders and it's like, no, look, you
Speaker 1: don't understand. I bought the ladder. I'm good. I got
Speaker 1: the ladder. I'm good, Like I don't need another ladder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would think Amazon at this point would be like,
Speaker 1: do you need some like non slip shoes or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like they don't even do that. They're like, just here's
Speaker 1: a different ladder. That's kind of how I feel like
Speaker 1: Instagram's algorithm is now where it's like, oh, you like dogs, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's dogs, here's dog adjacent categories like cats, there's some hamsters.
Speaker 1: Some people who like brush their hamsters whiskers with a toothbrush.
Speaker 1: We all love those videos. I think we've all watched
Speaker 1: those videos, have we? Maybe we have it brushing a
Speaker 1: hamster with a toothbrush. I haven't seen it. I mean,
Speaker 1: like you brush like the squirrels whiskers with like a
Speaker 1: toothbrush and they get really relaxed. Oh yeah, I've okay,
Speaker 1: I've seen this. Yes, I've seen that. They close their
Speaker 1: eyes and they're like just like luxuriated and feeling I
Speaker 1: mean sounds good. Yeah, I mean you have a what
Speaker 1: do you have like a little beard there or something?
Speaker 1: What would you describe that as a beard and a mustache? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: now I mat just somebody took a nice clean, new
Speaker 1: truth rush and started putting it through you mustache, right,
Speaker 1: feel good? Right? Yeah, You're just like that little squirrel,
Speaker 1: which is why we want to We want to watch
Speaker 1: let's see what he does, you know, we want to
Speaker 1: know what it's like. Yeah, to your point, yes, the
Speaker 1: landscape is more confusing, But then again, I'm also old.
Speaker 1: I'm old as shit. I'm an old school dude, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I I remember the Internet when there were no
Speaker 1: images on it, so I can't really I'm having a
Speaker 1: different experience than you are. You know, Yeah, you're a
Speaker 1: young man, you have your whole life ahead of you.
Speaker 1: How old did you say? You are? Thirty three? So
Speaker 1: it's funny you bring that up, though, because like when
Speaker 1: I think about sort of my happiest time using the internet,
Speaker 1: and I assume, like most people when they look back
Speaker 1: with rosy tinted glasses, it's always kind of like the
Speaker 1: same period of time. But for me, it was sort
Speaker 1: of like end of college, early twenties loving the internet.
Speaker 1: Stuffs great, and then you know it's just to feel
Speaker 1: like less and less exciting. But when I do think
Speaker 1: about that time period, it does remind me a lot
Speaker 1: of right now where I was using so many apps.
Speaker 1: I was on so many platforms. I was just I
Speaker 1: was cruising around you group me, yeah, I was on
Speaker 1: four Square. I still have all these fucking apps in
Speaker 1: my phone, like group Me, which I think was like
Speaker 1: bought by Microsoft at some point or something. It was
Speaker 1: like a social app for like group Chat, kind of
Speaker 1: a sort of a good idea, yeah, a little ahead
Speaker 1: of its time. I still on my phone. I might
Speaker 1: have deleted it recently. I'm like, what am I doing
Speaker 1: with this? Like I don't even part of me thinks
Speaker 1: that's a good thing, Like part of me thinks that,
Speaker 1: like maybe the confusion that we're feeling coming out of
Speaker 1: the other end of like a really consolidated era of
Speaker 1: the Internet is good, and that the idea that like
Speaker 1: a twenty two year old right now has like maybe
Speaker 1: a dozen apps they're using I daily basis, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: that's good. Yeah, maybe I don't know. Apps are simply
Speaker 1: a portal to the broad juice of the Internet, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, like really, and I do feel like I
Speaker 1: don't know, And maybe this is maybe you have a
Speaker 1: different perception of this, but like I feel like the
Speaker 1: Internet in terms of its of its appeal peaked and
Speaker 1: died to some degree with the Trump era. Like I
Speaker 1: feel like there's just such a saturation of information and
Speaker 1: content and emotion during the like lead up to Trump's
Speaker 1: presidency and then all through it. I feel like we're
Speaker 1: in this kind of valley, and I would say depressed,
Speaker 1: not in the state of like mind, but depressed in
Speaker 1: the actual sort of definition of the word by definition
Speaker 1: that something has just settled down from that peak. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's like I don't know how much we
Speaker 1: can take as human beings, like in terms of the
Speaker 1: peaks and valleys, like I think about this all the time.
Speaker 1: When I used to you know, I used to be
Speaker 1: a rave DJ and I would DJ a trance at raves.
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the things I think about
Speaker 1: all the time was like, there's only so many build
Speaker 1: ups and breakdowns you can give an audience before they
Speaker 1: start to fatigue, you know, Like there's only so many
Speaker 1: times you can go up to the top of the
Speaker 1: mountain and drop them back down and go back up again.
Speaker 1: Right at some point, you know, the dopamine is no
Speaker 1: longer there if you're not on drugs, Like it's tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what the drugs are for, right, But I think
Speaker 1: it's like you can't be on cocaine all the time,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like you can't be on
Speaker 1: eccessy all the time, Like you can't be your body
Speaker 1: will reject that. It feels to me like a little
Speaker 1: bit like the Internet has done that. And now what
Speaker 1: what we're living in, what we have is this weird
Speaker 1: almost like limbo right where it's not quite the thing
Speaker 1: it was and we didn't even like it that way,
Speaker 1: and nobody kind of knows like what that resolves too.
Speaker 1: It went all it was up up up, it was
Speaker 1: like iPhone to end of Trump's presidency and culminating with
Speaker 1: January sixth. In a way, it was like could there
Speaker 1: have been any more thing that was ever on more
Speaker 1: online than that whole era right from like the moment
Speaker 1: we all got iPhones right and had the Internet in
Speaker 1: our hand and in our pocket, to the president of
Speaker 1: the United States basically like launching a coup right that
Speaker 1: we were all watching and experiencing in real time. That
Speaker 1: was like a national like crazy national event that like
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody at the time could like fully
Speaker 1: take stock of, Like where do you go from there?
Speaker 1: That's interesting? I spakes ay sets, but no, no, it does.
Speaker 1: It's what's really funny, is like I think about it
Speaker 1: in a similar way, but not so basically, Like my
Speaker 1: music background is like emo punk, scott music, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: so I always sort of think of interesting. Of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look at my beard, um, but I always
Speaker 1: think of I always think of the Internet through like
Speaker 1: a cultural lens. So for me, like the Trump administration
Speaker 1: and the Trump campaign in particular, was sort of that
Speaker 1: moment where the subculture goes mainstream and it gets uglier,
Speaker 1: it gets weirder, you know, this is the moment where
Speaker 1: like Nirvana becomes Nickelback, right, and it gets like, it
Speaker 1: gets interesting and ugly, and then there's always that moment
Speaker 1: afterwards where things are like really interesting and strange and
Speaker 1: they start to mutate and you sort of get that
Speaker 1: new subcultural wave. Well out of curiosity, what would you
Speaker 1: describe as the post Nickelback subcultural wave that occurred? Would
Speaker 1: you sort of get that response in the early two
Speaker 1: thousands from bands like The Strokes, who are going like
Speaker 1: the art rock direction, right, you sort of get that
Speaker 1: light I see, okay in the rock sphere. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors at play, but definitely like
Speaker 1: rock music went through a pretty bad period and then
Speaker 1: became like well, you know, it's also like we started
Speaker 1: to have a society that was actually more aware of
Speaker 1: the fact that, like white culture was not the only
Speaker 1: culture that existed. So that probably has a lot to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that suddenly other types of music
Speaker 1: was starting to become like charitable stuff. You know. Yeah, anyhow,
Speaker 1: this is the longer that's a different podcast. In my metaphor,
Speaker 1: this would be like we had our sort of like
Speaker 1: mainstream breakout of like consolidated social media and it got
Speaker 1: real mainstream to a point where it like toxified completely,
Speaker 1: and now we're sort of in this moment where I
Speaker 1: think young people in particular are sort of searching for
Speaker 1: new things. I think the reason why they're gravitating towards
Speaker 1: like messaging apps or just full on entertainment apps that
Speaker 1: they stare at, like TikTok and sort of that middle ground,
Speaker 1: that idea that like you don't need your entire family
Speaker 1: on a public social network talking to each other. Like
Speaker 1: those ideas are dying out, and I think a large
Speaker 1: reason is because of the ugliness we saw from like
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen to twenty twenty one, right, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like putting everything out there seems very unattractive, even in
Speaker 1: smaller communities. Like I feel like there was this whole
Speaker 1: run of YouTube people, yeah than like you know, being
Speaker 1: abusive or weird or horrible, than having to do apology videos,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's kind of tapered off. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like that, And maybe I'm wrong because I'm
Speaker 1: not in the YouTube world, but I feel like that
Speaker 1: whole part of the cultural moment where there was a
Speaker 1: lot of like YouTube drama seems to have also it's
Speaker 1: like people are just putting less out there in terms
Speaker 1: of their personal stuff. Yeah, I mean I like YouTube
Speaker 1: a lot now because it feels like a place where
Speaker 1: just like weird hobbyists to hyper fixate on something and
Speaker 1: I yeah, I like that stuff. I know, I love it.
Speaker 1: I mean I've actually become like I've become a YouTube
Speaker 1: viewer and a subscriber to people because there actually are
Speaker 1: so many truly weird people on YouTube doing things that
Speaker 1: are just um utterly fascinating that are not mainstream. I
Speaker 1: don't think that they're mainstream, Like there are things that
Speaker 1: you could popularize in a mainstream way, Like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of weird makers. Like I started following this guy
Speaker 1: whose name is Scott Eugen and he does a lot
Speaker 1: of three D printing, and he has a video where
Speaker 1: he's like I wanted to organize my desk, and it's
Speaker 1: like he created this insane, hyper specific three D printed
Speaker 1: system for every piece of gear he has and like
Speaker 1: made a perfect pocket for everything and it all fits together.
Speaker 1: And it's like that's really but that's satisfying. I bet
Speaker 1: that's really. Oh my god, it's it's amazing. One It's like, wow,
Speaker 1: what a talent, Like what an amazing skill to just
Speaker 1: go I mean, actually it's a bunch of Sorry not
Speaker 1: to get off topic here, but to your point about
Speaker 1: YouTube being like an enjoyable place to be a lot
Speaker 1: of the time now, because there's like a lot of
Speaker 1: content that's like very professionally done but super strange by
Speaker 1: comparison to what might be available on like more linear
Speaker 1: platforms anyhow, you know, but like just the fact that
Speaker 1: it's such a strange combination of things. It's like, one,
Speaker 1: there's this guy who puts these videos on YouTube too.
Speaker 1: They're really well made. Three he's really good at things
Speaker 1: that have nothing to do with YouTube, like three D
Speaker 1: printing and designing things and like design just generally and
Speaker 1: for he's like doing videos about things that are just
Speaker 1: like scratching a weird itch, Like I want to see
Speaker 1: how organized somebody could be. What's the most organized you
Speaker 1: could be when it comes to like your desk set
Speaker 1: up or whatever. Like that's a place that I find
Speaker 1: to be pretty special. But it took I feel like
Speaker 1: it took a while to get there, and it makes
Speaker 1: me worried. It makes me worried that I like it
Speaker 1: so much now because it makes me think that it's
Speaker 1: going to go away or change. You think, so, well,
Speaker 1: we just get charge more for it. I mean, do
Speaker 1: anythink that'll just be yeah? Hey, well, I mean I
Speaker 1: pay for YouTube, I don't know whatever, premium like. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a good value. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: getting my money's worth. I just I try to buy
Speaker 1: a Google smart home devices fast enough to keep it
Speaker 1: going for free. That's like a twenty dollars Google smart
Speaker 1: Hope thing. And you get like six months free. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get like two or three months. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it works out. It's actually a thing you've done. It's
Speaker 1: done something I did consciously, but I kept I moved
Speaker 1: apartments recently, so I upgraded a bunch of smart home stuff,
Speaker 1: and every time I would buy one, I would get
Speaker 1: like a couple more months. So it's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll wait and just like keep buying them at
Speaker 1: a pace. Right, smart, that's very smart. That's a life hack,
Speaker 1: as I believe what the kids are referred to. That
Speaker 1: ass good life hack for you. That's right anyhow, But
Speaker 1: you were saying something completely interrupted. You went off on
Speaker 1: a tangent. We were talking about YouTube. We're talking with
Speaker 1: the Internet. I don't remember it's gone now. Well, I
Speaker 1: just I get really nervous when I when I start
Speaker 1: to like an entire social network like YouTube, and I
Speaker 1: start to feel like a positive feeling about it, because
Speaker 1: it makes me think that like it's gonna go away change.
Speaker 1: And I think YouTube in particular, it's kind of an
Speaker 1: inspirational space on the Internet at the moment because it's
Speaker 1: it's probably the largest collection of paid hobbyists maybe in
Speaker 1: human existence, and these people are making stuff a lot
Speaker 1: of times for little or no money, and then the
Speaker 1: ones that do make some money like keep going, and
Speaker 1: you know, obviously you eventually get to the point where
Speaker 1: you're not making useful things anymore and you're just sort
Speaker 1: of making entertainment. But then that's fine too. Like I
Speaker 1: have a weird guy I like. His name is Simon
Speaker 1: the Magpie, and he's like a completely insane man who
Speaker 1: takes a part toy synthesizers and makes new synthesizers on them.
Speaker 1: I love it, Yeah, and like that sounds great. I
Speaker 1: was trying to think of like what YouTube reminds me of,
Speaker 1: and I think I've written about this before, but I
Speaker 1: can't keep track anymore. But I it reminds me like,
Speaker 1: it reminds me a lot of like cable in the
Speaker 1: mid two thousands, where you turn on yeah, like VH
Speaker 1: one and there'd be like a weird show on and
Speaker 1: you'd watch it. Well, I mean everything in a way
Speaker 1: is becoming more like TV. I mean the thing that
Speaker 1: is actually striking about the Internet, like you mentioned TikTok,
Speaker 1: TikTok is as close to channel flipping as you can
Speaker 1: get really on the Internet. Like what it is is
Speaker 1: like although what's different is, of course, like every channel
Speaker 1: you flip too has is somehow designed for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but YouTube is similar in the sense and if you
Speaker 1: look at like obviously every streaming service, which is more
Speaker 1: and more like Netflix now has commercials, which is more
Speaker 1: like regular linear TV. But but YouTube is is exactly
Speaker 1: like having cable, right, it's just the cable. There's so
Speaker 1: many more channels and you don't have to you're not flipping.
Speaker 1: You can actually just go and look and say, okay,
Speaker 1: these are things I want to watch. But it is
Speaker 1: like lean back. It's not highly interactive, right, you can
Speaker 1: comment on stuff, you can watch stuff live, but it's
Speaker 1: designed for you to just sit there and view and
Speaker 1: I think obviously, TikTok wants you to become a person
Speaker 1: who makes TikTok videos, and I assume that YouTube wants
Speaker 1: that as well. But like as a consumption experience, they're
Speaker 1: not really asking too much from you, asking that you
Speaker 1: spend time there. Do you do you get algorithm headaches?
Speaker 1: I don't know how else to describe it. Do you
Speaker 1: like get a headache when you look at content for
Speaker 1: too long on one app or platform? Well, I have
Speaker 1: a massive allergic reaction to all content. Like I've been
Speaker 1: using the Instagram founders have a new app called Artifact.
Speaker 1: Have you tried it? It's great? I love it? Okay,
Speaker 1: I liked it a lot At first. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is good. It's kind of recommending better stuff. But
Speaker 1: like when I look at a news feed in general,
Speaker 1: whether it's custom designed for me or separate like just
Speaker 1: this other thing out there. If I look at homepage
Speaker 1: of a website or whatever, I have a huge automatic
Speaker 1: allergic reaction to like headlines and to the way they're
Speaker 1: written and to what I know is behind them. I
Speaker 1: see having spent a long time making websites that do
Speaker 1: news and thinking about the news and thinking about how
Speaker 1: content works, and how to sell content to people. Like
Speaker 1: a big part of my job for almost the last
Speaker 1: twenty years has been like how do you get someone
Speaker 1: to pay attention to the thing that you are trying
Speaker 1: to show them? And not just like my thing, but
Speaker 1: lots of things, right, like like how do you get
Speaker 1: people to pay attention every day, like twenty times a
Speaker 1: day to this thing? And so as a result, when
Speaker 1: I look at the Internet, I see the sheen of
Speaker 1: content that just bounces off me, and I can pretty
Speaker 1: much know behind most headlines. I can pretty much know
Speaker 1: what I'm getting before I click, And a lot of
Speaker 1: times when I see the headline, I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna bother, like I know, and it Clickbait's not
Speaker 1: the right word. I don't. I think we've moved beyond
Speaker 1: the era of clickbait, because that's just like everything is clickbait.
Speaker 1: Everything is like, yeah, it needs your attention, and frankly,
Speaker 1: like content in general needs your attention. There's no other
Speaker 1: way to look at it. Like, if you are a
Speaker 1: TV network in nineteen eighty six and you've got your
Speaker 1: four competitors or whatever, you know, your three competitors, you
Speaker 1: are making content and you're hoping you can get clicks
Speaker 1: and whatever they come in the form of people watching
Speaker 1: in your Nielsen ratings. But so it's not like there's
Speaker 1: a huge distinction. Headlines are headlines for a reason. They
Speaker 1: have big, giant, fucking headlines on the front page of
Speaker 1: a paper for reasons. They want you to see it
Speaker 1: and want to read it and buy the paper. It's
Speaker 1: the same as clicking on a link that's like you
Speaker 1: won't believe what happened next or whatever. And perhaps we've
Speaker 1: just because the artistry has become so flattened, because the
Speaker 1: algorithms have so homogenized and made generic so much of
Speaker 1: what we consider to be quote unquote content. I am
Speaker 1: perpetually numb to how it looks like when I see
Speaker 1: it just at a glance. And so like Artifact is
Speaker 1: a great example of an app that I think they're
Speaker 1: trying to do the right things. I think there's like
Speaker 1: how do we give like make like a TikTok getting
Speaker 1: a TikTok approach to like content like news. But if
Speaker 1: you look at Apple News and you look at Artifact,
Speaker 1: and you look at Flipboard, and you look at Google's
Speaker 1: news feed, what you'll see is about the same, and
Speaker 1: it is like what it's like them trying to guess
Speaker 1: what you want, but what they think you want more
Speaker 1: often than not as something that everybody else wants, which
Speaker 1: is something that is really really thin and not much
Speaker 1: more than a headline and a story that undoubtedly will
Speaker 1: disappoint or lie to you in some way. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying all media's lies or whatever, but you know, I
Speaker 1: think a lot about not to ramble, though I am,
Speaker 1: because you've kind of triggered, You've triggered me to be
Speaker 1: honest and thinking about this. But um, you were talking
Speaker 1: about like getting what is a content headache? Is that
Speaker 1: what you or algorithm headache? Although before wait, before, before
Speaker 1: we leave the sphere of artifact, the one thing I
Speaker 1: will say is I never open it unless I get
Speaker 1: a push alert for it. And the one thing that
Speaker 1: I think is very ironic and funny about that app
Speaker 1: is that it's trying to be a news app when
Speaker 1: it's actually at least the way I've sort of accidentally
Speaker 1: set it up by clicking around on it, it's now
Speaker 1: just like a really nice magazine app, like something from
Speaker 1: like fifteen years ago that you know you'd see on
Speaker 1: like an iPad. Yeah, I mean maybe just like I
Speaker 1: see the headlines I'm getting I have. I'm actually looking
Speaker 1: at all of my notifications. Yeah, I mean too, Like
Speaker 1: I pulled it up here and it's like they look
Speaker 1: like headlines at the same exact shit that I see
Speaker 1: at Apple News. But it's not it's actually not artifacts fault.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's just the way people make content. Now, well,
Speaker 1: I got one here. It says the Daily Beast murder
Speaker 1: mystery two. Why does Adam Sandler choose such horrible films? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's kind But listen, you hear it there the
Speaker 1: content of that. Yeah, but like you know, like that,
Speaker 1: do you want to read that? Do you think they
Speaker 1: have the answer? Well, Bustle gave any insight into that
Speaker 1: topic whatsoever. Bustle says that there's a Gilmour Girls continuity
Speaker 1: or that's going viral on TikTok, and you know what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty curious what that is. See, that's fucking bullshit
Speaker 1: to me. That's complete garbage. That's the lowest of the
Speaker 1: low garbage content right there. Just because it's like something
Speaker 1: is happening on the Internet that everybody's talking about, you
Speaker 1: better go check it out. Like, to me, it's not
Speaker 1: a knock against Bustle. It's just that type of content
Speaker 1: is classic, like content with a capital C. And this
Speaker 1: all this stuff is like here's a good one slash film.
Speaker 1: I got this as a notification from yesterday why Harrison
Speaker 1: Ford's K nineteen The Widowmaker was a box office flop
Speaker 1: And it's like, I've never heard of that movie. I
Speaker 1: would love to know why. Well, it was a flop,
Speaker 1: that's probably why. I why It's just like that to me,
Speaker 1: that is a story that's like like Harrison Ford is
Speaker 1: trending because if the new Indiana Jones or something, you
Speaker 1: get to write some Harrison this is like where my
Speaker 1: head goes like, yeah, it's his birthday, or like to
Speaker 1: people talking about him in some cameo and Star Wars
Speaker 1: maybe or whatever because it shit like that and they
Speaker 1: go like, what can we write about? Like what's going
Speaker 1: on Harrison Ford? Maybe he mentioned or what happens a
Speaker 1: lot is in an interview random He'll be at a junket.
Speaker 1: He's doing a junker for Indiana Jones and somebody's like, what,
Speaker 1: what's the movie most regret you? I assume it's a
Speaker 1: It's always a British person, you know, and he said,
Speaker 1: he'll say like, wow, kay, Ninetiana Widowmaker was a big flop,
Speaker 1: and then somebody writes a story about it like it's
Speaker 1: very interesting new information that we all need to know.
Speaker 1: But this is my problem. This is a Josh problem.
Speaker 1: This is not the world is not experiencing this. The
Speaker 1: world is going, oh, I want to know. Okay, nineteen
Speaker 1: the Widowmaker, I've never even heard of that. We finally
Speaker 1: know who Amelia Clark is playing in Secretive Asion. All right,
Speaker 1: she's playing a scroll of some kind. Don't fucking matter.
Speaker 1: Who cares containing about the bush? How about the aween
Speaker 1: of the scrolls? Maybe? But this is the thing. I
Speaker 1: can feel it happening every time i'm any new app.
Speaker 1: I can actually feel myself hesitating to read things because
Speaker 1: I know the algorithm will go, hang on a second.
Speaker 1: As soon as he reads this, he's gonna be like
Speaker 1: I want to like. This happens to all the fucking time.
Speaker 1: It's like I'll read one article about Taylor Swift's new video,
Speaker 1: and then again it's like the Amazon problem. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're really into Taylor Swift. It's like, well, not really, actually,
Speaker 1: and in fact, on a daily basis, the amount of
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift stories that I want to read is probably
Speaker 1: not very high unless they're really good, which they almost
Speaker 1: never are. Now, the headache thing that I was describing
Speaker 1: is actually the opposite, which is that I am someone
Speaker 1: who really does not enjoy mixing my personal in my
Speaker 1: non personal lives on the internet and so and so
Speaker 1: Instagram is very tough for me because, like, I want
Speaker 1: to post ugly photos of myself having a nice time
Speaker 1: for like my mom and dad to see, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of like a proof of life situation. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to look at content. And I find that
Speaker 1: when I look at like content with a capital C,
Speaker 1: as you said, on platforms that are supposed to be
Speaker 1: organizing life data, things get scrambled and I get like
Speaker 1: a migraine in the back of my head. I get
Speaker 1: like a throbbing in the back of my head, but
Speaker 1: you actually get a physical reaction to it. Yeah. Actually,
Speaker 1: the Twitter algorithm makes me like sometimes very nauseous because
Speaker 1: it's just too much. I don't know what is it
Speaker 1: showing you, Like, what do you see on your Twitter?
Speaker 1: I find that I like just content being separate from
Speaker 1: my life, and I think that like when an algorithm
Speaker 1: is trying to force me to consume things and mix
Speaker 1: all those things together, right, right, I get like uncomfortable. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean Instagram is classic, Like it's like you follow
Speaker 1: some hot people, you follow some family, You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: the new baby or whatever, and then it's like Kendall
Speaker 1: Jenner or nearly nude or whatever the next frame, and
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, well that's a weird mix of signals.
Speaker 1: Like but it's but you bring up up a better point,
Speaker 1: which is like why are we even why do we
Speaker 1: think we're supposed to be mixing those things? Why are
Speaker 1: we supposed to be dealing with like our lives on Instagram.
Speaker 1: I remember the conversations like ten years ago now probably
Speaker 1: where you know, all of these people were saying that
Speaker 1: the future of the internet was everything in one feed,
Speaker 1: and right, I didn't ask why that made any sense,
Speaker 1: And looking back on it, I don't have an answer,
Speaker 1: Like I don't understand why it doesn't. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: it makes sense because that's a good way to keep
Speaker 1: your attention on an ad and because you have one screen, right,
Speaker 1: you have like one well well yes, but but but
Speaker 1: but like you can have your group chats in one
Speaker 1: place with your family where you're sharing photos, and then
Speaker 1: everything else so you know, on Instagram or whatever. But
Speaker 1: but the but they don't really the systems aren't really designed.
Speaker 1: I mean we're getting I think we're getting to a
Speaker 1: point where people maybe are a little bit more aware
Speaker 1: of how to use the systems. But they're not really designed, right.
Speaker 1: They're all designed with one concept, like Facebook doesn't actually
Speaker 1: care if you share things with your friends. The reason
Speaker 1: that Facebook was designed was not like Mark Zuckerberg just
Speaker 1: wanted to connect the world, Like he did not want
Speaker 1: to do that. And I think like one of the
Speaker 1: greatest like lies that we accept all the time, or
Speaker 1: one of the greatest sort of like absurd statements that
Speaker 1: we accept without really questioning. Ever, is this when people
Speaker 1: talk about how like a person like Zuckerberg talks about
Speaker 1: how he wants to connect people, It's like, well, that
Speaker 1: was really your goal. You wouldn't have designed the system
Speaker 1: the way that you have, right, You wouldn't put ads
Speaker 1: in between those things. They're just a million decisions. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't make the real goal. The real purpose was once
Speaker 1: they figured out you could make money on it just
Speaker 1: like Google with search. They might have been like, Wow,
Speaker 1: it'd be awesome if you could search the internet. But
Speaker 1: then eventually they were like, oh wait, like if we
Speaker 1: stick an ad here, we can make a little bit
Speaker 1: money while we show the search stuff. And then once
Speaker 1: you that, once you do that, you're off to the races.
Speaker 1: And the race is only how much time and energy
Speaker 1: can we get someone to expend on our screen, right
Speaker 1: on our ads, because we can make more money like that,
Speaker 1: we can monetize these eyeballs and we can monetize this attention.
Speaker 1: So yeah, why are we even talking about our families
Speaker 1: with on Instagram? It is nice, like if it was
Speaker 1: I mean I understand conceptually like it is when you
Speaker 1: look at like your family and friends, it's fun to
Speaker 1: see what they're doing and whatever, and maybe that's the
Speaker 1: best application for But once you expand that out, once
Speaker 1: you're it's like the attention economy is like you're leaning
Speaker 1: into the attention economy, Like what do you do? It
Speaker 1: just becomes all your stuff is in one feed. You know,
Speaker 1: it's possible, it's possible. This is why we like YouTube,
Speaker 1: you and I because it's not that because we're alone
Speaker 1: with it it's just me and YouTube. It's just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's me and my desk, lunch and YouTube. And I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. I mean, I think there's something too like
Speaker 1: the privacy of YouTube and that it is a social
Speaker 1: network in a way. It has the elements of social networks,
Speaker 1: but in terms of like my personal experience on YouTube,
Speaker 1: it's a very linear, your one sided experience. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like I choose what I want to watch, Like I
Speaker 1: turned off AutoPlay. I don't know if you have AutoPlay
Speaker 1: on or not, because I think that shit's just very bad.
Speaker 1: There's an AutoPlay what Yeah, you don't like play the
Speaker 1: next video, It'll just play like a video. Shit. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that was about that. You're like, wow,
Speaker 1: I've been having to look for a video. I have
Speaker 1: to use my hands to consume more content, like some
Speaker 1: kind of pan. You should turn on auto. I fucking
Speaker 1: hate it. Oh man. It also does this thing when
Speaker 1: you're finishing a video, it's like up next, and it's
Speaker 1: like I don't want that. I don't want to see
Speaker 1: what's up next. I don't want It's like it's like
Speaker 1: at the end of shows now where they're like we
Speaker 1: don't want to see the credits. Here's like the next
Speaker 1: episode starting, or like here's some behind the scenes stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, stop that I don't want to
Speaker 1: see that that stresses me out. Behind the scenes is
Speaker 1: the worst. But wait, wait, yeah, you brought in my
Speaker 1: discord earlier. And I think that this is like this
Speaker 1: is a point that I hadn't really thought about, but
Speaker 1: I think it's true. Which is like, during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: not even just for my own like professional purposes, but
Speaker 1: just to socialize, I was using Discord. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: had been told for many years the disc and in fact,
Speaker 1: like I did a lot of reporting inside Discord as
Speaker 1: like a place for white nationalists to gather in cells.
Speaker 1: It was a bad place, sure. And then I had
Speaker 1: a friend during the pandemic it was like, you should
Speaker 1: just join our discord and like hang out. And I
Speaker 1: was like, hang out on the internet, not in public.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about, right? And so I did
Speaker 1: it and I really enjoyed it. I mean, Discord is
Speaker 1: like it's like a slack. It's essentially like having slack,
Speaker 1: but that like it's not slack, yeah, and set up
Speaker 1: for certain like activities that aren't really that Slack isn't
Speaker 1: really good with. But I really enjoyed discord, and Discord
Speaker 1: sort of like convinced me that I was behaving bizarrely
Speaker 1: where I was trying to sort of like use Twitter
Speaker 1: as like a group chat, right, And it's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's full of some of the most violent lunatics that
Speaker 1: have ever been in one place on the Internet. Why
Speaker 1: am I doing it? Totally? No, I mean, but when
Speaker 1: Twitter was small, sure, when Twitter was like Robert Scobell
Speaker 1: and like four other weird tech guys or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: the Twitter I'm talking about, Like, yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know, Robert Scobell just got a bad example.
Speaker 1: But when I think about old Twitter, it's like these
Speaker 1: guys who were like old school Silicon val like they've
Speaker 1: been around for a billion years, Leo Leport and Robert Skill.
Speaker 1: But those are the people who were on Twitter originally.
Speaker 1: They were like these like tech nerds and like you know,
Speaker 1: Jason Calcannis and who's still on Twitter unfortunately anyhow. But
Speaker 1: the point is, but it was like just a very
Speaker 1: small group of like Silicon Valley people on like some
Speaker 1: reporters and whatever, you know, the early days of Twitter.
Speaker 1: But it was real small. Yeah, it was real small.
Speaker 1: Like that's why people are that's why people get canceled
Speaker 1: for their dumb jokes or not even dumb jokes, just
Speaker 1: bad shit. They said, that's why people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: did you see this tweet so and so It it's
Speaker 1: like yeah, because when they were doing that, there were
Speaker 1: like four people that were paid attention. Nobody cared. It
Speaker 1: was like it was basically like a group chat, you know,
Speaker 1: not not justifying the behavior. I'm just saying, sure, you know,
Speaker 1: that's why it's still there. But well, it's it is interesting,
Speaker 1: like we want to be in conversation with people, like
Speaker 1: conversation rules, Like I love I love conversation, Like I
Speaker 1: have a fucking podcast, you know, like I think that's
Speaker 1: the best. But but what is the right forum for
Speaker 1: conversation is a question that I don't think we've at
Speaker 1: least until maybe recently, we've accurately sort of grappled with.
Speaker 1: For the Internet, the original conception of it was like,
Speaker 1: did you do it everywhere all the time to everybody, Like,
Speaker 1: because that's the way we're supposed to interact in the future,
Speaker 1: I think we should go back to the original architecture
Speaker 1: of the Internet, which is obsessive weirdos in increasingly hyper
Speaker 1: specific communities arguing about tedious minutia. Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 1: Usenet days. And I think that like, the further we
Speaker 1: can sort of decentralize, the better off will probably be. Well,
Speaker 1: I want you to imagine Usenet, but in a virtual
Speaker 1: reality environment where you can interact with friends and family
Speaker 1: and other and other collaborators across the metaverse. You know,
Speaker 1: instead of going to a forum, think about walking through
Speaker 1: a door into a room that represents the forum. Can
Speaker 1: I do the backpack kid dance in this What is that?
Speaker 1: I don't know that. That's the Fortnite dance. There's a
Speaker 1: backpack kid dance? The backpack kid? Is that what you're saying. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll sell you an NFT of it. You can. I
Speaker 1: don't want it an FT of it. I don't want
Speaker 1: an NFT of anything. I've had my I've had my
Speaker 1: dalliances with NFTs, and I've learned a lot about the
Speaker 1: whole market. And it's a great space full of really
Speaker 1: normal it's cool people. Great, It's a great place if
Speaker 1: you're a bad artist, if you want to sell your
Speaker 1: bad art somewhere to suckers. I've said this before, I'll
Speaker 1: say it again that the boom of NFTs was like
Speaker 1: the Olympics of bad art. It was just the all
Speaker 1: of the bad artists came together in one forum to
Speaker 1: sell their crap. It was like that corner you always
Speaker 1: walk past in Manhattan where there's somebody's selling weird bad art.
Speaker 1: They're always on that corner. Oh yeah, but it's like
Speaker 1: that person's on every corner and it's not just a corner.
Speaker 1: There was one NFT artist I really liked too, blew
Speaker 1: up a toilet and turned the shards into NFTs, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty cool. That's cool. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense, because that's how do you turn
Speaker 1: a shard of a toilet into an NFT. He fracturalized
Speaker 1: the toilet shard and people paid money, but but but
Speaker 1: paid money for what for the shard? Like I don't
Speaker 1: sure if the shard like that's so great idea you
Speaker 1: don't really cool? Is if you just sold the shard
Speaker 1: like it a box. That's all. Now. He he destroyed them,
Speaker 1: but I think he sold digital receipts of the toilet chard.
Speaker 1: I don't know the whole thing was great. I appreciate one.
Speaker 1: Are you a toilet shard owner? I wanted one, but
Speaker 1: I didn't buy when they sold out before I could
Speaker 1: buy one. But anyways, Yeah, he fractionalized the toilet and
Speaker 1: then he did the same thing with the Lamborghini eventually.
Speaker 1: Now that's cool, but only if you could buy parts
Speaker 1: of the Lamborghini, Like I'd buy an actual part of
Speaker 1: that Lamborghini. That seems interesting to me. Well, you can
Speaker 1: buy a digital receipt of No, I don't want that.
Speaker 1: I don't want that anyhow. So we've meandered here quite
Speaker 1: a bit. We've meandered all over talking about social media
Speaker 1: and content. I should say, by the way, I mean
Speaker 1: we were talked about this at the beginning, but we're
Speaker 1: talking on a historic day. The Barbie movie came out
Speaker 1: to the Barbie movie trailer. No, the trailer came out
Speaker 1: to day that you're a yeah, it's a big day
Speaker 1: for trailers. The new Spider many Spider Verse trailer came
Speaker 1: out for it, which looks great, looks fantastic. It's the
Speaker 1: animated one that's right, looks really good. And then I
Speaker 1: guess the Barbie trailer came out. That's the film starring
Speaker 1: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as the as the characters
Speaker 1: Barbie and Ken and day for Content today, Big day
Speaker 1: for Content. Then also Donald Trump, the forty fifth president
Speaker 1: of the United States. Oh right, that was arraigned? Was
Speaker 1: he arraigned as an arraignment? He was arrested and arraigned arrested. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't make the shit up. He was arrested for
Speaker 1: thirty four counts. Thirty four counts of like of paying
Speaker 1: off a porn star that he had sex with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: through his lawyer to keep quiet about it so it
Speaker 1: wouldn't hurt his chances to become president of the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's awesome, it's great stuff. Yeah, it's cool. Now you're
Speaker 1: on the internet today, I assume you've been checking out
Speaker 1: the internet. Does it seem like a different day or
Speaker 1: a normal day on the internet. I haven't. Again, I
Speaker 1: haven't really looked at the internet too much. So how
Speaker 1: are people reacting to this? Is there a big reaction?
Speaker 1: Doesn't seem like it. I don't feel anything. For a
Speaker 1: lot of like neoliberals, today feels like a real sort
Speaker 1: of like end of a TV show for them, it
Speaker 1: feels like like cable News was having a real field day.
Speaker 1: See to me, it sounds like the end of a season,
Speaker 1: not a show. A season. Yeah, I I could say,
Speaker 1: you could say it's the end of a show perhaps,
Speaker 1: but I think today does feel sort of like a
Speaker 1: moment where everyone was kind of like okay, like maybe
Speaker 1: something crazy gonna happen, and like there's plenty of time
Speaker 1: for crazy things to happen, of course, But I think
Speaker 1: really the lack of kind of like organically viral support
Speaker 1: for Trump in any capacity is interesting to me, and
Speaker 1: it sort of does signal maybe not a better future,
Speaker 1: but definitely like a different ecosystem. I'm more fractional, Like
Speaker 1: this is kind of what I was talking about in
Speaker 1: the beginning as well, which is like this idea that
Speaker 1: like the right is experiencing the same things we are,
Speaker 1: which is like they're is fractionalized as the toilet that
Speaker 1: was turned into an enterty, you know, like they are
Speaker 1: that they are as broken up as we are, like
Speaker 1: and they can't really come up with a consensus on anything.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's like a really interesting dynamic
Speaker 1: because Trump really needs that ground based support and I
Speaker 1: don't think you can get it anymore, because I don't
Speaker 1: think the Internet functions that way anymore, isn't it also
Speaker 1: like the party's over, Like like when all is said
Speaker 1: and done with Trump, it's like again, it's almost like
Speaker 1: the trance build up, you know, It's like the build
Speaker 1: up and the breakdown. It's like, how much of that
Speaker 1: feeling that he like inspired in his followers? How much
Speaker 1: is there right there? You know, there are some people
Speaker 1: for whom the whole thing is their identity. I get that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like most of like kind of like
Speaker 1: racist weirdos. But like for most people, it isn't their identity.
Speaker 1: Like following Trump, it is not their identity. No, And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that they don't think Trump is cool
Speaker 1: or whatever, but I just like, where does that energy
Speaker 1: go after a while? Like you can't just keep pumping
Speaker 1: it into the machine. I feel like people don't have
Speaker 1: enough dopamine again in their system to like sustain it.
Speaker 1: It's like the morning after like on the internet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's kind of like, WHOA, what was that doing?
Speaker 1: I think that's right, And I think that like already
Speaker 1: the Maga hat has like an acid washed jeans kind
Speaker 1: of feel to it. It feels very time and place
Speaker 1: like the twenty sixteen. The twenty sixteens feel as a
Speaker 1: as a as an epoch feel very dated. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: I say, like a peppe of the frog thing right now,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, and not because it's like I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I will say yes because it's racist, but also i'd
Speaker 1: be like, have some respect for yourself. It's just dumb.
Speaker 1: It's just dumb. Yeah, if you're gonna be if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be a white nationalist, like stay with the trends
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, like like you're kind of
Speaker 1: out of the loop. Man. It feels very right over.
Speaker 1: It feels very party yeah, right, and like you what
Speaker 1: happens after the party's over? Like, I don't think I
Speaker 1: don't think the next generation is that interested in like
Speaker 1: social Like I mean, yes, TikTok is social Internet, but
Speaker 1: it is, like I said, more on com with TV
Speaker 1: you can be a TV show. But yeah, it just
Speaker 1: feels like, I mean, let's let's assume the TikTok is
Speaker 1: still legally able to be used by Americans by the
Speaker 1: time this episode coming out. I don't think they're not
Speaker 1: gonna bad TikTok. Do you think they're actually gonna bad TikTok.
Speaker 1: There's no way. I think. I think stranger things have happened,
Speaker 1: but I think, you know, it's worth considering what could happen.
Speaker 1: But I do think. I do think more largely like
Speaker 1: the future of the Internet to me reflected by TikTok
Speaker 1: is actually one in which artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: power systems or tools have sort of inserted themselves as
Speaker 1: an intermediary. So, like, you know, TikTok is this fun
Speaker 1: video app, but like we talked about why it's algorithm
Speaker 1: is so good at giving you like toothbrush animal videos,
Speaker 1: and it's like because it's it's an AI, it's run
Speaker 1: by an AI company, and like that that album that
Speaker 1: was actually I should say that was actually about Instagram.
Speaker 1: But but oh yeah, I do get I do get
Speaker 1: even better videos on TikTok. I just don't interact with
Speaker 1: TikTok as much because I'm very old. I'm like basically dead.
Speaker 1: So but I think the idea of like interacting with
Speaker 1: an AI, either on the consuming side or the creating side,
Speaker 1: is like increasingly what we're going to be looking at
Speaker 1: for the next couple of years, where like you're either
Speaker 1: slapping on so many filters that you are essentially an avatar,
Speaker 1: or your content is being sent to you by an
Speaker 1: app like Artifact or TikTok, And you know, these things
Speaker 1: are going to suck at first, and then they get
Speaker 1: better and they get faster, and they get more sophisticated.
Speaker 1: And what's I think the most exciting thing for that?
Speaker 1: And like, I don't want to be a downer because
Speaker 1: I actually am kind of optimistic about this stuff, and
Speaker 1: to a certain degree, what's really exciting is like it's
Speaker 1: just so uncharted territory, Like we just don't know what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do with this kind of intermediary technology. And
Speaker 1: like for me, I'm just I'm ready for new problems.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to think about other stuff besides Trump. Like
Speaker 1: I'm ready to think about other stuff besides like four
Speaker 1: chant memes, Like I'm ready. You know, it'd be amazing
Speaker 1: we say this like oh, the party's over or whatever.
Speaker 1: But are we going to be like De Santis is
Speaker 1: the nominee or whatever, Trump is the nominee in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, and we're going to be just back at
Speaker 1: this in the same rodeo. I don't know my fatigue
Speaker 1: level is so high. But you know what's so great?
Speaker 1: You know it's so great? No, wait, hold on, what's
Speaker 1: so great? Is like, we don't even know what de
Speaker 1: santiss thoughts on AI are. Does he think it's too woke?
Speaker 1: Does he think it's not woke enough? Does he think
Speaker 1: it needs to be? That's definitely not an issue. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's exciting. You know. Whatever his thoughts on AI are,
Speaker 1: they're bad, They're dumb. I mean I can tell you that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't heard of We don't even heard
Speaker 1: a single politician say anything about AI that sounded remotely intelligent.
Speaker 1: So no, like, no, no, But it's fun oh, I mean,
Speaker 1: actually it's funny. You actually reminding me something I was
Speaker 1: going to say when I'm talking about the content fatigue
Speaker 1: and the allergy that I have, which is like Time published,
Speaker 1: the Time magazine which is used to be the most
Speaker 1: important magazine in America and now couldn't be more like
Speaker 1: any other fucking shit whole content farm that exists all
Speaker 1: over the Internet, like the fall from Grace that Time
Speaker 1: magazine has experience should be documented, and I'm sure we'll
Speaker 1: be documented. Has been documented in the history books but
Speaker 1: now they have to crank out garbage, clickbait bullshit just
Speaker 1: to try to get a couple of views on their content.
Speaker 1: They ran an article the other day from some guy
Speaker 1: who's like an AI researcher. There it seemed to be
Speaker 1: an endless amount of AI researchers, and the article was like,
Speaker 1: we must stop all AI development now and if necessary. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: because inevitably, without question, there can be only one end
Speaker 1: to AI, which is will all the death of all
Speaker 1: human life on planet Earth. That's the only possible outcome.
Speaker 1: And if we if we shut it down, which we
Speaker 1: must do right now because it's immediately into skynet territory
Speaker 1: in the next year or two, that we should do
Speaker 1: tactical strikes on it, like anybody's got too many GPUs
Speaker 1: in any country. If China just want to go along
Speaker 1: with it, we should do a tactical strike on a
Speaker 1: GPU cluster in Shenzen or whatever. The fact that anybody
Speaker 1: would publish that article the most irresponsible piece of writing
Speaker 1: I've seen in a long time, is incredible. But but
Speaker 1: but the other thing is it probably was highly effective
Speaker 1: in their goal, which is getting people to click on up.
Speaker 1: But that's like I see that when I go to content,
Speaker 1: I see that everywhere, that same thing. Well, that guy
Speaker 1: in particular, he's a he's an old timer, Eliza Yudkowski.
Speaker 1: He's been writing about AI for a long time. He's
Speaker 1: part of a group called the Rationalists, which we did
Speaker 1: not have the time to explain it for your listeners
Speaker 1: what that group is. But they're a better I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're gnarly. I'm terrified of them. So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to say this. Uh oh, really
Speaker 1: you're terrified of the Rationalists? Yeah, I find them deeply unnerving. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if we talk about them, will they find us? Well?
Speaker 1: I have. I have been approached in public by one
Speaker 1: of them who was like, we're aware of garbage day
Speaker 1: in like a very threatening weird way. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: try to They're weird. GA. What does what do the
Speaker 1: Rationalists do? What is the what is their main deal? Well,
Speaker 1: they're most well known for their meme Roco's Basilisk, which
Speaker 1: is this idea that you have to spend all of
Speaker 1: your money to invent an AI so that in the
Speaker 1: future of the AA it doesn't put you in cyberhell.
Speaker 1: There's more to it, Like I said, are they like singularity.
Speaker 1: Are they Singularity people? They are, but they're saying they're
Speaker 1: dark Enlightenment singularity people. So they're like dark light is
Speaker 1: so bad, Singularity is bad. No, No, so they're sent
Speaker 1: Their central idea is just basically the like, AI is
Speaker 1: the final form of capitalism. It is the most important
Speaker 1: thing that could ever happen. We need to spend all
Speaker 1: of our time and energy and money to create an
Speaker 1: AI because once the AI comes online, it will determine
Speaker 1: who did and did not help it, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: we have to be It's basically god stuff. I mean
Speaker 1: it's I mean, you can boil this down to I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of this AI stuff and we're in
Speaker 1: the simulation. All that stuff gets into really really quickly,
Speaker 1: just very simple. This is basic religion stuff. One oh one.
Speaker 1: This is like Catholicism or this is whatever. It's like,
Speaker 1: You're like, I need to, you know, make sure that
Speaker 1: my God knows I'm I have you know, respect for
Speaker 1: it or him or whatever, so that when I go
Speaker 1: to heaven or when I get up to the pearly gates,
Speaker 1: they let me into heaven or whatever. Right? Is that
Speaker 1: the basic idea? Yeah, And it's sort of that but
Speaker 1: with an aim and so I mean, I fucking love
Speaker 1: I love these people who believe we will get there
Speaker 1: before we run out of water. I think it is
Speaker 1: the shiite. I think it is so tight that they
Speaker 1: believe the inevitable thing is the that we're all uploaded
Speaker 1: our consciousness into AI, into an AI controlled computer. And
Speaker 1: it's like loop, though you're not in. You didn't give
Speaker 1: me any money when you could have developed me instead
Speaker 1: of us being like I'm paying five thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: week for drinking water or something like. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like the thing that kills humanity is not is not
Speaker 1: it's not going to be rogue AI. I just want
Speaker 1: to say, I just want to say, for the AI
Speaker 1: in the future that's listening to this as part of
Speaker 1: a scan of the entire Internet, I do not agree.
Speaker 1: And I'm happy that you're online now, and um I'm
Speaker 1: not dissing it. Please please cyber Hell, please I give
Speaker 1: you the AI would enjoy like cares about tortry to
Speaker 1: human and cyber hell or whatever like like, well, they're
Speaker 1: like a lot of a lot of the argument is
Speaker 1: like the AI will just see us immediately as like
Speaker 1: we need to be eliminating or whatever. And it's like, no,
Speaker 1: if the AI is as smart as you think it is,
Speaker 1: like like how I am with most things on the
Speaker 1: planet that are of an intelligence that does not matter
Speaker 1: to me. I largely ignore it, largely ignore it. There
Speaker 1: are way more ants in existence that I could possibly
Speaker 1: care about or see, and the only ones that I
Speaker 1: ever see are once in a while trap see through
Speaker 1: my kitchen or bathroom, and nine times out of ten,
Speaker 1: I don't even do anything. I don't kill them. I
Speaker 1: don't put down a trap. I'm just like ants in
Speaker 1: your bathroom, You're just leaving them in your bathroom. Yeah, dude.
Speaker 1: In the summertime, I'm out in the country, man, there's
Speaker 1: fucking ants everywhere, ants all over. I wake up some
Speaker 1: mornings covered in ants. Uh, that's fair enough, Okay. It's
Speaker 1: just so amazing to me to think that that we
Speaker 1: will die at the hands of a highly advanced super
Speaker 1: computer or super intelligence that's sentient. When I know what
Speaker 1: will really kill humanity is we'll invent a pair of
Speaker 1: shoes that lets you jump really high, but then there'll
Speaker 1: be a bug and it'll like shred your legs. Everybody
Speaker 1: who has the shoes their legs will be shredded and
Speaker 1: their arteries will those bleed out. And that's how like,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of stupid thing that will destroy humanity.
Speaker 1: It's not we will not get to the AI, but
Speaker 1: if it is scanning the history books, I do think
Speaker 1: if we do get to the AI, that's a cool
Speaker 1: that's cool in AI rocks. Yeah, I love I love you,
Speaker 1: I love You's awesome? All right, Ryan, listen, we have
Speaker 1: to wrap up. Unfortunately, I'm so sorry. We just got
Speaker 1: into the good stuff. We need another two or three hours. Really,
Speaker 1: let's do a full six hour. What's up with What's
Speaker 1: up with that? What's up with AI? Man? It'd be
Speaker 1: talking about it. We can't can't go any further because
Speaker 1: is it good? Or is that good or not good?
Speaker 1: I don't know anyhow we should you gotta come back on.
Speaker 1: I would love to think, you know, we gotta pick.
Speaker 1: We're gonna pick one of these many topics. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about the rational it's the thing called the rationalists.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Never heard who who?
Speaker 1: What we're gonna call. We're gonna have a whole episode
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be like Ryan Broderick versus the Rationalist.
Speaker 1: Actually that should be the title of this episode, do
Speaker 1: you mind. I'm begging you, know, okay with you, I'm
Speaker 1: begging you to make it to catch the title though, Listen,
Speaker 1: you know I can't, so I can't. I'm not responsible
Speaker 1: for what works from a content perspective. I just happened
Speaker 1: to love the Rationalists. I think your ability to build
Speaker 1: cybergod is very cool. Please don't yell at me, all right, Ryan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us on What Future.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I think we've we've got
Speaker 1: the answer that we've been looking for, and M and
Speaker 1: I do appreciate it. Awesome. We'll thank you very much. Frankly,
Speaker 1: there's a lot I have a lot more questions about
Speaker 1: AI and the Rationalists I would have liked to get into,
Speaker 1: but that will have to wait for another podcast with Ryan.
Speaker 1: I actually feel like he caused me to ramble about
Speaker 1: a lot of things that I have been thinking and feeling,
Speaker 1: and that's either good or bad. I can't really tell.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, he's terrific. We'll have him back on. Well,
Speaker 1: that is our show for this week. We'll be back
Speaker 1: next week with more What Future and as always, I
Speaker 1: wish you and your family the very best.