WEBVTT - Week in Tech: Should Tech Bros Dim the Sun? 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:16.000 Glasco from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.920 This is tech stuff. I'm as Valoscian and I'm care Price. 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.960 Today we've got two big stories to break down for you. First, 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.920 content creators, brands and gen z alike are all turning 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:33.240 towards the latest luxury unplugging. Then tech companies blasting particles 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.720 into the atmosphere to dim the sun in response to 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:37.680 climate change. 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:39.800 Then we'll tell you about a few other stories that 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.240 caught our eye this week, like how polymarkets bets led 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:47.640 to disinformation about the Ukraine Russian War, a human washing 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.840 machine that promises to wash both your body and your soul, 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.480 and then we'll dive into how twenty three ande meters 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.920 is giving some users a piece of their new family's inheritances. 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.280 Then on Chat to me Chatcheep celebrates its third birthday 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.560 while Sam Altman declare's code read at Open AI with 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.119 Google's Gemini making rapid progress. Joining us to talk about 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.319 this is Megan Moroney from Axios, who's just published a 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.640 piece with the headline the three things keeping Sam Altman 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.520 up at night. All of that on the weekend Tech. 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.680 It's Friday, December fifth, Hello. 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:30.200 Cara, Hello Oz I was reflecting this week about this 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.200 thing that we used to say when I think we 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.040 first did podcasting, which is that you and I had 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:35.840 a face for radio. 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.160 Yes, I mean funny enough, I've made that joke for 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.600 all these years. But now podcasting is pivoting to video, 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:42.240 like what are we? 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.480 Nobody is immune? Nobody is immune anymore. And there was 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.360 an article that I recently read in Business Insider called 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.960 being hot is a new job requirement. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:56.760 Dari asks why this caught your eye? 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.560 You know, it's funny. My mother always used to say 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.000 I'm in an image based business because she's in public relationships, right, 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:07.000 and so who you see is what you get, and 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.440 it's very important. And I kind of always used to 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:11.960 roll my eyes at that idea. And then this article 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.400 kind of confirmed everything she's been saying to me for 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.880 thirty years, which is, and I'm thirty six, but since 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:23.040 I was six, yeah, exactly. Yeah, she always was kind 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:27.600 of like, people who are good looking are more successful. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:29.720 Well, I mean that's kind of a story as all 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.000 as time, right, So I'm curious where the new and 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:33.720 the new job requirement comes from. 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.840 So tech is both driving the issue and it's solving 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.560 the issue. Meaning that in some ways we have become 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.000 more and more critical of how we look. Like post pandemic. 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.600 We talk about the zoom meetings are forcing people to 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:48.880 stare at their faces more and more. You and I, 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:50.680 I mean I just looked at myself in the camera 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:52.959 right now, and I'm like, carry you could. 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.240 Have especially with these lights, with these lights. 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.799 But you know, it's like in every field, I think 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:03.360 there is a demand for people to be looking at themselves. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:03.320 More and more. 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:05.480 It's a kind of double headed trend, right, because on 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.760 the one hand, is so like the image of our 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:11.760 face talking into the ether has never been more important 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.120 nor more easy to fabricate. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.120 That's right. And this is the way that tech is facilitating, 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.320 not the problem, but this idea that you kind of 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.040 need to be hot in order to work in the 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.760 job market. Very normal people who do not know how 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.240 to take headshots are using very simple AI tools to 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:33.079 say I'm not just Emily, I'm yasified Emily, and I'm 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.160 going to take this picture of me and my dog 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.120 and I'm going to turn it into my head shot. 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.800 You know everyone talks about Instagram face. Yeah, Instagram face 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:47.280 is like lip augmentation, botox, GLP ones being on the rise, 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.280 plastic surgery of especially amongst men, which we talked about 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:54.160 on the show. I think there's now something that we 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.360 can call LinkedIn face that we're actually changing the way 0:03:58.400 --> 0:03:59.800 we look for professional reasons. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.400 I heard that some people are actually getting plastic surgery 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:04.839 men in particular to look more alert's. 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.480 Isn't that bizarre? The eye is the eye surgery, like 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:11.280 constantly looking like listen. 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.480 I'm gonna be awake during these forty million hour weeks 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:14.040 that I'm working. 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.440 Yeah, totally zoom phage zoom face. 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.600 Actually, I think about this particularly in my other sort 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.800 of founder CEO role. I do think like I'm losing 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.680 my hair a bit, like it too fat, like less 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.159 credible because I don't sort of match this particular aesthetic. 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.080 So I think it's probably being amplified by tech, but 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:33.360 it is not like a new thing. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.400 I think the takeaway for me is that as the 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.800 job market gets tighter and tighter, looks maxing in general 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.920 is something that is playing into the way people get jobs. 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:47.159 And I think that when you see the sort of 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:52.479 most successful billionaires looks maxing, if you're someone who even 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:53.360 aspires to be. 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:54.719 A millionaire, bezos. 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.080 You're right that, like, all right, I better get my 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.480 I think it's actually really interesting. I do think that 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.960 our chronic onlineness has led us down this path of 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.400 temptation to sort of change our face and what we 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.880 look like and how we interact digitally. And I think 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:15.599 that there is now a pushback and it ties into 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:17.359 the story that I want to tell you, which is 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.680 about how unplugging became luxury's most valuable currency. Huh, I 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:22.960 actually said this to you. I think when we were 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:28.880 reporting on Sleepwalkers that to me, exclusivity has always been 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:29.400 a luxury. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:31.760 Scarcity is is luxury? 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:37.200 What is scarce in the digital age? Offline, being offline, 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.200 an analog And so the story that I want to 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.200 tell you that comes from Vogue Business, which is about 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.839 this woman who goes by the name of cat GPT. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.960 She's a creator. She recently decided to connect her cell 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:52.839 phone to an analog phone in an attempt to cut 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.440 down her screen time. Now the irony is her post 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.560 about her no phone mourning went viral because of course 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:00.159 she had to put. 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.360 You can't, you can't and you can only be offline performatively, 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.320 right if you're just offline nobody knows the thing. 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:12.000 If you like tree files in the forest exactly, if 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:12.880 you if. 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.760 You're offline without telling people you're offline on your social media, 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:16.440 are you offline? 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:18.680 It reminds me of this great Onion headline once that 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:23.599 was like woman runs marathon, tells nobody why. But you know, 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.520 actually from that viral piece, she created this company called 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:32.760 Physical Phones, which sells Bluetooth connected analog phones and cat 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.680 GPT told Vogue quote, people are really turned off by 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.960 technology right now. They're turned off by AI. And by 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.680 the way, we tend to conflate AI with social media 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:43.760 and our phones. 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:44.920 I think that's right. 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:46.240 I mean, I think that's when we talked about this 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.800 a few times with the new Luddites and honestly with 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.599 your journey this year in terms of doing less social 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.760 media and being offline. I every morning try and make 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:57.280 sure I don't look at my phone for the first 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.440 thirteen minutes it's awake, So I think it's it's it's 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.640 But what's interesting, and this is I guess a Vogue 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:07.400 business story, is that this like trend and cultural desire 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:08.520 is being. 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.560 Exactly exactly and it's similar to the and I know 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.040 this from running a book club where we were working 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.720 with fashion brands. It's similar to what happened with the 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.600 literary space, which was all of a sudden everyone was like, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:25.040 it's time to read. 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.880 I know, I watched hundreds of hours of you flicking 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.600 through books on Instagram. But how do you concentrate on 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:33.840 the book when you're also making social content about yourself? 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:34.360 Is interesting? 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.800 Well, that's why people ask if it's performative reading into that. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:38.680 I say, no, it's not. 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.320 There was a rumor that you were a celebrity. 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:43.280 Book book stylist. 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.440 Yes, I that you gave celebrity books that they could 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:47.080 be papped with. 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:48.160 That's right, true or not? 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.280 I can't say. I still can't. 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:52.120 I still want to say. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.200 But going back to this why it's a Vogue business piece. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:08:00.040 You know, this idea that brands are now investing in 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:05.600 luddite behavior like Burbery sponsored an outdoor walk with a 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.640 group of women who were just trying to connect to nature. 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:10.840 You know what I mean. It's just there's something so 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:17.120 interesting about to me that not using technology can be 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:18.680 something that is in the zeitgeist. 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.679 We have this, I guess, tremendous nostalgia for a lost time. 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.520 We do and I think it's I mean, I was 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.040 kind of laughing. I was looking at the Physical Phones 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:32.080 website this morning, and I mean, apparently people are buying 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.480 these physical phones. I think the irony that they're connected 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.160 via Bluetooth is not lost on me. But in a 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:42.719 moment of actually great irony, AI companies are actually up 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:43.560 on this trend. 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:44.480 I saw this. 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:46.800 There was a piece in The Times about how the 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.800 all of the marketing campaigns of the major AI companies 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.600 don't include AI, and didn't didn't Anthropic open a pop 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:54.520 up in New York. 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:59.240 The Zero Slop Zone, so you would go inside. It 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:01.240 was this you know pop up in the West Village 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.360 where all pop ups are, and inside you were asked 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.440 to unplug and interact with other humans. So the company 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.480 actually passed out baseball caps, really some really hard hitting 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.320 stuff that read thinking. And they were also handing out 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.360 hard copies of a fifteen thousand word essay written by 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.240 the Anthropics CEO Dario amo Day. The essay is called 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.360 Machines of Loving Grace, How AI could transform the world 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:27.959 for the better. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.920 I mean, having a super premium printed essay handed out 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.079 by an AI company in a pop up in the 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:35.600 West village. 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.439 I mean there is a kind of mind melting quality 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:38.720 to this. 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.600 I was thinking, Actually, I saw Elon was on X 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.160 this week talking about something that was actually connected, and 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:46.360 I want to play you a clip please. 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.840 When digital media is ubiquitous and you can just have 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.920 anything digitally essentially for free or very close to for free, 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.760 then the scarce commodity will be live events. 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.000 There we go, the scares com It'll be live events. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:03.360 Just Also, one more thing that I thought was very funny. 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:07.080 Part of being able to be let into this, you know, 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.600 zero slop zone was that you had to have cloud 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:11.720 on your phone. Of course, so they weren't like letting 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.199 people in willy nilly to like read a fifteen thousand 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:15.960 word essay that you had to have cloud on your phone. 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:17.240 Which is funny. 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.480 Was having an AX, which entitles you to buy water 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:20.640 full price of the USA. 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:21.920 That's that's exactly right. 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.360 We're going to give you a free bad ear radio 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.240 if you spend eight hundred dollars a year on the 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.720 American Express. The other thing that I thought was really 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.640 interesting is that open Ai actually shot their latest ads 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.120 on thirty five millimeter film and insisted that no AI 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.720 was used in the making of the ad. That's Oppenheimer's stat. 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.640 Living in the end times, it's just like, either be 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:43.720 what you are or don't be what you are, but 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.120 don't like try to make a gimmick about how you're 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:50.840 using analog film to make a commercial about the product 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.040 that's probably going to change the world most drastically in 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:55.080 the next ten years. 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:57.680 So Caro, I'm going to switch gears a little bit. Now. 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.640 You brought up hotness earlier. Do you know what the 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:07.280 hottest thing of all time is? What the sun? Okay, 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.240 so I want to talk to you about the sun. 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:14.480 Imagine if the solution to global warming was as simple 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:16.360 as blocking sunlight. 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:17.880 This is interesting. 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.520 Yeah, So I actually read a piece in Bloomberg about 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:22.839 how there's tens of millions of dollars being invested right 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:29.120 now into an area of technology called solar geoengineering. Okay, Basically, 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.160 what they're trying to do is to do something called 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:38.160 stratospheric aerosol injection. Basically, the premise is if you can 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:43.000 sort of shoot reflective particles into the sky, they can 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.199 reflect the sunlight back towards the sun, and it's actually 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:47.120 it happens naturally. 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:48.720 So we're fighting the sun with the sun. 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.280 We were sort of turning the sun itself. Yeah, exactly. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.200 This actually happens after a volcano erupts. It happens anyway. 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.760 All of the stuff, the sulfur dioxide that goes into 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:04.120 the environment after a volcano, a period of cooling often follows. 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.720 So some people are experimenting with pumping sulfur dioxide in 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.360 the environment, which can cause acid, rain damage, the ozone 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:12.280 and asthma attacks. 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:13.199 Great. 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.400 I mean there are others though, who are using other 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.560 theoretically non harmful materials. And there's kind of two tracks 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.079 to this. On the one hand, there's a government track. 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:28.800 The UK Advanced Research and Invention Agency has invested seventy 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:30.720 five million dollars researching. 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:32.120 This insignific not insignificant. 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:37.280 But a private company called star Dust of course, which 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.400 is a sexier name than the Advanced Research Invention Agency, 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:44.400 has raised sixty million dollars and they are looking to 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.480 pattern a chemical that has fewer drawbacks than sulfur dioxide. 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.040 There's also a company called Make Sunsets, which is which 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.000 is selling cooling credits for one dollar a pop to anyone. 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.079 You can buy one. You remember when you were a 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:00.600 kid that you could buy an acre on the moon. 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:02.720 Of course, of course this is the acre on the 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:04.319 Moon the. 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.239 Green Bay Packers. Yeah, it's so interesting. 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.560 So for one dollar you can have the good feeling 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:14.080 of paying for a sulfur dioxide balloon that explodes into 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:14.560 the environment. 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.120 I should have bought one. I should have bought one. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.240 The EPA has suggested it's not maybe not the best idea, 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.160 and the company has two founders, neither of whom are scientists, 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:27.160 one are technologists, and one's a marketer. They claim on 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:30.400 their website that one gram of particles in a stratosphere 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:34.360 prevents the warming caused by a ton of carbon dioxide, 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:36.760 which is about as credible as when you are offered 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.280 the opportunity to spend an extra dollar on your flight. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.920 Carbon exactly. I just think it's I mean, it's an 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:47.360 interesting text story because from what you've read or what 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:51.280 you've learned in reporting this, like has has any significant 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:52.480 change been made? 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:53.480 I don't. 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.600 I don't think so yet. But Elon actually, and I'm 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.280 sorry to bring it up again, has talked about sending 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.640 a fleet of solar powered satellites into the atmosphere in 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.360 order to reflect sunlight. So this is like a kind 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.320 of tech bro thing. I mean, there's a kind of 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.520 icarous esque quality to this story. 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:13.800 Don't you think it has something to do with controlling 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:15.360 such an unruly element? 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:19.640 Can you imagine controlling the sun? There's nothing more potentate. 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.880 If you can't take over the Earth, take over the sun. 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:23.600 But it has that little bit quality of like, oh, 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.320 you know, there's global warming, let's think about colonizing Mars 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:27.240 global warming. 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.800 Let's pump random chemical and. 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.000 See what happens. It just seems like a fool's errand 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:32.320 to me. 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:37.200 Yeah, Well, interestingly, there's a kind of an analogous technology 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:39.600 which is being used and has been being used for 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.000 quite a long time called cloud seeding I've heard of 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.640 and cloud seeding has also been in the headlines recently 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:49.720 because there's there's a huge cataclysmic flooding storm in Dubai 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.800 last year and some people think it's because of cloud seeding. 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:55.960 And what is cloud seeding exactly? 0:14:56.320 --> 0:15:00.480 Cloud seeding is basically, if there are clouds in this god, yeah, 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.520 you can get them to rain by giving them particulate 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:05.920 to coalesce. 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.720 It's like oxytose. If you take oxytocin, sometimes it helps 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:09.920 you cry, Is that right? 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:10.240 Yeah? 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.680 Or you know, actors very famously use menthol blowers to 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.520 make themselves cry because it like blows mint essentially into 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.160 your eyes and it makes you tear up. 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.960 That's atreat great analogy. This is a quote from the 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.640 Bloomberg piece about cloud seeding. There are natural seating agents 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.640 dust that's blown into the troposphere, or the miasmic stench 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.440 of ammonia gas wafting up from penguin poo in Antarctic 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:39.600 colonies above which researchers have observed extra cloud cover. There 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:44.000 are unnatural agents too, such as stratocumulous trails above shipping 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.120 lanes caused by engine pollution. Plain old salt seems to 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:52.800 work in early experiments. Pilots toss it out of plane windows. 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.600 I would love to see pilots are like thrown salt. 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.480 Well right now, shoulders so now that the innovation is 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.160 to cover salt in titanium, which I'm not quite sure why. 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:05.480 But in Dubai right now, there's a fleet of planes 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.880 that whenever a cloud, you can't create a cloud, but 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:09.560 as soon as a cloud comes into the sky, it's 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:15.720 basically like clouds showing as much titanium coated salt into 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:16.760 the cloud as possible. 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.200 That's crazy, It's it's pretty bizarre. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.160 And so the original verdict was that cloud seeding had 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.520 nothing to do with this cataclysmic flooding in Dubai. It 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.600 was a conspiracy theory, blah blah blah. However, this Bloomberg 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:30.920 piece that came out this month that actually there may 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:32.920 have been a substantial amount of cloud. 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.880 Seeding in the days around this huge flood. So interesting, 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:37.240 Be careful what you wish for. 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:39.560 The thing that makes me think about here is like 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:44.520 we are now acting as gods, including in human gene editing. 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.400 Like there's that crazy scientist in China who edited the 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:52.360 heritable human DNA thing, so that irreversible over generations if 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.160 that person procreates similarly, like you know. The Bloomberg piece 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.400 made a good point that the average lifespan of a 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.160 major private of a major public listed company is now 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:06.560 fifteen years. So if your horizons are the next financial quarter, 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:08.679 you may think you know have at it. 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:09.800 Why not, let's try. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.920 But if your horizons are let's say, even your children, 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:17.399 right or your children's children. I have a feeling that 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.720 we may look back on this time of cloud seeding 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:27.040 and star dust and gene line editing, and think, how 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:27.520 was it. 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:29.720 That's all we can do? 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.960 That was all we could do. It does beg the 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.160 question like how effective are these things? 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:35.840 Unknown? 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:37.960 And to the star doests make the point we're already 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.359 geo engineering because we're pumping so much common dioxide and 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.880 other crap into the atmosphere that it would be unreasonable 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.639 not to use technology to try and counteract the negative 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.040 consequences we're already generating through technology. 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.199 I just think it's really interesting that these are private 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:57.199 companies that are trying to do this, because obviously we 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.320 know that anything the government tries to get done is 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.639 going to take forecs, and private companies like taking it 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:08.600 upon themselves. It's it's a sort of oligarchical mentality of 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.280 like we're going to take responsibility for how it rains. 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:12.879 I mean, these are I. 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.440 Don't imagine if the Manhattan Project had been private, like 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.439 tons of nuclear explos. 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.040 There'd be no US. It's very true, it's very true, 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.600 But now this seems to be so popular. You know, 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.119 private companies move a lot faster than governments, and the 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.000 speed at which climate change is occurring means that there's 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:36.400 not much time for governments to catch up. 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.280 After the break, Polymarket continues to bet. 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:42.960 On the Ukraine Russia war. 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:48.639 Japan's latest invention claims to wash your soul, and twenty 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.000 three in meter users assuing, then you found relatives for 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:53.439 a slice of the inheritance. 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.000 Then un chat and me Happy third birthday, Chat GPT, 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:12.760 watch out, Google might outpace you, and. 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:13.520 We're back, Cara. 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.479 Remember poly Market, the online gambling site where you can 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:18.959 basically bet on anything. 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:20.480 It's my favorite thing in the world. It's how we 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:21.640 knew Mom Danny was going to win. 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.640 They had basically called the election based on betting volume. 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:26.679 Before the election happened. 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:28.600 We talked about it last time on the show, in 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.640 relation to the betting volume on whether or not presidents 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.159 the lens you would wear a suit. Unfortunately, and distastefully, 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.080 people seem unable to be able to get enough of 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:44.040 betting on Ukraine Russia war stuff. One such bet is 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:49.280 around whether Russia will capture a town called Mirno by 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:53.680 November fifteenth, will be called mir No Grad in Russian. 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.560 But in Ukrainian Mino. I know because I have Ukrainian grandfather. 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:57.159 Yes you do. 0:19:57.400 --> 0:19:59.600 The battle around this city is dragged on for weeks 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.679 and it's actually generated more than a million dollars in 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.720 trading volume on polymarket about whether or not russiall will 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.960 capture this town. Poly Market in order to determine whether 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.240 or not Russia has captured the town, uses maps of 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.159 the front lines generated by something called the Institute for 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.560 the Study of War, which is a DC based think tank. 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.359