Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host, Josh Watspolski,
Speaker 1: And before we get into the show, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about traveling. I have a very particular feeling about traveling,
Speaker 1: particularly traveling by plane, and having just done some traveling,
Speaker 1: I have certain points of dread, I would say, in
Speaker 1: the experience, and I don't know if everybody has these.
Speaker 1: I don't know if everyone experiences travel quite the way
Speaker 1: that I do. Like, I feel like when I'm in
Speaker 1: airport and I look at people, people seem generally. Now
Speaker 1: this could be a projection or whatever, me reading into things,
Speaker 1: I feel like people at the airport are having a
Speaker 1: better time than I am. Like when I look around,
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody enjoying what they're doing or enjoying
Speaker 1: their trip more than I am. For me, a trip
Speaker 1: is just a series of hurdles that I've got a
Speaker 1: vault over, a series of anxiety portals that I must
Speaker 1: pass through until I get to my destination. And I
Speaker 1: think some of that is driven by my well. I
Speaker 1: think I have a problem with flying because it takes
Speaker 1: me completely out of control of the situation and I'm
Speaker 1: not a good passenger anywhere, Like in a car or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't like to take trains that much. But on
Speaker 1: a plane you feel especially powerless and out of control.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course if a plane typically when
Speaker 1: a plane crashes, which doesn't happen that often, but it
Speaker 1: does happen, it's not like, oh, there were some injuries,
Speaker 1: you know, like a car crash is like, oh the
Speaker 1: guy got his arm broken, or well he had to
Speaker 1: be he was in the hospital for six months, but
Speaker 1: you know then he recovered, or well he'll never walk again,
Speaker 1: but he's still alive. I mean, of course, people die
Speaker 1: in car accidents, in fact, more often than than you know,
Speaker 1: they're more likely to die in a car accident than
Speaker 1: you are on a plane. So but there's that kind
Speaker 1: of feel like, well, if the plane does crash, that's
Speaker 1: it for me. I'm I'm toast. And then you know,
Speaker 1: there's the whole thing with seats because I'm very tall,
Speaker 1: and uh, it can be very uncomfortable. Uh, it can
Speaker 1: be very hold on, I'm getting a call which I
Speaker 1: need to take. I understand this, this is very bad timing.
Speaker 1: But one second, hello.
Speaker 2: Josh, yes, sir, you know who this is, right, Well,
Speaker 2: I mean there's only one person who can cut right
Speaker 2: into mind. Who is this?
Speaker 1: It's the professor. It's always the professor. It's only the professor.
Speaker 2: Professor scientists, Sir, professor scientists, Sir professor scientists, sir. Yes,
Speaker 2: I like to take control immediately.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: You know you hear my laugh right now, right? And
Speaker 2: I do so enjoy our conversations, both on air and
Speaker 2: off air. Yes, but I will tell you this. I
Speaker 2: come into this conversation today ship ton of anxiety, and
Speaker 2: imagine a ton of ship. Okay, any type of excrement
Speaker 2: I've got, I've got it, do you really? I got
Speaker 2: in my mind's eye right now. I got it in
Speaker 2: my mind's and it's very detailed. It's on your front doorstep.
Speaker 2: It's more than the doorstep. It's in your yard. Okay,
Speaker 2: your chowt is about.
Speaker 1: Could be good. I mean you have to stop.
Speaker 2: I held it from going out inquiring what is that
Speaker 2: thing everywhere near that? It's get away from that power
Speaker 2: of ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's a ton, yeah, of anxiety, of anxiety, and I'm
Speaker 2: not enjoying it. And even though I'm giggling about it, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm very serious.
Speaker 1: Well, giggling is just a it's a defense mechanism against anxiety. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm doing a bad job at everything,
Speaker 1: and that makes me feel anxious. But I'm not so
Speaker 1: anxious that I'm going to do a better job. If
Speaker 1: that makes you feel any better, So.
Speaker 2: I should write that down. That would be like a
Speaker 2: perfect little piece of wisdom in your in your book.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should write a book of little little witticisms
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, all right, my anxiety levels for shiit?
Speaker 1: What's causing you anxiety? You're you should be relaxed, man,
Speaker 1: I should be Yeah, well, I know you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of stress because you've got you've got big projects,
Speaker 1: you got to deal with big people, big personalities.
Speaker 2: It's not just stress. It's just I don't know. I
Speaker 2: think stress is more of an external force and anxiety
Speaker 2: is more of an internal force.
Speaker 1: That sounds like something that a very smart therapist would say.
Speaker 2: No, I just I just said it. I just blurted
Speaker 2: that out.
Speaker 1: You should write a book of witticisms.
Speaker 2: Oh you want to hear some of my witticisms. Yes,
Speaker 2: I said this to somebody today. I can be accused
Speaker 2: of being a little self righteous, which I'm okay with. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I can be I have a little bit of
Speaker 2: a bar.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'll say yeah.
Speaker 2: And I came up with this thought years ago that
Speaker 2: when I feel like I have a leg to stand on,
Speaker 2: which to me indicates I'm right, I'm just right about it.
Speaker 2: I'm not always right, but this, in a particular moment,
Speaker 2: it's irrefutable. I am right. Somebody's wrong, somebody's lying, somebody's
Speaker 2: doing something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I.
Speaker 2: Have a leg to stand on, I take the leg
Speaker 2: I'm not standing on and I'll beat somebody over the
Speaker 2: head with it. I should write that one down figuratively literally, Yeah,
Speaker 2: figure it. Both your legs are attached permanently. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: not like I'm gonna go beat anybody.
Speaker 1: Up without naming names. Can you give me a basic
Speaker 1: structure of the what's causing the anxiety?
Speaker 2: Well, scaffolding, it's uh, mortality has always been an issue
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: Aging mortality is an issue for everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I have an acute sense of my mortality,
Speaker 2: as my shrink says, which I do.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, acute.
Speaker 2: But what I've never really been conscious of so much so,
Speaker 2: not in a in a silly way or is the
Speaker 2: word blitheful way? Is that no, I don't blithe way
Speaker 2: is uh aging? But I've got aging on the brain.
Speaker 1: Now this is this is an interesting topic because I
Speaker 1: have a similar I've had a similar thing on on my.
Speaker 2: And I'm not feeling my age, but I'm conscious of
Speaker 2: my age. And that didn't happen until a handful of
Speaker 2: years ago. And through the handful of years I had
Speaker 2: a couple dear friends pass away and we were all
Speaker 2: read around the same age. And I've been thinking about
Speaker 2: my age, which was not part of my internal dialogue
Speaker 2: right and now it's there every day. Why what are
Speaker 2: you thinking about your age?
Speaker 1: Well, I will say that I think that I've always
Speaker 1: felt and as for as long as about as long
Speaker 1: as I can remember, I've always felt that I was
Speaker 1: sort of like didn't have enough time to accomplish all
Speaker 1: the things that I wanted to accomplish, even though I'm
Speaker 1: a master procrastinator and will definitely sit on shit indefinitely.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is I don't think at all about
Speaker 1: at least not consciously. I don't spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time thinking about mortality, nor do I think about my age.
Speaker 1: And if I have any thought about my age, it
Speaker 1: is that I don't feel dramatically different or older than
Speaker 1: I did twenty years ago. By the way, I don't either, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So so now, Laura, my wife, likes to point out
Speaker 1: that we are old all the time, like on a
Speaker 1: regular basis. She will say stuff like we're old now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a slippery slope.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel kind of shitty because because I
Speaker 1: don't feel I don't feel old, and I don't and
Speaker 1: I don't identify as like an old person, and I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I have like somehow done all the
Speaker 1: things I'm going to do or lived all of the
Speaker 1: life I'm going to live. But it makes me think
Speaker 1: about it. I'm like, well, is am I just deluding myself?
Speaker 1: How deluded am I? About who I am and where
Speaker 1: I sit in the kind of spectrum on the spectrum
Speaker 1: of time? So you know, it pops up occasionally. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's funny because every time I talk about my age
Speaker 1: on the show, I say, oh, I'm very close to dying.
Speaker 1: But it's like it's a joke because I'm obviously not.
Speaker 1: I like to think that I'm not. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm alway to talk to Laura, I might have to
Speaker 1: sit Laura, you should you should talk to her about it,
Speaker 1: because I think she's creating a real bad It creates
Speaker 1: a really bad vibeth.
Speaker 2: It becomes a slippery slope, self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think it's like why I think about
Speaker 1: yourself like that, Why I think about in these terms
Speaker 1: of like old or young. I don't feel any age.
Speaker 2: I never did until about five years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not. Nobody's dying in my world. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm just just hanging out, just LIVI.
Speaker 2: You know, all right, I'm going to jump around a
Speaker 2: little bit, but I'm going to mood today. Here we go,
Speaker 2: Here we go. I saw a documentary it's about the
Speaker 2: No No People, which I had never heard before. Okay,
Speaker 2: but the No No People were the Japanese West Coast,
Speaker 2: primarily Japanese people who were in turn during World War two, Right.
Speaker 2: And there was a twenty eight questions questionnaire that was
Speaker 2: given to these to all these people as they're about
Speaker 2: to be interned. As I called it, like, number twenty
Speaker 2: seven is will you take up arms on behalf of
Speaker 2: the United States? Right basically, And then number twenty eight
Speaker 2: was some version of do you sympathize side with the
Speaker 2: japan right, So these people wouldn't answer those questions. Hence
Speaker 2: they answered twenty six, but on twenty seven and twenty
Speaker 2: eight they wouldn't answer them, and they became known as
Speaker 2: the no no people right now, and they were sent
Speaker 2: to a more harsh internment camp in Arizona called Camp Tully, right, right,
Speaker 2: So all of it was harsh, but Camp a little
Speaker 2: bit more harsh, and these people were seen as real troublemakers.
Speaker 2: But in fact, so many of the Japanese people, as
Speaker 2: it turns out, were you know, like God love them.
Speaker 2: It's just a you know, this is a beautiful race
Speaker 2: of people. And they were like, they weren't rioting. They
Speaker 2: weren't like pulling a January sixth on anybody, right, they
Speaker 2: certainly weren't happy.
Speaker 1: Only the only white people do stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Fact, by the way, only white people do that. Because
Speaker 2: here's my question, if we were to think that, okay,
Speaker 2: because of geography and proximity. Okay, so Asian and we
Speaker 2: were often referred to as the West Coast Asians, right,
Speaker 2: So it makes you think probably not too many Asians
Speaker 2: at that time of America on the East Coast in
Speaker 2: relationship to the West coast. But if we imprisoned all
Speaker 2: the Japanese people, did we try and imprison any of
Speaker 2: the German people on the East coast?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a whole This is a whole different.
Speaker 2: And why did we not? Oh? Because they looked like us,
Speaker 2: because they were a bunch of white people.
Speaker 1: This is uh. But also a huge amount of Nazi
Speaker 1: sympathizers in America.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I made that. I made that point demand
Speaker 2: the earlier in the day to a.
Speaker 1: Huge amount of a bit of still to this day
Speaker 1: and and and historically for sure. Just imagine thinking you're
Speaker 1: the center of the known universe for your entire existence,
Speaker 1: in the existence of all of your ancestors, just thinking
Speaker 1: that you control and rule all of the earth, and
Speaker 1: discovering that that's not the case, And how little it
Speaker 1: must make you feel deep down. I mean I can
Speaker 1: only imagine. I mean, I'm a white man, I'm Jewish,
Speaker 1: so I'm a minority. Basically, we're a certain kind of minority.
Speaker 1: We're not we look like I look like a white guy.
Speaker 1: But I definitely will be killed as soon as the
Speaker 1: Nazis get to power.
Speaker 2: Oh I shouldn't laugh at that one.
Speaker 1: If the guys in New York who are the Hasidic
Speaker 1: Jews can identify me and ask me if I want
Speaker 1: to pray with them on the street, they'll just pull
Speaker 1: me over and say do you want to? That happens,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a very common thing that happens in
Speaker 1: New York. They try to get something called a minion together,
Speaker 1: which is a group of men praying. I've heard of that,
Speaker 1: and at any rate, but if they can identify me,
Speaker 1: I guarantee you whoever, like Donald Trump Junior, can identify
Speaker 1: that I'm Jewish as well. But yeah, no, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's like. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it's like to feel to feel so good about myself.
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I don't think any Jewish person
Speaker 1: knows this, To feel really good about like who you
Speaker 1: are and what you've done, Like, I'm not sure that's
Speaker 1: an emotion I can get in touch with. But but
Speaker 1: the but these Europeans, these white people, I mean, they've
Speaker 1: just been riding this wave of success, you know, seeming success,
Speaker 1: and it is very I think it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: to imagine a world where you are not the top dog.
Speaker 1: And of course that world is a there's only one
Speaker 1: solution for them, because that world's imminent, that world is
Speaker 1: is here. The only solution for them is to kill,
Speaker 1: is to do just like to do a genocide, because
Speaker 1: like there's no way, how well you can't stop they can't.
Speaker 1: They know they can't stop it. I mean, the ship
Speaker 1: that's going on in America with these Nazis and stuff
Speaker 1: like actual Nazis and this Ronda Santis shit is just
Speaker 1: a pure expression of like the last gasp of this
Speaker 1: kind of European U eurocentric white culture that they've built
Speaker 1: up and that they think was they thought was forever,
Speaker 1: was going to be forever. And unfortunately it's not very
Speaker 1: sad for them. So I mean, but you know, they
Speaker 1: might just they might just like Adam Bambas, you know
Speaker 1: they've done it before.
Speaker 2: You're giving me segues and you don't even know it.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know it. I have no idea
Speaker 1: what we're talking about or why we're talking about it.
Speaker 2: But in lockstep today and lots of stuff to often
Speaker 2: often you and I are combative.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say off in we are arguing about
Speaker 1: that interesting.
Speaker 2: We like to we like to rib each other a lot,
Speaker 2: But today I'm not in a ribbing mood.
Speaker 1: No, you're too anxiety ridden to rib I'm too anxiety
Speaker 1: too much thinking about mortality.
Speaker 2: Did you read the latest report out the BBC on
Speaker 2: AI as if everybody in the world isn't talking about AI?
Speaker 1: But no, no, but I'm happy. Let's get engage on this.
Speaker 1: I'm ready. What's the report? Oh, the one about how
Speaker 1: it makes extinct or whatever?
Speaker 2: Yes, even the I think even the guy who's created
Speaker 2: or funding.
Speaker 1: And the guy who runs open AI is very worried.
Speaker 1: Interesting marketing tactic, I would say, to make your products
Speaker 1: seem extremely powerful and valuable. A couple of things on that.
Speaker 1: First off, like, I hope it's I would love to
Speaker 1: see I'd love to be wiped out by an AI personally,
Speaker 1: speaking on just a straight up basic level.
Speaker 2: I just lazers you from outer space.
Speaker 1: He so lucky to have the AI turn on us
Speaker 1: and wipe out you.
Speaker 2: Man, How does it wipe you out? Does a laser
Speaker 2: just come from outer space?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Lasers? Sure? Fine, Listen, you have to you do
Speaker 1: have to game it out a little bit, right, because
Speaker 1: today the AI will uh it doesn't do a lot.
Speaker 1: And also it's not really AI, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: language model, which is because humans are very, very dumb,
Speaker 1: I think we should just first I want to lay
Speaker 1: this out there. Well, we're dumb. We're dumb because I mean,
Speaker 1: storytelling is it is what drives humanity. And by the
Speaker 1: way that my career in journalism and in other forms
Speaker 1: of storytelling has been very much driven personally by this
Speaker 1: idea that telling a story the right way, or finding
Speaker 1: this story to tell and telling it is like, has huge,
Speaker 1: huge value for people. It can change someone's life, it
Speaker 1: can change someone's mind, it can it can it can
Speaker 1: reorient you in the world, and it's like very powerful. Right,
Speaker 1: So storytelling is extremely important, but it is also like
Speaker 1: the basis of all humanity essentially right that we are
Speaker 1: this is the only way that we ever get anywhere
Speaker 1: is by convincing each other of a narrative. Right. Like
Speaker 1: gay marriage is a good example. Like right gay marriage
Speaker 1: happened in America largely because we convinced, like there was
Speaker 1: a narrative that started to make sense to people, that
Speaker 1: you could tell them a story about what marriage was
Speaker 1: and what it meant that was different than the one
Speaker 1: they had been told. Previously, and they could, they could,
Speaker 1: they could understand it, and they'd buy into it. And
Speaker 1: I think so much of that had to do with
Speaker 1: like changing the narrative, like literally changing the conversation and
Speaker 1: the story that we tell.
Speaker 2: What do you think the dude is doing?
Speaker 1: Who?
Speaker 2: Who? What's his name? Stuart?
Speaker 1: Who's Sam Altman? Sam? Runs open?
Speaker 2: What's what's he doing? When he says, Hey, this thing
Speaker 2: is really dangerous?
Speaker 1: Basically, I think he's saying, my company is so valuable
Speaker 1: and so powerful. We've created something that even I don't
Speaker 1: understand the power of. And I hope I get I
Speaker 1: hope you will. Uh, the government America, I hope your
Speaker 1: military will invest heavily billions of dollars of my technology
Speaker 1: to use raft to learn how to you know, bomb
Speaker 1: people better or whatever. And the NSA would want it
Speaker 1: to help them learn about what people's behaviors are. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, other companies will want to buy. And he's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's so powerful. I don't know. I mean, maybe you
Speaker 1: can throw me a few bucks. We could figure it
Speaker 1: out together. I think he's a master marketer. Uh. And
Speaker 1: but here's what it is. I mean, this model tells
Speaker 1: us stories really well, and we're so fucking stupid. We're
Speaker 1: so dumb. And I gotta say just monkey level stupidity
Speaker 1: here with humanity that the bed the better the story is,
Speaker 1: the more believable it is to us, regardless of it
Speaker 1: is if it is actually believable or has any facts
Speaker 1: in it. Like there's a great story that's been going
Speaker 1: around about this lawyer who presented this brief, this dissent
Speaker 1: or something in a case, and it had all cited
Speaker 1: all of these different cases that he had used chat
Speaker 1: GPT to get and all of the cases were made
Speaker 1: up with like extremely detailed citations. But every one of
Speaker 1: the cases was invented by chat GPT because its job
Speaker 1: is to model what we believe we wanted to tell us, right,
Speaker 1: It models what we think what it thinks. The next
Speaker 1: part of the conversation is, so we're in this state
Speaker 1: of total panic because like, what else could it do?
Speaker 1: But I think to a couple of things there.
Speaker 2: Let me interrupt you before, because when you talk about
Speaker 2: predictiveness meets AI meets telling a story meets marketing. You know,
Speaker 2: have I ever told you to read this book called
Speaker 2: If Then by Joe Lapour?
Speaker 1: I have been reading it actually started reading it because
Speaker 1: you told me that's right. We did have the I
Speaker 1: I fell off of I'm in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: You guys never finished. It's it great, it's great. It's
Speaker 1: a great book.
Speaker 2: It's really a great book. And she's a great writer,
Speaker 2: but terrific, one of the best. What she points out
Speaker 2: and I won't ruin it for people, But the way
Speaker 2: that this Marketer, you know, Madison Avenue guy got hold
Speaker 2: of a computer, so to speak, and guys who knew
Speaker 2: how to operate the earliest, earliest days of computer and
Speaker 2: how they their initial interest was how do we get
Speaker 2: I think it was how do we get a person
Speaker 2: to switch from one cigarette to another? And it threw
Speaker 2: multiple hands. Political hands eventually started to years later predict
Speaker 2: where we were supposed to bomb certain villages in Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Right, Kisdinger got his hands on it, and it was
Speaker 1: off to the raises. Yeah, I assume. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but he's one of the greatest war criminals we've ever known.
Speaker 2: I know you I have a passion for him.
Speaker 1: No, I don't really Actually, it's just anyhow he's been
Speaker 1: in the news because he just turned one hundredth But god.
Speaker 2: Where was I so the guy, he's a great marketer,
Speaker 2: and he just.
Speaker 1: Talking about the stories, the stories. It's very good.
Speaker 2: And then the other guy, the attorney, creates all those things.
Speaker 1: But it's just it's just excellent at shaping something that
Speaker 1: feels so alive, feels so real, that we start to
Speaker 1: ascribe all these qualities to it. Give it all of
Speaker 1: these give it all this power like money in a way, actually,
Speaker 1: you know. And so we're all in a panic now
Speaker 1: about AI wiping out humanity. And again I have to say,
Speaker 1: I strongly advocate for it wiping out of humanity at
Speaker 1: the hands of AI if it can, but it cannot.
Speaker 1: I think it's hard for us to imagine the mind
Speaker 1: of a person who comes to this not in where
Speaker 1: we have come to it mid mid life already having
Speaker 1: learned a bunch of other habits, but somebody who's coming
Speaker 1: to it brand new. Will they be more addicted, will
Speaker 1: they be less addicted? Well, they find the things that
Speaker 1: we find uh so fascinating less interesting. I think there's
Speaker 1: a as a really like wild kind of set of
Speaker 1: possibilities that have nothing to do with anything that we
Speaker 1: already think that we know about how we use these
Speaker 1: devices Because I don't think that we have as a
Speaker 1: as a species actually begun to even understand what they
Speaker 1: do at all. So so you're, you know, the counter
Speaker 1: argument could be, well, that's why we're going to blow
Speaker 1: ourselves up with AI. I think right now, the danger
Speaker 1: that AI poses is that it makes things, It makes
Speaker 1: faking things very easy, and misinformation more than anything. And
Speaker 1: by the way, going back to the narrative of storytelling,
Speaker 1: misinformation is far more dangerous than the atom bomb in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, right like the oh fucking snore,
Speaker 1: if snore, if you are a professor.
Speaker 2: You're you're stating in the arvious, I can't believe that
Speaker 2: you are here, am I Do you think the most
Speaker 2: dangerous part is fake and creating false So.
Speaker 1: It's now I think at this moment, in this moment.
Speaker 2: And do you think that that's actually going to get
Speaker 2: better because it's these fake false moments almost just created
Speaker 2: a civil war.
Speaker 1: And you think when where.
Speaker 2: January sixth could have maybe but.
Speaker 1: That AI had nothing to do with that. That was
Speaker 1: just regular old people doing their thing.
Speaker 2: Well it wasn't. AI didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 2: false news had something to do with it, right.
Speaker 1: But that's so that's not even a thing. That's a
Speaker 1: fake idea too. That's just like fake news is a
Speaker 1: fake concept.
Speaker 2: But you don't think you just said we're going to
Speaker 2: be able to create more falsehoods. Yes, through through an
Speaker 2: information just information.
Speaker 1: Call it what you will, but that's what the fucking
Speaker 1: Protocols of the Elders of Zion is. And it's been
Speaker 1: around forever. It's behold a pale horse. It's all this
Speaker 1: fucking the illuminati shit. It's all the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: just a huge pile of secrets and misinformation that people
Speaker 1: that a certain segment of the population will fucking buy into,
Speaker 1: just like trickle down economics and all that bullshit. I
Speaker 1: hate to do it. I hate to cite this, but
Speaker 1: there's it.
Speaker 2: But go ahead and say it.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a great Trotsky right piece of writing.
Speaker 2: You slip when you slip into Leon Trotsky. Well, I
Speaker 2: know I'm not I'm not.
Speaker 1: A hard line or anything, just saying he wrote a
Speaker 1: piece in nineteen oh one called on Optimism and Pessimism,
Speaker 1: and I think about it all the time. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to read you the last line because it's the
Speaker 1: last line, is the one that's the last two lines
Speaker 1: are the ones that are important. I'm just gonna read
Speaker 1: them to you. Surrender you pathetic dreamer. Here, I am
Speaker 1: your long awaited twentieth century, your future. By the way,
Speaker 1: this piece just details how horrible society is in the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. This is when he wrote in nineteen oh one. Right,
Speaker 1: this is the start of the twentieth century. Surrender you,
Speaker 1: pathetic dreamer. Here, I am your long awaited twentieth century,
Speaker 1: your future. And the last line is no replies the
Speaker 1: unhumbled optimist, You are only the present. I think about
Speaker 1: this all the time, every day, that we are in
Speaker 1: this mode of envisioning, that we are in the end date.
Speaker 1: But we're not in the end state. We're like in
Speaker 1: the Opening Innings. We're in the opening innings. And I've
Speaker 1: said this to you before, and I'll see disagree. Humanity
Speaker 1: is not going to be destroyed by a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: Let me, let me, it's not gonna be destroyed. And
Speaker 1: I'm agreeing with you by a nuclear conflagration. I agree,
Speaker 1: it's going to be destroyed when we invent a pair
Speaker 1: of shoes that let you jump very high, and then
Speaker 1: it turns out one day they go hey wire anybody's
Speaker 1: legs start flying off because the shoes. And that's how
Speaker 1: we're gonna It's gonna be something so fucking stupid and unexpected.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like it's actually like the pandemic. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of a lot of it is like,
Speaker 1: you know, we thought it'd be zombies and fucking buildings
Speaker 1: on fire and nuclear missiles and whatever. The robots rope
Speaker 1: the fucking guys from the matrix. The robots are the matrix,
Speaker 1: and and what it actually is like you got to
Speaker 1: sit in your house and work. You're not allowed to
Speaker 1: go out. You can't go to the grocery store. That's
Speaker 1: the apocalypse. That's our apocalypse. It's like you've got to
Speaker 1: be on slack with your coworkers while you know everybody's
Speaker 1: getting sick around you. Anyhow, Listen, I don't know how
Speaker 1: we got into this. I have no idea what we're
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: Me take something back to No, let me take something
Speaker 2: back because I said I agree, but I don't agree.
Speaker 1: I don't even know. I'm not even sure what our
Speaker 1: topic isn't.
Speaker 2: No, but you had said it's going to be some
Speaker 2: you know, some fucking tennis shoe that gets the tennis shoe.
Speaker 2: You're gonna wipe us.
Speaker 1: Out as your legs are flying off and you put
Speaker 1: them on.
Speaker 2: I have heard you say that before. Yeah, No, I
Speaker 2: think it's going to be bigger than that.
Speaker 1: Maybe. But the thinking about AI is this, like it is,
Speaker 1: it appears very scary because it does things that we
Speaker 1: that seem like they are beyond understanding. I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at what the real the
Speaker 1: the interesting critics have said, and I think to Amanda's point,
Speaker 1: where it's true danger lies at this point is in
Speaker 1: the misuse of AI by human beings. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of a people don't kill people, guns do or whatever argument,
Speaker 1: like yeah, like ultimately a person has to pull the trigger,
Speaker 1: but the gun is the thing that lets them kill.
Speaker 1: And I think that, like, you know, we can have
Speaker 1: the debate about, you know, what the true danger of
Speaker 1: AI is and and it's both things, right, it's both
Speaker 1: the technology and the people. But it's like, but this,
Speaker 1: at this point, we're so early in this game, and
Speaker 1: what it's doing is such a parlor trick, and there's
Speaker 1: no evidence that the parlor trick becomes it can become
Speaker 1: a more elaborate parlor trick. It'll become a very sophisticated
Speaker 1: parlor trick. Is the AI sentient? Does it have a desire?
Speaker 1: Does the AI want something? No, it doesn't, and we
Speaker 1: don't know that it could ever. We have no idea
Speaker 1: that there is us. There's no possibility that we could
Speaker 1: know that you could make a computer system that has
Speaker 1: a desire for something. It can do things we tell
Speaker 1: it to do. It can do things that it thinks
Speaker 1: we wanted to do, or it thinks it should do
Speaker 1: on its own. But that's not the same thing as
Speaker 1: like a motivating factor, like a like a dream. Right,
Speaker 1: dream is not just a random processing of information in
Speaker 1: our brain. It's not just random. It's some combination of
Speaker 1: the pieces of information, right, and it's some part of
Speaker 1: us that is putting them together in a certain way.
Speaker 1: People in machines aren't like one and the same if
Speaker 1: you just make a machine that's complicated enough. So this
Speaker 1: idea that like someday it will be fucking Skynet from
Speaker 1: the Terminator movies is like kind of a weird, bad
Speaker 1: human fantasy that has been I don't know. To me,
Speaker 1: it feels like a little bit of a childish view
Speaker 1: of the technology because some like James Cameron wrote a
Speaker 1: movie about a machine to become sentient and wants to
Speaker 1: kill humans. We have basically decided that that's what the
Speaker 1: machine's going to do. The smarter it becomes like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, the machine's probably going to be able to
Speaker 1: see the Terminator and it'll probably be like, huh, maybe
Speaker 1: I shouldn't do that. That seems like it ends badly,
Speaker 1: Like it's not a good ending for the machines.
Speaker 2: You got a sequel first, and now that badly.
Speaker 1: The best Terminator movie is Terminator three, starring Claire Danes,
Speaker 1: And uh, I'll take that one to my grave.
Speaker 2: Wait, my favorite Aliens movie? Yeah three?
Speaker 1: Well, that's interesting. Fincher David Fincher's first feature film.
Speaker 2: I get shouted down by more people over that, but.
Speaker 1: You'll have to agree. You will agree with me. David
Speaker 1: Fincher's best movie is Zodiac. Uh probably probably, No, it
Speaker 1: can't be an argument there.
Speaker 2: I don't know Aliens three.
Speaker 1: Man, you're saying Aliens three is better than Zodiac. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: That's just that.
Speaker 2: Go back and revisit Aliens three out there, all right?
Speaker 2: And Charles Charles Dutton staring Dutton the alien saying before
Speaker 2: that lead, come on, doesn't get men of that?
Speaker 1: All right? I do. It does make you want to
Speaker 1: revisit it. I have to tell you that scene.
Speaker 2: Charles Dutton, by the way, one of the great great actors,
Speaker 2: never gets talked about.
Speaker 1: Charles Dutton, Rock Rock, Whatever happened to that show? You
Speaker 1: don't hear anything about.
Speaker 2: Like a world class actor?
Speaker 1: The stage incredible. Okay, hold on, do we have we
Speaker 1: gone through all your questions? Uh?
Speaker 2: Well, we didn't really cover as much of the Uh
Speaker 2: what are you laughing at me about?
Speaker 1: No? Just I just I want to know what we
Speaker 1: did cover. I just think it's funny.
Speaker 2: Thanks exactly. Did you have you ever actually sat down
Speaker 2: and read the fountain Head or at last, No.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't read that pornographythead go back shad, who sucks?
Speaker 2: I think I might have said this to you. There's
Speaker 2: a fascinating early Mike Wallace interview black and white with
Speaker 2: a oh yeah, it's great, chilling, so chilling.
Speaker 1: He really puts it, puts her, you know, gives her
Speaker 1: some tough questions, he.
Speaker 2: Puts her through her paces. But one of the most
Speaker 2: remarkable things about that interview, and anybody who's listening. Really,
Speaker 2: go go watch that interview. It will show you unless
Speaker 2: you're an objectivist, it'll show you what a fraud this
Speaker 2: person was. A big thinker, right, a great brain whatever,
Speaker 2: basically says yeah, I just thought it up. Well, I
Speaker 2: mean I just imagined this thing one day when he
Speaker 2: starts asking her about like, well, where do your inspirations
Speaker 2: come from? What are the references? And she's like, just
Speaker 2: figure that thought it up?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: Is that all ideas? Isn't that all good and bad?
Speaker 1: Just somebody thinking of an idea?
Speaker 2: I suppose. But boy, that that many people caught on
Speaker 2: then and continue to catch on. It's just remarkable to me.
Speaker 1: Well, people like to hear things that make them feel
Speaker 1: good about the way that they behave. So you know
Speaker 1: the thing about somebody like Anne Rand or Eying Rand,
Speaker 1: depending on who you talk to, is you know, she's
Speaker 1: condones a lot of behavior that's basically selfish and shitty
Speaker 1: and bad. And that's what the Republicans do often, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's about protecting your interests versus other people's, or
Speaker 1: thinking about a kind of space where other people should
Speaker 1: be considered, which is, you know, in essence, the behavior
Speaker 1: of a child. Right, the behavior of a person with
Speaker 1: a very limited range of understanding.
Speaker 2: Which Wallace kind of gets into a little bit there. Well,
Speaker 2: to get it it is.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you you should create it. You should create
Speaker 1: an app the professor recommends. And it's just because you've
Speaker 1: recommended several pieces of content here during this conversation, and
Speaker 1: all they all are very interesting.
Speaker 2: Sound by the way, I shot my wad.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: I got three.
Speaker 1: I get multi to those were your those were your
Speaker 1: three recommendations.
Speaker 2: Like I said, that's all I had.
Speaker 1: Well, soon you'll be shuffling off this mortal coil and
Speaker 1: you won't have to worry about recommending.
Speaker 2: Things anybody that was brutal.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, just thinking about it, since you brought
Speaker 1: it up at the beginning of the conversation.
Speaker 2: Were you going to speak at my funeral?
Speaker 1: My being asked, I would love to speak at your funeral.
Speaker 1: I've got some big ideas.
Speaker 2: I would love for you to get up and pontificate
Speaker 2: to the point where this is what you're here in
Speaker 2: the audience. Ah.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about doing somebody a little more like
Speaker 1: a carrot top type of routine, something with like props.
Speaker 2: That really would be.
Speaker 1: Funny, you know, just pulling some shit out of a bag.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm getting a lot of comfort from
Speaker 2: in the midst of my well. Is it existential angst?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's so existential.
Speaker 1: It's more angst or dread. It sounds to me more
Speaker 1: like dread.
Speaker 2: It's more dread. You're right, it's more dread.
Speaker 1: Yeah, be careful, are you know? They're close, but they're
Speaker 1: not exactly the same.
Speaker 2: What I'm getting some comfort from, and I mean it
Speaker 2: is images from the web telescope.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, contemplating the vastness of reality.
Speaker 2: Talk about a spec.
Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting one.
Speaker 2: Beyond the colors and the figures. Yeah, it's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: there's so much out there.
Speaker 1: Well, you got to be careful though, because then you
Speaker 1: really start to feel bad about yourself, about your insignificance
Speaker 1: and the meaninglessness of all of your toils.
Speaker 2: No, that that hasn't That hasn't been the reaction. No,
Speaker 2: I look at it and go, oh, should there be
Speaker 2: another space, time, continuum matrix of it all?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like I want to be out there floating in the well.
Speaker 1: Who knows what happens when you when you leave your
Speaker 1: you know, your physical body, you know, have you thought
Speaker 1: about have you said about getting into video games? Though?
Speaker 1: Maybe if you really feel I don't believe it, despondent.
Speaker 2: Don't believe in it. Have you don't believe in it?
Speaker 2: We talked about this before. I think I recommend gaming
Speaker 2: to everybody. You don't believe in blueberries. I don't believe
Speaker 2: in video I.
Speaker 1: Think I don't believe in blueberries. Is this something that
Speaker 1: came up?
Speaker 2: I believe you said this before. Last time we talked,
Speaker 2: you one day chastised me in a pleasant enough way.
Speaker 1: You said this before I recollect and I.
Speaker 2: Was being foolish for believing in the anti arts.
Speaker 1: I say, I chastised you for eating blueberry.
Speaker 2: Believing in the antioxidant qualities of blueberry.
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, yes, I think that's probably some kind of scam.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to it's that that to me. Whenever
Speaker 1: I hear whenever somebody.
Speaker 2: Says, that is a scam to you, but AI is
Speaker 2: a positive thing.
Speaker 1: Whenever I hear somebody say, no, I didn't say that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that. I think we.
Speaker 2: I think we going to quote the great mystic mister
Speaker 2: t I pity the fool.
Speaker 1: No, whenever anybody says anything about a food, no matter
Speaker 1: what it is, any quality the food is supposed to have,
Speaker 1: I immediately think there's a complex system of bullshit that led
Speaker 1: to this moment, and and whatever it is. I'm sure
Speaker 1: the blueberries are healthy. I have no doubt broccoli is
Speaker 1: very healthy. I'm sure there's all sorts of shit that's
Speaker 1: really good for you. But I just feel like getting
Speaker 1: putting too much.
Speaker 2: What's too much?
Speaker 1: Too much faith in the ability of a single item,
Speaker 1: a food item.
Speaker 2: You'd rather any kind of people behind a kind of meaningful,
Speaker 2: healthful reaction.
Speaker 1: I think it's just like, is misguided. I think it's misguided.
Speaker 1: I don't think you know, I don't believe in the Beatles.
Speaker 1: I just believe in me, I guess is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: God, that's another one. Please write that down.
Speaker 1: No, that's fucking John Lennon said that.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh that's right.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually in a song.
Speaker 2: I don't know enough about the Beatles.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, Oh really, no, I think it's I want
Speaker 1: to say it's in a song.
Speaker 2: I listen to the Beatles, but I don't like I
Speaker 2: don't quote the Beatles clearly.
Speaker 1: Some of Lennon's solo stuff is really pretty fucking amazing.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when Paul McCartney death hoaks happened?
Speaker 1: Oh he's still alive. Interesting, But do you.
Speaker 2: Remember the DJ and Detroit who started that rumor about
Speaker 2: Paul McCarty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think about AI doing that just widespread. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are we going to do? What are we going
Speaker 1: to do?
Speaker 2: Buy into it?
Speaker 1: Praise for impact?
Speaker 2: I don't know. You're vacillating now. I don't understand. I'm
Speaker 2: not quite clear.
Speaker 1: Are joking? I'm joking. What's gonna happen?
Speaker 2: Oh wait, I have a question?
Speaker 1: Shut than shot?
Speaker 2: Please shut up? Please just show do you?
Speaker 1: I love listening to you speaking like, shut the fuck up?
Speaker 2: I didn't say the F word. Why is it professor positive?
Speaker 2: When it comes to AI, does it just seems to
Speaker 2: be in the hands of diabolical people?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And we on the left are always, you know, under
Speaker 2: the sword of demos, and the guys on the right
Speaker 2: seem to use it to their advantage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because this is the classic bringing a knife to
Speaker 1: a gunfight situation, Like democrats are I.
Speaker 2: Mean, but do you really think they're going to stand
Speaker 2: down at some point and say, all right, your turn?
Speaker 2: Who the guys on they're only going to get better
Speaker 2: at it, They're going to get more efficient and brutal.
Speaker 1: Well the fucking but no. But the other side is
Speaker 1: like the Joker, you know, like they're like, what is it? No,
Speaker 1: you know the joker from.
Speaker 2: Batman a joke, the guy from the they call the
Speaker 2: Center for Denver Nuggets.
Speaker 1: The Joker keep going, well, I wouldn't know anything about
Speaker 1: that because I hate sports. You know. He's like an
Speaker 1: agent of chaos, right, He's like, just it does? What
Speaker 1: the fuck? Ever? I think that's Uh, you can't have
Speaker 1: like a rational this is this is like the Nazi thing, right,
Speaker 1: This is like the the you can't be tolerant of
Speaker 1: the intolerant, right, you can practice tolerance, right, that's a
Speaker 1: good thing. But then when you go, well, but I
Speaker 1: have to be tall, are into people who think that
Speaker 1: I should not exist, Then you reach a kind of
Speaker 1: like a threshold.
Speaker 2: And I think that I don't describe that at at all.
Speaker 2: That's where I go back to taking the leg you're
Speaker 2: not standing on and beating somebody over the head with keeping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there's a whole there's a whole set of
Speaker 1: people that are like, we're trying to participate in this
Speaker 1: like thing called reality and in in truth. And remember
Speaker 1: we're not perfect all the time. And there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of shitty democrats and people on the left who are
Speaker 1: just as stupid and bad as people on the right.
Speaker 1: But there are limits to and and ways of being
Speaker 1: that they will never go into. They will never be like,
Speaker 1: let's exterminate an entire set of people, like they're just
Speaker 1: not going to say that. They're On the other hand,
Speaker 1: on the flip side, there are people who are like,
Speaker 1: we should have an only like a totally white nation,
Speaker 1: like just a crazy, unhinged, fucking anti humanity statement.
Speaker 2: Well that does border on extermination or right or just
Speaker 2: like sending people off in boats.
Speaker 1: You can't have like a healthy debate with those people. Yes,
Speaker 1: because they're going to take every They're going to take
Speaker 1: every possibility, everything they can use to create an environment
Speaker 1: of shit. They're going to do it because they don't care.
Speaker 1: It's kind of in sync with a lot of the
Speaker 1: religious thinking of like this world doesn't matter, this life
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, and that there's something better waiting for you.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, Mike Pants believes in Yeah, we're you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's like why the why do the evangelicals follow
Speaker 1: a guy like Donald Trump? Some of the worst terrorists
Speaker 1: in America are Evangelical Christians. Like, why we should interrogate that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's it's just like any fundamentalist terrorism. But as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, they want it to come the rapture. Yeah, right, exactly,
Speaker 1: there's this weird uh it's a death cult. Right anyhow, God,
Speaker 1: we're way, we're so far afield. I don't even know
Speaker 1: what we're talking about it anymore, but.
Speaker 2: I think he's been fascinating. Oh well, I mean, we'd
Speaker 2: certainly like to talk like top shelf stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I can't tell anymore our business. You're you're the cove
Speaker 2: to me. You're the covasier Okay of podcasts?
Speaker 1: Is that good? I'd rather be the top shelf. What's
Speaker 1: that very expensive whiskey? It's like Pappy Pappy van Winkle.
Speaker 2: Oh, there is a thing called Pappy van Winkle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Patty van Winkle is like the most expensive whiskey
Speaker 1: you can buy. It's like a very rare special. It's
Speaker 1: like a it's five thousand dollars a bottle or something. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm the Pappy van Winkle of podcasting.
Speaker 2: If this podcast clicks like in a big way, it's
Speaker 2: not going to We're just rolling in the dough. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to buy you a bottle that I.
Speaker 1: Guess they haven't haven't given you the numbers. I don't
Speaker 1: think you're in any danger of buying me a bottle
Speaker 1: of Pappy Van Winkle. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 2: Maybe a shot glass of Pappy.
Speaker 1: Van Winkle maybe, yea, I think that's that's possible.
Speaker 2: Do we have anything else? Do you have anything for me?
Speaker 1: For you? Yeah, well I'm want to I know, I
Speaker 1: you know it's I'm scared. I'm scared scared, And yeah,
Speaker 1: why I don't understand. Don't get it such a rube. Listen,
Speaker 1: you're a successful man. You've you've more than proven your value.
Speaker 1: You've more than proven your your worth. You've you've made
Speaker 1: incredible things you continue to influence to this day. You
Speaker 1: have a circle of friends that love and adore you
Speaker 1: and think the world of you.
Speaker 2: Get a little choked up, get a little misty.
Speaker 1: And employees that fear you, that cower and fear. I've
Speaker 1: seen them in person. They absolutely don't even want to
Speaker 1: walk a little bit in front of you because they're
Speaker 1: they're afraid they'll get knocked down.
Speaker 2: Don't look at me, don't eyeball me. I think often
Speaker 2: I say to them, don't I ball me.
Speaker 1: What I would ask you is what's missing? What don't
Speaker 1: you have? What did you want that you haven't gotten?
Speaker 1: You know, where is it? What is it?
Speaker 2: Oh? God, I wish I could hansle that on the air.
Speaker 1: I mean, name one thing that you wanted that you
Speaker 1: haven't gotten.
Speaker 2: Ugh, I can't pony in my backyard. I often use
Speaker 2: that expression.
Speaker 1: You could have it, though, nothing stomping you. Nothing stomping you.
Speaker 2: By the way, I did say that to a friend
Speaker 2: of mine one time, who I will not name him.
Speaker 1: But the next day, there's a pony in your backyard.
Speaker 2: He sent a pony into my office right exactly, This
Speaker 2: is what I'm talking about. He did have a woman
Speaker 2: bring a pony by and parade up and down my
Speaker 2: hallway for about an hour.
Speaker 1: You live in the life of a king. What is it?
Speaker 2: Just?
Speaker 1: I want you to say, I want to know. I
Speaker 1: really want to know one thing you wanted or that
Speaker 1: you've wanted really badly, truly, that you have not been
Speaker 1: able to.
Speaker 2: Get Uh, let's end it on this one. Yeah, having
Speaker 2: a dad would have been good. Okay, that's you asked
Speaker 2: for it. I gave him to. I mean that's good.
Speaker 1: As a guy with a father, I got to say,
Speaker 1: it's not that great. I mean he's fine. He's fine.
Speaker 2: By the way, wherever your dad is right now, he
Speaker 2: wins and he said to he said to your mom,
Speaker 2: he's like, ugh, just so I got a little adjutant
Speaker 2: my like my roop case.
Speaker 1: They the more the more criticism in my family, the better,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, he's in embracing it.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe I should spend more time with your dad.
Speaker 1: Well you didn't know your You didn't know your dad
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: Oh, let's not go there now, let's.
Speaker 1: Get into it. Now, let's do it. No another two hours,
Speaker 1: solve your all.
Speaker 2: Your mother would be nice to have had. Yeah, Like, okay,
Speaker 2: I was raised in a single parent fantastic mother household.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look at look at what it look at
Speaker 1: what it made you. So you wouldn't be if you're
Speaker 1: with a dad, you might not be you to be honest,
Speaker 1: you know, think about it.
Speaker 2: But mister butterfly effect, look at the the thing you
Speaker 2: be killed they called the butterfly effect. Right, yeah, there
Speaker 2: we go.
Speaker 1: Well, no, but it's true. I mean, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: drove you in all sorts of a different ways, just
Speaker 1: like all of my failings and my needs and wants
Speaker 1: have driven me in different ways.
Speaker 2: Oh, I got one final question for you. Just popped
Speaker 2: in my head earlier in the day. Let's do it
Speaker 2: early in the conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm ready.
Speaker 2: You are king of the world. Okay, you're omniscient, You're omnipotent.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: You are borderline godlike?
Speaker 1: Am I immortal?
Speaker 2: No? That has nothing doing well?
Speaker 1: I mean a god would be immortal, in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Said borderline.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm omnipotent. I'm omniscient, but not immortal.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, not immortal, borderline god?
Speaker 1: Like I have an expiry date.
Speaker 2: You have one thing to fix in the world. What
Speaker 2: would you fix one thing? I mean, like, can an agonize.
Speaker 1: A mean thing? What do you mean thing?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Do you cure cancer? Do you get rid of guns?
Speaker 2: Do you stop war? Do you it's only is it
Speaker 2: only physical things? Or can I like remove a component
Speaker 2: of humanity?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can do that too. You're a near godlike
Speaker 2: you can do pretty much whatever you want. One thing
Speaker 2: you alter, change, eradicate one.
Speaker 1: Here's what I would change, I think. I think it
Speaker 1: would you know, who knows if it was only one thing,
Speaker 1: who knows if it would work. I would make it
Speaker 1: so that every person could understand or sympathize with another person.
Speaker 1: I would make it so that everybody was able to
Speaker 1: feel empathetic towards another person. That's the thing I would change,
Speaker 1: that there was a sense of empathy for another person
Speaker 1: whenever they interacted with them in a desire to empathize
Speaker 1: with them. I think that thing would probably fix a
Speaker 1: lot of our problems in society. I don't think like
Speaker 1: removing guns, somebody would just make a laser like you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, they'd make up, they'd use bombs,
Speaker 1: they'd use bows and arrows like or whatever. I'm not saying,
Speaker 1: like it's that's the same thing. But guns would fix
Speaker 1: a problem temporarily, but not permanently. A permanent fix would
Speaker 1: be like if you could empathize with another person, If
Speaker 1: everybody could empathize with the people around them, even the
Speaker 1: people that seem to suck, I think it would go
Speaker 1: a long way, you know, or like you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know erased the emotion of hate, but I don't
Speaker 1: think that's I'm not sure that would have the result
Speaker 1: we wanted to be honest.
Speaker 2: Okay, anyhow, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know what would you do if you were omniscient
Speaker 1: and omnipotent, soft and cuddly, what would you do? What
Speaker 1: would you your one act?
Speaker 2: My one act?
Speaker 1: Big man?
Speaker 2: Yeah, big man, you sound like Dennis Hopper and Apocalypse.
Speaker 2: Now what do you want me to say it was
Speaker 2: a wise man?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't think about you turning the tables on me.
Speaker 1: That's right, baby, check it out. You're got to answer
Speaker 1: this fucking question. Now, look at you, you're in the spotlight.
Speaker 2: Well, there's so many things. You know, there's the obvious
Speaker 2: you'd cure diseases, But uh, I do think that, as
Speaker 2: difficult as it is to say, there's there's a Darwinian
Speaker 2: nature to life that you you maybe shouldn't fuck with. No,
Speaker 2: I would say, honestly, I think it's the rain in
Speaker 2: the internet. Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: I mean, like comparison, mind's way way better. I think
Speaker 1: it's like not even I can't even calculate how much
Speaker 1: cooler and better. My answer was to this, you're holier
Speaker 1: than I'm in. I love people.
Speaker 2: Look at TikTok last if that's the one thing. God,
Speaker 2: now you're just now you're denigrating. That's this is not
Speaker 2: a nice way.
Speaker 1: They looked at their photo. There was a timer saying
Speaker 1: enough Internet.
Speaker 2: I think the Internet is the end of the world.
Speaker 1: Now you just think that because you're aging.
Speaker 2: I think an unregulated Internet is the end of the world.
Speaker 2: That's what I think.
Speaker 1: Regulated, unregulated, That's not our problem. Our problem is us.
Speaker 1: It's not that thing we think. We always want to
Speaker 1: put it in the object. We always want to say
Speaker 1: it's the thing that makes it. So.
Speaker 2: You think people are gonna get smarter, more educated.
Speaker 1: People thought when they put radios in cars that people
Speaker 1: are gonna drive off the fucking road because they were
Speaker 1: so mesmerized by the magic box producing music that they
Speaker 1: couldn't steer the car. And you know, it probably did
Speaker 1: cause a few accidents, But over time we learned to
Speaker 1: change the channel without plowing into a family.
Speaker 2: I'm duly chastised. I'm gonna take mine back. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: take mine.
Speaker 1: Back all right.
Speaker 2: Here is what I wish for the future.
Speaker 1: What I would change, What you would change as a
Speaker 1: godlike creature.
Speaker 2: As a godlike creature, we would eat lollipops every day.
Speaker 2: We would all have ponies in our backyard.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say several things.
Speaker 2: I'm condescending right now to you. We would have you'd
Speaker 2: wish wealth, great wealth on everybody, great emotional and physical
Speaker 2: monetary wealth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're mocking me.
Speaker 2: Now get eight hours of sleep a night.
Speaker 1: You know. It's funny, you're mocking me, but we agree.
Speaker 1: I am mocking you, but we ultimately agree.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm going to go back, I think
Speaker 2: there's far more empathy in the world than you might think.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying there's there's plenty of empathy, just not enough.
Speaker 1: Just not enough. There isn't if we could, if people
Speaker 1: were empathetic, they wouldn't act the way they act. It's hard,
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's hard to imagine what it's like for
Speaker 1: somebody else. But I think that the more we can
Speaker 1: do that, the better off humanity is.
Speaker 2: Actually, you sold me on it. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I hate to be like all lovey dovey fucking hippie.
Speaker 2: It was a little hippi hippiush for you.
Speaker 1: But no, I know I'm disgusted with myself for even
Speaker 1: saying that's just that. I'm like, everybody should be horny
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, No, I'm on board now.
Speaker 1: You sold it to me. I I sounded like a rube.
Speaker 1: I sounded like mister ten sixty is what I sounded like.
Speaker 1: And uh and then it's just like, just like the
Speaker 1: idea of that, You're like, if we could just live
Speaker 1: at the internet, will be like if we can just
Speaker 1: like you know, cancel America online, nobody can get an
Speaker 1: account on AOL.
Speaker 2: We're all set, all right, Okay, no more, I'm shamed, almighty.
Speaker 1: Shut It's a very lovely It's kind of lovely. It's funny.
Speaker 1: You're like, just put the phone down.
Speaker 2: I'm off.
Speaker 1: Put the fucking phone.
Speaker 2: I'm often described as lovely. All right, anything else? When
Speaker 2: are we next talking?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I hope soon, because it's I can't
Speaker 1: go for too long without a little bit of this
Speaker 1: in my life.
Speaker 2: All right, professor says, how do you well?
Speaker 1: Once again, your interruption has been my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, that that that I think is our show.
Speaker 1: I think that we've done far more than anyone was
Speaker 1: expecting to do. I had a whole show planned. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was going to spend several hours talking about my
Speaker 1: travel anxiety. But you know, I think there obviously, I
Speaker 1: think what we've learned there are more important things to
Speaker 1: focus on in this in this world and in this life,
Speaker 1: and we focused on some of those things just now.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that. I'm not sure why, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how, But as usual, the Professor made it happen.
Speaker 1: All right. I got to get out of here, I
Speaker 1: got to have a lot to think about. But we'll
Speaker 1: be back next week with more what future, And as always,
Speaker 1: I wish you and your family the very best