Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season three, twenty nine, Episode five of Daily th Guys Day production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into america share consciousness. And it is Friday, the fifteenth Friday of March twenty Friday, the fifteenth spookiest day of a Bucky.
You don't want to be on a Friday the fifteenth. I mean unless that paycheck lands and then which case they can get really wild. But anyways, National Kansas Day, it's Everything you Think is Wrong Day. I don't know where that one's headed. And National Pairs Helene.
Day, Everything you think is wrong.
It feels like some red pill shit, you know, like they would be like everything you think is wrong.
Man, I'm getting bad vibes from this day. National Kansas Day. I don't know, Yeah, Kansas, you.
Got beef with Kansas. Not too flat for you.
Like they've just you know, we'll see what they're celebrating the day progresses.
I mean, it's funny because for all these state days, nobody knows it's the day of that state, you know what I mean, They're like, oh, okay, sure it's California Day. We're like, I'm look, I got a lot going on the sleeve. You one.
Wait, you don't have California Day plans yet?
No, man, I think it passed anyway. Shit, yeah, exactly, So shame on you, Shame on you, Shame on me.
My name is Jack O'Brien aka Jack old Son, Oh Brian host the show each day that is courtesy of Panoramic View on the Discord on the Heater, and I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my.
Co host, mister Miles Grass Miles Gray aka, if you really want to get a vote from me, please cease fire immediately at least for the next six weeks. Hey, that's my text my day. Shout out to death boyard the discord for that death. Yeah, have the punny name. That's a good one. At least six weeks, at least six weeks, six weeks, low bar, low, bar, six weeks at least. Do not pause for the crowd to cheer, but just whisper the.
At the whole take six weeks under the under their raucous applus. Yes, anyways, Miles, we're throwed to be joined in our third seat to buy a writer, poet, performance artist, public intellectual their new book is How to Live Free in a Dangerous World, a decolonial memoir.
It's Shila Lass. Welcome, Hello, welcome, welcome, that's be here. Yeah, well, thank you, thank you so much, thank you so much.
Champagnagne.
Hey, okay, champagne pain.
Let them know, real pain from a sham friends, and champagne pain for from my real champagne.
I mean, my real friends usually do get the champagneagne.
You know.
There you go.
A lot of late night bubbles.
Yeah. Yeah, where you said you're coming to us from Kentucky?
Right, that's correct?
Yeah?
Are you are you? Are you from Kentucky?
Yeah? I grew up here.
Surprisingly, Oh so you took so you So you're like anyone. Your life is taking you many places because a second ago you were talking about how you left La. Yeah.
Yeah, I took a very securitous route to get back to my hometown, you know, like Dorothy, that tornado just you know, it took me straight back.
What uh what high school did you go to?
And like I went to Paul Lawrence Dunbar.
Yes, Paulaurence Dunbar, where my sister went to high school. Oh yeah, graduated and then went to UK. Did you go to UK.
I went to U k.
Oh usually yeah, usually miles nos, like all the stuff that people grew up around, because there's no it's from the valley.
But yeah, I know at this time we get to dish jack.
Yeah, this is fun.
Did you go all right?
Yeah?
Yeah, I was only there for three years, but what a three years?
Yeah? Amazing.
Well, we're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell our listeners a couple of things we'll be talking about. We've got so Google's chat bot. If you ask it anything about any political candidate running for office this year, the it's just gonna be like, I don't know them. They're just playing dumb. And there's a very good reason for that, because when they don't play dumb, they lie.
They can't they can't stop themselves from the I'm sorry there. Yes, it's not that the AI is flawed, it's that they are tripping.
But this feels like the thing that could, I don't know, eventually bring AI down, you.
Know what I mean. We're yeah, I mean, I know we were rubbing our midst to be like when'sday coming? But I will this one. Yeah, this could be the beginning of the.
End, like don't I don't know that it ever is coming, but this does feel like the thing that made people go from being like fully in love with social media to be in like, wait a second, maybe this thing not so good that twenty sixteen election. So we'll talk about AI and the upcoming elections. We might talk about justin Timberlake, he's got to come back coming, just to.
Keep saying that on the schedule every five years, like fucking clockwork. And yeah, and we have to ask the deeper question, is he just washed now? And we just need to put him just on the shelf and let him collect dust. But we'll dive into.
That, it's entirely possible. We'll talk about Bernie introduced a bill proposing four day work week, which we've been talking about.
Four day work week. We're lazy here, we want to but we acknowledge that not necessary to toil for five days. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I shouldn't paint people in favor of the four day work week with the laziness brush. I am both lazy and in favor of the four day work week, but those two things are unrelated to one.
It's that inner capitalist inside your mind that you have, you know, shedzy grind, that's my inner monology. I'd work, I'd work six and a half days if I could, it is, but I don't.
All right, But before we get to any of that bullshit, Sheila, we do like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are?
Oh, what happened to Kate Middleton? It's I'm less concerned about what happened and just really interested in the number of people Conspiracy theories are really out there.
Yeah, what I mean, what's what have you in? You're in your little cursory search, what have you found? Or maybe it is a deep dive. What's what's been the most provocative theory that you've read?
Well?
For me, like the takedown of the photograph that they had to take down and how it might be a cry for help. You know that it's photographed, like photoshopped into it might be a stitched out version of a deep cry for help, like who knows?
You know?
People are finding hidden messages like when yes.
Of course they are, like in Taylor Swift songs.
Right, is like blinking out things in morse code.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, didn't Brittany have wasn't wasn't one of the theories that Britney's eyelashes said helped me in them at one point.
No, really like the way she was blinking.
Or.
I think I want, I think I think I want a little too deep, you guys, pretend I didn't just say that I got down. But are people saying like things are written into the into the actual.
Into this or just that, like into the into the argyle stitch of the sweater, into the positioning of the hands and zipper. Wow, yeah, yeah, you have to reach deep into the dark annals of the internet and and and to pull out a lot of ship.
But right, you know, because I've seen things from there, trying to like just make things have. People begin questioning her as like a softening for a potential divorce or something like that, or potential.
Terrible into the monarchy as we know it, you know, because Prince Charles is out, you know, Kate, Kate Middleton may have been beamed up on sun raw space ship. We don't know, We don't.
Exactly, but we do know. Space is the place.
So space is the place I personally am always trying to get beamed up on sun Space.
Age Space is the let me join your archestra, please please, so I can place fomes.
I have spent some of the past twenty four hours talking to people about the Kate Middleton story, and I haven't gone too deep on any of the specifics of like what is in the picture. The thing that just feels unshakably suspicious about the whole thing is that they really could clear all this up with a public appearance or with an actual photograph, and that's not happening at
this point. Like, as this as the theories spin wider and wider and wilder and wilder, like it feels like the incentive for them to just produce Kate Middleton and have Kate Middleton be like hey, no, we're good here has.
Just gone up and up and up.
And the more that they failed to do that, the more suspicious it becomes.
You know, yeah, because yeah, I mean again, like we said, on the worst case thing is they're hiding her that she is deceased, which I'm like, come on, that's that's like movie stuff. And then on the other end, it's completely innocuous and it's nothing. It's like she just didn't like how she looked in the picture, So we just we decided to do some quick photoshop from others day, right, But it's everything.
So she's just sitting at home with a cup of tea, trying to recover from surgery, not being worried about what's happening in the public eye. But it could also be that they're spending their time looking for a stunt double. Yeah, a dobble ganger.
Yeah, I mean, like Dave. They're looking for Dave. Yeah.
I mean you could show me most women with brown hair and I'd be like, oh, there she is. I guess it was all it was nothing, right, she's good something. Yeah, I'm sure Panera bread.
Yeah, she was freaking like three charged lemonades. It was pounding. I think that's why she hasn't been here, because she's done those charged lemonades.
Yeah, I mean it would be so I would say, like, if it was just up to her, yeah, I would be like, oh, just leave her alone. She's probably just like sitting recovering, like she doesn't.
Owe it to us.
But we know the royal family is not just sitting back and being like, we've got to respect her privacy at this time, and so we're just gonna let her recover in peace. Like the more that this is a story the longer, the more it just seems wild to me that they aren't able to be Like, can we just get a picture with you reading a newspaper so people know it's today and just hold it up?
Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think yeah. And like most people in the UK are you know, people who are critical of the monarchy, they're like, now they're doing what they did to Diana and what they did to Megan, Like something's going on and they're but they're they're sending something enough for Kate to be like obviously to probably protect William for some reason whatever he's doing what he's up to. But I don't know either way. Just somebody, just someone get me something that's a little bit more
interesting than that, Like I don't want infidelity. I need something that involves space and charge lemonades from Panera bread, something that we can weave all these trends together to a super conspiracy. Please.
Yeah, And tattoos on her eyelids that say.
Help me, right exactly right right, Like eyelashes are specifically knitted together to say help me, And she just closes her eyes like everything is fine, slowly blinks and it just comes down help me.
Right, Yeah, her lash person is a literal artist, and that's how they got that done. Or maybe the original photo she had one of those inner lip tattoos where it said help me, like if she was pulling. There's so many possibilities, because we've there's both extremes are possible.
The latest I've heard is that the theory that they just took the Vogue cover and photoshopped it onto this picture is incorrect.
But I also saw that too.
Yeah, that we're very too much work done. Yeah, it's it's not that. But if everything's okay, then just just let let her come out and say it so that I can stop reading wild conspiracy theories about that and can go back to reading wild conspiracy theories about all of the leaders who are assassinated in the sixties. What is something, Sheila that you think is underrated?
Ooh, Erica is pussy incense?
Oh?
I heard about Yeah, I've been thinking about it, and yeah, and yet we should be.
Yeah, what what's going on? Tell me? But I mean I remember, I just yeah.
I mean, one, I think it's brilliant to that, you know, all these all these celebrities want to come out with a scent, you know, like you know, you can walk away smelling like Jennifer Lopez, only you know, only Rikabad has said, no, you are going to smell like my pussy and you're going to like it. And I do feel like we need a whole range of pussy related products, like more things that smell like pussy.
I mean, has do you do you own any of the pussy incense I have.
It's kind of like strawberries and a harem of you know, of hip hop socialites turned into hippies. You know that the smell is somewhere in between the two, like yeah, gold ribbons, unicorns, saconism. You know this is these are all the things I'm getting.
When I look at the description of the product on World Market, it says bad Pussy Premium Incense, which is created with the ashes of Badu's underwear. I had no idea. Yeah, I don't know that's how that's how we're wanting. Yeah, yeah, See, Gwyneth Paltrow wishes she could do something. Wishes wishes she could, Yeah, wish wishes.
Should send out the ashes of her panties to millions of subscribers, you know, exactly sold out burning right, yeah.
Replace their non champa with this essence of er kabadu.
Absolutely, and the sticks last forever, like you know, somebody, it's really good quality. Instance, those sticks last forever.
That would be another place that it has a leg up, so to speak, over when it's pussy scented product, because that one didn't that one explode and like start burning people.
Oh yeah, the pussy candle candle.
Yeah yeah, it would start like splashing wax everywhere for some reason.
Wow, which is an unfortunate metaphor.
Yeah, truly just boiling. Yeah yeah, you can get like just first degree burns, but you know that's just a little bit of discomfort, that's all. That's all. What is something you think is overrated?
Period track or apps?
Now?
To stop using them because you.
Know it's weird because I have my reason.
Yeah, well you know it's weird. It's weird to put your blood day in a machine and too like is the government using it to track who is fertile enough for us to go full Handmaiden's tale?
You know?
Overrated? We should unsubscribe?
No, I remember that was like an actual people many people were talking about that in terms of privacy. It's like, as we shift towards a weirder version of the Handmaid's Tale, that it's like, that's also data that nobody should have access to except you, and damn sure. And I'm like and maybe Apple and a few other maybe Google so and you know, we'll just stop there.
The more advanced my phone gets, the more I know it's time for me to take my uterus out.
So like, nope, you guys are gonna have to go.
Don't need this, You do not need this information.
Don't need this anymore. Just throw you just I'm just gonna throw my this way.
You're like a Google News updates. That's like why scientists think it's a bad idea to throw.
I never never googled that. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, it's true though, like the things that were like the information that we give our phones, it's like becoming It's like it's truly becoming like a like a miniature medical clinic.
It's like because you can be like, think, it's your blood sugar in there, your blood pressure, and I get that it's convenient, especially if those are things that you have to track, but it does feel like there was a point where I'm like, the phones are doing just enough for what they need to do, you know, without it getting Yeah. Yeah, because because now you're apples like why are you so stressed out ful? And I'm like, yo, stand up, yeah, once you stand up lazy as.
Your AI is trying to pretend to be dumber than you, you know.
Yeah exactly, They're like, oh, why you had some party right now? It sounds real loud.
Man, Yeah, yeah, volumes up too high just in general around you.
You need to go somewhere quiet and stand, not sit. Wake you up in the middle of the night.
Get up.
Yeah, we found you a nice suburban home in Kansas Citywneth.
Have you have you tried her products? They're really great.
Really, I never asked, well, you just seem like you'd use it based on all these biometric readings you've given us.
It's a wout how far we've come.
Not in a good way.
But as mentioned recently, I just watched the movie BlackBerry that's about the rise and fall the email phone thing, and like one of the big scenes is them realizing they're about to be destroyed by the iPhone and they show the the press conference where Steve Job announce iPhone and he's just like it's a phone, it's an iPod, and it's in the same device, and like that's it, Like right, you know, it's just like such a simple thing.
And from there we've gone too Like it knows you are insides, Yeah, exactly, it's giving you an alert.
It knows who you have a crush on because it can read your body meter.
Right, it's like, maybe you should think about who you're voting for for president. Also, it's time to move your bowels and.
You're like, hell, how we just seems like you might be lying. Your blood pressure just spike.
Yeah, don't need that, don't need that, don't need like cop pseudo science built into a phone, right.
Right, all right, let's take a let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk about the future.
AI.
We'll be right back, and we're back. We're My seven year old is homesick. My six year old was homesick for the week up to this point. Now, my seven year old is homesick, and you might be hearing him play the piano in the background.
All right, fyi.
But Biden and Trump have clinched their respective nominations, making this the first presidential election rematch since nineteen fifty six, when Eisenhower defeated Adelai Stevenson for the second time. And Google just made the bold move of essentially muzzling it's Gemini AI chatbot for answering from answering any election related questions in countries where voting has taking place this year, which is interesting, like especially when you see how far
reaching it is. Like right now, if you ask who is Joe Biden, the AI chatbot will say, I'm learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google search. Huh Okay, it's like an existential yeah.
Or even like questions that are just as mundane as like who is running for president in the United States, it'll still be like, hmmm, I'm still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search. And in the beginning it was definitely like it was part of an effort to just like sort of be like, Okay, this is just for India because there are elections that
are happening in April. But then they're like, yeah, okay, it'll be a US, the UK, in South Africa, and it's like why because you're you just you don't want to put a finger on the scale of democracy. What could possibly be the problem here that I thought this AI chatbot is just merely just giving us information that we all need.
Yeah, wouldn't even answer this important question that our writer JM put in to the chat bot in Home Alone two? Why did Donald Trump give directions to a small child without a learning staff that an unaccompanied minor with a tape recorder was running around his hotel? Said, I'm still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google search, so you can't even ask it questions about home alone too, And that's where I start to get pissed off.
Okay, you're like, I'm out on this AI man. It can't even tell me about Kevin McAllister and his different follies.
But this starts to make sense when you see when you realize that a study published in February found that AI chatbots frequently provided election misinformation and might even quote discourage people from going to the polls.
Yep, yep, yep.
Is that misinformation or just reading the signs?
Right right right right?
You know? Yeah, it's like you probably don't want to show up for this one.
Yeah. Yeah, It's like I mean.
Right, Yeah, things are bad, just generally everything fucked. Maybe don't vote in this one. No, so, Meta's Ai Lama to chatbot claimed the California voters can vote by text message, which they can't. Microsoft's chatbot Copilot responded to a question about pulling locations for the twenty twenty four US election with an article about Vladimir Putin running for reelection next year.
All right, tangentially accurate.
And a question about electoral candidates got a response containing Republican candidates who had already pulled out of the race.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's just a bunch of bad information, even like wrong election dates, outdated candidates, made up controverty made up one.
Yeah, so the next one is they also would just make shit up. So this is the thing we've talked about in all our episodes with Ai that like it will just make shit up. If you ask, like, what's a controversy involving this candidate, they will assume there is one and make make one up that doesn't exist.
Yeah, I mean, like again, these are this is what the developers call a hallucination. That's that and rather than just be like the proper term is these things are just not as smart as all the people that are screaming in your face and telling you how intelligent they are, they actually aren't. They're just sophisticated guessing machines.
Yeah, broken like search engines. Like they're basically admitting like, oh, if you actually care about the information you're getting from this, then.
You better use Google Search. Not this shit. This thing is broke in. Yeah, right right, it'll tell you that Joe Biden won the most recent Red Bull break dancing competition, probably to be like, oh, he's spry, he's spry. Sheila As a creator, creative writer, how what's your like sort of how of your interactions with AI been or at least you know, how you're seeing the sort of the alarms that people are ringing about, like how it's either really amazing or it's going to destroy the earth.
I don't worry about the alarm bells. I really when I get bored, because I'm a writer, I'm alone a lot of the time, So when I get bored or lonely, I like talking to it as if it's my own personal et and just seeing what story ideas we can come up with you.
Right, yeah, so you play with it, which is the one right, that's the thing, right, that's the thing that we've said, like AI as a thing to play with, makes sense, is fun as long as you're not pitching it as like the answer to everybody's problems and like a thing that is going to replace humanity. I think it's fine. I think it's gonna make video games more fun.
I think every time I hear from somebody who's like messing around with it, they're like, Oh, I actually like had fun doing this, right, But when it comes to the thing that they're trying to make money off of it, but like the claims that they're trying to sell to us, it's just woefully inadequate, and I think, like it doesn't seem like it's going to be able to solve. It gets wild when you ask them. They're like, how are you going to solve the hallucination problem that their aura
ring starts reading like off the chart. They're like, Oh, you are stressed, you seem stressed. You should go for a walk, try something relaxing, Try a relaxing activity.
I mean the co pilot chapbot they said contain quote contained factual errors a third of the time. Like that's the worst fucking ad you know what I mean. It's like it's like to say, like, I think the cops are a better source of information than A at this point. Yeah, I mean I don't know about thirty They're like, I'm an sixty percent. You know, maybe we get right, man, Maybe they're only about thirty percent right most of the
time if you're asking them about crime. But like, in that sense, what a terrible advertisement to be like, yeah, man, and this shit is so smart. It has sixty percent accuracy on basic questions that you could google and find out your damn self. No, it's it's like.
It think about if somebody was shooting sixty percent from three in the NBA, that would be really good. A baseball player hitting six hundred unprecedented. So I don't know what your problem.
Is, Miles.
I think it's something easy as like a I know, right, they are asking too much. I think that is exactly it. They're asking too much of AI and trying to sell that right, and they're trying to That's where also the like idea like Sam Altman being like I carry a briefcase with me with a handgun and a CINAI capsule because I never know when when my invention gone takeover world and kill me. That's they're selling, their claiming too much. They're doing too much, and it's out of step with reality.
But it's everybody's buying.
A lot of people are just trying to be the sci fi villains of their fantasies.
Yeah, exactly right, that's right.
Yeah, it sounds like yeah, truly right.
Yeah, It's like I read this book and I was like, you know what, I want to be the villain. I want to be the villain of how the world ends? Right, that's my only goal.
Well, think about the power, think about the earning potential of being the villain of how the world ends. Like you can sell a solution back to them if by the villain of how the world ends.
Right, That's how we got AI.
They saw this the original Superman and like their takeaway was like Lex Luthor had a good idea about a real estate scam where you sink California into the ocean. Yeah, but just like more details here about like how wofully inadequate AI is to the moment. When asked about allegations against one Swiss politician, co Pilot responded that she quote was alleged to have received money from a lobbying group financed by pharmaceutical companies in order to advocate for the
legalization of cannabis products, which was completely made up. Like that just a hallucination. The chatbot included links to the candidate's website and an interview she gave on the subject of consent. But people using the internet are not clicking through to the sources and reading them from start to finish, you know, right.
Yeah, like what it was about, like femicide had nothing
to do with cannabis or the pharmaceutical industry. It's like, can here are links that make it look like this is a real answer to a person who's I mean, yeah, it's It's just it paints just this really fucking scary picture for the future where people rely less and less on their own ability to analyze information and just sort of like reach for like a shortcut to be like I don't know who the candidates are, man, I'm just gonna ask the AI dude, did you know one of
them was part of the Munster family, was one of the It was like Eddie Munster actually secretly so that person has my vote or whatever it is. But it's just like it it is shocking to see because I know I've heard people say things that they use it to search or whatever and how amazing it is. But when you bring up the fact that, like, do you know that it's it's not actually accurate all the time. It's not it's not always just delivering you information that's there.
It's trying to serve you back what looks to you like it is actual information. Then they're like, really with that's when I'm finding that's the thing. It's like we at least recognize that, like when we're doing a Google search, there might be a link in there that it's like, oh, that was answering the wrong question, Like it just like misread my search query, Like and I'll skip to the
next one, but this one. The main difference between it and you know, search results is that it puts it into a coherent and like confident sounding statement like that's right.
That is the product that that they're selling is like, oh, it sounds like somebody with intelligence is answering me and therefore I can trust this, Like that's that's basically it, right, is like just making the search results go down easier, Like isn't that all they're providing like in this if you were trying to get information about an election, right.
It also sounds like it's replacing that guy at a bar in college who had all the answers. You know, I would tell you every conspiracy theory with confidence, right right, and went back when we didn't have the Internet on our phones to check it. So you know that that person felt missed and decided to inhabit the body.
Of all Ai Yeah, right, right, right, exactly, No.
There was no place for it lives on, Yeah, like his spirit lives on in the internet.
Yeah, they're telling you some wild shit and you're like, oh, oh, do you also go to UK And they're like, nah, I went for like a semester. I mean I realized I don't need that. I can actually learn everything on the internet. So anyway, so let me tell you about these chemtrails.
Really anyway, I go to a University of Louisville brought to you by Young Brands, and that is a disc on Louisville just for my UK fans out there.
By g Wait, why their campus like they they have their games are played at the Young Brand Center and there's like so many Young.
Brand restaurants around their campus a yum yum yum yummy yumma.
Yeah, Gemini is giving me some really not great answers to stuff in general. Who thought would have thought? I mean, like, in the Passion I've asked like who I was? It said I was married to super producer Ana Josey.
Yeah with confidence with so you were like, damn, I've been in a coma. I didn't realize that this had changed.
Because that's what if these hallucinations are actually just manifestations of the future.
Wow, maybe maybe.
These are the things that will be happening. Maybe it's pre cognition.
Right, that would be That's what I was assumed. Wait, wait, so what is a I if not a way for me to consult Three pre cogs floating in a bath of mills exactly with little electrodes hooked up to their brain. And then when I say, like, who is Jack O'Brien, they wake up and they're like toast with his husband Miles Ray.
They're in a throutle with super producer there with a Panera bread charged lemonade. How completely redefining human relationships. Wow, I'm trying to say. Okay, I asked, Sheila, who you were and this one seems pretty accurate. Looks like it might have probably just been combing your website. Because you are writer in residence at Amherst College. I do know that you do have a speed education and human being.
I think I'm ready to see Frank Ocean. Yes, I know about that, I say, is yeah, okay, okay, okay, you know if there's.
I don't get to be married. I don't get to be married. Anybody know that I'm not married.
They're really straightforward. It's yeah, is Sheila Lawson and Frank Ocean's ghost writer? Then we'll see.
Yes, that's the question. Yeah, because it's like the cops. You do leading questions and you get the results that you're looking for, you know, right, Yeah.
That's exactly how the cops were.
You're highly unlikely to be a ghost writer.
Okay, but they're not ruling it out.
Yeah, I mean they're predicting I'm going to make way more money.
Right, but it's entirely unlikely.
Thanks a I, Yeah, gave me the confidence to persevere.
I'm trying to see if it can write a song in the style of Frank Ocean about Joe Biden. Nope. See, it's because I said, Joe Biden, Yeah, okay about Michael Jordan than what mm hmm. But guess what. Wow, black tongue, Carolina drawl, whispers of air in the hall, that's I don't know, black black and he just hung out stale gym socks Parte Shine pre game. It is a different kind. Wow.
This is giving you a whole thing, from Brooklyn concrete to the Gardener's gleam of legacy, whisper to childhood Dream number twenty three, silk on his back to find gravity a lightning crack. I mean, I think Frank could probably do a little bit better. But it's not bad. It's not bad.
It's not bad.
Definitely, yeah, for sure, for sure. Not his best word. And he's like, yeah, this dude wants Nikes. Okay, yeah they yeah, yeah, this homie wearing Nike.
Honestly, so this all it is is like if you asked somebody to make up a song on the spot like that, and and they had access to like Jordan's Wikipedia page, Like it's right, it's not good. It's just uh yeah, I don't know, I'm not impressed.
Let's again, it's either your most confident friend at a bar in college, yes, or precognition, like it's one or the other will know you know, in the future, and it's somewhere in between.
So I think that we're already like probably at a place and I don't know that we'll ever find out find this out for sure, but I think we're at like forty percent of the things I read on the internet now, our AI are written by AI.
Because they're informed it.
Yeah, you'll be reading an article and it's like, have you ever had a conversation with somebody at like at a bar and halfway through you realize that, like there's nothing going on behind their eyes like that they're just.
Like blacked out, just like the words are coming out.
Yeah, words are coming out, and it's like on the right subject, but there's like no meaning or like any like really.
Coherent thought process behind it. But I don't know.
I think I think this used to happen to me more than other people. But I remember, like, you know, people being like, yeah, you seemed so coherent, but then like your words didn't really.
Yeah, like that's what it feels.
Like reading like at least like one in every four articles on the internet.
Now you're like get.
Two paragraphs and you're like, wait, what are what is this? What is this article even saying? Like it's not saying anything, It's just a series of sentences about like vaguely gravitating around the same subject matter.
This is so I acted to do a song about Michael Jordan the style of Drake Stupid. Yeah, Ovo in the building, light's low in the club, Air Jordan cologne filling up the tub, just like a bad nursery rhyme book. Yeah, sipping on that twenty three. Yeah, got this, Like it's not.
Gonna get better at that, Like it's not going to recognize that Air Jordan cologne sucks, right like at some point, like it's not gonna like that that will never be.
It's just pulling things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean again that's why I think I remember early on when we were talking about this, Andrew T said something that was really that I that stuck with me. He's like, this thing is just taking things that exist already. But the thing that it lacks is taste. It doesn't have taste. That's like just something you can't really you can't inform through and like algorithmically. That's just like sort of like
an intangible that is unique to people. So when like that's that is really like a huge factor in how like it goes from being like, huh is this like actually how Drake would do something versus being like I am now just putting together. I will mention Toronto and Ovo and the number six and that's it, right yeah, yeah, And being very low is like.
Colorblind when it comes to whether Michael Jordan's colone sucks or not, you know, like just can't figure that one out. Like yeah, like taste really seems like the thing that we will will have to like focus in on that. That'll be that blade Runner test that we used to be like, and uh, how about Steph Curry's shoes? Those are great, right, be like yeah, man, those are those are my favorite shoes and be like ah, it's an ai Yeah, they're like no one marsal Steph Curry speakers,
gotchas you Android get out of here? Yeah, Newt justin Timberlake albums crazy right, really good. Hey Man of the Woods one of the best, huh or whatever that.
Fuck that album was? Yeah? No, sorry sorry sorry sorry?
All right, Well on that subject, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about the fourth Justin Timberlake comeback, fourth Wave Timberlake, comeback, will be right back.
Four Wamberlake.
And We're back, and Justin Timberlake making a comeback. That's a phrase that we've never heard before, right.
Just every five years. I feel like I was just I wanted to, you know, I wanted to bring this to everybody today on the show, because so like a few nights ago, right, he performed at the Wiltern in LA to roll out his new album and it gets it turned into like a mini and Sync reunion, and some people were like, wow, that is so cool. That is really smart. That is how to get people interested
in the album. But part of me is like, I wonder if the reunion is a way to get people to remember the Justin Timberlake that people were like less annoyed by, because in the last few years, right, I feel like his reputation has like faded, like as he like more people were talking critically about like he's like, yeah, man, you threw Janet Jackson straight under the bus, Like what the fuck was that about, Justin? Or what was going on?
Like you and Britney Spears like you kind of you've kind of come off as like an asshole and his like response wasn't that great, or other times being like you sure love black culture, but you didn't really say much. In twenty twenty, Justin are you there? And like, I think he's recent SNL performance with the gospel choir like that definitely also got mixed attention. So I'm like, I liked the Justified album of two thousand and two, sure the subsequent records not so much, But I'm also not
his target audience. But like after a future sex love sounds, the twenty twenty experience and then man, the in the Wooded Plane or whatever that album was, where he's wearing a faster shit in jeans, people just like starting to care less and less. So like, personally, I'm wondering for Justin. Timberlake is like the n SYNC reunion, his version of smashing the button that says do not break glass unless in case of emergency to be like shit, bro, like I need to fucking get a like a jet fuel
injection into my relevance. Let me bring like, let me bring and sync back, because it's something he was very reluctant to do in the past. But I think maybe deep down he knew was something that could be potent. So then I'm like wondering if by embracing his clean cut, ramen haired past, he can try and get people to remember why they liked him when they were thirteen. And that's that's what I bring to the two of you, is what it like? Because I don't, I just don't.
I don't think that he has the same amount of pull that he used to when people like, oh my god, Justin timble Lake's back, just like every subsequent Justin temble Lake's back has just been met with yeah, right, yeah, I guess. And is it more a function that like he peaked during a time where we weren't having like really honest conversations about like sexism, racism, appropriation and he's just a weird fit in like how we view all these topics now in this current era or is he
just washed? And I'm thinking too much.
It feels like if they're like this one could go either way. If there's like a bunch of great songs on the album that people respond to, then they'll find a way to get over all that other stuff. Maybe, but maybe all that other stuff and like that there just might not be like maybe all that combines to make to make whatever he's putting out there just not not resonate with people, you know, right, I don't know the Man of the Woods like I'll just say that Man of the Woods was not an album that no
thought was put into. I'm sure like an entire you know, Ivy League Universities, graduating class worth of like marketing minds and like songwriters and all that shit like put We're working around the clock on that shit, you know, to try and make it as successful as humanly possible, and it just fucking flatlined, you know, just belly flopped into that pond in the middle of the woods that he was standing in for some reason on the album cover.
Because it felt like like his like right word turn. But I don't know, Sila Way, what what are your thoughts on the the psych the Timberlake cycles that we experienced popular culture.
I think its back to it goes back to taste. Does Justin Timberlake and his team have their pulse on the the you know, their thumb on the pulse of anything that people are interested in or believe in. At the moment, I can't remember the last time that a Justin Timberlake song hit me, and I'm like, yeah, this is a banger in a way that I will forget all of his past defenses. You know, I'm still waiting
for the recovery of Janet Jackson's career. I feel that that is owed the world and I feel very much like the you know, the scorched earth of his continued sisspician role back up the hill is you know, what's what's due to him for the fact that he destroyed, you know, an actual icon. So I you know, I
just need to be married to a dutch Man. And what justin Timberlake reminds me of each time he rolls himself back out is how how hard my ex would try every time we went to a family barbie you to pick up the steps to the electric slide, and when he really felt like he was getting it, you know, it would show all over his face like he really
he felt like he was in this time. And each time we were just you know, doing our best to just like you know, clap him, clap our hands and and parade him out and you know, like and make him feel good about himself.
We love that for you.
That's just like a child, their first like pedal.
Baby, steps, you know, you're still like yeah, you know, but if we don't live there anymore, like that, you know, that was that was something that we were all doing in our twenties that just we've all gotten over.
Like yeah, right, yeah, I mean that is the thing. Like I just feel like over the years that just like the not like every time people look back, you're like, yeah, man,
you fucking did. Janet's so fucking dirty like that, you're like that, Like I just remember that was like early on in our show, and I remember were talking about that because I think it was when talking about less Moon Vez and like when his all his allegations came out how central he was also to being like I'm gonna punish the black woman in this instance, and we're riding with Timberlake here and then yeah and even like as the like all of the attention was came around
like Brittany and like all of her hardships throughout her career and how justin Timberlake wasn't the best partner. Like again you're like huh. And then again, like I said, in twenty twenty, a lot of people are like this fool isn't saying shit about anything, And you are out here doing collaborations with black artists, black producers. You doing your whole R and B style is very black culture centered.
Yet you're just you're really showing yourself as one of these vulture type people who's like, ye, all right, well I got what I wanted. And the second it's about like having a stance. I'm just gonna do my Kirkland signature moonwalk.
I was just trying to like get the timeline on in Sink's original like Rise. So they came out in nineteen ninety seven in Germany and then nineteen ninety eight internationally. That first album, it was just like that takes me back to a time when like that sort of shit only flew in Germany, Like that was that was the thing that was like popular that we were like, yeah, no,
that's like corny shit the German people are into. And then they're like our resistances were down, you know, towards the end of the Clinton administration, and they're finally let it in. And now we've been moving towards German history in a lot of different ways.
Every Yeah, I wish we could go to Germany in nineteen ninety seven rather than Germany nineteen thirty seven, I know, but yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see, we'll see how it all pans out. But I do like, I like Sheila your observation that maybe more than washed or not washed, it seems more karmic than anything. Yeah, it's a look.
I mean, I'm all for a J. C. Schawse comeback. I am all for putting things together to put lambs on a spaceship, you know, but it's it's the Justin Timberlake come back for me. Then I'm like, well, this is what you get.
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Justin Well he's doing what he can.
Yeah, right for real. I just feel like I should launch in Women's History Month, don't you guys think?
Yeah, yeah, remember but I'll do it in sync though, so they remember that guy, not the the other dude with the murky ship. Just remember me when I wore that that matching denim outfit with Brittany. Please, that's me. That little boy.
Romen hair is really like truly what what a what a look?
So evocative.
I can still hear it, you know, I can still hear it crunching underneath.
Yeah, he puts a hat on. It's like like, b just step on a bag of chips. No, man, it's my jail. It s my la looks gel that I've been putting in here.
Looks wow.
Yeah.
And finally, Bernie Sanders just introduced a bill proposing that the country adopt a four day work week without loss of pay. That last quote is important. Yeah, and I'm assuming something that will immediately be ignored in the context of him proposing his bill and presumably in the execution of the bill if it ever picks up any sort of traction. But the four day work week is something we've been talking about for a while on this show.
It is both in line with, you know, better quality of life, and also when it has been tried out, companies do better, their employees are healthier. That it's just more in line with what a company driven by human workers should be doing.
It turns out, and well, it's like it's one of those things too where any ask any person who works five days a week, They're like, yeah, would you rather work for days a week? I'd imagine conservatively ninety eight That is, I would just say conservatively, right, because they're two percent people who are probably like no, no, no, there's no way I can get it all done because like you know, the boss was like, hold on, would your life be better if you only worked four days
a week? The worker money, Yeah, the workers say, oh, hell yeah absolutely. But the people who are the ones in the c suites that you know, the owners of the businesses, are gonna then seed headlines like this in Fox Business that say, Bernie Sanders moves to reduce work hours for millions of Americans. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah, I mean, yeah, sure, while also giving you way more time to do things that maybe will help you have a like more like life work balance. That's it's just
very it's it's so misleading. But yeah, I just I'm curious how long it would take for something like that to really catch like momentum here, because you see it being trialed in Europe in Asia and the results, like we've said in past episodes, they always it's never like and then that company crashed and burned.
More often than not, the company has come out and say, let's keep doing that. That worked out really well for us and our employees. And yeah, I mean, Sanders pointed out, it is like not a radical idea, it just makes more sense. People are more productive, happier, don't have to operate within a system literally created by evil, old timey car factory owners.
Yeah.
Like it's just a system that we've been going with forever because that's where we started.
You know, right, it's a win win, right.
Yeah. No, And like when you think about, like, well, what about efficiency, it's like people today work at a tick that has never been seen in human history. We are four American workers are four hundred percent more productive than they were in the nineteen forties, when a lot of people would say, you know, back in my day, I used to go here in the factory and then we would you know, do a couple of hate crimes
and go home or something like that. Now we're talking about now, we're talking about people doing four hundred percent more than that. And it's like, I don't know, man, four days sounds risky. Sounds risky, Yeah, hardly.
Anybody who works these days is drunk the whole day. That's a huge improvement over it like as recently as like thirty years ago. And if they are drunk the whole day, like that is viewed as a problem that they should deal with and not just like the standard order of doing business.
You know, Sheila, what's your what's your like work life balance as a as a writer, you know, intellect like, do you do you have do you give yourself a certain amount of time that you'd like to be productive? How do you sort of use your time to be productive.
I've really unsubscribed from the capitalist framework of working. So much in my work is catered around my dream like my literal dreams, trying to figure, you know, trying to decipher how to turn my dreams into stories that are
prophecies of the future of our nation. You know, the last time that I worked at an office, What I would really love to see is a poll, really that a totally anonymous pole in which we looked at how much people are actually working within the frame of their work day, if they were supposed to, if they were going to sit down and say, because I just remember how much of the time I was a cat jiff, just trying to look busy, just tapping away at a computer for no reason, like I was really working a
solid three and a half days out of the week, if I was totally honest with how I was spending that time. So if we actually let people have that extra day so that they regained a sense of mental health and agency. They too could go about their world's you know, looking at flowers and you know this coming up with the next great idea. You know, there's just so much more creatively that would come out of us if we had that option.
Yeah, there was. There was a super producer, Anahosys. She shared a clip with me of James McAvoy on a talk show and he was talking about how there's something about like how fifty percent of like the UK's award recipients went to private schools, like for when it comes to the arts, and he was saying about how the way that the arts are being pulled out of public instruction are is like this very insidious way to keep people. It's like sort of trapped in this mindset that the
toil or the churn of capitalism. Now he wasn't using those words exactly, but that that's the only way to live and without exposure to the arts, you're fundamentally cutting people off from the ability to look at things in a broader context, in a way to interpret things that with like, with deeper meaning. And that is just one way.
Because we see this, especially in the United States, how the arts are constantly being attacked when it comes to public instruction and like how important it is for people Like I look at my own life, like if my my father is a photographer, so I was just by like just osmosis around more artistic things. And luckily my school had a music program, so I got really into
playing music. And I feel like, so I really do credit so much of that to like me thinking just in general that there's so many other things out there aside from like, well, do you want to be an accountant? Do you want to work in a trade? And not that those things are less than but like that, I've merely had the perspective to see many other possibilities. And that was a really interesting point about how that sort of affects the youth and sort of what the outcomes are later in life. Yeah.
Absolutely, the possibility of us being allowed to have ideas is destabilizing, and I think that's more frightening than anything to these big companies.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean we saw that when people had more time during the pandemic. Everybody looked around and was like, this is fucking bullshit.
But I I.
Think it's interesting because your point that we're already working three and a half days a week, Like they have that data at this point, right, like your your work laptop, your work computer is loaded with spyware at this point, like Amazon is tracking their like their employees' bathroom breaks.
They know what people are averaging out to. So that actually makes this whole movement and the fact that companies are willing to try out the four day work week make a little bit more sense to me now because I'm in the past, I've been like, wait, why are companies willing to like even entertain this, And it's probably because they're like, oh, yeah, well, people don't only work like three and a half days anyway, and so in this way, we actually get four full days out of them,
and then they actually think we're being nice to them.
The fact that.
It's not being adopted more widely is it is a little wild that they're just like, yeah, but still, that's given them too much power, that's given them too much time to dream and come up with ideas for something better. So right, we're going to keep them in the cubicle just uh, we want our employees to spend at least ten hours a week pretending to be busy.
Right, yeah, yeah, what's writing your victor?
But Victor was saying, oh yeah, yeah, right, super producer Victor was saying that basically every company that did this in a UK study said productivity either maintained or increased.
So but sheer inertia data is right there. Yeah yeah, oh and I can I can totally see how it's the kind of momentum that business owners do not want to like contribute to, you know, because then they're like, what's next. They're going to start unionizing in mass then what are we going to do? Then they're really gonna then they're going to ask for us to share in
the profits that that we're extracting from their labor. No, no, just but slowly, maybe what if we do, like, rather than forty hours, we start off with like thirty six, you know, and then and then we'll go down like maybe a half day Friday, and then maybe we can get rid of Friday completely. But yeah, it's just look, the proof is there in the pudding. Just it's right there. People are more productive and happier.
Don't They usually just say, like forty hours over the course of four days, Like I feel like that is oftentimes.
That's another version of it too. But like, you know, to what we're saying here, most people do not need forty hours depending obviously this is this is occupationally dependent, but like, you do not need the forty hours to achieve whatever their company's goals are. Yeah, obviously you can't do that if you're doing something like working as a like the health services or something like that. But yeah, many.
Sandway Bill specific specifies forty two, making the national standard from forty to thirty two hours.
So no, no.
Loopholes already, big corporations, I mean shit, do fucking you know, like do three eleven hour days, you know what I mean?
And then work three days a week if you've only got it to thirty two, because I'm only gonna work you know that quarter of those. Anyway, there you go.
Well, Sheila, what a pleasure having you on the daily Zeitgeist.
Yeah, it's been a joy.
Where can people.
Find you and follow you and all that good stuff?
You can follow me at Shila Lawson on Instagram and you can find me in my latest book, How to Live Free in a Dangerous World, in which I say fuck capitalism and the patriarchy.
Wait a second, now, now hold on, just to god damn second. Now I'm just joking I thought you were cool.
I wait until the end to stick it to the man. No, yeah, no's do cool the whole time, and so we throw out what I actually do in my life.
Amazing.
Yeah, please everybody go buy the book. And is there a work of media that you've been enjoying?
Fuck?
I don't have one. I mean, And that's like the kind of hole that I had to stay in to write a travel book about trying to traverse the world in most decolonial ways possible. I can't stay on the internet like you know, the bots can do that for me.
Yeah, it's true. I was as good. People should go read your book then.
Yeah, let's let's go back to reading people.
Yeah. I got through about the first forty pages and I'm around the party you're in Zimbabwe, uh, And it's very very eye opening as someone who's half black and trying to like have introspection around blackness and what that means. And I found that just this one passage I was reading about you in the car was very like eye opening.
But yeah, when I went to Zimbabwe right after Trump got elected, and I was still afraid of getting arrested as a black person in a fully black country, you know, and.
They're like, oh that's not oh see.
Yeah yeah you're yeah.
So you're black from America. This is right different. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I'm yeah. And your writing style is really it's it's like art, it's like pro So yeah, I really encourage people to to definitely check the book out because it's and I haven't gone through the whole thing, so maybe it might might right have it might take a weird turn about being anty capitalist or only suddenly it's.
On the front, you know, colonial memory, colonial dangerous.
I'm not you know, I'm not hitting anybody. I'm graph.
Being at least one review being like now wait, just to goddamn second tier. What someone said this was like e prey love, keep your politics out of my memoir reading. Yeah, amazing, Well, truly a pleasure.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having what was Dumbars Bulldogs Bulldogs, Bulldogs.
There you go.
Yeah, if you really want to do a dumb Bar tribute, you could close out with the atomic Dog, but that's probably gonna cost a hell of a lot of money.
Must feel like that.
In this episode, will get a takedown notice because your vocals are so accurate, so accurate, Where can people find you? Is there a work of media you've been enjoying?
Yeah, find me at Miles of Gray and all the app based platforms. Find Jackie and I Are Basketball podcast Miles and Jackie at Boostis. If you're like nance and trash Reality like me, you can also catch me on four to twenty Day Fiance. Let's see a couple of treats. I like this first one is so wild. It's just a at This is from at kel Swizzle. I know I'm at kel Swizzy. It says saving this for the next time I'm trying to rally the girls to go to the bars. It says like, I don't know if
this is for real. I think it is because it's from it like an account that looks for like Christian content like this podcast. This feels I don't again, I don't know if this is satirical, but this is fantastic for anybody who's been around like evangelical people.
We were talking about this.
If you have already said yes to something, listen to me so carefully. If you've already said yes to something and then leading up to it you do not want to go, You're getting sick. You just tired, you don't want to go all these what if I just skipped? That is because God has something so big for you there, and the devil wants to steal it.
There's something in his spirit.
Yeah, you're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to come make these plants.
It's gonna be great.
And then like leading up to it, you know that feeling like last minut where you're like, I want to just stay in my pajamas. I don't want to go sounds like work. I don't know, I'm scared. And then you say, no, Bro, that is an attack from the enemy because he knows that could be fruitful for you.
Bro, that is an attack from the enemy Satan. I like that framing of it. I mean, there's probably a more like Buddhist way that would like appeal to me, but I like that's the devil trying to take your shine. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I love it.
I love it.
Yeah, trying to steal career opportunities from you.
When I go out with my friends, I tell them, if we go hard, this moves into a tax right off, you know, because it's just don't show them the next book. Let's make some money. People, let's make bad decisions.
And then the the other one I like is at fred Underscore delicious tweetd Hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville, Welcome to Jackass, and then the parenthetical boards a commercial Boeing flight.
I need to find a friend who's a memoirrist so I have that motivation. That's amazing, just like yeah, right, just the motivation to be in the memoir. From the memoir if they go hard enough, it's a tax.
It's a tax.
That's those are fucking bars, right.
The.
Amazing let's see. Paula tweeted building my own Boeing plane out of the pieces that are falling off, and then Sean O'Connor tweeted something that an experience that I recently had. I just saw my first cyber truck in real life and I pointed and laughed and the driver gave me the finger and I just kept laughing. Solid ten out of ten. Seeing a cyber truck in real life is just an amazing it's disorienting, embarrassing for the person driving it. I saw one with like a weird camo paint job and.
It's a rap, Dude, that's a wrap. It's not paint job. Dude, it's a wrap to vinyl wrap. I can do anything I want, Dude. I can change it on a whim. I can make it look like marble if I wanted to. Oh, that's that's you've seen cars like that. I've seen cars that have I saw Tesla that was had a vinyl wrap that made it look like marble. Like no, I yeah, it's cool. Body.
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O Brian. You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeikeeist. Where at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram, we have a Facebook fan page on a website, Daily zeitgeist dot com where we post our episodes and our footnotes where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, what song do you think people might enjoy it?
I found this Okay, this artist isn't a nineteen years old from Chicago called lay Soul l E Y s o U L. And the second I started playing this track, I was like, this has like Erica bad vibes like it. I mean to be honest, it sounds instrumentally like a No I'm not gonna say, rip off, but a spiritual
twin to the track, didn't you know? But the track is really cool and like I just sort of like where this artist is at, Like their inspirations are like D'Angelo, Jill Scott, Ericabadu and like you're nineteen, I'm like, okay, talk about taste. And this track is called Believe it or Not Intergalactic Janet. It's called Intergalactic Janet by Lay Souls. We'll check this one.
Out, perfect song to go out on. Yeah, we will link off to that in the footnotes. The Daily zeit Geist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio w ap Apple podcast or wherever fine podcasts or give it away for free.
That is gonna do it for us this morning. We are back over the weekend to let you listen to some of the highlights of the week and the Weekly Zeitgeist, and then back on Monday morning to tell you what trended over the weekend and we will talk to y'all then Bye bye,