Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three, h two, Episode two of Daly's geist day production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's share consciousness. I'm a little sick. It's Wednesday, August thirtieth, twenty twenty three. We did a placebo episode about how you know all the different ways that illness and cures can be a mind fuck, and then I immediately got sick, So now I don't know if I'm actually sick or
what is happening with the fucking true nightmare. My name is Jack O'Brien aka Potatoes O'Brien, and I'm thrilled to be joined in my guest co host seat, my very talented writer, stand up comedian. Her advice on sex and travel has been featured Men's Health, The Strategist, Betches, and Anywhere men need help fingering. She also co hosts The Great ninety Day Fiance podcast four twenty Day Fiance with some guy named Miles.
I guess, yeah, how do you pronounce that?
Myriean Obrien?
Yeah, my Miles is great. Welcome to the show, The hilarious, the talented Sophia Alexandra.
Oh my goodness. Thank you so much, and I have a little ditty. I don't want no subs sub and four miles won't get no love for me sitting in his podcast chair with my bright bank hair, trying to host e Dzo. I thank you so much.
I love it. But I think you are doing that and you're gonna nail it, so we do want some subs you, in particular, welcome, Welcome. Your bright pink hair is amazing. It's looking good.
So is your newly found deep voice. Holdly, I know you're talking about this shit.
What's up, guys? Sounds like I should be on the Rogan networkers.
I was just gonna say that I was the mothership this fucking weekend. That's that's the fucking energy this base is giving me. It's it's it's commanding respect. That's right, despite you know, whatever knowledge you may or may not have. Yeah, see now, girl works and the spelling automatically changed from g I r L to g u r L as soon as your voice.
God, that's right, girl, Thank you. I hate it. I hate it well. Sophia Weird throwed to be joining our third seat by a very funny comedy writer improviser co hosts the podcast Born to Love with Ellie Kemper on our sister network with Will Ferrell. Big Oney players, please welcome the brilliant, the hilarious Scott that girl. Hello. Hello.
I feel like I need to I need to take some deep voice pills now to keep.
It down here, man down here, bro to do it all right?
Bro?
What's good?
How are you down here?
Scott? Meet me down in the basement. Brother, oh, my brother in Christ. Welcome, Welcome to the Rogan. This is actually a show where we just like recap Rogan and talk about like all the shit that we learned.
I'm excited to hear about some truth.
That's what I wanted.
That's right, really finally, Yeah, what Scott? You are in Los Angeles as well? I am in Los Angeles. Just made it through a tropical storm and an earthquake, neither of which I really noticed, to tell.
You this, notice at all. Didn't notice the earthquake.
I feel like I'm not God, but yeah, but I feel like LA is not going to get the right like lesson from all of this, because like it was a horrible thing that just like so happened to bypass us. So I think the lesson was like, oh, yeah, we shouldn't prep next time, and I mean.
That's definitely the lesson from it.
So we're good here.
Yeah, I was like, why would I even think about a generator? Who's to charge?
What? Fuck all these once in a millennium weather events. Let's just we're good.
We're good for another hundred years now, we don't have to work.
We're all set.
I thought you were gonna say, cancel gay marriage is the is the lesson because I've been listening to Rogan, So that's that's where my brain went.
That's an og Diddy. I think Pat Robertson wrote that one.
Oh yeah, it is a classic. Well all right, so we're all in Los Angeles, just separate places in Los Angeles, but it's great to have you all here, Scott. We're gonna get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're gonna tell the people a couple of things we're talking about later on. Possibly we might be talking about the dependency ratio. I don't know, I wrote, I'm I wrote a bunch of shit and haven't like reread what I wrote, so I don't know. Maybe maybe
it will be boring. Well, we'll try it out. But there's a front page article in the New York Times about the dependency ratio how it is affecting China's of me.
Right now, Hey, Jack, I thought it was pretty interesting.
Hey all right, you did. I really appreciate that.
Thanks.
We're also going to talk about the Whopper lawsuit. Now this is more in our wheelhouse. Yes, like this is I feel like this is suing parents over lying to you about the tooth fairy level ship. Like this is such a basic lie that I feel like we had all just kind of accepted when we were very young, and you know, naive, we were just like, oh, yeah, of course they're gonna lie about that, but disagree side multiple No, I'm not like I'm here for it. It's just furious. I love it. I love how much they
like just that somebody had that thought. They were like, fuck it. This is the time to sue Burger King for taking a picture of the Whopper. That doesn't that looks better than it actually is.
My time is shine. Finally, I've been seething since I first moved to America in nineteen ninety four.
You moved here for the Whopper? I did.
I was like the American Dream is fucking bullshit.
Uh that's the only that's the only example of how that's true. Though everything else about the American Dream just it checks out.
But the one thing it.
Was dead on, but the whopper thing I will not stand for.
We got this one thing to correct and then we're going to be bat in one.
Thousand, pretty pretty golden.
After that, Yeah, we might talk about the Great British Museum theft scandal. I think we are going to talk about it. Yeah, that's a fucking story. What a story. Shout out to jam our writer who put that one together for us. But before we get to any of that bullshit, Scott, we do like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are.
The very last search that I did just last night was quote the Winter Palace Wikipedia the Tsar's ancient Palace. It is the setting of a show on Hulu called The Greats, which is why I was googling it, and I went in a deep dive on Russian history, which is always hilarious just like the show. I'm amused by the buffoonery of our friends from Russia.
I don't know the story that, well, what was what was going down in the Winter Palace? Is that where what.
Wasn't going down in the walace?
Like?
Jack? Am I right? Scott chest bump.
Oh, yeah, well there is one. There wasn't anything especially great about the Winter Palace Wikipedia article other than the fact that apparently two I think it was two hundred thousand people died building. It seems like which seems like it's.
Always like a ten that seems like a whole city.
I don't know, but did you see it? Pretty fucking worth it, you know what I'm saying. It looks pretty good. I remember now more in it, and they maybe could get more of those little onion domes everyone seems to love.
Oh yeah, now the onion domes. Those are classic. That's classic Moscow. This is Saint Petersburg. Baby, I know I've never been. I've never been to Russia. I studied Russian in college and sucked at it and then stopped.
But ever still language, you study Russian language? Yeah?
Wow, the accent on that is not great here.
I was expecting you to be like it was fantastic. I gotta I gotta tread carefully. Sophia, are you from Russia?
I'm from Ukraine, but I'm fluent in Russian. Yeah, that's my first language.
Do you know my favorite word in Russian is no what kaladilnik. It means refrigerator. At least that's what I remember.
Pretty cool, that's a good word.
So I'm listening to an audible, a two volume biography of Joseph Stalin. Oh shit, not a very nice gentleman, Joseph Stalin.
Wait, really, you're like.
My fucking grandpa was like, those are exactly the fucking things that would absorb him for hours?
Yes, it's it's it's absorbable. It's absorbed me for eighty hours. Now, can check it out. Yeah, and there's one left left to come. It ends on a cliffhanger. Guys, Hitler is about to invade the Soviet Union, so I can't wait for.
It's gonna work out.
Well, I think they're going to beat I think there's gonna be a lot of unhappiness for decades to come. But yeah, I think that that that particular invasion things work out.
I think Hitler, that guy is just like a flash in the pan. Like not to ruin it for you, it's just it's not good.
I mean, it kind of was, but you have like a brief rise. By the way, I feel like you shouting out Russia's word for refrigerator. I feel like the English language where like the English language really went off on the word refrigerator. That's pretty good like that. I feel like maybe maybe there was like a Cold War competitiveness that was happening there. But refrigerator is yeah, I kind of like it.
That's a cool word.
Yeah. It sounds like a brand name or something like. It sounds like it was workshopped, right, It.
Sounds like it has a motor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying. Yeah.
Do you think just sounds like it makes cold?
Well that's what it means, right, it doesn't mean cold or something, yeah yeah.
Yeah yeah.
But I just mean, I feel like refrigerator doesn't make you think of cold. It makes you think of a motor.
Yeah, but keeping it cold frigid, throwing frigid in there, which is a good evocative way to word for cold. So I don't know. I think they really I think they saw what Russia was doing and was like, we gotta we gotta do better than ice chest I think was what they called it.
Ice automatic ice chest.
Ice chest has like a chalice vibe.
Yeah, yeah, yeah it does.
You know, like I'm gonna sit on my ice chest with my jealous of mead. My favorite Russian word borgia. It is how you say ladybug and it means God's little cow and I'm obsessed with.
It, which my favorite.
Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever heard? Are you just are you just dying right now? Because I'm dying every time I think about it.
God, Yeah, look at that little guy. So fucking cute and also not gendered the way that I guess it is. It is because cows are girlies. Yeah, never mind, I'm against it. God's Little Cow is so cute.
I always thought that, like if I was gonna like be somebody that opened like a i don't know, like a kindergarten or something, that's what I would call it.
God's Little Cow.
I'd be like, that is the cutest. All of the kids are gonna go here.
That's amazing, like.
A preschool, a ladybug ladybug preschool, but there's probably many of them, so it really works. I think it's a great name.
Thank you so much, Scott, Scott.
What is something you think is overrated. Massages, massages.
I do not like giving massages, and I do not like receiving massages, and they make me feel intensely uncomfortable, and the fact that so many people love them so much is a total mystery to me.
Have you ever had a good one?
I think I've had some good ones. Yeah, like on my honeymoon, an expensive couples massage, and like Greece or whatever that we paid lots and lots of money for, I found it uncomfortable and akin to torture the entire time.
Well, money's not really how you judge it, because anyone can just be like, oh, you're in a hotel, fucking pay me a thousand dollars to touch you. That didn't come out right. But I just kind of want to know. Do you get like the light kind? Do you get the deep kind? And do you think when they touch you it's like too much pressure or too little or do you just not like people touching you?
Yeah, it's it's all of the above. I've tried more than once. I've had the light massages. I've had those deep tissue massages that leave you feeling ill for days, Like anytime they warn you ahead of time, like, oh, hey, this is this is gonna You're gonna just feel sick and stuffed up for the next forty eight hours because we're gonna rub so many toxins out of your flesh and send it forcing through your your system.
Out of your nose, and drink a lot of water. So oh, they do tell you that I'm no one.
Ever does myself included, And then you're like, oh, why do I feel that nice? I'm like, well, bitch, they told you.
Yeah, I like to go from massage directly to just drinking a giant a train to of a cold brew.
Oh my god, you're the healthiest.
That's that voice came around, And that's why I sound like this, Scott.
I think it's bold of you to admit that you hate massages, because I think a ton of people do, but they won't say anything because they're like, people think I'm insane. It's like when someone says they don't like welcome o.
Mm hmm. Yeah, well, I mean it's a little more selfish to say you hate giving massages. I think that's probably more.
You know that you're a monster.
I was going to come back to this podcast for.
That what's what's like? What is it a massage giving? What is what is like? When is it okay to be annoyed? Like how many minutes?
Because you can feel it. You can feel when the person giving it is annoyed. So it's always done bad, even that three minutes that they give and I'm like, you know what, take your fucking lobster ass hands out of here. I don't this pity massage.
They're just giving like mitten style massages figures together and then.
Yeah, fucking zoidberging my fucking neck. I don't want that, Scott. Is that your style to do a bad job? So you're just out of there.
I mean, I try my best, but I promise it's bad. That's I mean, no matter what I'll do, I'll give it my absolute awe and will still disappoint and then the annoyance will will come through. So I mean, maybe that's at the heart of why I don't like them, because I've never really had a good experience, either as a giver or a receiver. But no, it's just not it's just not my thing. Are you an expert massage giver?
Would you say, yeah, I'm awesome, I have the hands of a construction worker, but the gentleness of an angel of.
One of God's little cows exactly. Yeah, yeah, I like giving and receiving. I was complimented in the past year that I receive massage well from somebody, and I took that. I was like, I didn't know I needed to hear that about myself, but it really.
Could possibly mean other than making noises.
Receptive noises, being like that is the spot. How did you know.
The person?
Growner Jack, Yeah, it's an older one nicest way to say, you're a vocal cross.
Really sweet. She gives uh, my wife and I massages and she I think she just likes us and so she like comes up with ways to compliment us. But like that, You're right, it doesn't make sense to like have a for that to be a skill that somebody has. But I totally took it to heart. I was like, yes, did she to your wife? Yeah, she loves my way. I mean she's given my wife every single compliment the world.
Maybe she's running out and that's why she's like this massage.
Your husband, I don't know, did a good job taking a massage from me?
She's taking a massage sounds like so Dommy like yeah, yeah. Of hers like yeah you take that massage? Good?
You take that, don't you?
Yeah?
Exactly, Scott with something you think is underrated the beach. The beach. Okay, we get a lot of on this show. We get a lot of the beaches overrated. So this is this is an important moment for this show to have somebody on to speak on behalf of the beach. Scott, the floor is yours.
There beach haters out here. There's Ken Who's just like, my job is beach and people are beach haters. I fucking cannot Scott tell us more.
Well, I mean, we live, We were lucky enough to live in Los Angeles with with some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. And and here's the dirty secret, I never go I live. I lived twelve minutes from the Santa Monica like beaches, like the like the heart of Beachtown, LA, and have not been all summer long. And are you.
Really a beach lover? Then this, well, this is exactly what I'm saying.
I am underrating the beach. And then when I go I'm like, oh shit, guys, guess what the beach is amazing. It's seventy five. It's seventy five and sunny. There's the the ocean is is one of the most majestic creations in all of nature. You stand in waters.
Stand next to the biggest thing on planet Earth in Los Angeles, and you're just looking out at the biggest thing on Earth.
That's exactly right, it's it, and it exerts its force on you. You go inside it, it rolls over you, You're you're You're overwhelmed and delighted by the sound right that that that white noise of.
The wild ass sounds on the on like southern California beaches.
Sorry, when we edit this episode, can we just take out the part by itself and make it go viral because it will absolutely of Scott giving this impassioned, yelling, delightful speech about how much he loves the beach. It's truly one of God's most delightful things. Since, like the Double Rainbow guy, we need this out in the world.
Yes, well, since here, guys, I mean, I'm a fool. Every single time I have the same reaction and I never follow through. I turn to my wife and I say we should do this All the time, I say to myself you know what, I'm gonna come this week. I'm gonna get in my car while my kids are at school. I'm gonna bring my laptop, I'm gonna bring a chair. I'm gonna sit and i'm gonna I'm gonna do whatever work needs to be done, email, writing, whatever, and I'm gonna do it in Paradise. And I've lived
here for eight years now. I've never once followed through and done that, but I should. Why are we not all doing that? I don't know. It's a mystery.
At the beach, there are people and.
Their beach towels and their beach chairs not far from where we were sitting, who have paid god knows how much money in airfare and hotels to have this experience that is at our fingertips, and I don't take advantage of it. So that's why I think that it's underrated.
Yeah, I totally. When I moved, when I was like moving out to Los Angeles, I was like, I am going to be surfing to work every morning. That's how I'm going. That is going to be my primary mode of conveyance is surfing around. And then when I'm not surfing, I will be in line skating on the boardwalk at the Venishalk. Yeah, Venish. I used to live Russian.
Literally like half a block from the beach in Venice, like on one of those little walk streets. Yeah, and it was like the best fucking experience of my life because that is the only time I've not taken the beach for granted. You know, you literally walk out barefoot out of your house in a towel with your neighbors. You just walk down to the sand. Was like the shit you bring from your house and then you're just like there.
We lived in the last street before Venice, so we were kind of ven Ish. We weren't quite in Venice, but we were Venish. Yeah, sorry, okay, go ahead, No.
That's all I was just gonna say, that's the only time I've not disrespected the beach. Now I'm like fifteen minutes away, and like I definitely do not go nearly as often as I should.
So yeah, I'm forty five minutes away, but I yeah, I flew all the way across the country to go swim in the Atlantic Ocean, like the you know, my my parents live by the Atlantic Ocean. Went in every morning. Was like, this is the best and then came back. Haven't even thought about going to the beach since I've been back. So the Pacific is a little cold. I will say that it's being inside the Pacific and having it roll you around in Los Angeles is just a
little bit chilly. But and I'm baby, So don't let the voice, don't let the voice fool you. I am baby, I am deep voice, Baby, I'm deep voice. Baby. Is that.
I'm with you. I need to like just be in the sun for so long that it's unbearable, and then I'll go in the water and then I'm cool. And then I'm like, Okay, Well I can't get out because if I get out, then getting back in is gonna be torture again. And so I just stay in the water for as long as I can. I like it when the waves hit me, that's real nice. But you can't swim or do shit out here, because, like you know, I grew up on the and Odessa on the Black Sea.
Swimming in the sea, you can actually swim, it's like lovely and so warm.
Wait was the difference between their sea and the Pacific Ocean. It's just more calm or more warmer, warmer, Yeah, I like to I like to go to the Atlantic Ocean and like body surf, but I feel like you try and body surf in the Pacific and you're gonna you're gonna get put in the spin cycle? Is that what surfers call it?
Anyways, I don't know the terms, but that sounds right.
Yeah, it'll be bad and all the surfers will make fun of me. That'll be the number one hand of there. They won't let me into their bank robbing gang.
Victor just said the current, put in the spin cycle.
The current, I.
Believe, Thank you so much.
The cur there's a slang term, victor for like when you get like, you know, flipped upside down by a wave, and I believe I've heard it referred to as the spin cycle. But I have heard of the current as well. You watch out for that for sure. All right, let's take a let's take a quick break, and we'll come back and talk about some news. We'll be right back.
And we're back, and there's a lot of news. We're mainly a US news zeitgeist, but I'm seeing a lot of news of late that China's economy is stalling, and the New York Times had a piece today blaming it on demographics, which is something that we've talked about on this before. But anytime I get a chance to talk about the dependency ratio, I will do it because I do think it's like one of my if this show had a like overrated, I feel like that that would
be one of the things that we underrate. I guess about explaining why things are the way they are in the world, is this thing called the dependency ratio. It's not like controversial. Most people are like, yeah, yeah, no,
that's true, that's why things work that way. But like it immediately gets lost because it takes all of the personality and like personal responsibility out of like America having a good economy and just like breaks it down into a story of like demographics, and everyone's like, no, we're we have money because we're the best. We're good people
and we work hard. But basically, the idea of the dependency ratio is that you put all the people in your country that are working age like that are you able to work on one side of a scale, all the people who are either too young or too old to work on the other side of the scale, and when the people who are of working age outweigh the people who are not who can't work by a lot, you have a really strong economy.
Basically, it breaks down into the supported and the supporters exactly. And if you have too many people those people who are supported side, and not enough people who are the supporters, then the economy does not do well and things don't recover well. So I actually want to relate this a little bit too. As you know, I'm an unofficial ambassador
to Paris, but you know the protests. I was there when when they started, and it's about, you know, raising the retirement age, and it's precisely because of the dependency ratio. There's not enough people working to take care of the people that are trying to retire. So they're like, hey, can we push the age back two years to make up for the the gap dependency. So yeah, that's all. Just wanted to bring in just a little correspondent situation.
Oh that was good. That's a great example. It's better than it's good in this news podcast. To have an example from the news, I didn't bother to write, and I was like, hey, here's a New York Times article.
They reminded me of a thing I know Anyways, that and the article is interesting because it's like, first, let me like summarize what's going on with the economy based on all the writing, and the summary is all like the real estate market has turned down, like they like mentioned this like poetic turn a phrase of like the Chinese are calling the sense of national stasis nawan, which translated to life twisting inward without real progress.
And you know, I'm just the state of the world right now. And it kind of like pierced me deeply in my heart when I read that, I was like, Jesus fucking Christ, damn you mailed how everybody and everything in the world currently is Holy fuck.
Yeah, just life twisting inward like a snailshell and no forward momentum whatsoever. But yeah, for all of that and all the explanations they give that, they ultimately come back to this guy who's been looking at the demography, like the demographics of China, and it's like, hey, this is gonna be bad like fairly soon. And the the thing that has like driven China's really powerful economy for the past you know, handful of decades is the same thing
that's going to make them go off. This like demographic cliff because basically one policy, the one child policy. Yeah, so they had a one child policy, and as when they had that, they had all these people who were going through the working age, you know, a ton of people that they had. They made the one child policy because their population was going up so fast, so they had like a massive baby boom essentially, and as that massive baby boom was going through the like working age,
they were in great shape. And not only that, but they also had a small amount of dependence because they had instituted this one child policy and just like.
The commitment to the workforce was like artificially strengthened because you have only one kid and it's easier to just go back to work.
Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons. It like made a lot of sense. But now they're hitting the point where that big, like baby boom that made them put the one child policy into place in the first place is going to start retiring and the only people left to work are going to be the one child policy babies, like the like government mandated only children.
And they're like they they kind of got a sense that this was going to happen and this was bad, and so they've like tried to get people to start fucking again. But it's just it hasn't worked like that. They are still like their procreation number or whatever is like one point something. It's so the population is like shrinking.
So I don't know this just it feels like such a massive idea that is like such a clear you know, it explains so much economic success and like so much of like what happened in the twentieth century and like beginning of the twenty first century. But the US like
never really like never sticks in the news. And I really think it's just that the baby boomers are so selfish that they like want this takes away some of their like personal agency for having like created America's economic success because it's just like, no, you just happen to be like part of this weird like demographic blip of like the baby boom and so like. But if you look at a baby.
Boomers make it part of their identity right that they are, you know, the how they are what made America like work, right.
Yeah, And it's just like no, there's just like too many of you. Like it's bad ultimately, but it was good for these thirty years.
And also it's interesting because that whole sense of like inward like we make shit happen, we are the right and the important ones has translated into them being like, well, like fuck you, we want our social security and we want all of this stuff without ever thinking about their kids or like the world they're leaving behind. I think like that self centeredness, I guess is what I was gonna say. I think, yeah, is like across the board.
Yeah, like getting back to China just for a second. I agree that that we're in. It's like a ticking time bomb, the whole baby boom generation, like we've been talking about. It's like, oh no, as they age, we're fucked.
But like you were talking about how the one child policy screwed over China, I'm not sure if it was in that New York Times article, Jack, but another big demographic problem with that is that when you're only allowed to have one child, and there is a sort of cultural sexism that's so deeply ingrained, the disproportionate amount of the of the single children, the only children we were boys.
So now there's literally decades worth of of adult male Chinese men and there aren't like there's a lack of partners for them, there's jizz.
Just dying to get.
And I think the last time the article that I read about this, this is not from this morning, but this is more recently, not not more recently than this morning, but in the recent past, is that the only similar sort of demographic imbalance in history is the wild West, when and cowboys and ship went out west and there was just like, you know, way more, way more men, and like, I don't know if you guys are familiar with wild Web stories, but there's a lot of fighting, right,
There's a lot a lot of violence.
There's also a lot of raping. Yeah, because there's not enough women to go around. You're not going to be like, oh, milady, would you like the choice of all of the things. It's going to be like mine.
But think about all the great inventions that we got from the wild West, like the saloon with a spittoon in every corner, Like just yeah.
Those doors that swing open when.
You say the doors that you can see the bottoms and the tops like that, they're just the midway doors.
Those are the least the least effective doors ever invented.
Right. They don't they don't trap heater cold, they don't block anyone sight.
They don't lock.
Actually, even if they did lock, you could crawl right under.
Yeah, you could any of humanity that you're getting with a wild West type society. Yeah.
And also you know, like we don't really know the real numbers of any of this because China fundamentally fundamentally
lies about everything. And like when I was there, the guy that was like our guide, you know, was telling us, like we were driving by like all of these high rises that are just fucking emptiest empty yeah, and we were like, what is this And he's like, oh, well, like to artificially inflate stuff and to have job growth and creation or whatever, they're like having people build these giant high rises, but like no one can actually afford to live in them, so they just stand there empty.
But like they just keep building new ones. And he says, like American companies come through and they like film like post apocalyptic stuff there.
Yeah.
Hell is just the most insane fucking combination of random ass things where you're like what the fuck? Yeah, And then I was asking him about like car accident rates because I was like, damn, like I can't believe like all of this works because I'm watching people speed around and like you know, on motorbikes and balancing babies and wives and like baskets of things and like and no one gives a fuck about the rules, like but somehow it still works. I was like, but are there a
lot of accidents? Like what are the accident rates? And he kind of laughed and he was like, well, nobody really knows. He's like, we wouldn't know what they are, cause like to look good, you would make them be a good amount. Like it's just how it works. He said, like one time there was an accident and like like a train accident and like a collision and hundreds of people died, but they just like buried the train with the people in it.
Yeah what Yeah, So.
Nobody wants to be like, yeah, something happened with these trains. They're just like what trains. So I'm just saying, like, we don't even know the stunt of this problem. It could be so much worse.
Well that's what he say. He's saying that a lot of this shit is like turning bad earlier than anyone was expecting other than him. So he wrote a book called Big Country with an Empty Nest in two thousand and seven and it was immediately banned by the Chinese government, but people were like, this seems interesting, and he was predicting everything that's currently happening due to the one child policy.
But by twenty thirteen, Chinese authorities were like, hey, you seem smart actually, and they had like started rethinking the one child policy.
And now I've had one of my trademark changes.
Of heart exactly. By the way, speaking of demographics and sex of like the breakdown of sex the like another thing that drove the American baby boom is that, like, so the baby boom started entering the workforce in force in like sixty six and reached the peak of everybody who was part of the baby boom was working age in nineteen eighty two, and everybody whose baby boom was in the workforce through two thousand and like six to two thousand and eleven, depending on when they were retiring.
But that was also a time when like women were more and more able to be part of the workforce, and like, so you're letting like the smartest adults now like get to work instead of not getting to work, Like so I think I think that also was like a massive help when it came to the US.
Yeah, it seems to me. It seems to me that like it definitely helps the economy when a all shitload extra people start working and and be half of the population is allowed to join in, Like yeah, you're untapped talent. You would expect a productivity boost from changes like those and and we got one.
Yeah yeah. So but anyways, I mean the US is hitting you know, it's they started, like the Baby boom generation started aging out around like two thousand and six to twenty eleven. And you might recognize that as like a time where the economy started to stagnate a little bit. But the US didn't have this role like demographic.
Stuff started happening with Britney Spears. I'm just saying, yes.
I think, well, right, that's the thirds.
The sliding doors moment if she hadn't had that conservatorship or whatever.
I'm not saying causation on correlation.
Guy, But the US doesn't have this like unnatural like demographic cliff that they're going over. So they're going to like just be getting slightly worse over over the next handful of decades.
Right, It'll be more like Europe in Japan, right, because they preceded US in exactly this sort of dependency ratio because they have Europe and Japan had fewer kids historically than we have, and now we're catching up our declining birth rates and immigration. Because it's a problem immigration.
That's what I was gonna say. The other thing is, like we have constantly an influx of new people because of immigration.
Yeah. Immigration is the thing that saves America from it.
Yeah, and despite the fact that fucking every fucking conservative Republican person is so shitty about it, it's like without immigration, this place would truly die.
Right, Well, they think they can just like magically make
America like Baby Boom generation. Like they want to believe that it was just like through sheer tyranny of will and like American values that they had success and that they can just like magically make America great again by if, like just if everyone would just listen to them, and like their primary like policy objective is to like end immigration, which would be the exact opposite of like it's the one thing that's going to make America viable going forward,
but they want to they want to end that ship. So anyways, turns out Donald Trump kind of an idiot. We've never said that, I'm sorry, racist and shortsighted to be.
I didn't agree to commonist show that would say such.
Crazy.
I couldn't even finish that.
All right, let's take another quick break and we'll come back and we'll talk Whopper, and we'll talk the Great British Museum theft. We'll be right back and we're back, And I mean this Whopper story, it's just a lawsuit that a judge has said can go forward. And the suit is basically just claiming that Burger Can commercials feature burgers that are approximately thirty five percent larger in size and contain more than double the meat.
Okay, that is a huge difference. I know, Jack, you think that this is ridiculous. I'm sorry, what double the meat? No?
How do you know the how do you know the buns just aren't bigger in there. I just don't understand, like from a legal perspective, from like a logical argument perspective, how this lawsuit would break down. Can't they just be like, yeah, no, we use smaller buns for the for the ads.
No, because if they already measured the meat and they're telling you that the meat is half of what it should be that's a real problem for me. I'm sorry, right, you're no. And I also have to say, like it just contributes to like America's like problem with like lying about size, and it's like we don't really need to do that, you.
Know what I'm saying.
It's like anyone are just bad lying, not just like penis size obviously, but like height and stuff.
It's like all of it.
I'm like, please stop man bumbling me.
Yeah, that's why you always want your dating profile picture to like have something for scale in it, right, And but that's what like, that's what I don't understand to get next to a ruler, stand next to a ruler, just like be standing under a basketball hoop or something like. And that this just like the pictures that they are.
To be dunking.
If you're not dunking in your photo, I don't know how tall you are. No, but no, I just care about the lying jack.
Okay dating site and not being able to dunk.
Embarrassing, embarrassing. You know, I taught myself how to dunk before I started dating. I'm not I had to. It's not gonna be out here in these streets dunk lists are you?
Come on?
But I'm serious. Okay, this is my final point, my only point about the whopper situation, which is why lie about your size, Like, I don't care if you are five seven or a tiny burger, just tell me what you are. White castle it white Castle out here proud being like these are tiny, shitty burgers, yeah, but are addictive as hell. Fuck do you want a million of them? And we're all like, yes, yes we do. Thank you for telling us they're small and terrible. We love that
about it. So why is Wopper out here being like, oh, I have a big title, I'm a whopper, and you're just sneaking in with half the meat. Get out of here. I was really passionate about it.
Those we're all taken a back.
It's hard to it's hard to disagree. I mean, my take on this is maybe a little more boring, Like, Okay, I get it, truth and advertising. I'm not especially upset about it. I'm not especially surprised by. What I think is so ludicrous is that it takes like some allowed class action lawsuit to remedy this, Like why is there not just shouldn't there just shouldn't a government just like
find them? Shouldn't it just be like, oh no, you lied, Like like, isn't there like a simple or more streamlined way to do this, Like when I'm a Burger department burger the false burgers are. I mean, I wouldn't be against it. I don't want to, you know. I guess the people argue by the size of government, but a burgers are seems like a pretty cool job. That could just be my my fascination with with Russian czars creeping in.
But I mean, if you are going too fast on the highway, right, they just pull you over and they give you a fucking ticket, Like it isn't. It isn't an attorney who is coming up with a class of drivers who have been threatened and harmed by someone speeding too fast, Like.
He's just self evidently wrong.
The process is crazy. I don't That's what was confused me about this whole whopper thing. Although you know, God bless them, good good luck getting getting me a free life like coupon, because that's going to be the outcome of all of this.
Yeah, it's that.
And they're gonna maybe actually show the real ass sized burgers in the ads, which will be hilarious, I feel, because they are so small and not good. They're not going to make them be meteor that's ridiculous.
They'll just change the bun size, like that's the solution of this whole thing, just because it doesn't matter for your pictures.
It's about how much meat they say that they have.
I mean, here's the thing, it's just the pictures, right. The fact of matter is, I think you may disagree with me on this, Sophia. Whoppers are great. It's not going to change anyone's buying behavior. It's just that the pictures they took made them look a little too big, So yeah, silly pictures and give me a coupon.
And they're also shooting them from a low angle somehow, Burger, you're burger.
Fishing me, and you're telling me to accept it, Scott, and I fucking refuse.
I'm not telling you accepted at all. I'm on your side. I think that they should be punished, and I think the pictures should be more truthful.
But and don't the pictures, like the pictures of the whopper are also like the main issue with them is that it is taken from the perspective of a person who is one and a half inches tall standing in front of a burger like that. No, they're so like you, Yeah, it's standing in front of a little burger. And that's that's why where most of the illusion that's coming from.
Now I know how this law suit is going to end. They're going to add a sentence in the tiniest white font on all of the ads that says, the portrayal of the burger in this ad is from the perspective of a one and a half.
Yes, yeah, I think that's what is tricking people.
Because they do that, you know, on makeup ads. You guys probably don't know that, but like so before and this I think is important to people who use miscara. So everyone who uses Misscara is gonna be like, yes, I'm pretty mad about it too. So they used to do these ads where like it'd be people putting on Miss Scarra and they'd be like, look at my huge ass lashes and you'd be like, wow, cool, your MISCAA
really works. Yeah, And then people were like, hey, you can't just like have people have fake lashes and then be like wow, this my scare really worried.
But you can see that, like that's pretty fucked up.
That's pretty fucked up. So now when they have those ads at the bottom, they have to say, like and they do these lashes, I've been enhanced with the fake lashes or whatever. So now you just know you're being lied to every time. Yeah, welcome to America.
There you go. Well that's it. Just it feels very like quaint and adorable. This lawsuit, Like it's.
Just like we needed a little break.
One of the first things that I was like, I just accepted that I was being lied to about is
advertising like looks better than the actual thing. Like I think it was the very first toy that I bought, and it was like in the commercial, like there's dry ice fog floating in as they like play with Skeletor's castle and like just amazing, like like actual moats dug into this like styrofoam like land that they've created around this, and you know, and then and then I get it home and it was still an awesome toy, but it wasn't as cool as what it looked like I'm on the TV.
So the hot wheels wasn't like burn and rubber. No, yeah, it guitars fucking everywhere, like the micro machines.
You still speak at normal speed?
Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, I do feel like dry ice really like if they're there, if they could create a safe version of dry ice for children to play with, really adds a lot of atmospheric It.
Makes anything cool as hell, really does dry ice, mini fog machine, whatever, whatever they.
Need to do. I sent a bath while you're taking a bath.
That is the most metal thing I've ever heard of in my life.
Yeah.
I don't even have any idea what would happen? Would you die, would it explode? What would happen?
It would just slowly melt.
But while it smelts, I think it would like melt a little bit effect and there would be like some fog just sitting on top on the surface of your bathtub. Be cool, I think, I don't know, don't do it at home with a child, but I will.
Do it on my own adult body that.
You do whatever the fuck you want, actually don't. Yeah, all right? Should we talk about the British Museum like this? Yes, we've talked about like England's little problem with going around stealing the worth or stealing like the greatest cultural treasures of every other country in the world, and just you know, the British Museum is the most famous tourist attraction, grotesque monument to colonial wealth in a place that is kind of famous for that. But they are now the victim
of theft and it's a major scandal. In the UK, two thousand treasures worth millions of pounds have seemingly been stolen from the British Museum's collection, and a leading expert in looted antiquities told the BBC the number of objects lost from the museum was mind blowing, which is not a phrase I expected an expert in looted antiquities to use.
But I mean, the only expert in looted antiquities that I know is Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones, that's right, expert in looting.
Yeah, I just want to say that, Like, first off, that's a problem with like so many museums essentially, like so much of the artist stolen. Yeah, and so much of it belongs to completely different If we started distributing it back, that would change literally the GDP of so many countries.
Yeah, can't have that the museum GDP.
Yeah, Like no, just like so much tourism, people are coming to see all of this stuff and it's all like concentrated in places that colonial that our colonialist fucking like you know, yeah, war chests or whatever the fuck. Like they can't even display ever all of it. Yeah, so the amount of greed is insane.
Yeah. Yeah, So the museum was actually just because we're going to get to that because people have been asking for it back and this is giving them, giving them like a new reason to be like, Hey, you guys like don't even know where the shit is that you stole from us, Like what the fuck?
But you don't even know how to plunder, right, Yeah, you don't, like you can't keep track of your booty. What the hell is wrong with you?
The museum was warned about the fact that like they were being robbed blind back in twenty twenty one by an art dealer, and the museum blew him off and ignored the warnings. The reason that the person had a sense that they were being robbed is that their shit kept showing up on eBay.
So this made me furious because the opening bids were like fifty dollars and no one fucking bid. And it's because no one on fucking eBay understands what this is. Like again, you don't even uh, this is so upsetting It's like all of this could have just been given to the fucking people it belongs to. No one even wants it on stupid eBay, you fucking assholes. God, I'm so mad.
So the museum fired prominent curator Peter Higgs, seemingly believing him to be the thief, which he denies. But the essence though, Yeah, the evice is crazy. First of all, they like started showing all these things that were under his purview, like that that he was curating kept showing up on eBay. And the eBay seller's name was the same as Higgs's Twitter account.
Man did not bother to make.
Handle.
His PayPal was linked to a bank account in the name of Peter Higgs.
He is just out here signing his stealing. Yeah, like us, he left to know being like XL XL Peter Higgs.
Yeah, like what, It's totally insane. If I was eluded antiquity stealer, I might borrow his handle and use it as my eBay handle as a way of you know, getting Scotland Yard off my tracks. But when the PayPal account is linked to his yeah, exactly. It's like, well, wait a minute, but we have an electronic record of you are receiving the money, then then then I think that then that's where.
It breaks down. His first response was probably how stupid do you think I am? Like that, I would just like use the same to account Sultan in nineteen sixty six, you mad man. And then they're like, oh, also we got like you're selling it and it's like the money's going directly into your bank account. And every time it does, like we hear your phone make a little pitchang sound like we've been tracking that the whole time we've been
having this meeting. Anyways, the museum itself is like the largest collection of stolen shit, like stolen property, and it like most of it's not even on display. First of all, just one percent. So they have eight million.
Yeah, that's one of the things that I'm incredibly furious about, right, So only one percent.
Million objects is like in their possession eight million objects, and they are able to show eighty thousand objects in total, which is like a lot. That's a that's a big ass museum.
But they've got But you could literally even if you were still going to be a person that is a plunderer that was going to keep stuff, you could literally keep that collection and give the rest of it away and still have a giant museum of stolen stuff.
Yeah, it's totally wild. I just I just this summer went to the British Museum with my family and had a revelation about museums because this is not this isn't this doesn't have anything to do with ethics, guys. This has got to do with museum design. Because the British Museum, it only has one percent of its items, yes, but it also, like you said, has eighty thousand. Here here's my take on that. Too many. It's too fucking big.
That's how I feel about the lover. I also went to I'm like, how many fucking Jesus is can? I really? I agree, you're exactly right.
And here's here's the counter example. If you go to see the crown jewels, right, I'm not a big jewel fan. Also, those jewels totally stolen, not any ethically better. Here here's the thing. You walk into a room, there's fucking one thing. They're like, this is King Charles's old crown, and everybody looks at and it's like, oh okay. And then you go into the next room and it's got like three scepters, and it's like eight rooms big. Each thing has a
manageable number of things. You're in and out in twenty minutes. It's my favorite museum in.
All of Europe.
You just you just just do some selecting, do some editing. For me as a museum goer.
Yeah, it's like a fucking massive, like uncoordinated playlist where it's just like the shit just like chaos.
It's just chaos, chaos.
Just it's like, yeah, they like the artists, think about the artists who originally made that, and it's like, yeah, you're gonna be on the wall next to like three other paintings that you like don't even exist when you've when you're painting this one, or you've just like never heard of and like people are I don't know. Yeah, it's a it's a fucking mess.
Well. I also want to say that this reminds me of this. The New Yorker did a profile on Gagosian super recently that was by the way, Chef's kiss amazing fire, Like, do you know who he is? He's like the biggest art dealer, like his Gallerygosian, He's kind of like the art dealer guy, but he sells like art from the wealthy to the wealthy and basically has artificially changed the art market forever to where now things are worth millions
of dollars that like, you know, weren't before. And some of it is like obviously good for an artist, but it's it's all artificial. He controls the market essentially. But what I want to say is all of these rich people that buy these incredible like Basquiats, these incredible like paintings that we you know, would cry like I cried when I saw Basquiat paintings in real life, like things that would change people's lives to look at you know,
where most of them sit. They sit in a temperature controlled warehouse in Switzerland where these rich people's planes just like come drop them off and like leave forever. And then when these rich people kind of sell to each other, it's like it just goes for one place in that warehouse to another. Yeah, and that's it, and no one ever ever sees that art. And I feel like this
is exactly that same vibe. It's like you just want to own it, to say that you own it, to feel like you're something, and to keep it from other people to keep it from being seen. That to me is like that's anathema, like you can't do that, or is the whole point of it is to be enjoyed?
Yeah, And the amazing thing is that, like, yeah, so the world just like spreading that eight eight million objects out across like the original nations where they've made, you know, like this is going to be such a better like the world will be a more beautiful place, and exactly the entire argument for like why they have it is like obviously completely insulting and like unbelievable that it was ever the argument, but now it's like completely you know, upended,
which they were like the their reason for not returning the ship up to this point is that other countries would either not be able to care take care of them or they would likely be stolen, which obviously doesn't hold water when you've got people in this country putting them on eBay, the calls.
Coming from inside the fucking house.
So it's really like just Hartwig Fisher, one of the main heads of the thing, who they were like, hey, I'm pretty sure this is like one of your one of yours, and someone just sold it on eBay and he just ignored them for a couple of years, resigned in disgrace, but he argued that the removal and exhibition of these Greek marbles was elegenc The Elgin Marbles was itself a creative act in its own reg It wasn't stealing, it was like art the way that they took it and putting.
My man just banks, try to bank see his way out of stealing and selling cultural fucking artifacts on eBay, Get out of here.
Yeah, and the guy who was selling all the shit on eBay was in charge of the Elgin Marbles at the time of everybody discovering the shit.
So and also when Peter Higgs got fired, right, he got re hired immediately. Yeah, right, and like was just in charge of some other art. Yeah, Like there's no consequences for these fucking guys.
But yeah, it's almost like these institutions are elitist or something almost true. Almost well, Scott, truly a pleasure having you on the daily Geist. Where can people find you? Follow you, hear you all that good stuff.
Well, the thing that's probably best for people to check out is a podcast called Born to Love that I co host with Ellie Kemper. Each week we bring on celebrity guests to talk about something that they were born to love, usually not related to their jobs. So we had Al Roker to talk about how he loves barbecue, Christian Shall talking about how she loves close up magic.
My favorite was Zach Cherry. He is a very funny actor, comedian and his and what he was born to love is watching cable TV in hotel rooms.
So it's a fun.
It's a fun it's a fun eclectic podcast. I hope you check it out. I'm on Twitter at at niscottecker dot com, but nobody follows me, so there's no reason for you two.
I don't know.
That's not true.
Go check them out.
Yeah, following you immediately.
And uh, is there a work of media that you've been enjoying by any chance?
Well, I don't know if discounts as as a work of media, but I've just gotten into just this week, the New York Times Short Crossword, which is a tiny little crossword. I hate long crosswords because I'm not smart enough to do him. But in the four or five that I've done this week, they make me feel smart because it's like, oh, I can fill out this eight question crossword you have.
Changed my mother fucking life. I did not know about this.
It's it's pretty fun. Did there's a little timer for how fast you can do it, because the assumption is that pretty much everyone's gonna be able to do it, and so far it's worked out great for me. It's five minutes. It's even less. It's less frustrating than wordle. So New York Times crossword short class word?
Is it daily, Scott?
I believe it's daily.
Yeah, it's daily. Yeah, it's a blast.
Are you a short crossword of ficionado?
Jack?
I like a short crossword. I like a wordle. I like the Monday crossword puzzle, the Monday lost easiest. It's so easy, it's so fun.
But how long does it take you? Because it would probably take me half an hour at least.
Takes me like fourteen fifteen minutes somewhere in there.
That's a reasonable period of time. This short crossword things opened my eyes because if there were other games and activities that took less than five minutes, Like if I could just play a five minute game of basketball, I think I'd be playing a lot more basketball.
I think they should just do that. That should be what the NBA is from now on, just five minutes sprint to like whoever you can get to ten first. Amazing, Sophia, such a pleasure having you as so much guest co host. Where can people find you? Follow you?
I'm at the Sofia so f I y a on Twitter and Instagram and of course you can listen to me and Miles who is currently in Italy.
Are are we revealing that I don't know? Oh?
Yeah, he already revealed it on four twenty.
Okay, good.
Do you want me to say a different version so that you can edit it out? I will say no, No, I think that's the case. I mean, I'm not trying to blow up a spot. He played the fun sucking theme music of him going to Italy. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the genies out.
There simply must. Yeah. He might have actually mentioned it on this show.
I just but yeah, I appreciate you caring for him. But once he brought the soundboard into it, I was like, I think this is public.
Yeah, okay, anyway, for.
Twenty Day Fiance, where we watched trash TV and talk about it with Miles Gray. So check us out for twenty Day Fiance and all of the platforms.
Yeah, yep. And is there a working media you've been enjoying?
Yeah, I was. I've been enjoying for a long time the fifty years of hip Hop thing on the New Yorker because you can just click on each of the rappers and it gives you a tiny little thing so you can make your way through it forever. It's kind of like a sharp short crossword. So whenever I'm like chilling, I just have that pulled up on my phone and I click on any of the rappers and I'm like okay, and uh yeah. So it's pretty fun. Fifty years of hip hop.
Let's see a tweet I've been in enjoy doing tarra at Proltera tweeted. Everybody at this home depot is getting hurricane supplies, except this one woman is buying the twelve foot skeleton, and that reminded me it's twelve foot skeleton season. I need to go get that ship. I'm gonna try and get it this afternoon. But I like a person in a Florida home depot as they're preparing for a once in a generation storm getting getting the twelve foot skeleton.
Is the twelve foot skeleton one of those blowy ones or is it because I'm imagining that a twelve foot skeleton one that that blows around would be pretty fun, you know.
Holy shit ideas.
Yeah, like that's making that's making lemon lemonade out of lemons right there.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Like I just be worth weather testing, just like a get a time lapse video of how the twelve foot skeleton holds up in a generational storm?
Am I wrong? Or are we all picturing like inflatable?
Yeah?
What I'm imagining, sure, I'm just imagining. Now that's the the e MT and the rowboat with the like flooded neighborhood, and then there's the one house with the several of the twelve foot skeletons and twelve foot skeletons everyone inside water, but the ems are delighted.
Yeah, days, the skeletons are smiling. I don't know why, but I needed to make sure.
Everyone do that. Yeah, all right. You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fanpage and a website, Daily Zeikeeist 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, well as a song that we think you might enjoy. Super producer Justin is there a song that you think people might enjoy?
Yeah, I just got back from spending all last week in my hometown of Chicago to wind down the summer and celebrate my birthday. And I want to put oh, thank you so much, and I want to put all y'all onto an amazing band who's made Chicago their new home. I think they're originally from Madison, Wisconsin.
They're called Slow Pulp that's s l O W p U LP.
And if you listen to like alt rock radio in the mid to late two thousands, you'll probably feel pretty nostalgic for these guys. You're kind of reminiscent of Paramore, but they have more of like a grungy, low fi indie rock type vibe that would sound perfect and like an anime title sequence. But this song is called Slugs and it's by Slow Pulpe and you can find that song in the footnote.
Foot The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listening your favorite shows. That is going to do it for us this morning, back this afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we'll talk to you all then bite