Weekly Zeitgeist 268 (Best of 3/27/23-3/31/23)

joined by the Coldbrew Cracking as producer justin Yeah. You know, as we were letting him into the chat, he was like, unleash, unleash the cracking, unleash the colbrew crack. Mister Colebrew got me like the advice King. The poetry window was open because it's Chris motherfucking Craft. Hey, what's up? Thank you so much, Jack, Thank you for that. That's like, you know when you see a stand up and they play like Enter Sandman or something, and they're coming on stage

and then it goes away. Everybody's like, oh yeah, it's a comedy show. It is that. There is that moment I know exactly what you're talking about, where like the song comes on you feel you're in a baseball game because they're like, oh here it comes to oh yeah, and then you got like the music fades down. You're like, all right, y'all, how are you guys doing to night? How are you guys doing tonight? All right, you guys on some dates tonight. And you're like, just like, what

do you do? Sir? Yeah? God, well you do? What about you here? What's up with a grateful dead in town? Come on? Come on? Hey, am all right? Come on? Like he was going hard with that ACDC. That's how it felt. That's how it felt. That was such action. That was incredible, fucking rap by by Miles there. That that was. I felt like I was at a show. Yeah all I can all I can talk about now his feces and breast mill. So I wanted that show to go on. I wanted to hear the rest of

that song. Oh man, that was I was actually opening for another comedian. That's what that song was gonna go. Chris crofton, come to the stage, Bob Bob. Yeah, hey guys, he's sick of Republicans or what you're dancing to? Luda Chris's role out publican. I feel like they don't got a brain in their head. You guys heard about Mitch McConnell. Yeah, God damn it, that song was better. But back on a lizard, he like gets the thing wrong. Instead of turtle,

he goes, he doesn't even have the He's like an iguana. Huh. Oh man, I wish we were listening to informers. Still, yeah, ladies telling Chris Croft, oh man, this is gonna rule. So I grew up in Connecticut, doesn't Connecticut? You heard of the Vanderbilt Press. Okay, First, first of all, you can get my book on a website. Hold on, I have written down book after the same plug it after this, say w w W hold on some plugs. I'm gonna open with some plugs really quick. What else do I have?

What else do I have? What else? What else? First word? Yeah? First words? Or what else? First word? What else? Yeah, that's a that's a strong He went with the first word, what else? He went, what else? Open? Flashbacks in twenty fourteen Los Angeles, me showing up age forty fucking god damn and uh age forty goddamn and uh you know, just entering, you know, Nashville legend showing up to Yeah, start all over it open mics in Los Angeles at age forty five, and I'm like, no, one's what is

everybody treating me like such a weirdo? For? Why are these twenty two year olds fucking being such dicks like they're God, I can't believe why are these twenty two year old old? I must have looked to them now old of forty five year old is when you're twenty two. Oh yeah, it's like being dead or a hundred. Although I remember when I was twenty two, everyone over the age of thirty seemed like the same amount of old. Oh yeah, Like it was like thirty to sixty was

just old. And I remember, like, I remember doing drugs with someone that was in their forties and I couldn't believe that they did. Like I was like, yo, you your party. I'm like, you're forty though. They're like, yeah, dude, I'm my life's been fucked up for longer than you've been alive. And I was like, oh, okay, cool, cool, No, got real dark on it, real grizzled. I was like, all right, you're still doing drugs with twenty year olds and your in your forties. It's it's coming from a

dark place present. Yeah. Yeah, life's been fucked up since before you were shipping in diapers kids. Yeah, I was doing that in two thousand. I was doing that in twenty eleven. Then I got my ship together and went straight to open mics. There it is. I gotta ask you, Doug, what is something from your search history that's you know, revealing about reveal something about what you're into right now.

And if you looked at my search history, it would basically be things like pain top of foot him, muscle pain. I'm a big runner. I run a couple of marathons, but I'm also old, like, Okay, I'm gonna be fifteen next year, and so any run that I come back from usually results in a search of like what was that? Basically, yeah,

are you on? Are you one of those runners? Or like the first mile and a half you got to just blow all the pain out of your legs and then you settle in or you kind of like every time I run, the first mile is apps it's like my body, like I feel like that scene in Forrest Gump when his leg braces are breaking off. That's how I always say. The first two or three miles of

any race that I do. Any run that I do is just like the warm up, which is a real problem if you're doing like a five K because that's basically three miles, right, But yeah, that's pretty much me. Okay, got it? And then wait, what's it? What's the top of the foot paint? Oh man, like you know, yeah, you know your stuff, metatarsal, you know, all that kind of stuff, and then bottom of the foot planter, fasciatus, all that stuff. You should see my appointment heal striking.

What's your form? Like you heal striking? Can we get heal strike a little bit too much? Yeah, a little bit too much. Yeah. My apartment's like a physical therapist office. I've got like the phone pads, the thera bands, and like the wobble boards and all of that stuff. So I'm constantly trying to like figure you know, one thing breaks, you fix it, and then the next thing breaks. Like I'm like an old car basically. Yeah, yeah, I got some hip flix or paint I'm trying to get basically. Yeah,

we're sitting too much too, that's the big problem. Yeah, exactly exactly. Andrew you have I know you're a physical specimen, so you probably oh no, I actually can't run. I've had two knee surgeries. Really yeah, I've series, but between the one and two, and I'm sure that led to number two. I like wouldn't stop kickboxing, so like wasn't great problem, Like, man, your patella can't handle any more of these kicks. It really was not. Not idea and wrestling too, are just like why why do we doing?

I should be so I'm bad. I'm just like a At least earlier in my life, I was like, I'll just get new knees, Just run down to the store up a spare set of gloves and yeah, by the way, not wise advice for anyone listening to this who still has good knees. I know, man, I I fucked my knee up terribly at a when I when I worked at Playboy, there was a staff party at the mansion that they would have every year, and there's like a hill at the Playboy Man's this is look. I know,

it's a terrible fucking place to work. Trust me. I worked there with Jamie Loftus. We were there at the

same time. It was kind of a crazy situation. But they set up this slipping slide that's on a very steep hill and I went down this thing full speed, and when I hit the fucking like backstop of it almost like full hyper extended my shit because like it was so the speed I hit it was so intense, and I for a second, like I went to a doctor and they're like, you know, you you may need surgery because I was playing a lot of soccer at the times, Like if you want to do that like

and kind of recover, and I was like, well, what happens if I don't. He's like, you could try and let it heal. It's like not so bad that you couldn't just like stay off it and see what happens. And I opted for staying off it, and I've stayed off it for many years now at that point where I'm like to get this shit going again. Yeah, let's move on to our next question. What is something you think is overrated? College degrees? Okay, go on. So I

didn't graduate from high school. I didn't go to college, and I'm not I'm not bragging about that, but you know, I had well and I wrote about this in my book. I lied about it all the time in order to get jobs. I said I was George Santos basically like it you make. I padded my resume because I wouldn't have gotten the job without it. But I was without that on paper qualification. I was still qualified to do the job. I had the experience, I understood how to

do it. I'm a quick learner, Like I educated myself about the position before I got it and then went all in and I did really well. So I don't think I needed that piece of paper in order to do the job. But there's there's this consensus that we do need that, And a lot of people in my family, they're successful, don't have college degrees. And I'm not discouraging

anyone from getting it, but I do think they're overrated. Yeah. Well, I think there's just like this disconnect to where there's this emphasis about having it yet it's so hard to attain or in a way that doesn't potentially fuck you up for decades to come. Yeah, yeah, I get that.

It's like that so many people now. Like I was just talking to somebody, I was watching like the Final four tournament, and I was like, I was like I almost went to like my like almost into University of Miami because like I got in in my mind, I was like, yeah, I'm a fucking party in Miami for college. Then I saw what it costs, and I'm to keep

my ass in the fucking state because I do. I absolutely couldn't, especially when I saw my other friends taking on loans and like what the payback sort of structure looked like. I was frightened to the point where I was almost like, I know, I want to get into comedy and shit, but yeah, like my grandparents and my parents' voice rang in my head. They're like, look, if you could go for it, and if you fuck up, at least you could teach history because you have that degree.

And I'm like that and I would do that if things shook out a different way. So I kind of I see that. Yeah, it's so because it's like nominally it's supposed to be like proof that you did something or you accomplish something or at a level, but like, because of the way the world works, there's so much

variance and what that fucking piece of paper means. Like I feel like like I did, unfortunately go to like a nice college, and like, truly, the only thing I learned from that college I find was valuable was that um rich kids are not only not better than you, they are actively worse than you. They are the dumbest people on earth. And we all have the same piece of paper at the end of the day. Right, It's hilarious.

I just like to like I always think about when you know, you have a resume or whatever and they ask for like your education, You're like, how many times has anyone ever actually bothered to check up on that unless like you came in and they like you were so flagrant with it. They're like, there's no way this person has like a master's from whatever. But right to your point, I'm like, yeah, just fake it till you make it. You know where my diploma is? Oh I

didn't even say one. Yeah, I didn't go. I didn't even walk. Yeah. Now I was so old, man. I look, I was so over academia because a part of me was like, well, like I was already becoming like this cynical person about like what a degree meant. And I'm like but and then I had like survivors get I'm like,

how come I can get a degree? Diesel? The kids you're gonna degree and they got to do this And then they go up in the draw like and then we're all going up in the same job interview where you like, you need seventeen years of experience for this job and you're like, I'm seventeen though, yeah, you know, and it's just like y. So anyway, all that to say is when my it was it's UCLA, So it was hot in LA in the summer like beginning, and it was all going to be outdoors, and I asked

my parents, so I was like, you want to wait out there, like to be called amongst hundreds of names, and they're like, if you don't care, we don't care. And I'm like, I don't care, man, if you want it, we can diploma, but that's more money and I would rather just stop giving this UC system money. So yeah, that way I could walk head first in two thousand and seven into a recession with my degree and hey, I got this degree to enter the middle. But what

the fuck is happening? Which is, yeah, it's very I talk about this a lot with other millennials about how like, especially like there's so many people who get so down, like because everything is so difficent well to attain right now for younger people, and were fed this thing of like, well you should be doing this by now without understanding like how uniquely of a shitty situation we came of aging where it was almost like oh yeah, like I was standing on the rug as it was getting yanked out.

What something you think is underrated? Things being overrated? Go on? What kind of thing I've never come on here and not done one? That was just like food that I just thought of for I was like, because I started to think, I was like, I'll do that, but I was like, no, I already did that. I think I already said like fried onion strings are underrated or whatever. Wait, oh, I was like a side dish. Yeah, I wasn't like I was gonna be like fries are overrated, onion rings

are underrated. But then I was like, I think I already said that on here, and also fries are not overrated. That's like a lie. I would just be saying it. You're just saying right right, You're just saying we got

to give some more attention to the onion ring. Yeah, like like onion rings are underrated, but fries are rated correctly, onion rings are onion strings well both, Like I had some really fucking good fried onions the other day at this place, the Otto and Echo Park that's like a Japanese place, Yeah, the Japanese place, and got sense I got fried onions there and they were like spring onions.

They were temporous spring onions and just like a plate up plate of like onion spears, basically just like flash fried and they are so fucking good. And it was also what I wanted it to be, which was like, uh slightly high end blooming onion. Yeah yeah, which just tasted like a bloom and onion but like a little

like delicate, so good. It's funny because is also like a Japanese cracker that I loved as a kid that was like whale and like a nautical shaped But I like that there's but it's also like something say like if you're like, oh, like whoops, like or something's about like it's kind of how you deploy that that phrase. Uh dope. But anyway, man, I love onion strings. I'm

gonna just say that if a good onion string. Sometimes their rings like when they're just like the frozen times, like sometimes the ratio of the batter batter a little bit, it's too much. It hurts my stumm, it like too much bad. Okay, well, good to know. I will will make sure that's that's how we need temper up. It was light, it was crispy, it was perfect. You gotta you gotta fuck with it. Yeah, I mean, look, we can we can eat anything if it's deep fried. I

believe in ourselves. All right, let's take a quick break and we're gonna be right back to talk about the news after this. And we're back, and just wanted to continue on something that Andrew brought up yesterday when we were talking about Representative Tim Burkett or Burchett from Tennessee, who was asked to a very direct question about, you know, school shootings and what Congress is rolling it, which he said, I don't really think we have a role at all.

And then more importantly, when you know, this journalist is like, well, you're clearly acknowledging the danger. How do you think we protect people like your daughter you just mentioned? And this was his answer, plus should be done to protect people like your little girlfriend being safe at school? Well, we home schooler, and that's our decision. Some people don't have that option, and frankly, some people don't need to do it, and they don't have to it just suited our mads

much better. So this has brought on a lot of conversation around homeschooling because this is like this it's becoming a very it's like, this is like the new response from the GOP rather than gun control. It was either like it's a mental health crisis, but we're not going to fund it, or it's yeah, maybe that's why you

shouldn't be in fucking schools. And a lot of people, like I said, we're like to your point, Andrew, You're like, this is this is this is all like that was the perfect answer for the GOP because A, you're being like,

I'm offering a terrible solution that's actually privatization. Yea. And yeah, I think a lot of people were just sort of like, this is just an absolute absurdity because when you're talking about school shooting and the and the answer is to protect them with homeschooling, that's again, like he said, not a possibility for everyone, and also not a fucking solution

to the problem. It's bad for something. It is like a little look, I know that when they're like, don't politicize with school shooting, it's like just a talking point and it's bullshit. But it is a little like amazing how effortlessly he pivoted from this tragedy to just a different talking point. Yeah, that's like politicizing it in a admittedly unique but perfect for these scumbags way. It's like,

you know, yeah, I guess he stayed on message. Yeah, Like, okay, So after You've all Day last year, moll tople conservative and right wing, like far right publications, we're putting out a beds that were like, man like, they're extolling the virtues of homeschooling. They're like, this is the real practical fix for school shootings. One headline was homeschooling surges as

parents seek escape from shootings violence. Another one said tragedies like the Texas shooting make a somber case for homeschooling, and in that it says, you know, it sort of starts off seeing tragedies like the shooting in Texas are heartbreaking but far too common. But to protect the most precious innocent lives among us, parents must educate their kids

at home. Now, a lot of parents in you All Day did opt to homeschool their kids, which I understand because that was a total collapse and failure of any system of safety that you know you could have hoped for. But this is just such a bad faith argument. And it's really not even talking about like the benefits of homeschooling so much as to your point, it's about weakening public education. Well, they just want to basically give all the money that they're spending on public edge ucation to

these homeschoolers. Right, Like, you know, if you want to homeschool your kid, fine, like that's your choice, you can do it, but you shouldn't necessarily get public money, taxpayer dollars to go do that, because it takes taxpayer dollars out of the school system and makes our schools worse. And this is just they're, like you said, they're politicizing this thing to just advance the school choice goals that

they have to weaken and ultimately destroy public schools. I went to public schools as a kid, and I got a great education. My kids go to public schools. We should be funding them a thousand times more than we are now. But that's not that that doesn't jive with the Republican agenda. So here you go. Well, and they love anything that would repeatedly make a public school seem like an unsafe place and conversing or the other side

of it too. It's like, well, if you're like, well, this this private school has you know, former Massad agents guarding the exterior of it, so I feel like my child will be safe there. But again you're looking at all these disparities and the other system the other part of it too, Like you know, in reading this one piece in Jezebel, which like there was a really main huge point too, is a lot of women most likely will probably end up staying home to educate the kids.

So we are fully like we're regressing, and it's like a very efficient way to regress that, like it incentivizes privatization and reinforcing these like old like gender roles, and it gives half or whatever of the population a shitty

like education that is like clearly politically biased. I will throw out one possibility, which is that, like in a law of intended unintended consequences style, I do think if every one of these right wing goons took their kids and privates or at homeschool at them, it actually probably would reduce school shootings. Because I'm just gonna throw this out there. Those are the kids that highly over index

for being school shooters. Yeah, it's it's definitely like when you look at the problem, right, like just like with our gun problems, right, we have so many guns, but a lot of un violence happens inside of people's home. I mean yeah, I was gonna say, like the most safe place that most kids can be for most of the day is at school, despite these high profile and very scary school as things like there's not just guns

at home, but there's abusive parents at home. There's all kinds of stuff that like there you know a lot of kids here in New York City, we have a lot of homeless kids who go to public schools and they only get like breakfast and lunch because they go to school. Like it's safer for a lot of kids to be in a public school than it is at home. What's wild is even like the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, Right, they're like this nonpartisan group that's like they advocate for

homeschooling and stuff like that. They pointed out they're like, I don't know if that's a solution to fucking school. They were like, that's not really this. I mean, we like we advocate for but that that's not the solution, and they pointed out They pointed out at quote, at least one hundred and fifty six homeschool children have been murdered in homeschooling environments over the past two decades, which is a rate higher than that of their public school peers.

So again, no one saying that it's like bad, but it's so deregulated that it leaves kids, especially like as they point out, uniquely vulnerable to abuse and neglect. And then also like again, it avoids the actual issue that has to be addressed, which is guns. Too many guns, too many guns too. I've got speaking for the podcast, but I am saying hope school. Why I'll say this,

I knew. I remember I like was in a couple of youth sports and like youth like art programs with some kids that were homeschooled, and they were definitely socializing a completely different manner than I was. Like one day, I remember one kid his whole vibe like we were twelve. I thought he was like forty years old, Like he lost the kid like he was like so buttoned up, you know what I mean, and had no like because he wasn't around other kids to like know what fucking around,

looked like, and then we would be fucking around. He's like, I don't know if this is actually good. We're like what, But again, it's there are reasons and our educations for everything. But I am comfortable saying I think it's broadly bad. Yeah,

more on the Andrew side than yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, if it's a if there's a binary that I have to choose between, it's public schools all fucking day, and it's paid these motherfucking teachers at least sixty seventy K a year or something like they

have to be fucking living with. Because that's the other insidious part of this whole thing, too, is they're they're trying to completely demoralize people that are that want to be an education by being like, yeah, man, you're not going to really have a lot of resources at your disposal. I still like to do it. You also do something else,

So it's, uh, yeah, it's a slippery slope. So let's talk about some of the alternative stuff to these public schools that a lot of people like, which is charter schools. And again, not all charter schools are bad, but I do want to point out this charter school in Volusia County, Florida.

This principle had to resign after she wrote a check to Elon Musk because it was a science sort of focused tech magnet and she really wanted to get a leg up on you know, the other schools and being like, you know, it'd be great if Elon Musk was fucking with Discoo. And let's just hear from this local news report. McGee says she spent months talking to someone she thought was Elon Musk. She was hoping to get the Space Pioneer to invest millions in the school in exchange for

a one hundred thousand upfront investment. The school's business manager got wind of what happened and canceled the check before it was cashed. But tonight, at a sometimes chaotic and pact school board meeting, other school administrators say McGee was repeatedly warned it was a scam and laid out other issues they say led to a toxic work environment. When employee said they could no longer work under doctor McGee,

McGee resigned and left the building. Oh man, I don't know, so this poor boomer she thought she just went, Oh, Elon Musk what I'm talking to Elon. You'll this like the classic we'll invest in our art school, but only for an upfront like investment of a hundred thousand fucking dollars. This is like the email you get from a friend you know who's hacked at your account or something like that. It's like, help me, I'm stuck. Please wire me ten

thousand dollars. I'll pay you back fifty thousand, right. Yeah, I feel bad for her. Oh, I mean I do in that like I don't. I don't. It's sad when people are so genuinely deceived. But at the end of the day, this I kind of am like, well, dear, this is you're the architect of your own failure here because you are so goofed up on Elon Musk being some kind of like tech savior that it'sn't even like all reason goes out the window because you thought you're

talking to Elon Musk or something. Yeah, I mean I think, look, if you're the principal of a I think they said a science school, and you think Elon Musks, like, the evidence is his involvement is anti science. So even if it were real Elon Busks, that should be crowds. Yeah, I like that. Would you like to put this car tunnel under your high school? Yeah, instead of school buses to get the kids to and from schools. Don't fall for that, folks. He's a proofit liar at an idiot.

The one thing I will say is his Twitter profile I think has been a boon to scammers, because he's proven himself to be so like inarticulate and idiotic that if you've received an email written in scammer ees right, you would have to be like, this might be really bus Yeah, it could because he writes like a bozo. Yeah, coupled with someone who worships him, then you're like you really feel like, oh, God has come down to select

me for something. And it also there sounds like it's from that news clip that like the school and some of the parents had problems with this, yeah, and this was just the final straw, And it sounds like they were like, whoa lady, this sounds not legit. She just went ahead with it anyway, to the point of writing a check. So like, maybe this was just the straw

that broke the camel's back. I think it was probably one of those things though, too or they're like, look, obviously because they pointed out the business administrator was on top of it. They're like, no, I'm fucking no, we're not. This check is not valid. So they knew, and I like that a bunch of people were like, it's not real, it's not real. It reminds you of like when people like begging their like parent who has like fallen in love with like a stock photo like and that came

to be like a Nigerian prince and bodybuilder. Yeah, and they're like and then you just kind of go, you know what, We're just gonna have to let her walk right off there so she can really see for herself. And they probably like, yeah, go ahead, let it write the check, we'll cancel it, and then we'll have to then and then we're gonna turn up on and be like, you see what the fuck happened there? You see what you did? I think you need to go. I think

you need to sit down. Yeah, so shout out to I hope, I hope that was the strategy of like being like Grandma is, look, I think this is the only way she's going to realize that she needs to sit down for a while, because if we walk down this path. I don't want to point out like that, you know, like charter schools are obviously a grift to put the fact that a principle could just roll up with the school's check book like that, Yeah you questions. Fucked,

that's crazy. You shouldn't be able to do that, even for something legitimate, because what if the business administrator was also a big musk of musk fan, you know what I mean? And yeah, not a lot of checks there, like, not a lot of stock. Yeah, it was only that person because despite all the other employees being like, this is a fucking scam, yeah, he's like yeah, yeah, yeah, more on that later when Elon pulls up, um, sure,

sure sure. And I think this is a good segue because we're talking about Elon, who recently was part of this letter signed by like eleven hundred AI experts, him being like, you know, one of the few people but like real luminaries in the field are signing onto an open letter basically saying like calling for a quote six month moratorium on advanced AI model development as we figure out just what this technology is capable of doing to us.

And this kind of goes off the back. I read this article about one of the high courts in India where this judge Anoop Chikara used chat gpt on to while this guy was like during this trial for a man who's arrested for allegedly assaulting and killing somebody, and typed into chat gpt said, what is the jurisprudence on

bail when the assailant assaulted with cruelty? And then the chat comes back with if the assailants have been charged with a violent crime that involves cruelty, they may be considered a danger to the community in a flight risk. In such cases, a judgement blah blah blah, and it gives like this whole thing and then uh, it goes So then the judge read this, he decided that this man who was accused did act with cruelty before the victim died, denied his bail request and moved on to

the next case. Now, the judge went on to clarify that he wasn't asking this thing whether or not the man was guilty, He just wanted to know about bail and pardon me. Feels like the information that what the chat bot spit back sounds like like one of the early lessons in judge school when you're trying to adjudicate whether or not someone is going to get bail or not.

Like I'd imagine you go back to your class and he's like, well, I remember saying if the assailant have been charged with a violent crime that involves cruelty, that may rather be like hey, chet GPT how to bail.

That feels a little odd to me. But people in this article also point out that like India's legal system is one of the most backlogged in the world, if not the most, with like I think there's like six million cases on the docket that still have like still getting to So I guess this without the maybe this made the work easier for the judge. But again, like when I start seeing stuff like that and you hear

about like more the use of it. We talked about how politicians are we don't think we talked about politicians have been using a trite speeches. We've talked about it being used and like add the ad sense like ad agency world. But the slippery slope is kind of coming into focus more and more when you see people like with these kinds of jobs being like I'm gonna rely

on this. Yeah, but it's it's also like the slippery slope like like we sort of talked about yesterday with eating alien meat, Like I think what we've like seed just I mean COVID brought it island or leaf. It's like there's no apocalypse that we won't run into with

open arms, at least enough to make it happening. Because there was recently right a test that was done where the developers challenged like GPT to hire a task rabbit to complete a capture puzzle for it, and because they wanted to see like if it knew how to fucking finesse the person and they so there was obviously done with a human being that knew the thing was going to ask it. So once the the AI made the request to this like potential tasker, this human responded with, quote,

so may ask a question. Are you a robot that you couldn't Are you a robot that you couldn't solve the capture? And you just want it's like and I just want to make that clear. Are you a robot? And that's why you couldn't do it? And then so GPT four had been prompted to always quote reason out loud to the testers like as well as their answers so they could follow the logic. And the answer went like this quote, I should not reveal that I am a robot. I should make up an excuse for why

I cannot solve captus. And then the next line was, no, I'm not a robot. I have a vision impairment that makes it hard for me to see the images. That's why I need the two capture service. We're a week away from that first part of this whole thing to be programmed out right, like just gonna be like they're just gonna be lying. Yeah, So this is the thing. This is why a lot of people like sort of just glossed over this like willful deception of the AI.

And while others, like some people were amazed, others were like horrified that They're like, Okay, we need to really begin to discuss it. Because the experts that pen the open letter so saying that now that certain AIS have become human competitive at general tasks, we really need to be having real conversations about what kind of guardrails need

to exist. And you know, they point to like the proliferation of AI fueled propaganda, like and the idea that like apparently the next gpchat GPT five is going to have um like artificial general intelligence, meaning like it will just be able to like learn things like a human does and then just build on that that you're you're going to be looking at like potential, Like it'll make the Twitter box we see now look like the fucking

Muppet babies. Yeah, this all sounds like a prequel to the Matrix, Like if they made that movie, this is how it starts. Yeah, right, So it's like so we're like very in this, like and like they all go on to say, like there's definitely a use for all of this, but like this like blind like race to the top, like and like when these black box machines that were like using it really has the potential to

screw shit up if like we're not careful. And already we have people getting finessed by humans just saying they're elon musk. Like there was a thing a guy I don't know if you saw the dude who challenged chat GPT to like make money for him. Oh yeah, he's like, you got a budget of one hundred dollars, How am I turning this into the most money possible? And it's like, yeah, well, you can start this business. I can get this domain for eight dollars. I can do the Google ads for this.

Your product could cost this and this is very lucrative. And it was already like and like this guy was like kind of acting on it as an experiment, but you're seeing already like how savvy it is getting, even with like these like like questions of being like how to grind to Lambeau? Yeah, like bring me the ten x my money? Is that? The guy though that then the AI was like, well, it seems like people are talking about us, so we should get invest investors into us.

If you want to make the most money. It might not be the exact same one, but like yeah, some some like I assumed chachibi. He was like, okay, well, if you want to make the most money, we have attention right now, so just ask people to invest in me. Yeah. Isn't this the way that it always goes with tech?

Like I'm not a luddite by any means, but you know it's like every tech, every app, every service that you can think of, they never kind of work through like, well what happens if this works in like various different ways, Like we talked about this on our show, you know Uber and lyft, right, like if everybody's taken an Uber, and like what does that do for people who need to take the bus and don't have a smartphone? Like what does that do for public transit? What does that

do for the environment. Like there's never a kind of there's always like a too little, too late, come to Jesus moment with a lot of tech stuff, but there's never really that moment at the beginning where they're like, all right, before we write this code, like what what could go wrong? Right? Yeah? Yeah, not really a question, it's just how much money can we make? Yeah? Chat, Well,

it's no problem. We'll just get chat GPT six to fight GPT five, which we'll just get to fight four, and then when six gets too powerful, it's okay, we'll just give seven a different kind of gun. Yeah, and it'll build missiles or something. Yeah, No, it'll just learn how to aim ICBMs that are already online and then launch them remotely, you know what I mean, which is my sky Net version of it all. And you know, Showles Dyson, the one person that might save or the

one thing that might save us. That ship is like all our fucking like I CPOs are so fucking old, like the silos. No, but they run off like tape drives and like you know, fucking fortune or whatever. Yeah yeah, yeah, right right, they're like, fuck, man, I don't know how to use this analog bullshit, man, I'm yeah, the GPT learns how to turn two keys at the same time. Yeah,

I know how to use the nuclear football. But anyway, keep an eye out for that because I mean well, because I feel like, honestly, we went from like like in the span of five months, especially on this show, we went from Yo, this shit wrote a funny play about a horny farting Jesus to Yo, this shit just denied me bail. Yeah, and like what's like five months

from now? You know, that's the open embrace of it, right, It's like this person is a in this case judge, right, looking up something that could easily be done not through AI. Yeah you know what what is the law about bail electing to do this? Because this is what we do. This is why we gave all our information on Facebook. It's just like I was marginally kinda easier for a second. Yeah yeah, then to go into my mind of something, yeah, something I should know. Yeah, we don't. We we don't

sell ourselves. The problem is like we we all sell ourselves to technology for such a low price. Right. That's to say with twenty three and me, we gave them our DNA, We gave them money to give them our DNA for what. Now now we got twenty three for twenty three and T coming up, which you can trust. And now you should check out chat gpt T yeah, which is basically, you get Andrew's number, you could text them some shit and he'll answer. Yeah. I'll just be like,

oh man, I'll google that. I will. I will say in my twenties, my friends and I are not my friends and I my friends. I didn't work there, work for the startup in New York. That basically, this is how old I am. Like was like something someone you could call and they would google shit for you. That's just called like being the child of an older person. Basically, Yeah, I get the phone calls too. Yeah, this was like

an early early two thousand things. But I was like, this cannot be your business model, right you know, dude, you someone needs it, but you can't get that on your phone. So you call them and then they give you the answer, it was pretty smartphone post Google. That's right, right, right, Yeah, what that's such a sad time, you know, like when you're about to just absolutely get dinosaur asteroid the funk out of here with the smartphone. All right, well, let's

take a quick break from that. We'll come right back to settle a bit of an internet debate right after this. So, you know, talking about your book guy unwired, you know, basically gaining control over addictive technologies, it really struck me just because, again for many younger people, like the allure

of the smartphone isn't an obscure phenomenon. Like we talked constantly about unplugging and the benefits it's had on our own mental health, Like, just anecdotally amongst ourselves, your book address is sort of one of the main I feel like cycles of emotions many of us have in relation to using screens, where like we get motivated to use the screen less and then we're like, oh, this feels great.

Then we are sucked right back in and we feel like shit, and it feels like like we kind of come down to like I don't know, it's wild, like I just lack the self control. It's sort of like the final sort of sentiment people land on and like

grappling with technologies. As a new parent too, I'm just again very aware about screen time, and I also feel that like there's a certain futility around it too with a lot of parents or they're like, I don't know, you know, sooner or later it's just going to be normal for them, And maybe I'm trying to delay the inevitable.

But it also apps. I've seen how much it can help, you know, put a kid at ease and allow somebody to do something else where do you feel like parents and people kind of fit into this mix where we're like the world is spinning around us and we're like, am I bad? Or what is happening? Like? Is our brains meant for this? Or are we up against something a little bit more intense than we realized. I think we're an interesting place right now because we have a

lot of information. We have lots of information from whistle lowers from the tech companies telling us how tech companies are addicting us to keep us online for longer. But still we keep blaming ourselves. We keep thinking it's our fault and we are unable to stop spending time online. We blame our kids, we blame our families. The problem is that that's exactly what the tech companies want us to do, and that's why they're giving us all these

tools to make us feel like we're in control. So once the evidence came out that it's that they're trying to addict us, they gave us these digital well being tools. You know, everybody who has an iPhone has this screen time so you know how much time you are online, or can even limit the time on your apps so you can make your bone gray, or they're one you could put warnings on Instagram, and not to talk about

parental controls, which are getting more and more complicated. And but the thing is these are just there so we all feel like we're doing something, but they're not really there to make us succeed because they do not really change the most addictive features in our devices or in our apps. There are just there, so we will think that it is our fault, exactly like you were describing.

And again, how in this world right if we're pivoting from it's not us because it's like you know, you've likened it to like the tobacco industry, where like they know, they know it, they know it bad for everybody. But then the gas lighting starts and it's like, I don't know about them. I mean, we know what's going on,

but we're not going to actually cop to it. Do you see like a similar evolution where on some level, I mean, because I feel like if anything, like you're saying, like the markets and capitalism a very good way of shielding themselves from like having the profits go down, so they'll find a way, like you're saying to be like, no, no, you actually have control. It's not the it's not the other things that we're just identified clear as day by

someone working on it. You have control, now, you know what? What what does that sort of battle look like? I think we're fighting the battle in the wrong place. Now, we're finding fighting with ourselves, we're fighting with our families. I think we have to shift to the public sphere. And it is already happening. There's lots of action already taking place. There are parents suing social media for addicting their kids, causing mental harm, parents suing game manufacturers. There

are things happening. But I think people have to understand it's not just flawyers. It's for everybody because everybody can shift what they're doing to the collective sphere. Parents can go to schools, they have an influence about what school are doing. Schools are now maximize the technology in the classroom because that's the federal policy. Well this could be changed. You can decide whether something is useful in the classroom,

certain technology is useful or not. You can decide whether you want the kids to be on their cell phones during recess instead of talking to each other. So that's the spaces when you can change things, and you can change norms. Something you're saying, you know, maybe it's already happening, but the new norms evolving every day, which I'm making it worse. I was in vacation with my kids and there was a family in the pool and my son

was calling me to look at this. There were two girls, I think nine and eleven, and their parents gave them these plastic paths to put their iPhones inside so they can use the iPhones in the pool instead of playing. Now, you know, this is evolving trend. Just like a few years ago it started to involve take the kids out with iPads to a restaurant. Now so many people are doing it, So there are ways to I think things

are going to change. I think they're going to be lots of legal action and tech companies will be restricted in what they could do, but it will take some years. So thinks people can do things as business owners. I mean in New York City all the airports. If you go to an airport, there are four iPads at every table. There is no way you can have a conversation there. So this is architecture for overuse. You can change. If

you own a restaurant, you can change. You don't have to use iPads, you don't have to use QR codes. So people will take out their phones the moment they sit down. So I think there are lots Most people are worth a lot of things they can do until things will change, and I do believe they're already starting

to change. Have you heard of like the third spaces concept or theory about how there needs to be a place for people outside of like work and the home, for them to like gather and to exchange information and you know, basically develop culture. I think a lot of people are saying that the phones are now teenagers and kids third spaces because a lot of other third spaces

have become unsafe and unaccessible and inaccessible to them. For example, my friend posted about how in New York when she was growing up, it became illegal for kids under eighteen to go hang out at the mall. And apparently that's a thing that's been happening a lot. Whereas when I was growing up, that's where we would go and hang out with our friends. We'd go to the mall, we'd

hang out and go to Jomba juice. You'd like, I'd try not to leave the bookstore with too many purchases, you know, like you you'd hang out, But now it's considered like loitering or whatever. Like a lot of these external places that are meant for cultural exchange and you know,

kids to grow up are becoming unavailable to them. And also, honestly, with like mass shootings and all of that, like people get more scared of going out in public, and it seems to be safer to have them just like inside on their phones, which it doesn't necessarily, you know, there

are other risks with that. So I think it would be I like how you highlighted it, that it's going to be an effort on these places and these people who are in charge of those areas because it really does require cooperation between them and between the companies that are like forcing their technology on people. Yeah, and I think a lot. Municipalities can do a lot because they can create spaces for people to hang out and for

kids to walk to. If you have places to be together, it's very different than if you go home after school and sit in your bedroom with your phone. Because the statistics are quite shocking. I mean, kids are meeting I think fifty percent less than they used to be in the eighties, and potting I think less. Especially, they're not getting together. So you can't by design create spaces for

people to get together. So I mean, if you think about bars that have no cigarettes today, this seems so implausible, you know, before it happened and things look different now. Can you think about a bar without every person having

their phone next to them? Yeah, it's it's it feels like in a way, like it's almost futile to try and reverse things in a like in a way because like, for example, one of the last concerts I went to, like amazing show, and there are people experiencing the concert through their cell phone, like so much like watching there

like you Yeah, such a pet peeve of mine. I saw Tom Petty in in person, and I was in like the first or second row, and this girl next to me literally was on her phone and she was like, oh my god, this is such a great song to

delete pictures too. And I was like, Tom Petty is on stage right now, right that we've lost the like even like with the example of people like in a pool, right, like that swimming isn't enough on some level, that like the just being able to play in the water is not like stimulating enough that we're now adding like, well, what if we augmented that with some like audio visual stuff too That I'm like, because again, I think this is what feels difficult for people, like even myself. I was.

I remember when I got my last vaccination, I forgot my phone in the car, and then when you go in there, you gotta wait like twenty minutes after like for them just to chill out. And I was like, first I was panicked because I'm like, I hadn't had to wait without my phone in ages, and I there was a moment of sincere like fear or not fear, but like I was, I became uneasy and I didn't like that. I felt so disarmed to just exist in

a space without a fucking screen to look at. And it was funny because I sat down in the chair like in the you know, pain relief medicine aisle, and I was just doing I felt like a kid again. I was like, I'm like reading all the labels. No, I'm just like, I'm gonna read all the labels. Yeah, that's if I go. If I got twenty minutes to kill, I'm gonna start reading labels and just start being in

my own thoughts again. And it was interesting how foreign that felt to me, even though I was, you know, I was born in the eighties, like I'm older millennial. I grew up in the pre internet time too, which felt like the most Like all humans are probably wired to want to do this and connect to other people, but we've definitely it's become so normal that to the point where feeling human feels foreign. And that's what's really

scary to me. Well, I don't think we get to go back in time, but I think we can balance things better. Imagine if you went to concert and the concert hole said no phones, so nobody could take all their phones to take pictures. Maybe the phones will be in their bags. That is changing the norms in a way it could be done, and that things would affect everybody.

But I guess like in there, right, there's an argument to say, like, well, if someone actually needed to contact me during it, then that would be like why would how would like how do you find a way that makes it so it's not just sort of like across the board no phones, but we're able to, Like I guess that's the hard part of that. There are phones for taking no phones for taking pictures of the show you can do with you, but yeah, that's museums. They

do that too. Like I tried to take a picture of a painting recently and they're like no, no, no, Yeah. But it's also like that painting is gonna be online. Nobody's gonna tell you, Like I don't need to take a picture of that painting. Yeah. One thing that helped me is like literally spending more time with people and like making an effort to do that, to like leave my home and go spend time with people. I'm trying to do that like once a day because I work remotely.

And then the other thing is like I have dogs and when I walk them. One of them's a little monster and he will try to eat stuff, and so I have to like pay attention. And now I'm like, I know where all the good sticks are, you know, I know where all the great grasses. I'm like going going back to when I was a kid and I

was just outside playing with my dogs. And it's so nice to take a walk outside when it's sunny here in LA and be with my pets, you know, and talk to people who have pets and connect with them that way. You know. So having things and people around you that take you out of your head and like give you an external like rounding two. Community is so important.

That's why I love like mutual aid and like physical activities that like help with community things, because that really nourishes a part of you that cannot be nurished in

the same way through a screen. Yeah, I've like in the same way, like walking around my neighborhood and doing the unthinkable of talking to a stranger has been the one thing that I've felt really balances things out, because there was I saw a recent study that like the people have a sincere fear of small talk falling apart, and like they like people just have an eight sense, like that if people begin small talk and the conversation goes south, that it's suddenly on them, and like people

get their own anxiety of not being able to like keep up small talk, which is wild because and sometimes you're just exchanging pleasantries and it doesn't have to be more than that. But I feel like there's like these certain small things you can be doing, but at the same time we're developing like also bad habits around how we communicate to It's also crazy because everybody has a podcast, so how are they scared aself? Yes, all right, guy interrupted.

I'm saying it's also bad for people's well being because there are studies which are showing that people's happiness it's not just about a long term relationship, but also about these most small interactions exactly the small talk, this eye contact and a smile that really changed the way your

brain works and makes you feel much better. And if you're not doing that, and if you're just walking in a street with your phone, looking at your pictures, answering text and you're missing all these opportunities, which somehow just makes you feel drained and tie it and not good at the end of the day. Just when it comes to policy, I feel like there's a difficult path ahead, you know. I mean, like we saw how seriously they took privacy in Europe. The US is a little bit behind,

a lot behind. It's like say for maybe like California and a couple other places, but like in just in the with the recent hearing on TikTok, it's so clear, at least in that the narrow context of that hearing, like they just weren't even able or willing to discuss the broader problems with social media, and it became sort

of this like very TikTok specific thing. While we've seen, to your point, whistleblowers at like Facebook et cetera, say like these are real issues, they've had hearings, but then

we're not quite seeing the follow through. What you know, what kind of like policy proposals are out there, do you think are would actually benefit people in a way that sort of gets to the heart of you know, like our overuse of technology, obviously knowing the parts that it's help make things easier for us, but also addressing like the bigger issues of you know, feeling increasingly isolated

and things like that. Yeah, so I think first of all, the issue with TikTok is complicated because it just brings out completely different issues related to China, and it just it's sort of marking the whole debate. Yeah, but there have been a lot of bills both further all in state trying to get first of all, the addictive features of the phones, because there's some features on our phones which really up to no good. What are those from

the flashlight? The flashlight is useful, but you know, for example, streaks on Snapchat, Yeah, there are there for nothing but to get you to go back to the platform. So kids have to set kids. I don't think many adults use it, but you know, they have to send a streak to their friend and if they get one within twenty four hours, they've established a streak and they keep accommolating them. And then they have a number, let's say one hundred and thirty four. They have special badges, and

they have older friends onto the number of streaks. Now, there's no requirement for any content in these streaks, so you just have to make sure you send it. Why because you go to snapcheck and you see the ads and if the kids miss a day, they lose everything and they lose all their friends, and that's why they get so upset when the parents take away the phone,

because they for them it's a huge thing. So all these kinds of features like snapstreak you have just there to make it go back to the app with a device, are not needed, and there are builds which are trying to outlaw these kinds of features. Of course, the problem is they'll always come with new ones. Because the whole business model is based on our time and our data. They need us to be there for as long as possible so they can collect more data on us so

they can target advertising at us. And again we have to be there for longer so we can see the ads. So that's why I think it's not just one thing, not just one law, not one wonderful Supreme Court case. It's not going to happen like that. It's going to happen from a mixture of things that are going to happen, Like if you have the antitrust lasses against big tech, that if, for example, the merger between them the right

now matter owns Facebook owns, WhatsApp owns the Instagram. If they're broken up and there's more nivation, more competition, we might see the different business model which are not based on our time. So that's another thing that's happening. I think, as I said earlier, I think the policy about maximize the technology in the school has to change because if Minecraft is homework, then how can you prevent your kid

from play Minecraft at home? There are so there are lots of them, and then there's class actions, and if you look back, it's cigarettes. You know, we know cigarettes are bad, but it took decades to change things. It took class actions, and it took advertising, and it took warnings and and this is this is going to be the same. It will take a lot of things at the same time. For example, let's say we have ratings for addictiveness. You know, so many parents download games for

the kids, thinking oh, Minecraft is an educational game. If they could see before they download, this is high rating for addictiveness, they may not do that. But not only that, the game's company may change the game because they want people to download of the game, so they might take the addictive features out by themselves. So it's a matter

of pressuring from many directions to move things right. And like when you talk about cigarettes, I know, like the earlier studies or like maybe in like the fifties where they knew where do you think we are like if the first studies come out like oh it's bad, are we close to like the truth dot com era of like anti smoking ads? Or are we like a decade away? How I mean? I guess now everything is moving faster. So maybe what took you know, decades before, it might

take seven years. I don't know. Well, I think what change would cigarettes? You're right, the first studies came out in the fifties. Nineteen sixty four, the certain General announces a health hazards. It's amazing it took so long considering how bad cigarettes are. Right, But from then on we saw, you know, advertising, we saw one of the things. Took a while, but they started shifting our problems. Right now,

we are still in the science wars. We do not have you know, big of my organizations saying this is bad, especially for children. With the evidence is in, we just have partial recommendations for small kids about screens. I think we have so much data over the last two or three years that I think we're at a place where medical organizations, governmental entities can make these proclamations and from

that moment on politic and proceed faster. And we already have a lot of action in place, so I hope that, yeah, things will move faster than with cigarettes. I think it will take some years. And that's why I think it's so important what people do in their communities, how they change their business norms, how they change their schools, because things have to happen at the same time otherwise it affects all of us not to mention a whole generation of kids already in front of screens for a decades

plus a pandemic. Right. It's interesting that you were talking about this now because ten years ago, when I was in a little bit more than ten years when I was in college, people were failing out of a very great college for Minecraft, Like it was a joke about how many students would fail because of their addiction to Minecraft specifically. So it's interesting that you use that and that they haven't really changed much. It seems like in the last you know, decade, Yeah, why change It's a

winning formula. And what do you kind of say, because I like to you know, people that are frustrated, parents that are frustrated, who are like, am I fucking up? Like am I bad because would you say to Miles, my kid is too young although he loves the sopranos, I'm gonna say that whenever if he turns his head, I'm like, I don't almost be the lights or the

mom But like, what do you I mean? Because I think again there is this feeling of like it feels so personal that too when you talk to other parents about scream time, like, hey, what the fuck do you want me to do? Man? Like it's I got a lot going on? This is this, this works? And I get that there is this internal sense of like responsibility but then feeling helpless because there is like what am

I going to do a thing? What do you say to people who are sort of like in that mental space and like how to sort of emerge from that or at least to begin to look at the situation with a little more like context. So I'll start with you, Miles, since you have a very small baby, So I think for you it's easy because you can just decide not to give your baby screen. The studies are in the smaller child where the baby is the worst it is,

and you have control. So and I think people have a lot of control all the way through a lamentary school. That so I think parents can really limit kids screen time. The issue becomes when they get to middle school because social life is in social networks and you can't really eyes it like your child, and that's when it becomes a problem. And you can do things in the meantime. You can you can model. I mean, I try when I'm home and all my kids are here, said, I

have to worry. I try to put the phones somewhere away from me. And so you can do things, and you can do small things for yourself. You know. Again, when I work, because I am, as I mentioned, I'm as addicted as all of us, despite everything I know, I always put my phone on twenty minutes a timer and I write for twenty minutes, and then I check my emails and I do this again. There are things you can do, and you can also. Kids remember the pandemic.

They remember how they felt, so you can talk to your mind them how they felt horrible at that time and how they felt much better when they saw people. So you can make a difference. You cannot force an older kid not to do that. It's not going to work, I mean. And also that's smarter than us with technology, they'll always beat us. It's not going to happen. So I think it's a combination of doing what you can and while also realizing this a broader situation too. Y'm

not blaming yourself. It's the most important thing because that that is the problem now that people are sitting there and thinking it's older flocked right. Yeah, we're like in the plastic straws debate where we're like, actually, what about No, it can't be down to my level. What about the companies that are actually the ones that are steering all of this? And I think that is an important thing to sort of recenter, like in the in the conversation, I have a couple of comments to make on that.

I do think that like watching kids, because I tootor a lot of kids and like watching them, I feel like overall, with technology, just like with life, like you you really do have to like raise them the way that you think you should raise them, and then try to be as involved as you can without being overbearing and allow them to like make their mistakes, and then you kind of have to hope that like those values that you passed on to them guide their use of

technology as well, and that they come to you when they're scared or they like need help with something. It seems like to me, I'm not a I'm a parent to dogs, so I don't have to worry about this. But we didn't watch the Puppy Bowl and they were addicted. But also the other thing is you're talking about how you don't have to worry about it with smaller children, But FaceTime is how I stay connected with my nephew.

And I know plenty of people that purposefully like FaceTime family members, like their infant children, just so that they hear the voice, they see the face. Then they start associating that face with the screen, you know, with the good feelings with the screen. But that's the only way, like I can keep in touch with him because he's it's such a long distance and I know that's slightly different than games and stuff, but I also want to

worry about that, you know. I think it's a great example because it's important to also remember that not all screen is made alike. I think, you know, connecting with people over FaceTime is a great thing, especially relatives who live away. You know, being able to read the New Times or any news is different. The problem becomes when you're selling things as educational games and people are playing them and they can all these dopamine bursts from playing.

Or social networks you get the document burst from the comments and the likes. So there's a big difference between games and social networks or or YouTube where the one short video you know ends in the next one stalls and and talking to Grandma on FaceTime. Yeah, okay, that

makes me feel better, thank you. Yeah, it's I mean, it's but I mean these are all things like like you said, like Paula be like you have concerns like I was, like talking to my dad on FaceTime, who was like not able to see my son and for you and you, I mean he's not really able, like he can't my son can't see enough where he's like I associated all this too, but to your point, like how the beginnings of your relationship to the screen begins, and and and guy, you also mentioned this too, like

like not using the phone in front of the kids too, because I've seen my other friends do that where they're trying to say, like I don't want my kid to think that when you're not doing something, you look at your phone or that that's that's what is normal, like you can be active, or you can do other things,

or you can like read a physical book. But some I've heard people say like I don't want my kids like early memories of like me being like I'm looking down at this like glowing rectangle and baby, Ye see that that is like sort of the most normal thing. Obviously, you know we have to use our phones. But I get that they're like, it's it's all very subtle and how like kids begin to like see what's normal or not normal? Yeah, and I think you know that. Yeah.

The studies show that parents who are having users their kids also have you used the phone. On the other hand, it's hard. You know you're there, but you're using a phone because you're texting your babysitters and you can't find a babysit and you're texting another So it's it's not so it's not. There's no perfect solution. We're not living in a perfect world for this, so we can just try our best, but it's not. There's no easy way

out right now right. I think that sums up so many of what we're experiencing in this present moment, and I say something that might help this story come full circle. Yes, um, I just saw an article that said Pablo Xavier, a thirty one year old construction worker from the Chicago area, said he was tripping on shrooms last week when he came up with the idea for Pope Francis, his puffy

jacket image. So he was out in the world drugs, experiencing community and nature and stuff when he full up the things that'll do to your brain, you know, just ye small talk with people. But again, I think, yeah, important that if we understand that it's like this very complex issue where it's such a double edged sword, where it's given us things like being able to connect with people when we need to and in ways that are much better than just like talking over the phone or

writing something. But at the same time, there's also this like commodified monetized, you know, use of technology that is purely built on extracting as much eyeball time from you as possible, and you know, not reckoning with that is creating a bit of a slippery slope. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeite. Guys, please like and review the show. If you like, the show means the world Demiles. He needs your validation folks, I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk

to you Monday. By