Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist.
Uh.
These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles. We are thrilled to be joined by today's special expert guest. He's a senior researcher of US hate and extremist movements at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. To quote Samuel L. Jackson, holt Onto your butts. Oh, it's the return of Hulta Mania. The Holtster is in the house, So Holtster your weapons.
It's Jerry, Jerry, Jerry hold holds.
Good to be here.
Hold on, we're not done.
I feel like I was off there. Give me one second. That's good man, oh man, God help.
Things are good. It's hard to complain too much. It's it's warm in Chicago again, so it's it's nice to go outside and see things start to grow and uh walk my dog along the lake front, which he is crazy about. But yeah, it's been good.
Thanks. What do you mean like that?
Like that like he's rabid. So when he sees his bodies of water rubbed away. Yeah, just are just loving and generally just excited by the year.
Bas he loving it.
Oh, he he goes crazy. He loves to smell all the weird stuff that washes up on the shore of Lake Michigan, which a lot of stuff washes up there, like kinds of fish you wouldn't.
Expect, Like that's probably a good sign.
Like there's a lot of like crab looking things that wash up. And maybe I'm just showing my own ignorance over bodies of water, which I.
Will fully right right too.
But but but yeah, he just goes crazy. He runs some circles, goes nuts for like ten minutes, and then my wife and I.
Usually carry him the rest of the way. But he loves.
Ith wow like that like that metaphor or that story about christ.
On the beach carrying him. Yeah, do you make him look back at his footsteps and tell him with me and me and mom?
Oh man, I'm glad you're here because the Donald Trump and race speech drifted into Q town and I was like, oh, we're still playing that music again, So I'm glad you're here to.
Be definitely on a bit of a Q tip on that one.
Yes, yeah, when he could have been on a camal the abstract sort of wave. That's a deep that's a deep Q tip cut for all my drive call Q West fans out there. Yeah, but I'm sure that was that like getting people excited on the old Q internets.
Yeah, some of the Q andon influencers, which is such a weird thing to say. Yeah, like the same way we think of like, oh, I'm like a spirituality influencers literally, just like Buddy, I've read a lot of posts and you're in safe hands, don't work.
Those are my spiritual influencers.
Yeah right right, yeah, yeah, some of them that I still like kind of keep an eye on from the Q and on heyday, we're like, oh, it's this music again.
And it's interesting to see this make the rounds because during the twenty twenty campaign, you know, at Trump rallies, this music would play and all the QUE people would get like really pumped up about it because it's the song by you know, it's uploaded on I think it's SoundCloud or a YouTube channel or something by somebody who is just like straight up Q pilled and or appears to be I guess I should say and so they've always been like, look, this is this is for us,
this is is our music, this is our anthem in the truck where US by Canada campaign has just been adamant about like, no, it's just a song. And then reporters are like, well, how'd you find the song? And they're like and the next question, you know, and uh, for all the flak they got for using that song four years ago, it's definitely I mean, this was like somebody's conscious choice was like, we're gonna play this song again.
Right, yeah, Oh, and he's gonna pause for thirty seconds. So just like, let that shit cook that ship. Let everyone based.
Yeah, and Mari and Natean, well, yeah, I'm glad you're here because I'm I have many questions about that and generally what we're looking at this fall, you know, like.
Wears Coast off of the vibes of people who were in Chicago during summer because they have to like trudge through like Andy Duframe crawling through shit to freedom. Chicagoans need to trudge through eight months pure shit to get to really like one of the best places to be during summer months, spring and summer months and like in the world. Yeah, yeah, Chicago in the summer is like my favorite place on earth. Yeah, it's really great. Yeah. Wow,
now I must go. Have you been, Jack Sureley, you've gone? You said I've never been. I just you know, I've seen Ferris Bueller and I saw She'll Tight Boys the summer. What is something from your search history? Okay?
I got on the Bridgerton bandwagon. I googled did banks exist in eighteen thirteen?
Because talking about the one sister who's rocking the.
Bank and that one sister has like the really long banks, and I was like, this looks like a ninety you know, like a twenty twenty bank. Yeah, So then I googled, and then then I went down this like rabbit hole of learning about hair during the regency era, right, So I guess they did have bangs.
Oh they did.
I just I just didn't believe it.
Yeah. Yeah, there are some paintings. They're just like, not the famous one. But what was her name?
Is it?
Eloise? Who got the banks?
Well, like this that one sister had like really long banks, and I was like, because the first one in season one she had that short, weird short like Audrey Hepburn type bangs.
Uh huh yeah, Eloise Elois got yeah, Wilans Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
It was like did they have banks?
When did bangs start?
I don't know that's research. Is that something you can google? When did the When did bangs start? I'm looking up Portrait de la trie Jean Samari by Renoir. It's a portrait painted in eighteen seventy seven and she's working with banks. She looks great. Banks by the way.
Oh yeah, girls always get banks and they like break up with guys. So I feel like.
Yeah forever, Yeah, I gotta gotta try the bang out.
Also, there's so I mean, well Caesar, right, isn't the Caesar a very banged male haircut in a way?
Yeah, but it's like bangs bands over the front, that's all. Yeah, it's a Caesar, all hands on deck to the front of the class.
This is this is an interesting page that's just like ancient ages bangs, and it's got some like Egyptian Oh yeah, the Egyptians were rocking bangs fourteen nineties to the fifteen hundreds. Bangs had a little bit of a moment of course, was rocking bangs. R Bang's been around, total has been around.
Yeah, I like though too. Though in my mind also, I'm like the bank. It's so funny because we're looking at that character. I'm watching this new season too, and it feels like it's it's like a it's like a wig bang, you know what I mean, like bangs, like it's part of the hairpiece. So like, yeah, sometimes it has like different like levels of body to it.
And I'm like, mister playing with these fake bangs. And then I was like, where there is this allowed? Where there I keep googling.
I've been actually this whole season just like well, like the last season there was like an Indian character, so it was like did people from India go to England? And I was like, duh, of course we were calling nice by them, so that makes sense right right. I was googling. I don't know if you saw caught in this last season, there was like a rotating band. The band was rotating in the center of the dance floor, you know, like a pedestal. Yeah, And I was like, how did that happen?
Did they do that?
I don't know everything every episode I googled something.
Yeah, was there like a little mouse doing like powering a wheel that was making it rotate?
Yeah, That's what I was wondering. I was like, they didn't have electricity.
Yeah, well, I mean that's the thing where like obviously they take liberties, especially with like the race relations.
There were some Irish people underground, just like shoveling Cold Fellows. Yeah, exactly, we need more power.
Did you watch Queen Charlotte though, That's like the closest one where they they reckon with like the post racial kind of vibes of the show. And I was like, oh, because every yeah Charlotte.
Yeah, I was like googling her. Then I found like all these old pictures of paintings of her and what she was supposed to look like. And apparently she wasn't as gorgeous as they make her out to be in the real in this TV show.
And neither was King George.
No.
Yeah, that's whole the whole series. Have been googling a.
Lot, realizing like, maybe I'm not watching it for the historical accuracy at all.
This is fiction. This is made.
I've got it.
Love it, love it, love it, love it. Look, what is something you think is underrated? Underrated?
You know, maybe this is related. I didn't think about it as related. I didn't think of my underrelated underrated as related to my Google search. But I was like, no one talks about the upside of dropping the ball all it's m M like, I'm actually a very I'm actually a personality that is not very like.
I don't drop the ball. Honestly, I don't know. So you're a little type on middle type A.
But recently, just because of life, I've been dropping the ball here and there, And at first I was feeling really bad about it because every every external factor tells you that you should feel like crap about it, and as well, I should really feel really bad because what what is my contribution If I'm not Karen, Everyone's goddamn balls.
Yeah, yeah, drop no ball lady. Yeah.
But it turns out that sometimes when you drop the ball, like you don't get back to something, like you just forget about things or you don't do summer camp on time or whatever.
It's uh, look, get solved.
Like it's amazing you could drop balls and you just get more efficient at solving them quickly.
Yeah.
I think the part of the ball dropping process is also giving yourself, like the confidence in yourself that you can address any kind of anomaloust thing that happens, any deviation from your set out plan, any contingency, because like I'm just thinking of like what my therapists are and I can't drop the ball, And it's like, but don't you trust yourself that even if the ball is dropped, that you would be able to figure it out.
I'm like me, aw, damn yeh wow.
I do trust my you know what, I'm dropping the ball because I know I can pick it back up.
Yeah, but but I won't be paying you this week. Yeah? Is that cool? I'm going to drop the ball. One thing, I need you to not drop the ball.
I might drop the ball in this payment though, So yeah, I got to think of, like, you know, there's a bunch of things in this world that we always talk about it, Like, you know, there's so many people talking about trauma and how trauma fixed your life, and I'm sometimes like, what's the upside of trauma? Like sometimes you know, you don't have to diet because I'm so consumed with your trauma.
You're not You're not eating sugar right at all? Yeah.
I didn't realize I'm not taking care of myself.
But they look other parts that go along with it. Yeah. Yeah, the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that I'm incredibly bad at judging, like what is going? Like I feel stressed out about the wrong things. I like, where worry about the wrong things? And then oh should you be worrying about?
Uh?
Oh now I'm worried? Do I worry about the wrong things? What should I be worried about?
Well?
I just like, you know, events or something that I'm like dreading end up being fine or good. And then you know the stuff that.
Just say, Jack, it's the migrant convoys that are headed for our.
I just spend I mean, I've been I've been pitching this story of Miles forever and it's it's seenophobic fear monk they're talking about on the news. Many talk. You can see the corkboard behind me. But there's some things that I need people to listen to. Is that dread on the corkboard?
Oh?
Red right? Yeah you aren't, yeah guy, But yeah, I just I feel like a lot of you know, I talked to an older person one time and they were like, if I had known like now what I or if I know if I had known then what I know now, Like I wouldn't have worried about ninety five percent of the shit that I spent my life worrying about. Yeah, that's like when you to say easy for you to say, asshole.
But like when I look back at like an old to do list full of things that are like stressing me out that I have to get done, Like I don't even remember what most of them are, Like they're just so insignificant, so dumb. Yeah. Yeah.
On the other side of that, I feel like anytime someone's you know, doing the an older person is doing a reflection of like, you know what I think about it now, was really I just spend time with loved ones and you know, friends and family. And you're like, yeah, but you you made a fortune, right, you.
Didn't do that for a very very, very very very long time.
Yeah, now you're saying we should all spend time with love once, yet you've been doing that for like thirty five minutes.
Yeah, it's like a millionaire biography. Who's just like in retrospect, I just pulled myself up by the bootstraps and it was really easy and I didn't need anybody. But like, I just want to know I should have spent time with my family. What is something you think is overrated Boeing.
I think Boeing is still still overrated. I just read yesterday that there's like thirty more planes that might just blow up in the sky. Yeah, oh no, how are you still even in business? Like, like, at what point does the government just step in and nationalize Boeing Because it's it's getting like I have to fly like four times in the next month and guarantee their Boeing planes and I'm absolutely terrified of getting on these fucking planes.
Like what happened to the other didn't other people make planes? I thought there were other people made planes because I can't.
Find them because like, didn't McDonnell Douglas end up merging with Boeing.
Like the other one happened?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like that they ended up merging with Boeing and yeah, like it's it's like, you know, it's all consolidation. And then on your FA, the question about the FAA is like regulatory capture, Like they just budied up with the FA and they're like, come on, man, let us let us inspect our own planes. Man, you don't got to look at our ship. They're like, oh yeah, okay, we got the why would you inspect the planes? We
have a respect federal regulator. Yeah we got we got inspectors too, bro.
Just take just you heard me say I got you. You heard me say this ship.
Bro, I don't just say that to anybody.
Yeah, yeah it is. It is wild.
And I mean like yeah, every story like there's all like I feel like, now there's like a weekly Boeing story about something happening a landing gear malfunctioning or some other weird shit.
At first, I thought it was like overblown, Like I was like, oh, I mean it's like I'll be honest, I'm like I've the door ripped off, and I was like, oh, it's the Max Plan.
It's that plane, right, Yeah, that plane sucks.
The Max Plane, it sucks.
But then now like a this week, this like new story that like half their fleet might be fucked up or whatever it is.
I'm like, what are you people doing?
What is it?
And then is it a problem or is it not a problem? The government needs to suck right exactly, they are like it's a very this is very bad. But then they're like.
Fly away, you know which one you should If the planes will kill us, shouldn't they stop the flights.
Well, what's worse a couple hundred people dying or my revenue going to a fucking absolute halt, you know what I mean, that's quite what they're telling them, Like, please don't.
Make us shut down. Man, We're not gonna make money. Shout to the aviation maintenance technicians. Yeah, it's your day.
Pay them triple, quadruple whatever, a living wage times too, please, because we we need we need these planes in there not bowing.
They're not gonna they don't because they don't have to. Yeah, I mean that down to the airline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, all right, yeah, nationalized bowingines reasons. Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. And we're back. We're back, And Jared, you have this piece about to report. I guess we would call it a report. It's official, and it's about the fact something that I feel like we've that's been coming up more and more
recently that not all conspiracy theories are created equal. There are some that are very dangerous, but they're not always the ones that get the most attention. So just wanted to like kind of get you to talk broadly about where the kind of impetus for this report was coming from like many things I write nowadays, it's equal parts trying to be helpful and also just my passive aggression at the National News right in the way they cover the stuff I research so.
Generally conspiracy theories and sort of how prevalent they like they've become in discourse, especially political discourse is important on
the whole. But the premise of this piece is basically to say that even though that bigger picture is important, and all the conspiracy theories like make up that bigger picture, it doesn't mean that like people saying that the Illuminati is using Taylor Swift to flush the Super Bowl is equally as important as you know, the same conspiracy theorists accusing some random no no name election worker of being a pedophile in that person's life being turned upside down by freaks on the internet.
Yeah, So it's like there's a power imbalance that you kind of comes up throughout the report that, like a lot of the theories, the one that jumped out to me because it's one that we've talked about on this show is but the boeing was the blower thing where whistle blowers keep dying and everyone's like having fun half jokingly, like with a little you know, while waggling our eyebrows aggressively, uh mentioning the two whistleblowers have died while while they
were like about to testify, and then like just unrelatedly linking off to the Michael Clayton meme or the mic not meme, the Michael Clayton scene where a corporation like murders they tase that dude and then they shoot them in the toes. Yeah, shoot him up between the toes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, on the one hand, like it seems like, I don't know,
pretty pretty huge accusation to make. On the other hand, I'm not as worried about boeing, Like I don't think our problem as a society is bowing, not like getting too much scrutiny personally, Like that doesn't seem to be the main problem. But I guess I'm curious, Like where does that fall for you on the uh list of like conspiracy theories to be monitoring and concerned about.
Yeah, so it's kind of conspiracy theories where yeah, we all wiggle our eyebrows and wait for the other person to be like right, actually gave this.
Though, yeah too, right, like you know, yeah, just keep going.
But yeah, but like wouldn't it be crazy if then somebody pulled up the banking documents for this and.
Right, right, so I told you we don't have a twelve in that Shu. I was just back there, Yeah all right.
So I always think about like like power balances and then also like who is the victim of a conspiracy theory?
Right?
And maybe that's victims the wrong word, but like this is, I mean, what happens we all form a negative opinion about Boeing their corporation, My my heart does not break for the stock price of Boeing, or you know how
people feel about their airplanes or whatever. I think if you know, those kind of theories started singling out, you know, like a specific lawyer and then all of a sudden, like two hundred thousand people are hyper fixated on this lawyer and sharing their addresses and stuff like that can get a little bit you know, then that would kind of get into the territory of like, oh, maybe we should keep an eye on this because this could actually like cause some trouble to this person, who, as far
as we know, could just be like you know, totally innocent or whatever. It's just like people are coming up with things online to say about it. Yeah, so this piece is really more about like those power balances like you pointed out in considering the impact of conspiracy theories. I think there's a lot of conspiracy theories that exist in sort of a gray area like truth wise, of like, this certainly doesn't look good. It looks a little weird, and it might be fun to talk about or explore
or like get you know, but that's not something I like. Really, it's not like a place I really try to go in this piece because it gets like a little you know, complicated to talk about is maybe more of like a sociology question of like why do we enjoy this? But sure, but yeah, that's that's kind of how I think about it. I tend to think stuff like that is you know, generally benign. We're harmless in the grand scheme of things.
Right, yesterday we talked about how Trump is needle dropping these c songs at his rallies, and for me that I feel like the slow creep of this has sort of like flown under the radar, this latest needle drop, because like at first it was this thing that like, yeah, it might be tied to Q. And then he's started just like playing it during his speeches like on purpose, like in a like music would start swelling up in a movie in a weird way. And like at first
that was like Jesus, what, like what is happening? This is so strange? And now when he does it and like stops for a minute to just like let the music ride, We're just like uh huh. Like so, like this feels like we have a presidential candidate who, if the election was out tomorrow, would win or would be very close to winning, who is embracing what is ostensibly a cult with him as the figurehead. Is that one of the ones that you feel like we need to be worried about? And if so, why or why not?
I would say yes because of you know, again going back to this question of power, there's few people in the US that hold more you know sway and are very close if not, you know, I mean, like you pointed out, Trump very well could win this fall. It's it's like very much in the cards. I tend to think he probably will. I hope I'm wrong, But to have that kind of level of power indulging conspiracy theory like QAnon, which has driven you know, several individuals to
violence throughout the years. I think is worth caring about because it's getting the blessing of somebody from a position of high power, which means that, you know, if we think of conspiracy theories like that, particularly some of the more deranged ones like QAnon, that have potentially more grave implications for the people that get caught up and targeted by them, you know, if we think of that as like a numbers game, then getting on stage with the
you know, potentially the next president. You know, it's hard to think of a bigger, more consequential platform than that, right.
And what like you know, just kind of watching the ebb and flow of Q and on, like obviously they it's things subsided, as you know, the drops became less and less frequent and then like stopped completely. Then you see sort of like it popping up. I just saw an article that you shared about how like Q and On references have been like just resurgent on like on Twitter recently and looking at even like what Trump is doing.
Like in twenty twenty, I remember we were all like, oh shit, you're really doing this to try and like get as many people behind you for this reelection push as possible and like winking at the QAnon people have been like, yeah, come on, y'all right, like here's my like, come on down under this big tent and we can
do it all together. Is it, like you know from what you've seen, is QAnon still like at this level where like this is sort of why Trump's doing this again to be like all right, guys, like is it or is it kind of like an Avengers assemble kind of like bat signal to be like, hey, we need to I need as many of the fucking freaks as possible to sort of go all in on my reelection campaign because maybe I can then turn that into a you know, potential January sixth type sequel.
Or is the only way give them because he can't remember the phrasing, so like where we go, once, we go, we go always, many are saying we go one time of meta he's s.
Winking at him because he thinks they're kind of cute, you.
Know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Mean I think it generally kind of lines up with both of the previous Trump campaigns and what is shaping up to beat this one as well, which is, you know, put on a show for the freaks and let them kind of do the work of drumming up a larger
page base of support, right. You know, Trump has done this from the very start on immigration rhetoric, taking like much harder lines and sort of restrictionist positions than other GOP candidates in the field were at the time, and still has some of the most extreme immigration policies that
you know are floating around the GOP. So, you know, between just like dumbing back through the Trump campaign prior iterations, but the interviews with Alex Jones, the praising of like nutjobs like Ted Nugent, the getting dinner with the lives of TikTok Lady. You know, it's like very much this effort to cater too and sort of bring along anybody who is going to be ride or die for him. So I think his affinity for the QAnon people, I don't think he's like deep in the weeds.
I don't.
I don't think he knows about like Q drops or you know, really like truly knows who any of these people are.
But he don't know about q drops because he is q and doing the drops. Right, So, like he doesn't even think about them as drops, right, is that.
What he.
To say, to say that he knows about him would be under your cellar, you know, you know what I mean he has Jared is waggling his eyebrows at me, just like, but.
Yeah, I mean I think generally, you know, he he doesn't meet supporters that he doesn't like, and that's right, you know, tries to give him a little pat on the head and scratch to keep him going. In terms of QAnon more broadly, it's certainly not what it used to be. When the stopped, right, you know, a lot of that energy went elsewhere. In twenty twenty, it was like starting to spill into anti vax stuff. It continued to spill there. A lot of it spilled into election
denihilism more broadly. So a lot of like diehard q people you know, kind of looked up and went, okay, well, maybe the president wasn't posting on eight chan for me to read, but right right, you know, it's about the friends we made along the way, and you know, sort of the line in those spaces for a while was like, okay, it's not literally true, but you know it opened our
eyes and got us ready to see the truth or whatever. Yeah, so a lot of these people have spilled over into like your local GOP office or school board.
You know.
Some of them like went through the broken windows at the US Capitol building and right, you know, went to jail for that. And so the movement evolved. I don't
think it ever really died. That study that I shared from NewsGuard sort of redid this methodology that I didn't think it was twenty twenty two or twenty twenty one, where I was looking at some of the catchphrases that you used to think about as like, you know, there's the flag that says I'm a queue head where we go on, we go all right, trust the plan or whatever it may be storm Yeah, and those were kind of rolling off when I did that study, and to
see that come back up, I thought was sort of interesting. I think it's definitely an incomplete picture of sort of what has happened in that movement more broadly, but it'll be interesting to see, if you know, with this campaign kicking back up, if we do see sort of a return to form for some people, if they're like okay, well, you know, they're looking around and they're like Okay, we played the you know, LGBTQ people are demons thing, What other greatest hits do we have have?
Right?
You know?
I mean they might they might pull this back out the songbook. We don't know yet, but yeah, it's interesting.
The core belief of the Q stuff is that we're all pedophiles, right, Like, isn't that like one of the main ones, is any you jack, It's just me particularly They do have some pretty uh detailed stuff. No, but
I guess that's one. Like there's this a New Yorker article that we talked about a couple of weeks back that is about this idea of misinformation and kind of puts forward this idea that like some of the misinformation, like some of the c stuff, is people like not literally believing it, Like you just said, it's not that they literally believe it. It's more that they believe it in the way that like a Catholic person believes that the bread of the communion is like actually the body
of Jesus. But like they don't expect blood to start like running down their mouth when they like put it, you know, when they bite into it.
They Yeah, I think that's the perfect way to put it.
Yeah, yeah, they just believe it as a you know, the way a religious person does. And in those cases, the more outlandish the belief, like that this is where like speaking in tongues comes from right, like in certain Christian faiths, it's like the more outlandish and wild you can go with, like the thing that you're saying you believe even though you don't technically like adopt it as part of your reality and like physically interact with it.
The more outlandish, the like more people are like, wow, that person's like going hard, you know, like that like you get they're going hard for Q. Yeah, yeah, they're going hard for Q. But then like it does I keep waiting, Like once I found out, Okay, there's this
cult that likes a lot of their beliefs. When you like pull out the like selected readings of like Q drops and then like the things that people are writing about Q would suggest that they think they're at war with like Satan and like people who are like worshiping the devil and like want to kill their kids and
drink their like vi adrenochrome. And so I'm always like whenever there's like a mass shooting or like something of that nature, I'm always like, well, this has to be cute, Like it feels like the sort of thing that if people actually believe that, we'd be seeing a lot more horrifying violence in response than we are actually seeing. So I guess that makes me wonder like where Q actually falls on that spectrum, Like is it something that people are just like this is like a fun thing that
I talk to with my other weird friends. We hate Joe Biden and this is a fun way to like channel that hatred, and we like think Trump is funny and that's this is a fun way for us to channel that or is it something that's like And I don't expect anybody to have the answer on this, but I do think it's an interesting conversation as to like whether you know Q is going to rise to that level of being a justification for really horrifying.
Violence, like you're saying like juxtaposing that with like great replacement theory or something right where people truly adopt that as an ideology.
And I mean, I guess I should point out that, like we have politicians spreading stuff like great replacement like you just mentioned Miles, but as horrifying as they are, like mass shootings are not happening because of it every day, right, And the same thing with quan On. There have been
instances of like really nightmarish violence. I remember a few years ago this I think it was a surf instructor in California like took his kids down to Mexico and just slaughtered them because he thought they were like lizard people or something. Right, So it definitely can't do that.
But that's something I also kind of get to in the piece that I wrote with my colleague Lucy, which is, you know, trying to encourage you know, writing kind of directly to news audience here, trying to encourage like more open thinking about the role that conspiracy theories have in people's lives. You know, they, like any other form of media, they offer all kinds of non material things to people, you know, and it's not just like pure information that
must be deepunked. It's also like an expression for the people that believe it of like identity and philosophy and meaning and like these more abstract kind of like front brain kind of stuff that that no like well, actually the the New York Times said that was false, and then people are.
Like what what Okay? Each of the things that you just cited in that paragraph got more than three pinocchios from the fact checkers of the world. What shit, you're averaging four pinocchios, my good man.
So yeah, So it's you know, I think trying to think a little bit more openly about like what theories like that can mean to people. To some people, they can be very literal to people, especially people who are having, you know, some sort of mental crisis, or have inclinations towards violence, or you know, other dire sort of personal situations. They can be justifications for really terrible things right to a lot of people. They can be entertainment to some people.
It can be like a quasi religion. It can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
And the point that I was trying to make in the article is it's worth thinking about those kind of implications or like what that might mean beyond just like what a lot of coverage of conspiracy theories and big publications tends to look like, which is they're saying, Taylor Swift is gonna, you know, get a sniper rifle and shoot the ball and deflate it, and then the Super Bowl is going to be realined or yeah, whatever you know, and then being like damn that got a lot of clicks.
Is there a lot of Americans that think this is true? And it's like, but that's not like what.
You're linking off to it in your massive news publication by the way, like yeah, we the stupidity of other people, like in the abstract is like a myth that I feel like we want to believe in as Americans, Like we want to believe that if you can tell people that, like a big group of people is believing something that like seems incomprehensibly like almost unbelievably stupid, Like they they're going to eat that up. They they love to believe that.
It's just generally when you talk to those people, not.
True that they actually Yeah, I mean I've talked to like especially when I was doing more like on the ground reporting stuff. I would just go to like QAnon events and talk to these people and these a lot of I mean some of them, we're not the you know, sharpest tools and the ship, but right, a lot of them, most of them, I would even say, we're perfectly smart people, but had like their intelligence had taken them into like
nonsense land. So it was a perfectly rational belief in things that were laughably untrue, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I mean there's a study about people who are being deprogrammed from cults. When you like give people IQ tests who have been in cults, like, they score on average higher than the rest of the population, because the theory goes that they're able to bend their mind around and like construct more complex counter arguments for more comprehensive
and bizarre systems of belief. Like basically, they would make good lawyers because they're intelligent, and being a good lawyer means you can construct a good defense of like anything in your mind. This kind is that's kind of how I've always thought about that factor, like made sense of effect that people and cults tend to be smarter on average than the average person.
But yeah, I mean, that's that's one of the reasons my golf game suffered. Like I was telling you, I took one little trip down to Havana, I started hearing some weird stuff. Man, ever since keeps slicing.
That's one that's one that like I don't think people would technically think of it as a conspiracy theory because it's coming from like openly coming from sixty minutes and like, you know, the Department of I guess it's less and less coming from but like I guess former Defense Department officials.
But of the Havana syndrome, Savanna syndrome. It's like you got a tummy ache. Yeah, yeah, and my.
Ears are ringing and my memory's bad. I'm seventy three.
When when I'm.
Seventy three and I drink an entire bottle of whiskey last night, and I woke up and I feel.
Terrible to make the voices stopped from all the people that I've had a hand in helping the US Army kills maybe or maybe not. I don't know.
It's fine working at the CIA. I don't think that had.
Anything to do with my mental stretch man. But yeah, when it's going from the US military to Cuba, I feel like that power and balance worries me a little bit. Like right, that feels like a bad balance overall. But let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk a little bit more about maybe some of the ones that you're most worried about and others that people can maybe not worry about as much. We'll be right
back and we're back. We're back, And so we talked about how Chad GPT's new assistant was being sold on being flirty, like that was what they talked about at first. They were like, yeah, it's like kind of flirty and fun and like we'll just it'll be like having a real assistant. And then came out and people were like this sounds like Scarlett Johansson. No, And then fucking Sam Altman just tweeted the word her like he has like a liar liar curse or something. He just like couldn't
help himself. He was like her, Yes, it's her. And so now the story continues to evolve in net now they're basically getting in trouble for it. Yeah, I think.
So.
Scarlett Johansson released a statement and it basically outlines kind of like what her interactions were with Sam Altman and open Ai, and she says that Altman first reached out to her in September about potentially voicing Sky because he believed it would quote breach the gap between tech companies and creatives and something about her voice being like a comfort to users like that would just kind of help people transition into this apocalyptic technology or they want you
to believe as apocalyptic anyway, So she declined. She was like, yeah, let me think about that. It's a no for me. Dog, she was like, And.
Then so I worked on the film, so I actually had to watch it all the way to the end, so I know what happened in the movie. I hers like thirty minutes, which is apparently all that you've seen, right, And I don't want to tell a user that I'm also having simultaneous conversations with eight thousand other people or whatever.
That line was in the Yeah, that shit was dope. But then so she did so she declined, And then two days before the chat GPT demo came out, with the sky demo came out, Altman reached out again, asking her to please reconsider.
Two days before yeah, yeah.
Exactly, someone probably remind him like, ah, you may want to fucking circle back with scarlet Man because anyway.
Yeah, he had his AI legal team, akay, just a real legal team look through his interactions and they were like, we're fucked here, Sam.
You asked her, dude, Yeah, there's like a paper trail, And before she could say fuck off, dweeb, the company went ahead and released the demo. And despite the fact that like you said this motherfucker literally tweeted her h e R when the demo was released. He just said, this is a bad mix up quote. We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice.
Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson, but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. We cast the voice actor behind Sky's voice before any.
Outreach to mister w Wow.
Out of respect for her, we have persu Out of respective for her, we have paused using Sky's voice in our products. We are sorry to miss jo Hansson that we didn't communicate better.
That is real.
Do they really think she wasn't gonna lawyer up?
Like?
How did they not think that?
I don't.
I think it speaks to an arrogance of these people generally that like even when they they think that, like they don't realize how eerie their technology is. And like Scarlet, like we really think, like you can help usher, Like they're like, dude, no.
So we'll reach out Scarlett. She'll be like, yeah, oh my god, it's so cool. Would love to be involved, and yeah.
There was just a massive strike of writers and actors that were all about being like yo fuck ai. Yeah, so we want to ask her to be her mmm okay. But basically it seemed that like once her lawyers she lawyered up when she saw this, and once her lawyers asked their like, we'd like a step by step explanation as to how the voice of Sky was even made open air. I was like, it's all good man, taking it down.
It's actually cool. We actually don't need to give you that because we're gonna take it down because are like we just the thing we hate is a miscommunication. So that's why we're taking it down. It has nothing to do with like how we came about that and whether we had microphones placed around her house to hear how she says various or.
Just fetted a bunch of movies right and trained it on like a bunch of lines of dialogue or whatever.
And that's the thing.
It's like, because these companies are already facing huge lawsuits from like news outlets and other like writers and things because these models are trained on other people's fucking work. So I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that maybe Scarlet's voice may have actually been involved with this like development of the sky voice. Also fucking sky Scarlet, Like there's just.
Sky is anywhere her character goes at the end of the movie. Okay, I'm just saying, connects the fucking dots smiles.
Or actually her name is Skylight. Oh, it's nothing to do with Scarlet. It's a sky that's.
Where he came up. Wait, God, just sounds like an Australian person saying Scarlet, shut the fun.
Scarlett scar Stanson Skylight jokes dancing.
Yeah, that's the full name of her. It has nothing to do with the movie or that.
But yeah, I think what's even wilder, though, is recently Sam Altman gave his interview where he was asked to predict the future in regards to fucking AI and just listen to his answers.
He's got some like this guy can like see the future in like new dimensions. I didn't even like, can't even think about it's crazy.
Yeah, So he's being asked by this guy. He's saying, hey, man, so like where do you see, like what jobs do you see becoming like actually in demand because of AI and This is his very fucking groundbreaking answer.
That's a great question and I don't think I've ever gotten it before. Its people always ask like what job is going to go away? The new one is a more interesting question. Let me think for a second. I mean that there's like a lot of things that I could talk about that I think are sort of less interesting.
Or like such a bullshit behind.
Try and answer like from the areas of killing time people do or fifty million people do. Get to the answer for the broad category of new kinds of art entertainment sort of more like human to human connection. I don't know what that job title is going.
To be, but I think friendship and I don't know if this like we get there in five but I think there's going to be a premium on like human in person like fantastic experiences.
I don't know what we'll call that.
Yeah, we'll call that fucking concert.
Event Disneyland.
What going I think there's gonna be like I don't know, like really cool thing like premium on like people like sitting around a table and like consuming food together or something, you know what I mean. Like it's just like really I don't know, it's like I'm trying to think like one hundred million, fifty million. That's it. Like, listen to
any like tech person like that. They're great at They will compliment the shit out of the interviewer, and then they'll also just like throw out massive numbers at various points. I'm not I don't want to like talk about the ones that are going to be like small. I want to talk about the ones one hundred three hundred million. Get those out of the way. Yeah.
His answer reminds me of like back in the world of voting, like four years ago or five years ago. That's like election cycle, everyone was talking about relational voting, and all relational voting is is like when one person talks to their friends about voting and encourages them to vote. But it became as like breakthrough cutting edge for you relational organizing, right, I.
Mean, that's that's a really I mean, it's a brilliant page to take out of these grifters in Silicon Valley because there is so many things of just pivoting and describing something that exists in like these new fantastic terms, and you're like, oh my god, dude, did you hear what Altman said? Premium in person fantastic ex that's when you're like, dude, you're cooked man, if you're if your brain is boomeranging back to just regular life as you look into your AI future.
U that's that's right, Like, how is AI connected? I think that's true. I think people will in the future put more of a premium on being together in person. What the fuck does that have to do with AI whatsoever?
Like the AI will make the experience premium.
Yeah, yeah, premium in person fantastic experiences where you're like premium and just like so like so so authentic, but like so yeah, you know, experiential. I want to look like I'm not I'm not even looking at like ten years from now. I'm looking like thirty like fifth, like ten centuries from now. Yeah, okay, And that's and that's
what I see right now. People are people are just gonna be yearning for it, you know, and after you know, this will be after the inevitable resource wars and we're trying to figure out when I own all the water, so you'll actually get into whatever the fuck I tell you to be into. Yeah, the uh is I was just like kind of seeing what they were saying on the open A. I read it and like, first there
is one person who just quote tweeting. He was like a thing that I think a lot of people are missing, and then like just quoted the thing where he's like, you know, we got a totally different actress who is her own voice, and people are uh huh, but do we.
Have the audio for the voices?
No, I was trying to find it this morning. Have you been able to find that? Which one like the Scott Sky's voice sounds like, oh yeah, I mean we think Sky's related to sky Rizzy, by the way.
And why, hey dad, why do so many people like sky Rizzy?
Why are so many? Why is sky Rizzy so popular? Is a question tas that my six year old asked may day.
As long as he's not asking you about skibbity again.
Skimbity toilet, he knows what that is.
That was what we talked about last time I was on your show.
Yeah, Jesus, let's see. Let me see if we can hear it here. Hey, Chtcht, how are you doing.
I'm doing fantastic, Thanks for asking.
How about you? Pretty good?
What's up?
So my friend Barrett here, he's been having trouble.
He's got that rap you know what I mean, rasp to it, you know what I mean?
Yeah, and just the overall energy is very similar.
Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah, it's like a combination of the her voice and like a little bit of like Siri mix.
Yeah, a little bit hyper, yeah.
A little Yeah, it's the her voice on uppers, Like what if it was like a little more perky, what if it?
Yeah yeah, but still got that rasp to let people comforting.
Also, a lot of a lot of fake legal experts in the subreter are like, well, it doesn't matter. You can't copyright a voice. So I just wish Scarla Johans would just shut up and stop being mean to Sam Altman And what is that even? Based on what logic? Is that copyright a voice? So I don't know what
you're talking about. And somebody was like, actually, Bette Midler successfully sued the Ford Butter Company in nineteen eighty eight because very similar she was approached to sing in an ad for Ford, said no, Ford got an impersonator instead to sing a Bette Midler song in their ad. Gotcha fucking audacity? Amazing? Yeah, Yeah, we keep trying, so we'll see. But it is pretty funny that they are this fucking stupid.
And finally, I want to talk about Jesse Waters. This seems to be the rhythm of his show over and over again, where he like brings somebody on his show, mocks them and immediately gets owned by the guest right right.
Or he It's usually usual foxing where they think they've booked someone who is not intelligent but then actually knows how to speak very well and just dunks on him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels like his show is structured like the toll Booth Willie skit on that Adam Sandler album, where like different people just come in and politely tell him to go fuck himself, and he's just like fuck you with a smile. But yeah, in this case, videos of rage rituals in which women go to the woods and smash things are like, sholl how.
Have I as a woman not known about this?
Well, you're not You're not on TikTok enough clearently, because that's where they're apply this is.
What I have to do on camping.
Also, it costs two thousand to four thousand dollars.
These things, like I get the catharsis of screaming and getting your frustration on a very physical way. But to charge people two to two grand to do that.
Feels a look yeah, where does the money go?
The wellness industry is wild, but.
One day option is two hundred and twenty two dollars. What I'm in the wrong industry?
Oh yeah, yeah, seriously, Yeah, get off. These writers' groups start doing rage outs with creatives. Wow, we go to the woods and we throw rocks into a stream, and it's like three grand?
Can you pay me?
That's it? But Jessee Waters, you could probably predict his objection, which is like, what are women so angry about? What are they mad at? Are they mad at me? Yeah? They're probably mad at me? Right, So he dedicated a segment on his show to this trend, asking why are women so mad these days? Gee? How much time do you have? Asshole? He said, women are very upset. Why mystery?
Probably something we did, And then he proceeded to condescendingly interview the self proclaimed which Mia Magic, who runs the retreats. But she was like, hey, I actually read your shitty book over the week I mean, you shouldn't say shitty. She was like, I read your book over the weekend. Man, Like, so I know you a little bit. So when he balked at the suggestion that men should be more emotionally
available and vulnerable, Magic countered you got a divorce, Jesse. Right, I'm sure you had a couple of nights where you were sad and where you felt lonely. You know, I think that everyone needs to feel comfortable to feel which.
Yeah, should just play the quote because he's really being a smug prick and then.
Just the chest pass right back is like your divorced, right, said guy. You know you're not saying so you're a lot really fast.
So we have to write this down.
You said, listening, holding, listening, nurturing.
There things women should expect from.
Men, bringing nature, going out into nature, great because nature.
Okay, listening, listening to them, holding them, taking them on, watching.
This is the first time he's ever heard, am I missing anything?
Asking them what they need for support, asking them for.
He's like he's taking a fucking order, like someone's bizarre order at a restaurant. Okay, so you want to taking someone to hear your needs?
Okay, I never heard that one before.
All right, go on, Jesse, Okay, these are this is this is being vulnerable, being vulnerable I think men, I'll.
A deal killer.
You got divorced, Jesse, Right, I'm sure you had a couple of nights where you were sad and where you felt lonely.
You know, everyone the.
Most vulnerable manet, But we have to go.
You're a good with o weird, we have to go.
Okay.
Then he said, you're no, we gotta go because you're a good witch. Wow. Yeah, but yeah, it's he's like, I'm the most vulnerable. How do I get me out of this moment as fast as possible? God?
You know he fucking like when they were like rapped recording, he went to his like fucking dressing room and just like looking in the mirror with like tears in his eyes. Just smile never but justus his veneers cracked through the sheer tension in his job.
You're good, you're smiling.
Oh man me and magic though two to four grand like.
Him always repeating this same ritual like he's got He's probably has like a humiliation thing, right, Oh for sure. I feel like he was maybe trying not to like have an orgasm during during that part where she was humiliating him. Just yeah, okay, there's.
So many if you just search Jesse Waters humiliated. It's like there's like so many things, like whether it's like his mom or other guests whoever come on. There's always like something and he's like, alight, thank you, okay, mom, good good to know.
I wonder what his wife is thinking watching this.
His ex his ex, his ex wife, ex wife, that's right, ex wife.
Yeah, I don't know my wife anymore.
Oh Jesus dude, Noel Waters. He married her in two thousand and nine, went ten years. Filed for divorce in twenty eighteen after Waters admitted to an affair with a producer on his show.
On his show, yeah damn, Jesse.
Damn have written it better.
Yeah, I mean should have sent a poet.
Wow. M vulnerable. Ye gotta get vulnerable with that.
But you know, like in that instance, do you think he really even perceived that divorce as an l He's like, not, I found a better one. Of course I liked more than my wife, so I win and she's crying. Haha, Jesse undefeated.
Like that was when he like doubled down into like his like I'm don draper type of thing right around that time. Yeah, huh interesting. Yeah, Oh he ended up marrying this produce. Oh he really did the switch. Wait, he admitted to an affair. She admitted to an affair.
No, he admitted that like he had he had the affair, and now he is married to the person that he had the affair with. Oh, like he fully did the Tarzan. He's like, let me grab the next vine and let me let go of the other one.
Yeah.
Yeah, Well he wrote all about it in his book.
In no way self serv in no way self serving, one sided account of what happened there. I'm sure.
I mean, you know what that book is called, How I Saved the World.
By now he's not is it really? Oh my god?
Oh boy you.
And then he has another one, Get It Together, Troubling Tales from the Liberal fringe? Wow, get it Together?
Which is weird?
That is like, where's your son? Yeah? Do you think you talked about the divorce on Get It Together? Troubling Tales from the liberal fringe? Or How I Saved the World? Because either one, it's weird, like how I save the world. I've been cheating on my wife and marrying this associate producer and now having my kids question what their family life is about. Whatever doesne matter?
I'm we're good.
We're good, We're good.
All Right. That's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show. If you like the show, it means the world of Miles. He he needs your validation. Folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye.