Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, so, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles were thrilled to be joined in our third seats by one of the driving forces behind Cool Zone Media. They're a writer and host on It could Happen Here yet other Cool Zone shows. They make everyone on this podcast feel
old as fuck. Please welcome the young, the talented Garrison, David, Brilliant Carson.
I like that at Genie Alfredo, maybe like twice a year.
Oh okay, there's a limit more than that.
It's a little much, but yeah, twice a year. I sometimes will be like, you know what I want? I want some Alfredo?
Yeah yeah, yeah, give me that afraid. Oh, I mean, I don't know why I'm acting like I'm over the cream. I still like eggnog.
Okay, whoa, Okay, yeah no, you cannot be talking as you're chugging down the dog. But I am also an eggnog defender. But but hey, now like you can't you can't be trash and clam chowder and then like chugging eggnog. Secretly you like you like turn around, you have a hidden jug Come on?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would say.
The thing that I like about eggnog is that it doesn't have any chunks of clam in it. Okay, one of the top things personally, Jack and I gotta I gotta show you the thing I make every Christmas clam knock knock sounds gross. No, Garrison, it's been way too long, very too long. How have you been.
I've been good. I moved to the East coast of the United States of America. I have been unbelievably busy and had my mind destroyed attending political conventions last year.
Yeah, you're at the r n C.
Yeah, and the d n C. And frankly, the d n C actually was more like a like a drill to my mind. Like I was prepared for the r n C. I have like psychic defenses, right, I'm like, I'm like good. The d n Z like messed me up.
Though we study these people. What is it about it? Is it the dissonance of the d n C. What what what about the d n C was so they are Yeah, Well, we talked about like drilled to the head, to the brain reference the end of Pie. We we talked about taking a thera gun to the head, yeah, being the thing.
That we all need.
Yeah, like that Monday morning hard reset is what we call it, you know, just a thera gun to the temple. But yeah, what what about that? What was it about the d n C.
The dissonance is like one aspect, it's also like it's everyone's so convinced that like they're like the adults, like this is this is the real adult convention. You know, we're not doing that that crazy stuff like the other table is doing. This is this is the adults table.
And meanwhile, as they completely like lose touch on like the cultural moment and refuse to stand up for the things that they, you know, you know, would nominally claim to like care about, and just demonstrate complete spindlessness, I don't know, it was it was. It was very it was very disheartening, more so than just the the kind of wacky bizarro land of the r n C, which, while like arguably slightly more evil, I'm like so prepared for because like it's it's it's the obvious, like you know,
mass deportation convention. Is like, you know, the biggest, biggest thing there.
Yeah, we uh uncovered this video on the aftermath that I mean, I guess other people had known about about this, like Kamala Harris activation at fashion Week? Is that where
it was Paris Fashion Week or New York Fashion Fashion? Yeah, that was just had like a right Jenga tower and I like grab them by the pussy grammar claw machine and just all these like weird like things that you would swear were ham fisted satire if they weren't there at an event that was like Hot Girl Brat Summer Wall where you can take a picture and prove that
you're the Brat of the Harris campaign. It was so wild, but yeah, again make makes you feel like it just feel it feels like a dream I would have when I am spiking the worst fever in the history of my body. Yeah.
Last year was a really dark summer.
Yeah, yeah, I think you've mispronounced Brett Brat. I think it was. It was a really Brett summer. That's right.
Just wear Brat green like Timothy Shallomey and then like all your worries go away.
Yeah that's true. Show what is something from your search history that's revealing about.
Who you are, you know, as the skateboarding liaison to this podcast. What I was looking at. I was just in Arizona for the Slow Impact Gathering, which is this like a kind of academic skateboard conference thing, so I was looking at the schedule for that.
But it is so sick.
It's put on with this dude, Ryan Leigh, who's profer New Balance and sci fi fantasy and so many highlights. I got to do stand up for like one hundred skateboarders in Macywo Town skate shop out there, which is a rad skate shop, met some pros, just sixteen year old more was just thrilled with the whole thing.
It was that's pretty cool. Yeah, and you are skateboarding as you're doing stand up and they're skateboarding along with you. Is that Yeah? Yeah, I'm really long. Yeah.
Oh I broke my wrist.
Yeah. Nice slow impact it's called slow Impact. Yeah, it's great.
It's like there's a there's a guy, the student in Ted Schmid who's got a PhD in architecture, and he took us a ride and gave us a tour of ASU where he just talked about like this building was built by Frank Lloyd Right's son, and this ledge is one of the earliest flat top ledges in Arizona. Like shit like that. It was like very niche and very reating.
Yeah, it was Frank Lloyd right son like a great architect and also a skater.
He was a not a skater, his son in law, but very clearly was like Frank Lloyd Right but made a building there and it's huge. And then Frank Loyd Right's son in law has one that's like kind of standing in its shadows, sort of sadly in this like oedipal complex way that dead put it out. Yeah, it was Wow, it never ends. That's Frank Lloyd Right. I'd hate the bit Flank Lloyd Wrong.
I also I think this no bit I think my wife read like a slightly erotic novel about Frank law Right, and I think it was called Loving Frank.
If I'm off, hold on if I'm off, Loving Frank.
Book more like Frank Horny Right.
It is thank you, thank you also really good guys. Uh.
Yeah, it was about an adulterous affair that he had with a woman. All right, there you go. So, yeah, if you want to get a horn woman.
And there's steamy descriptions like that in the book. So here comes Frank Lloyd Right, and there's this woman and they're gonna get it on. I guess, I don't know.
He took off whatever the hell it was she was wearing.
You described it as somewhat erotic, and then that's exactly what your description was.
That is the genre. Actually, it's not erotic fiction. It's somewhat erotic fiction. I tried and it was pretty okay. They weren't sure if they were going to keep doing it, but you know, he had Jack. No, got's so clinical. There's some wild, wild stuff. I went and saw a falling water. I think that's the big famous house outside
of Pittsburgh that Frank Loyd Right made. And there's a story from his past that I don't I don't have in front of me, but it's basically like this horrible horror movie style massacre that happened at his house to his family, like while he was out of town. That is a little known story that I don't know. We're worth looking up. It's a it's just a I'll give you a little Wikipedia wreck if you if you want
to look up Frank Lloyd Wright's family. Yeah fucking wild. Yeah, like at like this beautiful house that he had built and then and like one of the people who worked there just went wild with an axe one day on the whole family. Crazy story. Holy moly, I bet that's not in your little uh kind of sort of erotic fiction book, Blake. Uh. Like, I'm sorry, I said, Frank horny, right, yeah, Jesus guy was horny, though I think he was out of the affair.
So, you know, I have one more story that I think is interesting from the Skate Weekend, which is that, Okay, there's this pro named Tom Caranngelo.
He was sick.
He's pro for New Balance, and he's he's like an interesting artful dude, which skateboarding is an art form, whether you recognize it or not.
So he did.
He had an interview where he was talking about he goes.
On this podcast, not on this podcast, but.
You guys are pro cop I know that you guys.
Don't you hate the beautiful? Why can't you listen to them when they say no skating here? Why can't you listen to them?
Yeah? So this dude does this, did this thing where he's a cinephile. So he goes to all these different places and looks for skate spots and he's super into John Carpenter. So there's just there's this whole thing where they follow him around like all of Pasadena to all these different parts where they filmed Halloween, and that he's like skating spots around there. And my wife is friends with John Carpenter kind of like he's a big gamer
and she is in the gaming industry. She does voice she's like the head of a you know, franchise, she does video game voices. Wow, And I sent I had her send John Carpenter this interview with this skateboarder, and then he responded so that I was able to tell Tom Carangelo of like, hey, John Carpenter saw that video. I know that for sure, and he was like, dude, that made my life, thank you so much, like he was so hyped to hear this. It was just a very just a true life highlight for me.
Yeah, that's such a fun sort of epilogue to a career like on Carpenter great one of the great filmmakers, maybe the greatest of like the eighties, and people are like, why doesn't he make movies anymore? Did he pass away and it's.
Like no, he just like discovered video games and he was like, holy shit, these are so fucking fun.
This is sick. Just doesn't make movies anymore. People are like, why don't you make movies? Like video games are really fun? Like yeah, he's just like to get high and watch video games.
It's like an angsty teen in his basement.
He's like, I don't want to work.
Yeah, basically and anyplace he We went and saw him at the Palladium and it's pretty sick. He has a band that just plays John Carpenter's style music and there's like smoke effects and it's like pretty dark.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, he made Oh he made a lot of music for his movies. Yeah. What is something that you think Alex is underrated?
I I don't know if it's underrated because I don't know how it's being read. I know how it's being read outside of the state of Maine, but how it's being read inside of this It made a different as
I think. You know, I'm originally from the state of Maine, and our governor of the state of Maine, Janet Mills, did a little Trump clap back this week, and I think like it's being properly raided by anyone outside of the state of Maine, and I think people inside of the state of main have like weird, sort of conflicted
partisan feelings about it. But I just want to say that it should be better rated than it is, that at least one government had in Maine had the strength to push back against extreme government over Yeah.
And I mean Trump really showed how strong he was by just picking on the woman in the room immediately to fucking be like, where are you at You're not gonna comply?
Yeah?
Yeah, many people, Yeah, well i'll see you in court. And when he said, okay, well we'll see you in courted, Yeah, okay, Well and that went really easy, like it turned into like a weird fucking bingo hall argument.
Last word off yeah all right, oh yeah, yeah, good luck with that ship.
And it just makes it like puts me at a total loss for why everyone who disagrees with them doesn't do it, because I know that obviously they're gonna do some sort of like uh insane they you know, theatrical investigation or whatever in order to do it, But like he just looks so silly when anyone says nah, no.
Yeah, right, oh, because she's like, we're gonna I think the line was like, well, we're going to comply with a federal I was like, yeah.
Well what I am a federal law?
All right? All right, famous.
Famous Don Pardo, Dono, thank you so much for coming to my daughter's wedding.
Yeah. And so you're saying that in Maine, people are mad because people people I.
Know who I who I like and respect, but maybe have different political opinions on it, or you know, are kind of reading it like why are we threatening our state funding by like taking on this fight, And it's like, well, we're doing it because we're practical. Government overreaches bad in the end might be bad.
Yeah, I don't know.
People there are there are well meaning people who see this because they don't see trans people as equal, right, and don't realize that, you know, there are like, what a handful of visibly or sort of like or identifiably trans people who play sports at this level in the first place, So this is just an entirely made up fight. They imagine that this is a silly thing to put state funding at risk for, when in fact, it's like, yeah, you should push back against this in any form that
it comes up. This is bad, I guess.
Yeah.
When you say, like, I think we have different political views yours Alex being I like to speak up against stuff, and they're like the keep your fucking head low, man, man ship your fuck up.
Yeah, I am allergic to keeping my head low.
So yeah, welcome, welcome. You would have done bad in World War One, but we're glad you're here now. Yeah.
I have I know, guys, I have been told by snipers that I would not do well in the battle.
What's something you think is overrated?
Vince?
Yes, television not not for TV? What are you doing not for the TV podcast? Celebrity hosted podcast TV? All right, focus on No, it's just uh, it feels like homework now you can't it's just every it's just there's there's a bunch of different shows on a bunch of different channels and you can't remember which one and like where you're watching each of them and how far you're in. It's just a it's too much. It's like my brain, my a D D brain. It's having a lot of trouble with these days.
I think like I'm maxed out at whatever the program offerings were around two thousand and six or seven. Oh yeah, that was around like when I'm like, yeah, bro, I'm up on everything.
Yeah, that was our most things.
That was like every show was good.
Yeah right, Oh maybe that's what I'm thinking bad. Yeah, what happened to when it was good?
All they still knew they were making TV back in the day, And now they're like, we're gonna make the twelve part movie and I'm like, guess what. That's not how I'm watching it. And now I don't know what's going on in seventh anymore, and I don't feel like going back to try and figure it out. Too complicated I've lost.
Is there like a I mean, Vince and Matt like, you guys, are you talk about hashtag content a lot? Is there a phrase for like this feeling? Because I think I talk about this a lot. So why I don't know half of the Marvel films because it's too many came out and I'm like, yeah, bro. At a certain point, the discourse just takes off and I'm like, well, I'm not putting in the fucking effort to be able to participate because I didn't care enough to begin with.
But like that feeling of being overwhelmed by the amount of fucking TV and streaming shit that is, and.
Just like I fuck it all. Actually I'm gonna watch old episodes of some other shit. I think.
Yeah, I think we're all siloed like in our different you know, content bubbles. And I think like we've maybe passed peak Piggy, like a few years ago, because like at a certain point, like Marvel stopped making movies that were supposed to you know, I mean, they still want them to be big events, but they listen to the piggies way too much. So now they are like strictly for like the hardcore Marvel Piggy that really the.
Hogs are in control of the of the slot factory.
The hogs are at the wheel of the tractor.
Yeah, And so like you, you end up having way too much content out there that's all shitty and is all. What's worse is it's all interconnected. So in order to understand one piece of slot, you have to already be familiar with the previous slot portions.
Yes, And it's just and if.
You're watching a Marvel movie, like you kind of judge the reactions of the people around you to figure out if you're supposed to know a character that shows up on social.
Cues to understand Superhero movie.
You know, I was forget. It's like the kind of share like a character will come in like peak their head and be like, oh sorry and close the door, and it was like, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, you're like they've been doing that with the goddamn Winter Soldier for like the last ten years. Every single time I've seen him on screen, there's been like this reaction where everybody's.
Like, oh my god, it's Bucky Barnes. I'm like, I don't know who that is.
Why am I.
Supposed to know that?
I'm only I know it's from season one in Flavor of Love.
That's right, that's right back again TV, back to two thousand and six.
I'm stuck nineteen years ago. You should try it out, gen Z.
You know what, though, like the whole country is stuck in that era because that was the era of programming that gave us The Apprentice, which essentially created the myth of Donald Trump. Before that, like he was a failed businessman. They went into Trump to I just read the book about one of the books about Trump. They like the producers of that show went into Trump Tower and They're like, man, it's smells like mildew. The carpet is worn out, like
this places a piece of shit. They had to rebuild it as like a TV set for a show about a successful businessman, and that's like the basis of his entire persona now.
Rather than like the office of like a tow truck yard. Yeah, the fuck is that dude?
I got some old nachos in here.
It was like, yeah, it's like your grandma, but I'm trashy. Oh, don't go into that room. It's just double quarter pounder wrappers.
And also just the tostata. Just the bowl part. I like to take part and throw the corn bowl out. You can re use the bowl, the corn bowl, Bring me another corn ball? Lisa?
Did you finish your corn bowl?
Can I have it?
I can't do the accent as well as accent accent.
Yeah yeah.
Oh have you seen that dude who's recently killing it with the elon?
Oh my god, that dude's amazing.
Who is that guy?
Bro?
I don't ship. I was like, you have fucking I have not seen it? Oh here, I'll play it.
I'll play Have you not seen that?
Get it?
You guys have the way your arm there, Steve. I was trying to make sure you knew that I just doing the pun.
But yeah, this is this guy Alex Byron.
Yeah, yeah, it's not really about that. People expect everything to be easy.
Now on Mars, it's gonna be really hard, you know, so people are gonna wish theirs. It's so really good point. It's just yeah, every it's the funny. I think every Trump administration brings up like the rise of the people who are just killing the fucking accents. It was a Tammanik last time. Yeah, and now it's this guy. Anyway, Uh, let's take a quick break.
We'll come back to talk about oh.
Yeah, fucking right wing ship all right, right after this, and we're back.
We're back, and so Garrison, yeah, Garrison, what is all that?
Guys? What are the points you made that? It is sort of how I experienced the whole doge thing. Is that doge as a concept started out as everybody being somewhat dismissive and being like, well, they can't do anything.
Yeah, like the fucking stupid meme concept like.
Come on right, yeah exactly. Everybody was just like this is dumb. They're is going to be a government agency.
Okay, it's not even a real agency. It's it's an advisory commission.
They can't do anything.
It's just a dumb meme thing. They literally named it doge, like it's so ridiculous. And weeks later we're all like.
Oh, no, they can't do stuff.
Yeah, I guess somehow, Well what happened? Hey, hey, what happened?
Yeah?
I mean I kind of forgot that, Like, you know, they don't need to follow the rules, like it doesn't matter, like they can they can. They can just do stuff, I guess. Certainly, like droping in DOGE with the United States Digital Service, it was like, you know, kind of their way like around around this. But even still like they are not even playing in the in like the court where you need to like use Congress to create agencies,
because they're shutting down agencies without Congress. It's like they just like don't care and they're waiting to see if anyone's going to stop them, namely the courts, and if the courts do stop them, who's going to enforce the will of the court. And they're they're just like fine doing that because there's no consequence if they play in
that game. Anymore they have immunity and pardon power, so like they're giving it the shot because they don't believe in the same like rules of decorum that like the Democrats TM typically. Do you know when when Biden had that whole press conference after the Supreme Court made the president again, He's like, this is this is a dark day for democracy. I I hope that myself and and any future president never never uses this power. And You're like, Okay, buddy,
well I guess I guess what the next one's gonna do. Yeah, do you want to use the power to solve that problem right now? You could?
You might as well try it out.
See how it's.
And now we're here, so I don't know, like it's it's it's certainly like both myself and and others underestimated, like like specifically like Musk and like Dog's ability to actually enforce their recommendations. And and I think Trump has been more of like a like an absent executive figure than than what you know, I would have previously like suspected he's kind of just letting Musk do whatever he wants, right.
I'm curious, Like I'm just trying to think of how the influences working in the White House, because clearly Musk is in proximity to Trump enough that he's everywhere and he's doing He's the one like, hey, let me talk over you in the oval, let me talk over you during this like interview.
He's like he has he has he has a gets his headquarters set up in a specific wing. I can try to pull it up, but no, like he's he like has a headquarters there.
He's literally his own diet coke button but for ketamine.
Yeah exactly.
Yeah, who knew that we could make ket of mean not cool, I.
Know, but I'm just like just like thinking of like the latest sort of spat that's happening in Doge White House world, which is his like letter to be like write down your five greatest hits or fucking leave email that he sent to all these federal workers and then having many many appointees, like Trump appointees tell their sort of subordinates. Just please fucking ignore what you just saw, like we're talking about.
D O d uh, Like you know, uh, I can share classified information about your email.
Department of Energy, Health and Human Services DHS, Like they're all like, dude, please fucking ignore this is.
In Twitter like you can't like this, the different rules apply.
Right, So I'm curious because clearly Musk thinks none of those rules apply. But then you have the people who are a little bit more sort of of the wonky machinery of DC, who are also trying to ascend a power via Project twenty twenty five or whatever. Yeah, that do you see like a certain wing having any more influence because I feel like, clearly Musk help Trump. Trump feels indebted to Musk, therefore you like let it cook.
But then Project twenty twenty five is like the way that he's like, we're going to get a bunch of conservatives on board if you promise to do X, Y and z. But at times it seems like there they can slightly be at odds at times with in terms of how they want to move forward with that. Do you see one having more of an advantage over the other right now in terms of how you're seeing things sort of unfold?
I mean I would say Musk kind of right now has more sway just through the sheer individual power. Musk has types of connections he has to the tech world, uh, the actual like money and capitally has the influence. And then yeah, like all of Musk's work to help get Trump elected.
And this end is I think Trump has an internal barometer of who to respect, and it's only like based on money and so he has.
And how much you have succeeded and fucking other people, over which Musk is good at. Like he's not a good inventor, he's not a good engineer, he's good at fucking people. Yeah, and Trump like kind of respects that. And and and also like Trump knows that Musk can never like usurp him as president technically because he can't he can't run legally, so inside he just has this
shadow president aspect going on. But no, like I'm there is you know, parts of like the Heritage people might be a little bit annoyed at at like Musks, like like very oversized influence that there's been people like in the Trump admin or like the Trump orbit who have who have like complained about Musk to press before. But I think in order to make any of the Project twenty twenty five stuff work, you first need Musk to
purge the government. So they're letting him do it because also it's as soon as they step too far Musk is the easiest guy to cut out to be like, all right, all right, this this thing was bad. If you need someone to blame, we'll blame this rich weirdo from South Africa. It's very handy to keep him around, and they need him to like do the dirty chopping work,
and he's he's willing to do it. And he's demonstrated an ability to dismantle and detonate like large, large, large bureaucratic machines, whether that's yeah, SpaceX, Tesla, Twitter, and now the United States government.
Right, And I'm like, I guess to that end, right, because I know I get that usual Trump shit will be like I will let this person cook until it's really untenable for me, and then I'll blame them and act like I don't know, we got him out. I'm okay though, But then I'm curious if Musk is wielding any more influence over Trump. That's gonna make that difficult. Like, then what happens when like that schism happens, If it happens, if.
It happens right like I thought I thought it would
for a while. I just thought, like Trump's not gonna want to be around, like like Elon Musk's like like autism frankly, because like, you know, Trump's Trump's has a has a past of making fun of people and being very ablest, and like I I simply didn't think that he would be able to be in this same room as Musk for very long, but they have so clearly and openly closed ranks the past few weeks, like like like in doing media appearances together, being like like we
know people are like wanting us to turn on each other, and like we're not going to do that. So like there is some awareness at least from like Musk and Trump that like people are like rooting for them to like get into a fight, and they've they're intentionally like having that not happen, right yeah, because right now it's
benefiting both of them massively. Like it's what Elon's doing is allowing Trump to enact so many more things that otherwise he wouldn't be like, you know, legally allowed to do because the bureaucratic mechanisms of government are there as safeguards, not just you know, Congress and not just the courts. Like bureaucracy helped inhibit Trump from enacting a whole bunch of the more extreme aspects of his agenda in his
first term. And now that there's this like shared recognition of that, Trump's all like Trump is more than happy to let Elon Musk like do the work to dismantle those roadblocks to then have Trump embrace like total executive power.
You mentioned the idea of you know, we're all waiting to see if the courts hold right, and I'm just the for that to happen. Like obviously we need judges to you know, strike things down or say hey, that's not legal's restraining order? Ye, right, and then we need the Trump administration and Elon Musk and everybody to actually respect that. I guess I'm wondering, like what you mentioned, like how the will of the courts will be enforced?
Like what what would that look like? Like a conflict between you know, a conflict of like what them choosing not to respect the will of the courts and the courts having to try to enforce their will? Like what what what would that look like in the modern world?
I mean, this is like the big question right now, Like I am not a constitutional law professor. I only talk to them to get their thoughts, and this is this is the big thing, right, what if what if the court issues are ruling and Trump just says l L no, thank you, and they keep on doing what they are doing, which like that has happened. That has been happening. There is still grants and funding that has
not resumed. They have continued to reiterate that they have the power to limit USAID funding even though they've been ordered by the court to to restore it. It's like they are actively defying the Court's orders increasingly so and becoming more brazen about, you know, using rhetoric regarding like if a judge is ordering something illegal, you just don't need to follow the judge, which is like you know,
massive constitutional red flag and what will it take? Right, Like they're gonna appeal these orders all the way up to the Supreme Court, probably as far as they can. The fact that they're define the orders during this process is itself like new and bad, like like you're not you're not supposed to do that either, but like no one is going to physically stop them, Like who is
going to actually stop them from doing that? And at a certain point, if the Supreme Court rules that Trump is in contempt and you know, like who will stop that, Like, are they gonna, like do you think the US marshals
are going to arrest the president? The president that has Supreme Court approved immunity for official actions, Like who will actually carry out like any any order to that that is revolving around like Trump being in contempt of court for just actively like defining the the the authority of the judicial branch. Will will Secret Service let that happen? Will the like the private military contractors that Trump has surrounded himself with thanks to Elon Musk, Will they let
marshals even like carry out that order? Will Will the marshals want to want to do that themselves? Will More and more agencies in like local law enforcement and federal be broked under the the FPS, the Federal Protective Service, More of these are could get put under the control of pig Seth like like directly. And at this point it's it's like it's like a military that would be like a that would be like a military assistant coup where they're like cooing the judiciary as they've kind of
already coughed Congress. So like this is this is a big thing that like we are waiting to see what will happen and like I I can't say for sure because I'm not familiar in any situation quite like this
in American history. Like it's it's very weird and frightening, and like it for me, it's weird to be like I'm thinking about like every day, like we are like in the middle of like an actual coup of the United States, Like people are doing these steps and who's can happen internally like that this is, this is a real thing that is happening, and most people at least I like, interact with outside and just like don't realize this. They just like don't know the severity of like what
has happened. And this isn't like being like hyperbolic or anything. It's like this is like literally what is what is going on right now? Like if if if you have the executive branch bypass and deny both the legislative and the judicial branches, like that is like actual Like people throw around the word fascist way too much and they have for the past like eight years, and like this this you don't you don't even need to use that word.
Like they're trying to basically install like a monarchy and like that that is that is the language that Trump is using. He is he has referred to himself as a king in like the past week.
Right, Well, yeah, what do you think the chances are we have another presidential election like in twenty twenty eight?
I part I personally and like I have like friends and like analysts who are like I respect, who might even disagree with me on this. We might have a different opinion. I think there probably will be a presidential election. It may look different and may operate different. Like the mechanisms of like securing like votes and people's access to
voting may be very different. Right, if you need to provide like PROOFUS citizenship at every polling station, and they deny people's proof of citizenship because you're a transperson with an old passport that has a different gender marker, So now that you're now, they're not gonna be now they're not going to accept your vote. Right, There's there's a whole bunch of things that could alter the way an
election takes place. I think that there probably will be a presidential election, But I don't know, Man, I'm trying to survive day by day. Like it's yeah, this is such a new situation, and it's very freaky.
I mean, like the last time I get like the more famous example that people point to is Andrew Jackson being like, yeah, the Supreme Court says, I can't justly move like native American, like I'll do whatever I want. Now, let me see them trying to force this shit, and that was all bad. Yeah, it gave us that the exact.
Years that is the closest like me we have and like you have someone like Advance who is openly using that rhetoric, Yeah, exactly, like openly saying like if the courts, if the courts do that, like have the President go out and say all right, now force it, let them enforce it, try try me.
Yeah, yeah, and that's it. It's all like yeah, it's very very disorienting. And I think that's like the one thing that I see a clip that came up recently is one of like Russell Vatt, who's you know, one of the architects of Project twenty twenty five, who's now the head of Office of Management and Budget OMB saying like prior to the election that the whole goal with all of these cuts that they're making and is basically
a terror campaign against the administrative state. And I want to play his words, because when you hear from them, like, it's clear that this is this is what they've talked about being phase one of how they are going to make this transition to full blown you know, autocracy or whatever new American monarchy with with King God Trump at the top. But this is Russell Vott again talking about this is what we need to do to get this stuff over the line.
We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. We want when they woke up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are so they are increasingly viewed.
As the villains.
We want their funding to be shut down so that the e PA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do. So we want to put them in trauma.
Yeah, can't do all of the rules. They can't the energy.
I mean, it's like what's also infuriating is that this guy has the most coward energy ever as they talk about like his fantasy here, but now they are at the wheel here and yeah they're pretty much doing it, Like yeah, they're doing it.
They frankly have done it. Like there's an executive order issued last week that Trump basically said that he has the authority to like rescind regulations that that that he deems are are like illegal, yeah, which means that you are giving Trump is saying that the executive branch has a power, has the power to interpret law, to to make riscin an interpret law, not just enacted, which is
what constitutionally, like you're supposed to do. Is you're supposed to enact the law, right right, He's saying, like you can you can like actually like rescind these laws. Something that is you know, supposed to be what Congress does, right, Like it's it's it's it's season complete executive power like it's it is it is some form of like yeah, like it's like an oligarchic monarchy like combination, like it's it's very it's you know, it's similar to like you know, Hungary,
similar to to how the Soviet block fell apart. You can you can like look at some like parallels, but this is also like I I don't want to overly rely on historical parallels because this is like yeah, also like deeply American, this is deeply twenty first century. It has to do with like the Internet, it has to do with like tech agents, like it has to do
with like a big tech misinformation disinformation reality tunneling. Like it's it's so it's so modern and it's so American that I hesitate to like to like overly prescribe historical analog.
Yeah, I mean, that's the most we can do is just to kind of look back and like it's kind of like this, but nothing really is a one to one thing. It's because there's no Twitter, there's no you know, all this misinformation that's around people, like and to your point, it's it's not it's we can't quite relate it like a one to one thing.
It's so unique that I think in thirty years we will refer to what's happening right now is like that's what like America did in the twenty twenties. Like it's it's just so seismic that like, yeah, we already kind of relate like referg to, you know, like the Reagan deregulation like era of the eighties, right that that's kind of a thing that we like conceptualize as this is so much more than that, like already, and it's just starting.
We're like what like a month in right, like right, it's it's it's like the fundamental fabric of our country has been severely altered. Like the country that you knew like two months ago is gone. Then the way that it operates, the types of checks and balances it has,
the services it provides. That government no longer exists, like this is a different government now, and it feels weird to like think about that and then watch everyone just kind of carry on looking at the little black box in their hand.
Uh are you surprised? I guess that, Like the New York Times, Watchington Posts, like these traditional mainstream media outlets are kind of taking it in stride, like they're not saying the thing that like this is coup of the US government, or at least they're not consistently saying that. It's just like kind of one thing at a time.
Like they're dipping their toes into it. Sometimes it depends who the journalist is, depends who that the writer is, But no, like I think frankly, people are looking to survive, like like like worst case scenario, how can I get out of this?
Okay?
If this like fun, if this like continues to fundamentally be a different time, Like that's that's what That's why Jeff Bezos rescinded the Kamala endorsement for the Washington Post. Like you are seeing like big tech, whether it's you know, Tim Apple, whether it's Mark Zuckerberg, whether it's Jeff Bezos, the guy at Google who I forget his name, who like they have they have people who have historically provided a degree of resistance to some of the you know,
the crazy Trump stuff. They are all closing ranks the like we we are one class now and as long we will look out for each other. Now will look out for you Trump if you look out for us, And like they're not playing the same game that people played in twenty seventeen. Like it's there is no hashtag resistance right now. There is like there is like survival
and like that. I guess that's like the big thing that I'm seeing is people are trying to like survive in case things like go go like really really bad.
Yeah.
Yeah, for those billionaires, it's clear like rather than like bail water on the sinking ship, they're just being like where's my lifeboat? Because I'm not going to fucking help this thing. Like yeah, I'm getting the fuck.
Out of this. Yeah, and let's take a quick break. I'll come back and.
We'll talk about that's uplifting.
There we go from here, We'll be right back.
And we're back.
And have you guys seen these Have you seen this? You heard about this?
Uh?
Have you seen these p o V you wake up in historical period videos? Mm hmm, they're going viral on TikTok. We've got the unders ai o V underscore lab. Yes, so they are AI generated. So first of all, I just want to I'm gonna have some complaints about these videos a little bit. I do want to say.
I hope those complaints are somewhat humorous.
That's what I'm That's what I'm with mord on this one. I do have a compliment that is in no way humorous. This is the first time I've seen p o V used correctly on TikTok. Ever, is it like these videos are from the point of view of some a character who is waking up like that he looks down and he sees his feet type thing like.
AI is it's nerdy enough to get the to get the perspective correct, yes, as opposed to like POV you just saw like this happened and like that.
That is a thing that is used all over TikTok, and they never know what POV means.
Like you can see your own nose, right, you could just like just see yourself.
It's just it means nothing. On the other hand, it's basically like a movie of the weak level commitment to historical accuracy. And this is not shocking because not only do they use AI to generate the vision like that makes That's what I assumed it meant when it was like AI videos. They're using AI and like blending together all this different source material to get these videos that ostensibly look like they take place in ancient Egypt or you know, during the Black Plague. But the person also
uses AI to do all the research. He just asks chat gpt to research a time period and then ask for information about like what people would have looked like and done. And as we've seen, chat GPT and AI
fucking sucks at answering questions like that. Google asked it for cheese facts for their super Bowl commercial and the chief factor came back with that they featured in their super Bowl commercial was a gouda is I think responsible for like sixty percent of cheese consumption in the world, like some some facts that is like so obviously false that liked.
I could have show that, but not say this is a Nazi salute, right, What the fuck is going on?
We're trying to destroy truth. So you have when you have a thing that is about facts and is saying things definitively, you want it to be not true so that when something definitively horrible happens that you can be like, we don't know. I mean, fucking Google says Guda is responsible for most cheese consumption. Obviously that's not true, But you know what is truth anymore? Thank you? I'll be right back.
You're listening to iHeartRadio on ninety six point six The six.
Six Wait, ninety six is called the six Yeah, what a weird choice by that. I don't know what they were doing over there. Yeah, but let's let's take quick looks at some of these to these videos, POV, you're a fam painter during the renaissance. Is that I don't want this one? So this one's during the Black Plague. A lot of horrible shit happening real quick. You see a rat that is also a cat walk by ah
that's what that was. Yes, this person is you're buying bread off the filthiest person ever, giving the bread to another person, and your hands they the hands are always visible. That that must be like something that the AI dictates. Then you give the give the medicine to an old sick man, so there's a story. They're not just trying to tell you about history. They are storytellers. And then the person falls over dead. So it's like, your dumb ass, you shouldn't have given that medicine to it.
Can I just say that those like the Uncali the Uncanny Valley thing there is like perfectly executed because the eyes of the people suffering from the Black Plague are the most haunted eyes I've ever seen.
Yeah, that is horrifying, But they all like kind of have beautiful eyes. They are in the case as you're dying from playing, you would be everybody would be kind of hot and look like they're in like a perfume commercial about the Black Death.
Yeah, it's like they all kind of look like Winona Ryder a little bit.
Right.
Yeah, your skin is covered in dirt, but it's mixed because all they're doing is like mixing all the faces from media and so like.
It's mostly actors presumably, and so hot people looking a little gaunt. All right, this one we're getting to see Pompeii on the day of the eruption. That that that part is weird. I think it's just a glitch of the AI.
The guy's like holding his hand out and then opens his mouth but doesn't nothing is said.
Well, you know how all the Renaissance painters were like, hey, uh, like and subscribe to my work before they drew it on a ceiling, right exactly?
Will thoush that?
I like?
Right? So, but all this like feels like, I don't know, could be realistic ish? Uh, you know what's coming next? This mountain Mount Vesuvius, a piece of pottery just like flies up for no reason.
Wait, where is hands? Where are the hands? How am I supposed understand what happening if there's no hands?
Yeah, POV. This person is pretty chill for being in a POV. Look at that one.
Do you guys see that towards it?
They're running towards it just goes full rolling Emrick. It immediately becomes a river of fire and fire and then there's like a fire laser beam coming down the street, like it's the fucking the aliens from Independence Day are attack.
Like AI red save the cat, you know, with the cat in the tree, but it doesn't understand like that. It can very easily go too far where it's no longer entertaining at all.
It's just a nightmare. Right.
This might be the strip talking, but this is the most relaxed I've been in weeks watching that video.
I don't know what it is. It really suited me watching. There is something soothing about it, I will say, Like there's just the rhythm of the videos. There's like a SlowMo you feel, you feel like you're in a dream like that has always been the coolest I think whoever ultimately harnesses what is good about AI will dig into the fact that they just feel like a fucking the wildest dream you've ever had, you know, Like they feel like an acid trip mixed with just a dream that you remember vividly?
Is it because it's like it's so real, but it's detached from reality in the same way that dreams are.
Yeah, it's like there's no narrative logic to like the images. You have to like kind of harness it and like press as hard as you can on both sides, just like keep it on the rails a little bit. There are some great ones where they don't do that. And it's just like person in a laundromat turns into like a rocket that is flying through the air, turns into like an amazing tropical fish, turns into like all these like wild beautiful visuals.
I wish they all did and like that. It is like POV you're like an eighties musician in a synth band, but it just ends with like a volcano and fire.
Yeah.
Producer Bay dropped the load of the chat that says waking Up in North Korea, and it's it's the dumbest video I've ever seen in my life.
You have to watch it.
They totally they totally mailed it in on this one. It's like also shorter, like there's so much they could have done with it.
They always so I feel like they're just like they've skinned one video and then just replace details around.
It seems to be the thing, right man. Even AI's cutting corners.
That's even Ai. That is basically all AI does.
Corners, all these participations, participation trophies we gave AI.
So wake Up North Korea in twenty twenty five looks like this year an apartment yet an apartment in the Lower East Side. But okay, actually doesn't look bad. Wait, that's not where he was before. And that's the video. And now you've learned everything you need to know about AI, about North Korea.
And AI learning about our leader.
I like that the paper that they're writing on looks like somebody wiped their ass with it for some reason, like they can't take gotta you gotta reuse your toilet paper for writing down notes about dear leader. The details that. So, they the BBC, because they're good at content, had historians watch these videos because these videos are like blown up.
They have like five million views, and the historians were pointing out like some of the stuff was a little pedantic, a little Neil de grass tyson ish, where it was like they're reading the glyphics from left to right and
actually it should be right to left. But some of it, some of the things they point out is just like oh, that would have like made the video so much more interesting, Like they point out like they did chernobyl one and they were saying they like made the technology shittier than it actually was, and like the technology in Chernobyl and in the Soviet Union at that time was actually like pretty impressive in advanced, which is like not what you
would expect. So and that's what is interesting about it, Like the they point out that, like the bread. You may have noticed that every story like focuses on a person holding a piece of bread in front of the camera for some reason. That's because I don't know that worked for them in one video, so they added it to all the rest of their videos. Just a person holding out bread as we do.
I hope everyone like starts to turn into bread in the car, right, bread, a piece.
Of bread, You're a bread man.
Now they start hiring editors like because it's got because it's such a big business, and it's like, I'm where the fuck is the bread in this video?
Where's the bread? In the JFK Assassin.
Issuevo holds a piece of bread, shoots through a bread silencer like a bagguet silencer.
Dude, a bunch of butter comes out of the back of his head.
Yeah, that's now we're thinking, like, but they were like, the bread didn't look like that, What did it look like?
Yeah, yeah, sorry it is. JFK is just a gingerbread man. She has her hair in a bun. Oh you didn't.
Yeah, there's a driving the limo.
It just gets lazier. Anyways, this is I think if you actually used a human to do the research before making these videos, they could be cool, but they instead cooler. Instead, they have just farmed everything out to chat GPT, which are you guys encountering people in your lives being like, hey, I just like stuck this into chat GPT, like I used AI to fill out this thing for for us. Like that's so so there you go. It's like this fucking sucks. I'm so bad that.
Every time it's I found it's either people who are being very lazy and I think that's the best version of it. Yeah, I don't feel like doing this. I'm going to do a chat GPT or they have no creative bone in their body whatsoever and they're dumb and I actually that sounded mean. I mean I meant any other way I think, But I think it's like for a lot of people, it's a it's like a thing
to brag about. It's like remember when like people first had iPhones and they're like, look, this iPhone can like do a lightsaber.
Yeah makes a fart noise, like yeah, yeah, Like it's just a thing to be like I have this thing and I do I know how to use it, even though the thing that it does is fucking stupid.
Yeah that's a good point. I think that's a better point where it's almost like a shiny new toy basically like hey, look at this cool new toy that you don't know how to use or don't have or have chosen not to use, and I'm using it. But then it's like that's not a good toy. That toy sucks. But there's other toys.
These people all think this will swear up and down this is the future and like everything is going to run by AI is.
So which is I'm having this experience. I don't know why, but I was using it for it seemed like it was better like a year ago.
I don't I'm not like you know whatever like in my day AI, but like I basically learned how to do this kind of podcast studio I have in my room almost exclusively from that because I'm not like very technologically gifted or whatever.
Right, But now it's like saying, yeah, it seems like it's gotten way worse.
I don't know. I think I think it has isn't there something about it? It's like now it's also drawing from AI, so it's like this sort of like like this rot misinformation loop that that's probably why that gooda thing happened, you.
Know, right, Yeah, yeah, just inevitable, like devolving because it's pulling on itself.
Yeah, and this isn't this isn't very this isn't like a funny take. But I really think my thing is like I don't actually think AI is the problem. I think capitalism is the problem. Like AI is just a tool, you know what I mean, Like if it's a great tool, and ours will use an actor whoever will utilize it properly. But the problem is is that we're all almost facing eviction all the time, so we can't afford to lose
any fucking jobs. Whereas that that wasn't the problem. We could just use this ship to make things easier for us, you.
Know, h No, not you not you. You can't use it for that. The companies can use it for that.
Well that's you understand what I'm saying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
And the companies own their property, so they're not going to be they paid off their mortgages. But yeah, that's they can use it to this point.
Yeah yeah, but yeah, the most thoroughly pointless one they made a Titanic one like POV, you're a person on the Titanic, as if the movie that the movie Titanic doesn't exist. But then I think they realized that they like, yeah, I think they realize it's pointless because halfway through that video, like as the hallways are like flooding with seawater, the camera like dips below the water and a shark is
coming coming down the hallway. I think they were just like, you know what, the one way we could have made Titanic better is if there'd been fucking sharks on the boat.
Pads a mother holding its child, but it's it's a bread it's a bread loaf.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's not Like I think AI has a fucking anxiety disorder. Like every it feels like it's having intrusive catastrophizing thoughts like no matter what it can only discuss like terrible catastrophes.
Yeah, I think it also, yeah, it just averages out things that have come before and then also does what you what it thinks you want it to do, and so it's just building into expectations. And that is, as I've always said, exactly how great artists created, average everything before it. Imitate that, but do it in a way that you think people want to see it and in no way upsets expectations. That's that you create great art.
Do no curious exploration in any in any capacity, no push, no boundaries.
That's right, push DNB pushing, no boundaries. All right, that's gonna do it. For this week's weekly Zeitgeist, Please like and review the show. If you like, the show means the world demiles he he needs your validation. Folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday.
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