NFT Shows Vs. Quality, Creator Economy Vs. Art, and COVID Variants Vs. Us

like that? That's your issue with Peter deal. I was reading every time I see his name, I read it wrong, even though I know what his name is. So style feel blood coursing through his veins. Um, hey, hi guys, we just caught up for a while before we started recording. But at this point in the episode, I want to ask you, how are you doing and how is your Thanksgiving? Because our listeners don't know Cody, you're super open about all of your private life. Give them details with the

happenings of my personal life. Um, I like there being no dividing line between me recording my thoughts and me living my life. Hello, it was fine. I went to meet some of my girlfriend's family. Um, and uh that was nice and pleasant, and we ate and then eventually we left cool, nice and that is That is the end of my very detailed Robert. Robert got drunk and um cooked an alligator. I did. I did get drunk

and cooked cooked gator. Well, I cooked a gator in the proper way to cook that animal, and in the method that I was using, which was a pit fire. Is to drink heavily and measure the passage of time by how many drinks you've had. And by the time you've blacked out and people have to fight you in order to remove the gator from the fire, the gator is probably properly cooked. And in this I think your next book should be like a cookbook. I would have one meal on it and it's thrown in a hole.

But like most of the recipe, most of the recipe is your adventure during the day as you're getting drunk. Do you know what I mean. It's not really a cookbook, It's just a story cooking experience. UM, My Thanksgiving was nice, Thank you. I talked about how grateful I was for friends like you. That's nice and yeah, definitely true, definitely a true thing. Um. Should we talk about some news perhaps?

I mean, I don't know if Katie, Katie, we should Well, I guess we'll start with the story that you most wanted to talk about this week, because the story I want to talk about very selfish about. Nope, nope, nope. Wait, hold up, this isn't the story that I most wanted to talk about this week. I think that we do need to talk about it. I have another story that I most wanted to talk about and that I actually prepped to talk about. Um, this way I imagined would

be a conversation. But Sophie wanted us to talk about this first, and she's probably correct. Okay, well whatever, she is probably correct. Three men were convicted of murder last Wednesday in the killing of Ahmad are very um, and all three of them are facing a mandatory life sentence in prison. Um, although we'll see, uh, you know, they're going to appeal it. Already. Have talked about this, um, and it's good, right, it's good. This is a good thing. Yeah.

I mean, it's like the only reason I wasn't. There's not a whole lot to say about it. It's um, Yeah, it's the I think minimum you can expect when a man is lynched. Uh, yeah, that's that's, that's what it is. And I'm glad that they didn't get off because that would have been a much more dangerous precedent, I think than anything that could have come out of the written house case. In a lot of ways. Absolutely, but yeah, I mean it's it's the thing happened that is not

the worst thing that could have happened. So good. There are some bigger conversations within it, though, Um. Part of it is the way that the trial went out and the the tactics. So obviously this is a trial about race. There's you appropriately describe it as an ching because that's what it was, but that's not what was on trial necessarily within this and there was a lot of criticism

throughout it, um, but ultimately it paid off. You know, I was listening to interviews and reading things, you know, and and it was a majority white jury, and I think there was a case of the prosecution didn't necessarily want to antagonize the mostly white jury, and so you know,

that wasn't necessarily the specific angle. I mean, it was, but it was just a bit coded, you know, UM, and it worked, But there's something in me that's like, I you know, and I know that the federal trial will will focus more about the specific specificity of it being a hate crime. So there is that UM treating the delicate jury with their little kid gloves. Yeah, and like, I don't know, you guys see this the d A, the defense closing statements. I believe they described they described

him as having dirty feet. Um, you know. And again it's what makes my I mean, there's so so much about this, it's awful, but she literally said that that's unpopular to say, but I'm proud to say it, or something to that effect. It's not like there's stuff to unpack here, but I do feel it's important to address that thing that is happening. That it's happening, it's continues

to happen. What what worked, what didn't? How depressing that fucking is like that even in this this this trial of I hate crying, we're not talking about um race. Even in Kyle Rittenhouse's trial, we're not talking about the fact that the why as to why he was there, who he felt needed to be protected, and who didn't. You know, it's just um buildings needed to be yes, what needed to be protected, but yeah, yeah, I mean it's I don't know. I don't know what to say

on these cases. I I don't think there's any real solution through the legal system to this kind of thing. Uh So, I don't know. That is the most I can say is that like, yeah, this, this isn't the worst thing that could have happened, so good. Yeah. Um. A lot of these I mean a lot of these trials are sort of like the public like aspects of the public, like making seeing if they have permission, yeah, do things. And I guess it's good that we were like, well not in this case. This is a little much,

So okay, adjust your behavior slightly. I guess I would like to be able to call it what it is in the trial that everybody's watching. I would like that. I would like us to be living in a world where you're not treating the white jury with more respect than the person who was murdered. You know, there was this whole thing. I I don't know the specifics of it, but there was this whole piece of evidence that they

didn't bring up. It was something to do with their license plate holder um that would help present the case that it was racially motivated. Um, but they didn't because there's a good chance that some of the jurors had that same license plate, you know. Yeah, what was the conferate is a Confederate flag plate. Yeah, that makes sense. It's the kind of thing that like racist habit and people who don't realize that it's racist, so they don't want to bring this up in the trial. But yeah,

it's one of those things. We're dancing around it. But why we should be getting We should be at a point here in America where we can point it out and understand what it means and what represents. But we're not. It means States rights and nothing else. So, UM, wait for you all? Sorry, go ahead, No, I just give the FORLORDA Robert if he would rather talk about his thing. I mean, what, what when? Why don't we go on with your thank Katie? I was just being fun. I

don't know that we have much more to say. I'm glad it went the way that it did. Then it's time to talk about the thing that I think is the most important issue facing our nation right now, which is the n f T cartoon show. Um that I made you both watch? Yes you did? How dare you first? So for some context, there's n f T s. If you're not aware, you should know the basis if you listen to this show. But the way that it is evolved.

Earlier in the year, it was like a bunch of different kind of unique pieces of art, some of which sold for ridiculous amounts of money. Um, and then that bubble kind of collapsed after a while um. And the way to prop up the bubble next turned out to be launching these sets of usually ten thousand procedurally generated animal drawings of like lions holding blunts and ship um, dumb stuff, a lot of apes, and some of these have been very successful. Some of them have sold for

millions of dollars. Most of those are are just money laundering, Like the big half billion dollar sale was a guy buying his own n f T and then transferring the money back into his wallet in order to like raise the price to try to con someone else to actually spending that much money on is n f T UM. So you've got all these monkeys, like the board Ape Yacht Club, which just they made a big partnership with

it was Rolling Stone. They're like all over the place they've been doing ads in Times Square, like there's a lot of money in these right now. And the basics of it is like you buy one of these n f T s that's drawing of a monkey again like smoking a U or some ship, and they're all the same monkey. All the drawings are nearly identical apes and yeah apes apes. And when you have that, you both have this n f T that you could sell. You also get access to like a chat room that they

all hang out in. That's a big part of it. They have like a discord Yeah, and Jimmy Fallon's got one, so Cody, you could you could be chatting with Jimmy Fallon on the reg if you if you get aboard ape come on, man, you you you text me every day? I wonder what Jimmy Fallon's And then you go into a chat room. Yeah, you get access to like a chat room and they have there's like this just a bad avatar kind of yeah. Because there's also there's this a bunch of these different things, so like one thing

that exists or long. This is like this kind of second lifestyle MMO where you can like own digital real estate. And so some people are buying n f T s the also unlock like buildings or boats or whatever in this game. Anyway, there's a bunch of dumb ship n f T s are there's there's a ton of there's a ton of dumb ship with n f T s. We don't need to go into it too much. No fucking time, am I. Right? Yeah, so you've got you've got all these stupid monkey clubs that people are joining.

And one of the things that n f T s on their own give you nothing but individual n f T s, Like if you buy one of these board ape, yacht club apes or some of the other big n f T kits, you gain the rights to license your character which you were again almost identical generated drawings of monkeys. You could make your own drawing of a monkey and license that. I know you do have that, right, Katie. Um. Unbelievable.

So some some guys launched what they're bragging is the first n f T cartoon, and whenever you whenever I've actually gone into the comments, a bunch of n f ten neards have been like, actually there's another one that's much earlier. Yeah, I don't care, it's probably dumb too, um, but they're big selling point that like all of the main characters on the show, we're all like licensed from people who just own n f t s and the background characters are licensing. And this is how everything's gonna

work in the future. This is how every like show is going to be funded. Like you'll buy n f t s and then you'll have the licensing rights to that little character in this show except for we'll talk about the show in a bit, but like that's the idea that like, this is how it's going to revolutionize entertainment.

Is people will You'll say, hey, I want to do a show about a bunch of monkeys on on Mars, and uh, we'll be using avatars from this set of characters and people will buy them and then that money funds your show, right, Like that's the idea, and it's good for the people funding it because they can license the characters if they I'm sure. The way there's something is like imagine if like you bought Homer Simpson for like fifty dollars to fund the Simpsons, Like how much

money would you have now? Um by kind of the sales pitch, right this is I know it's already been pitched and it's happening, and there's nothing to be done about. What a terrible idea, What a terrible, stupid, stupid, anti creative idea. Like I don't we don't need to spend too much time on this, but that is really depressing and just horrific approach to art. It's obviously like not

you know every TV shows like differently, that is horrendous. Um, I am so bummed out to know that that is definitely the future of at least a good portion of entertainment and art. Well, I don't know that it is because so we just watched the first Well it's really good, so I think the Ape Family. You can find it on YouTube. It had like a hundred and fifty thousand views when I watched it, most of which I think have come since people started making fun of it online.

It was like like forty or fifty thousand views when I watched it and started tweeting about it. Um, so you guys watched it? What what what did you think? Views? It was so bad? Robert, it was so bad. It's really bad. Um. And I don't know if I was just um busy being mad at it or if it doesn't have a plot, but I don't. I don't know what's going on. I don't know. Just when do you want to take a stab at describing the plot of this episode. They are some sort of a highest go

to head Cody. There are some apes and the hell have really bad. They're the worst voice actors I've ever heard. The woman sounds like a robot woman, one of those tex when he got their friends to do it. Yeah, and the accents are all over the map. They're all over the place. Mixing is shit. Like. Even beyond the accents, you can tell every character was a voice recorded in a room thousands of miles apart, right, which ideally you shouldn't like even in a good podcast, it should quite

sound like that, you know. But they all feel like they are on in their own stories. That's what it felt like. Plot. Yeah, there was no story. Weird things just for sake of being weird. They're not like rooted in some character motivation or you know what I mean, like a well thought out Yeah, some of it, but like you anyway, go ahead, I mean some of the Like the randomness you're talking about is very much like trying to mine uh, like the adults swim uh sort

of like tone yeah, but they're not. But but it's like, forgive the phrase they're aping stuff like they're like they're taking a stuff that exists and doing like a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of it, so that it doesn't make sense, like like even the like blank months earlier, like two hours earlier, whatever, isn't that just like a SpongeBob thing. Yeah, I mean there's

a few. Yeah, it's it's it's funny because in terms of like thinking about not funny, but the situation, the situation in terms of like what their influences are, because I think that's a fascinating thing to discuss. Is like what they're trying to do here. I see bits of like Xavier Renegade Angel. I see like bits of of

a couple of things, including like Aquitine hunger Force. But more than anything, I think it's Rick and Morty uh and yeah, and I think the thing that they're trying I think like if I could, if I could go back, if I could guess what the pitch was in whatever fucking discord room for people who own monkey drawings this was dreamed up in um, it would be something like, you know, the cool thing about Rick and Morty is they've got all these kookie characters from all around the

universe all the time. Right, Well, there's all these wacky and f T characters. We could make a show like that, but everybody like we license people's in f T s and that'll show people this is a good idea and the problem with that. And if you if you look at the I think the individual who's humor their most again aping here is Justin Royland, right Like that's they're

really trying to do a lot of Justin Royland. And if you look at the show that got us Rick and Morty, like the show that was adapted into Rick and Morty was like a series of short animated skets, just sketches Justin did called Doc and Marty, which is like a parody of Back to the Future if the Doc was constantly trying to molest a child. Um, Like

that really is the joke. And about eight five eight something like that years ago, whenever it came out, it was funny for the first like fifteen minutes or so, maybe like generously um. And otherwise the main thing you said, oh, Justin Royland is really good at voices, um. And it was not actually funny and missing the mark on the concept here. The thing that became the reason it's whether you like it or not, it's a successful show, right,

It's the biggest animated show in the world. The thing that made it a successful animated show, I'm not going to take a value judgment about it, was that they took the things that Justin Royland was good at, which was being occasionally wacky and random in a way that was somewhat creative and good at doing voices, and they married it to a team of really good writers and another guy, Dan Harmon, who is excellent at story structure.

And so the thing about Rick and Morty's as random and silly as some of the comedy is like, there's always a really pretty tight structure to the stories because it's made by people who care about telling stories. There's not a story here. There's there's not really jokes because they're too random to even be jokes. Can I interject real quick and say that we need to take an ad break and then come back pick this up, Cody hold that thought. I got it. Behind the curtain, We're

really not going anywhere. I just got to say that we are so that we can put the ads into right here, we're right here, everything back a what were you going to say that the apes deserve the Emmy's um? That will just in terms of Robert what you're talking about. The even the thing is like randomness can be funny if you expect a certain thing and then like, oh I'm surprised, so I laugh. But even the the quote randomness on a show like Rick and Morty, there is

a Rhymann reason to it. There are expectations that that you are given and then those expectations are subverted, like there is a structure to even just the seemingly unstructured parts. Um. And obviously like they're going to improvise and do like bits and stuff like a bunch of what the two brothers like all that kind of stuff like that is funny, um, but there's nothing here that indicates like thought beyond like, oh, random thing, right, UM. I have one big note for it.

And I don't know if this was on purpose or not, but in the episode, the mother Ape refers to her children as these two little monkeys, and when I was watching it, my thought was, they're not monkeys, they're apes. And then later on somebody calls them all monkeys, and the mother's like, we're apes, We're not monkeys. Do you see a tail? And I am not sure they did that on purpose. Yeah, I don't know either. I'm like

fifty on whether or not they just overlooked the first part. Yeah, it's just like it's just because it's supposed to be saying something about her as a character, they're missing them. They're not doing it right. I don't know what they're trying to say. Is this like an in joke? I don't know. Yeah, So are spending a lot of time talking about it's the most important story in the world. Well, it is, like because it's not the It's not the

only thing that's that's gonna be this. It's not the only like license like weird to Eric avatars turned into a show by people who have no like actually like creative output. Um, this will be a good segue into a thing I want to talk about briefly, which is Mr Beasts squid Game. First, I have one more thing to say about this video, please. One good thing about the video and also embarrassing, is that there are literally

two minutes of end credits. Oh yeah, and because they've got to give all the people who'se n F T s. They used credit minutes of end credits out of an eight minute video. What do you Know is produced by two Chains and its music by two Chains. I can't believe that. Man um I like, I likes I like this catchphrase fuck yeah very so many times. It's so it's just such a it's I mean again, swear words are the only joke they really have. Uh, it's it's just the lamest thing in the world. The ship they're

going to Muskville on March embarrassing. Uh, Cody do your transition. And the other thing that I speaking of content that is not creative and the death of art um so Mr Beast if you're familiar. Uh, he's like gaming YouTuber kind of all those sorts of things that you would think of. He does a lot of events like I paid this sucking person ten tho dollars if they fuck

their mother and we're gonna see if they do. Um. Not that that's not exact example, but that kind of thing, like I'm gonna like give him money and see what they fucking do. I think we should do that. But for members of Congress and the thing that we have them do, should always be having sex with a dead pick. Yeah. Just hey, that pig was alive in black, and I think we should rule so that that is the only legal form of campaign contribution and it has to be filmed.

So if you want to run and you want to use money to run, more power to you. You're gonna do if you're running a billion dollar president. Yeah, so Iphie wanted us to mention the doctor that doctor Oz is running for a future pig fucker, doctor Oz, but now possibly current pig. It's the idea that like every time someone announces like I will I am putting my hat in the ring for president in the United States,

we can call them all future pig fuckers. I am putting out I had in the ring, and I am putting my dick in that pigs campaign finance form for you. Can we make a hat that's his future big bucks, a future pigfucker every president. Yeah, there's something there. Someone hit us up with a design for that. Okay, for all your future pig fuckers out there. Um. Yeah, so Mr PC does this kind of thing and like whatever, not my cup of tea, maybe your cup of tea,

that's cool. Um. But then a show called squid Game came out, and that show is about people doing people who are desperate for money doing things that maybe they wouldn't do if they weren't desperate for money, like let each other die or literally kill each other. Um. And I don't know if you've watched the show, it's still haven't but at this point I guess I, well, I'll try to keep a spoiler free, but more or less, it's a game of murder, uh, for money, for the

entertainment of the wealthy. And uh. So that show is a success because it's good. Um, I think it's good. Some people don't, and that's fine. Some people don't like it because they think it's pro communism or pro capitalism or some interpretation. I don't know it is. I mean, it's objectively like the most successful thing Netflix has ever had on right. I think listeners of the show are familiar by now because we have talked about it, definitely

talked about the shallow pool uh tempooles. I have not watched it because watching literally anything would get in the way of rewatching King of the Hill for the tenth time. I understand that the thing I'm primarily doing, but it sounds like it's good. It's good. I like, I like it. I'm watching something else. Um, it's very good, I think, And it's about that. Mr Beast was like, well, I'm

gonna do the squid games. I'm gonna build the squid games from incredible and he did it, so if I'm not mistaken, And the show is about how dystopian and horrific it would be if people were forced to compete with each other in and and like their loved ones in horrible ways in order to make money because they desperately need money. And a guy made a show where people competed with their ones in order to make money and they didn't die, thankfully, But like otherwise it he

just did the thing. He just it's not like a parody. It's not a commentary. He just did the same thing. But murder um, Yeah, there's not there's no murder. Nobody dies. Um. But it is good. Yeah, it's just the games from the thing from the show without the murder um, which again, yes, it is good. Um, but there's no you know, I I skimmed it. I gave it a little glance. Um, there's no like commentary on the thing. There's no drawing connections to what they're doing and and the show they're

like aping. Um, it's not a parody, it's just is the thing. Um. And at the very end, instead of playing squid game they do musical chairs, which very disappointed in them for doing that. Um, but uh, it's mostly I mostly just want to talk about this tweet um that has since deleted actually on account of how bad it was. Mr Best squid game video a hundred and three million views in four days. It took seven weeks to make Netflix's Squid Game series a hundred eleven million

views in thirty days. It took ten years to make more views, less time, fewer gatekeepers. That's the promise of the creator economy. Here with this, this is so depressing, it's stupid. It's stupid. Well, and the thing is and the thing that maybe more people should be aware of this person in particular, And like Mr Beast, I guess I don't know. There's content creators and then there's art,

and they're not the same thing. Sometimes they're the same thing. Yeah, his his his thing doesn't exist without the original, without the concept, without nobody would you care about it? Otherwise you you leached off of something that already existed. You didn't create anything, right, or your success is like if you're looking if you're trying to develop, like if you're trying to like lad your out the achievements of like artists or the creator economy, like as as if their

verses each other. Then your success goes on the ledger of the guy who made Squid Game, because there would be nothing for you to do exactly. Also probably owe him money or something. You may be breaking the law. I know people are talking about it. From what I've read, doesn't seem like a lawsuit, dude, but no, he he recreated the set from the show, which was meticulously designed

by artists. Uh, it does seem like he broke the law a bit right, But like, but no, I think you can call a parody or whatever even though it's not. It's just doing the thing um transformative about it. It took ten years aside from the fact that like people do by the show and didn't want to make the show. It takes a long time to create art from whole cloth, and like what do the sets look like? Oh? What

if it's this? What if there's some meaning here? Like you're infusing meaning into the visuals of your show because you're making art, you're not making content in a couple of weeks so that you can just like it's it. The tweet is accurate, um, And it's depressing that it's accurate, because again, like Mr Beast, you're doing this video about a show that is kind of about what you do.

Like obviously you don't like put them in dangerous like situations where they have to die, but you're paying people lots of money to do things that they don't want to do, um because they're desperate for the money. Um. So there's just a huge disconnect there that kind of bums me out. It's fine, it's successful, and we we love it. Actually doesn't sound like but yeah, I just saw that and I had to this is this is this is apparently the show where I talked about the

squid game every couple of weeks um. And so we don't know like our purview is anymore. So why the hell not? Do you guys want to take another quick break? Oh? God, I love quick breaks. That's that's the thing that I was really wanting. I was just about to text to Sophie, you know it would be good Right now, I'm gonna quick breaking quick, fucking break quick, his hell, babyget everything, don't don't don't and we are back a package. I

thought more about the Red Ape family. You have more to say, No, I mean yes, always do something else to talk about, please least I love. I love talking about other goods. Is it about the future of content and now it's going to be really good? No? Hard pivot to the future of COVID. Oh, I'm very I'm very excited for the future of COVID. I think I think it's gonna be big. It's going to invest in cot now. I think it's going to be huge, bigger than ever. I would say the smart money is not

on shorting COVID. COVID bigger than the Beatles, bigger than Jesus all Macron Macron, Yeah, that's it. It's It's very funny. It's very funny that two cartoons from my my adolescence in early adulthood uh later wound up associated directly with horrific tragedies because of their names of names in them. It's very funny, Archer and isis oh God that so? Yes? Of course? Um? Right? Was it on Thanksgiving? Right around then? Um? The news comes from South Africa that a new variant

has been discovered, um. When there's a lot to unpack here. But first off is just the reactions uh to it, um specifically travel bands. Travel bands are pretty pointless, especially since we know that it's already everywhere. It's everywhere. It's hasn't been officially discovered here in the United States, but it is here. Um, it's been spreading. It's all over Europe. UM. I mean, seems like the time for travel bands was

like a year and like nine months ago. Shut down all air traffic in February, like specifically for a couple of months. Yeah, maybe, but like also specifically saying okay, like there was a big a rapid and lots of countries halting travel from South Africa, which is actually shitty. South African scientists discovered it and have now been penalized

for specifically discovering something um vital to everyone. Um. However, Yeah, let's talk about Africa real quick, or just in general, um, the intellectual property protection that has been in place this whole time over the vaccines and the lack of availability that we have for the rest of the world. This is exactly what we've been talking about. The entire time that if you do not get everybody vaccinated, it will mutate.

And Africa specifically has a low vaccination right and a high uh percentage of people with pre existing conditions, um, which happens to be the breeding grounds for mutations to come about. So and by the way, that's not saying anything about Africa. That's saying something about the rest of the world in the way that we've treated Africa. Sure,

but um, it's it's it's really frustrating. I was very angry when I saw I mean, yes, asident Biden spoke up saying like we need to make the vaccine lifted into yeah, and then Maderna was like no, thank you, and like, fuck you say that from the beginning, man, this is yes, yes, yes, we've been seeing this. Keep saying it. Um yeah he pops he pops in every like couple of months and be like yeah, I think

we should do that, and then that's it. Yeah, And it's I it's so fucking bleak that South Africa has invest did so much money and having like an unparalleled like genetic analysis system for virology. Um, like they're they're really good at testing and looking for mutations and what like that's why they were the first ones to find this. It didn't start there, they were just the first ones

to find it. And as a result, uh, they're just getting sucked over, like they're showed on re agents and stuff to continue testing because nobody is allowed to fly there. And it's look, I'll just say like maybe it started there, maybe it didn't, but it's not there's no evidence. But there's no evidence, right, that's just what everybody's trying. I'm just saying like maybe maybe not. That's not the fucking point, and we should have known this. The reason it's called

the Spanish flu wasn't because it started in Spain. In fact, there's good evidence that say that it may have started

in like Kansas. Um. It's because since Spain was not dragged into World War two with their World War One with everybody else, they didn't have restrictions on the press in the same way that everyone else had, so they were able to report on the fucking plague first, and as a result, it gets called the Spanish flu um And maybe maybe the people whose job it is to name these things should have decades ago put in a place to like very vigorously fight against identifying a strain

with the country that it came out in, although some of that I don't know how much of that is the media. I'm not gonna make to go too much on it, but like, it's just it's very frustrating that this keeps happening mm hmm, that the people who just are on the most on the ball get punished, and I I I don't want everybody to freak out immediately. You know, we have to wait and see. We have to see what conclusions are arrived at once they have

more information. We don't know that will lead to more deaths or hospitalizations, although it seems to be um but it is concerning, So I don't know. Delta had like what five mutations tend this one has. It has date like a lot of affecting this the spike proteins. It does not mean that our vaccines are now useless. We are we don't know. Scientists seem to think like most likely it's still much better than nothing. So it is

definitely a wait and see. But you know, I do notice that this people are governments are reacting quicker to this, which is either a sign of that it's worrying or that maybe people are learning, but I don't think learning. I think we're just used to this at this point. And I think they may that we were so close to things getting quote unquote normal again that they may be scared as ship of the possibility that like this

is going to disrail that yet again. Like I I don't see how you could enforce lockdowns again, Like I mean, I don't. I truly don't know. Maybe other countries, but here in America, I don't know. We're we have done all that we do as a country. We're just again, We're we're done. There's no even if the next virus that comes around is literally like a you you breathe it in and you're dead immediately. Like, we will not take any precautions ever again for public safety we have

we have. We are burnt out on taking care of each other. That's bleak. Good country. I don't know, maybe it's not that bad, but it certainly feels that way. Um. I mean, yeah, well we'll see. Uh. You gotta have gotta have hope for humans a little bit, right, Yeah, I mean, we could do better. Again, we have all of the tools to have locked down effectively and made it not be a nightmare or we we we were capable, We we could have that a number of things that

we didn't do. But I don't. I don't know. Yeah, I think it is. I don't. It doesn't look like there's any real thing for people to change in terms of their behavior right now, assuming you were actually being yeah, careful, bore, like get your booster, tweeted something like that, don't use a macron as an excuse to not get your booster, or like to wait to see if there's a different one. Get that booster. Shot at your booster better than Yeah, I still need I'm working. I need to to this week. Um,

we got some more time boys, anything else? Jack Dorsey again stepping down his CEO. Not sure what to say about that. Oh yeah, we can talk about that a little bit. So the guy who is replacing him, Oh gosh, I'm I've forgotten his name, But to be fair, I'm just I'm I will always be angry that I know Jack Dorsey's name. So yeah, Um, I don't know that I'm pronouncing this right A ball? Yeah yeah. So um. Part is he came to the company in two does

on eleven um. He'd worked at Microsoft and Yahoo and probably I think one or two other places before that he's an engineer, and he got like big pretty early on at pushing some I think mainly AI driven changes to try to improve relevance of the tweets that people saw in order to increase engagement, and that was met with like an unparalleled boost in traffic to the site. Like he made changes to try to make the things people were seeing more relevant. And I don't entirely know

what they mean by relevant. Oftentimes relevant means in social media terms like makes people angry. So I'm not sure this is a good thing. But the changes he made significantly drove traffic to Twitter, and so he got like a special position. Um, Like, hey, they like made him an engineer with like a special title to acknowledge that he had some huge impact on traffic, Dorsey says. And

I don't think Dorsey's lying about this. I think Dorsey believes this that that Prague has been kind of behind, in a major voice, behind every positive move Twitter has made. And again, when Dorsey says positive, it means for Twitter being a profitable company and and having lots of engagement

and members. It does not mean like this this is the thing because this has been immediately politicized like everything is, and so a lot of people on the right are flipping out because number one progue like tweeted a joke, like a line from a joke from a Saturday Night Lie. No, no, it was a Daily Ship video years like a decade ago, um that that was. And the joke was like, if you're going to consider all uh Muslims to be potential extremists, then like, I why not consider all white people to

be racist? Or something like that, Like it was not even that funked up a line, and he was saying, if you're gonna be racist in this way, what why not be racist in that way? Like it's perfectly reasonable thing to say. But he was also just quoting a joke sketch. But people have so now there's this attitude

that he's hyper woke. And the other thing is there was this quote from him in an interview where he says, like, we're not concerned with the First Amendment at Twitter, and in the context of it, what he's saying is a guy's asking him like, hey, when you're talking about moderating discussions, stopping disinformation and still supporting free speech, you know how do you how do you balance your desire to support free speech with you know, your desire to love or

like keeping the content moderate. And all he said was like, we're not the First Amendment. Isn't our job. We're Twitter, right, Like, we're not bound by the First Amendment. We don't. This is not an issue of freedom of speech. We're going to restrict stuff that's in our view bad for discourse, stuff like disinformation. Right. That's what he was saying in that which is perfectly reasonable and what every single social media company says because none of them are bound by

the First Amendment. It's not a First Amendment issue. Um. But people are taking on the right or taking that as evidence that he's like hyperwoke. I don't actually think there's any evidence that he is. Um. He's tweeted his support of like the a c l U a few times, but the a c l US like gone to bat for the free speech of Nazis. It is very much

like a free speech absolute dis guide of organization. Um. I'm not critiquing them and that I'm just saying, like that's a it's it's weird to call the a c l U hyper woke when they're really just like we defend several of the amendments, not all of them, you know. Yeah, I also can't. I just can't think any CEO is hyperwoke. I just don't. I don't see evidence the hyperwoke would be not being primarily concerned with, you know, your income or your growth, like hyper woke would be genuinely caring

about and I haven't. It's a useless term. What does it even mean anymore? Like what do you mean like hyperwoke? Like, yeah, police are ship Like what do you like? What is it? Like? I don't know, well, you know what it is what they're doing trying to say like, oh, this guy is going to be just like those people on Worst Year ever. I know what hyperwoke? That's depending on who says it. That's the thing. Um, it's the same thing with like I don't know, it's like s J. W Hipster like

whatever the word is. It's just useless now, um yeah, And that's that's part of the plot because we they isn't Like the point the point of this is not that anything that this guy has done anything wrong or that there's in fact any evidence that he would be unfair to conservatives because there's not um. What it is about is if you if you accuse him of that

and attack him for that. Usually the way it works on these kinds of people is they then cracked down on your opponents in order to make it seem like they're being fair and there that maybe what just happened to day because because there was a Twitter announced new rule today that you'll get banned for posting like what they just like pictures of people that they don't consent to having up, which, like, depending on how it's interpreted,

could destroy photojournalism on Twitter. Like it could mean it's illegal to take a photo or video of like a protest um. It could mean it's illegal to like film a guy's shooting into a crowd or something like. We don't really know how they would enforce it. It could destroy guys like and you know, or it could just make it illegal for people to point out when folks have neo Nazi ties, and we'll do nothing to harm him because they'll decide that him posting people's mug shots

is in the public interest. We really don't know, Like that's the thing. Everybody's like flipping out that this guy is clearly so I have we have I have no idea where this guys. But also that's part of what I mean by like it's preemptive. They start raising a stink now then yeah, it's like putting them on guard because you know, well, we're going to have to capitulate at some point or we can't be seen as being uh aligned with progressives. Are you know, not even progressive?

But you know what I mean the hyper woke? Yeah, I mean it's they the most popular like articles every single day on Facebook are like the Daily Wire and stuff, um, And they let them slip by with their various publication rules because they know like it will be yea this, then like will complain and then we'll get we'll get accused of this, so they have to Yeah, like you're saiding like overcorrect um in the other direction, it's cool, it's good stuff band. Also like he's like any like

CEO or like just like oh the CEO hyperwoke? Or is he trying to maximize profits and seeing like where the wind is blowing, yeah, which which also isn't good, but like that's not the same. That's what I mean, Like that's the most that's like the best case scenario from a CEO best case, it's not. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's just not a thing we know much about, and it's not a thing I think one way or the other, because yeah, this guy might wind up being horrible and

a wide variety of reasons. As Jack Dorsey was, Um, I just think it's foolish to assume, based on the information we have, that this guy has any overarching goals other than increasing the engagement and relevance of Twitter. And by his definition of those terms, you know, yeah, he wants people to stay on the website. Yeah, exactly. That means like cracking down on X or Y. He'll do that. If it means letting people go hog wild, he'll do that.

If it means implementing like a rule that people hate and then getting rid of it later so that people complain on the platform, Like, it's just whatever keeps people on ever, keeps people on the website and engaged. Um, there is some good news to talk about at the end of this. Is it h Maxwell's trial, no Villan's trial.

But um, there's some some air Wars put out some conflict data showing kind of where we are on air strikes since like the over the last year that Biden has been in office and kind of, um there's here, I'll put a linked to the tweet in there so you can see it. But um, it's it's good. Uh. The like the amount of air strikes being conducted by the United States, the event like drone strikes being carried out by the United States at the lowest they've been like in a very long time. Um since kind of

unrestricted drone warfare really kicked off. Um Like, if you look at where and you know, they dropped, they dropped significantly um over the course of yeah, from starting because they they escalated massively the first two years that Trump was, the first year or so Trump was in office, and then started declining after that, and they've dropped down even further um since Biden took office. Also, aren't there because I thought in U like there were new regulations and

new rules on how they how drone strikes are reported. Well, it was the opposite. It was they they they stopped the requirement to report on that. That's what me like, I feel like, I feel like that like a lot of wars coming from like stuff obviously that the U S admits to, but they don't they don't limit like air Wars does a pretty good job of like looking

trying to determine this as best as possible. Okay, so it's like not just like these were reported and also these and the well actually this chart includes alleged strikes and declared strikes, alleged and declared. So air Wars like they do a lot of research to attempt to be as accurate as possible. Nothing's going to be perfect, but this probably is is largely accurate to what's actually happened,

which is that thing. And some of that's just because when when things massively escalated under Trump, um, it was we were fighting Isis and Mosel, you know, like that was a huge chunk of those and that's part of why it started to drop in. Um. There's also been you know, we were not in Afghanistan anymore. We've really pulled down our presence in Syria. UM. So there's there's a number of reasons for this, but it is just like we're less people with drones than we were years ago.

And that's good. That's good. That's something that's good. Good, good way to bring it home for us this week, Robert Ye, less people are being killed by US drone strikes um and that's not the worst news. Take that to the bank. Well, don't take that to the bank. Don't take that that you have an account here? What do you do? What are you telling me this? Where did you get this predator drone? Is this some sort of n f T How is this? That's the most

common question. I ask only only go to the bank if you have money, Like that's not like I don't take this this drone. Don't take this this this conversation. Even unless you're going to rob a bank with a drone, which I that has to happen. They don't do that. Also, don't do that. I'm not telling you to do that. But if you did that, it would probably be pretty cool. I probably get some would probably be sweet. Look what

things can be cool? And I'm not endorsing them. I'm just saying if somebody robbed a bank with drones, that would probably be pretty rad. So you're saying n f T s are cool, you just don't endorse them. If they funded their drone bank robbery scheme by selling n f T s, I guess those n f T s. I would think we're cooler than other n f T s. Because we got a real world drone bank robbery out of and then there will be a show with all these little different drone flyte to know. Yeah, there's a

lot of really exciting cont if the problem. If the promise of n f t s was just more creative, crowdfunded bank robberies, I think I would probably not be critiquing them so hard and we wouldn't have all watched that eight minute cartoon. In twenty years from now, n f t s are going to fund the revolution somehow. It's called content creation and we create it. Yeah, the

human desire calling it for today no more. This is fun, so fun um at Worst Year pod online in you know the things you've already followed us, You already know it online rate and review. I've been told that's a good thing to say everything everything so dull. It's again. I tried Dan. Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.