Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 170: Is Privacy Dead? | Ear Biscuits Ep. 170

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

Are we ever really alone? R&L examine the intersection of privacy and security, from modern surveillance techniques to the historical expectations of privacy, and what that means for today's society. Sponsored By:Express VPN— Protect your online activity, and get 3 months free when you buy a 1 year package, at ExpressVPN.com/EAR.Honey— Start saving money for free! Go to JoinHoney.com/EAR.Warby Parker- Visit WarbyParker.com/EAR for a free at-home trial, where you have 5 days to try your glasses on.Robin Hood— Sign up at Earbiscuits.RobinHood.com to receive (1) free stock. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. This episode of Ear Biscuits is supported by ExpressVPN. Whether in a cafe or a hotel, we often rely on public wifi to use the internet on the go. I know I do, however, something as simple as paying your online bills from a Starbucks can leave your data exposed. What about a hotel cafe?

Can leave your data exposed. A hacker with the right know-how can easily intercept your data exposed. What about a hotel cafe? Can leave your data exposed. A hacker with the right know-how can easily intercept your data, stealing passwords, credit card numbers, or personal details, personal details! To protect our online activity from spies and hackers, we now use ExpressVPN. Yeah, ExpressVPN has easy-to-use apps

that run seamlessly in the background on my computer, phone, and tablet. Turning on ExpressVPN protection only takes one click, it secures and anonymizes, is that how you say that word? Anonymizes, anonymizes? I think it's data. It makes it anonymous. It's data, not data though. You're internet browsing by encrypting your data

and hiding your public IP address, otherwise known as an IP address. Using ExpressVPN, you can safely surf on public wifi without being snooped or having your personal data stolen. No like being snooped. For less than seven bucks a month, you can get the same ExpressVPN protection that we have. And ExpressVPN is rated the number one VPN service

by TechRadar and comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. Protect your online activity today and find out how you can get three months free at expressvpn.com slash ear. Yeah, that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash ear for three months free with a one-year package. Visit expressvpn.com slash ear to learn more. Now on with the biscuit.

Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are exploring the question, is privacy dead? And do we even care? Wow, wow. Could get philosophical, it could get intimate. How private are we going to get, you know?

What kind of privates are we talking about here? I'm sorry, I mean, how- How public are we gonna get about our private? Privacy. About our privacy. Yeah. Let's jump right into it. Jump.

Jump, jump. It all started, good morning by the way. Good morning, man. We're recording this one in the morning. But you already knew that when you looked at my face. Or listen to my voice, which is my voice gets a little bit lower. Starts a little bit lower.

And then by the end of the day, you talk like Mickey Mouse. Yeah. A lot of times you don't. You can know. We never record after 4 p.m. because he's full Mickey Mouse by that point. It's kinda like counting the rings on a tree. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've been awake for 12 hours. Listening to my voice over the course of the day. I don't know physiologically what's happening there. It's like a sundial more than tree rings. They're stretching. It lets you know what time it is. They're not stretching, they're constricting because tighter vocal cords would make higher sounds.

Everything on me gets tighter over the course of the day. Uh-oh. Like I hop out of bed and everything's pretty tight and then I loosen up pretty quickly and then it's just. Immediately starts getting tight again. It's just like slowly turning the guitar knobs. What are those knobs called? Tuning knobs? So I said let's jump right into it and then we didn't.

That's what moisturizer's for though. If you do a full body moisturizer every 30 to 45 minutes, you stay loose all day. Don't you know when I step out, speaking of privacy, when I go into the loft. You're lotioning? I go into the lotion loft. The lotion loft.

Oh, how did that happen? There's a lot more conjecture about what's in our loft after the LTAT where. The money man's men went up there. They came back down. Who knows what they did. Well they know but they're not allowed to say publicly. Alex was bloody.

Again, that goes back to the privacy. So this might get heavy. Or it might not but that's a teaser. this might get heavy. Or it might not, but that's a teaser. It might get scary. I'm curious if I am gonna get scared because I've avoided this question actively. I just don't like to engage mentally in things that I think will make me have to change my life and my practices

or more importantly, make me more anxious. I don't need to get tighter than I already am. Loosen up, man. By the end of the day, I'd sound like a chipmunk. Right. That's even worse than Mickey. Mm-hmm. It all started because my doorbell was broken. Oh gosh.

When I bought the house that we have lived in for years, the doorbell worked. But what I didn't really understand was that the doorbell, it was just a, it was a remote doorbell. It wasn't, what's that? That's too much clicking. Is that your, are you hitting one space bar again and again? That was his elbow, that was his elbow.

He's got tennis elbow. Okay, now I feel like I have to apologize for putting you on the spot, Jacob. Jacob's over there hitting the space bar. But you didn't even have to say who it was until you did. Jacob's over there hitting the space bar again and again. I'm trying to talk about my damn doorbell. It could have been anybody.

I'm trying to emulate the doorbell. Yeah, that is, you're exactly right. When people would press my doorbell, that's what would happen, it'd be like pressing a space bar with the computers off. Well, and I think I may have talked about this before, but many times in the past few years that you've been living in this house,

I've showed up at your house, rung the doorbell, and I didn't hear anything, and then started to beat on the door and then beat on the window and then I start trying to figure out how to get into your backyard. Cause you know I'm in there and you know that I'm expecting you most likely. Right, cause you're like, be there at 8.30 and then I am there at 8.30.

And you're like, oh, we didn't hear it. Oh yeah, you didn't hear it cause it didn't work. It causes problems. First of all, there was a 24 to 36 month period where you defended the doorbell. And you're like, well, it usually works. But a doorbell that usually works. Doesn't always work.

Yeah, it's the time that it doesn't work that is worth paying attention to. And if you got a package that needs to be signed for, and then they walk away with it. Forget about it. Now it's impacting me, brother. Now you gotta go to the shipping center. This is not just.

Or fill out some form. Ticking off the person at the front door. This is ticking off the person on the other side of the door, me. And you're beating on my window and stuff. It's like you can break my window down, man. Loosen it up. You've gotten legitimately angry at my doorbell.

Or me. I got legitimately angry at you. I don't get angry at my doorbell. Or me. I got legitimately angry at you. I don't get angry at inanimate objects. That's a lie. I get angry at the people behind them. So when you, in high school, were taken out of the basketball game and you kicked the bleachers.

I wasn't mad at the bleachers. You weren't mad at the bleachers. That's a ridiculous assessment. Right, you were mad at yourself. I was mad at my coach. No, you were mad at who, Rhett? Who, Rhett? I was mad at the coach. Yourself you were mad at who, Rhett? I was mad at the coach. Yourself.

The coach. And you broke your, Coach Gage. You broke your toe. Then I was mad at myself. I was mad at myself after I broke my toe. All of this was a ruse just to get you to admit that you still got some baggage. You're bringing up my anger issues from age 17.

So I decided I'm gonna get a doorbell and I heard about, I mean there's lots of doorbells on the market, I got the Nest thermostat, not a sponsor, and I saw some, an advertisement for the Nest doorbell. I think it's called Hello, I can't remember. But it's a camera that then when somebody rings it, even if you're not at home, you can see on your phone, you can see a video and you can talk to them.

And if it's a burglar, again, I'm not trying to sell this thing, they sold me on it and I bought it. And this is the same functionality of the Ring doorbell, but a different thing. Company, I guess. Right? Yeah, different company. Okay. I'm a? Yeah, different company. Okay.

I'm a fan of the Nest company. I would love for you to be a sponsor, but subject to this conversation that we're gonna have today, because I go on the website to buy this doorbell, and I get excited, because it's like, oh, now it's on my phone, and this is no normal doorbell.

This is like a, it's also a security camera, and it's a communication device for people at the door. And it just seems fun and cool and safe and neat. But I go on the website and then all of a sudden I'm like, hold on, they also sell some outdoor security cameras and there's been some burglaries in my neighborhood. I'm like, I gotta get with the program. I had sunglasses stolen from my own driveway,

from the car in my own driveway one time. And that's disconcerting. That's a violation of privacy. They get into it. Did they just open the door? They just opened the door, yeah. It was unlocked. Rummaged through it, probably some kids.

Kids wearing my prescription sunglasses. Ha! Joke's on you, kids. Unless they needed them. Unless they had the same exact eye condition that you did. That would be serendipitous. If you knew that the person who stole your glasses had the exact same eye condition as you,

does it make you feel better about them stealing it? It redeems the entire situation. You're like a Robin Hood. Well, I'm not. No, not really. But you know. I'm still the king, but. Well, I'm not. No, not really, but you know.

I'm still the king, but. So then I start putting outdoor security cameras in my cart and then I'm like, at this point I frequently ask, what would Rhett do? Yeah, you should get a bracelet that says that. Rhett would start buying everything. I should sell those. I'm trying to loosen up a little bit

and by buying more things, because I've been so, I have a purchasing problem. Meaning you have a problem purchasing. Yeah. That's your purchasing problem. I know this doesn't sound healthy, but me deciding to buy things is therapeutic. Yeah, right.

Do you agree, by the way? Or I know it sounds crazy to many people listening. No, I mean the. No or yes? Do I agree that you have a purchasing problem? Do you agree that it's therapeutic for me to buy things? Yes, you should spend more money, yes. So I did that.

Yeah. And then I saw that they had indoor cameras. Indoor, outdoor, front door. Which I know you have one of those. All doors. And I was like, I know you have one of those. All doors. And I was like, I'm gonna get one of those. And then I'm like, well, if I'm gonna get one, and I'm starting to think where I'm gonna put them,

I'm like, well, I need three. So I bought three. So I bought outdoor cameras, three indoor cameras and a doorbell. Side note, I added on the installation of the doorbell, which I probably could have done myself, and the guy comes out to do it. Side note, I added on the installation of the doorbell, which I probably could have done myself and the guy comes out to do it. And then the reason why I have a remote doorbell

is because it's not wired, it doesn't work. So the new doorbell would not work and it still does not work because I haven't called a proper electrician to come out and install wiring for a proper doorbell, which the Nest doorbell will be. So that's not even functional at this point. Neither are my outdoor cameras that I bought weeks ago.

Because I just haven't gotten around to putting those things up. Takes some work, drilling of holes from the outside to the inside of your house. Are you doing it? And that's intimidating. Heck no. Yeah, well. I'm gonna hire an electrician to do all of that

because I'll kill myself somehow with electricity or wires. So as you know, I am doing the same thing, but I'm doing it, I've got a guy who's doing the whole thing. Can I talk to him? But you're making me think maybe I should, because they're talking about putting a literal DVR in my house. Well.

With 10 different cameras. I'm going with 10 cameras. God, you see the difference between us? I'm bragging about I bought three cameras and I thought I was doing something, and he's like, well, I've got 10. That's your problem. I'm making your problem,

by treating my problem, I'm making yours worse. Don't get 10 cameras just because I got three. No, I didn't know how many cameras you were getting. The guy came over, well, my contractor's doing some other work on the house who has a guy who just did his house, he just walked around the house and he was like, you need one there, and you should have one there, and you should have one there,

and then all of a sudden done, he's like, you need 10 cameras. Are these Nest cameras? Because they store either five hours or days worth of footage in the cloud and it's not stored locally. I don't wanna get into this. No, but I mean, I'm thinking out loud here because then a guy could just break in and take the DVR.

Well, don't put it at the front door. Well, it's not like I've got it. Don't make it the welcome mat. Yeah but if you know that somebody's got cameras, you see the cameras and you be like, what if this is a DVR house or a cloud house? Right. Now I gotta get the DVR backed up on a cloud.

I've, the only thing I have installed is the cloud. I don't have anything sent, well actually I do because the only thing I have working are the three indoor cameras. I got those set up. But what about when your Wi-Fi goes down? That's a problem. You know what?

All I gotta do is unplug your router and then do the dirty business. Too late. I've already recorded you and it's already been sent to the cloud. Probably, yep, yep. Gotcha. Yeah, but not when I'm doing dirty business.

By the way, are you casing my house right now? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And am I comfortable talking about all this on a podcast? I don't know, you brought it up. I mean, by telling people that you're gonna have this incredible security at your home, I think that this would be a deterrent. Well, here's the thing, all of a sudden,

now that I have these, here's what I'm getting at. I've got these three cameras set up inside of my house. One's looking at the kitchen, one's looking at the living room. Don't tell people where they're looking at because then the robber will go to the other rooms. Well. That's why I've got 10 cameras.

They see everything. You cannot get away from my cameras. That's overkill by the way, that is stupid. No it's not. Amount of cameras because if you can pass any. I want it to be like one of those rooms. It's not like they can teleport into any room and bypass.

I want it to be like one of those rooms. You're being bamboozled by a security person. Like Mission Impossible where you have to like go through lasers. I got so many cameras that you cannot, you're always being watched. You're being bamboozled, man. It's like 1984 in my house at all times.

And we've decorated the whole house like 1984. Ripped off. But you need to come to grips with something that I have been smacked in the face with, which is the ethical dilemma of indoor security cameras. Because here's what happens. I can pull up my phone, I can look at my house right now. I can look at anybody in my house.

I can also listen. I can also talk to them through the cameras. Let's do it. No, I'm not gonna do it. Okay, that was a test. Nobody's at my house right now. I did it right before hand. Yeah, because you just checked.

And also, I performed a test with Christy, which I'll tell you about. She's not home right now, so I can't do it live. But I started to feel weird when the first night we had it, I'm going to bed that night, of course it's a new toy. So I pull up, Christy like leans over and she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm looking at my cameras.

Do you have one in the bedroom? No. Oh, this is for posterity. I don't send that one to the crowd. Posterity, what do you mean it's for posterity? So I can watch myself. That's not what posterity is. Posterity means that.

Adjust my technique. What you seem to be. Do commentary. When you say for posterity, what you're implying is. I have a whole YouTube channel where I do commentary. Oh God. On myself. You imply that when.

Not really YouTube though. When you're dead and gone, your estate will release this footage from your bedroom escapades. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For people to benefit from. Ain't nobody gonna benefit from that. When both my wife and I die, whoever dies first.

Of course. And when we're both dead, then we release the sex tapes. Just come out and say it. I was hoping you wouldn't just come out and say it. We sell it so the kids can have a future. Yeah. It's just reams and reams of it. It's a great word choice.

I'm glad you picked up on that. I'll take a little breather here. So I'm in bed pulling up my Nest Cams and it just so happened that that night, my kids had friends over for sleepover. Right. And I'm like, look, they're in the kitchen. They're eating something.

And then I'm like, they're having a conversation. Let's listen. And then I'm like, they're having a conversation. Let's listen. And then I'm like, I turned it off. I'm like, this doesn't seem right all of a sudden. Cause when I bought the thing, I just thought this is cool. These cameras are cool. And then it's like, you know, it could be a pet cam

or obviously it can be a security camera. If someone breaks into your house. Hold on, but isn't, I mean, just so I'm on the right page because the way I thought about this is exclusively about the security of my family and my home. I haven't been thinking about what you're talking about. It's a valid point. By the way, it's not.

But you're thinking about it, this is a pet cam first and foremost? So you can look at Jade during the day? Well we have friends who. She's gonna be a little black dot on the screen, man. Well. It's not gonna be that intimate. We crate her when we're gone because she's a Datsun,

which means she sneakily pees everywhere. Does she have a crate cam? No. Put a Nest Cam right in the crate if you wanna get a close up. So I don't even need it as a pet cam. I don't know why I bought these cameras because having, security, you need a siren.

You need an alarm. Well you gotta have one of those too. I've got one of those already. The reason why you have cameras is to catch these boogers and jail them, like get a facial identification of these people. Yeah. So it's not as much about safety as it is about justice.

And I could be wrong about that. You can talk on it and say, hey, get out of my house and they'll run away. It's a deterrent as well. When people see that you've got 10 cameras. Well if they see all 10 of them. They're like, well I'm gonna go to the house that doesn't have any cameras.

Again, if they see all 10 of them, it's too late. But you. I got 10 because typically they're gonna like shoot out the cameras, they've only got eight bullets. And I also. Then there's two cameras that are still there. I also justified the camera as, my kids are of an age now that sometimes, not every time,

but given certain circumstances, Christy and I can leave the kids alone at home, you know? I mean Lily and Lincoln are responsible to take care of themselves and Lando. Right. Same is true at your house, right? Yep. So, but it's nice to know you can kinda check on them

and see what's up and there's a level of accountability there. But then with this voyeuristic power, I started to become a little disconcerted with the ethics of it. Now, and I'm the only one who has access to it. Like Christy hasn't asked for it yet and I'll gladly teach her how to do it.

It's just one of those things that like download the Nest app and it's pretty easy, but she just hasn't done it yet. Right. So here I am the only one who isn't gonna be violated, my privacy, but I'm still kind of wigging out about this thing, trying to figure it out. So I think these are the questions that I'm wrestling with

that then I do believe lead directly into a much larger question when you, because it's applicable to the entire digital world that we live in lead directly into a much larger question because it's applicable to the entire digital world that we live in and that we type in and that we operate in and that we live our lives in and we're being surveilled and advertised to and manipulated, judged, dot, dot, dot. Controlled. Controlled. How far does this thing go?

So these are the questions we seek to answer starting with should I get rid of my indoor cameras? Okay, I have a strong opinion. It can wait until after the break. But first we wanna let you know that Ear Biscuits is supported by Honey. Nobody wants to feel like they're overpaying while online shopping.

It's just a nagging feeling that I've always hated, especially during the holidays, gifts, travel, ugly sweaters, it all adds up. But did you know there's an easy way to always get the lowest price? I did know because I see what you're reading. It's called Honey. Honey is a free shopping tool

that automatically saves you money. And honey rhymes with money. I'm a poet and I did know it by searching the internet for the best promo codes whenever you shop online. That means you can get the best deals without even trying on your favorite sites like Amazon, eBay, J.Crew, Walmart, Sephora. Sephora's my favorite site, hands down.

Expedia and more. In fact, honey has already saved its 10 million members $28.61. Well, that's a lot. Hold on, Honey has already saved its 10 million members $28.61. Well, that's a lot. Hold on, I didn't read that right. An average. Honey has already saved its 10 million members an average of $28.61.

Okay, that's much more impressive. And true. Look what I did. I got 10% off of a moleskin notebook. Have I written anything in it? Nope, but I plan to. I purchased an Eddie Bauer coat as a gift for $105 off thanks to Honey.

There's no reason, no reason under the sun not to add Honey to your browser today. You cannot come up with an excuse, try it. Especially during the holidays when you're probably spending the most money. Yeah, so get Honey for free at joinhoney.com slash ear. That's two words, joinhoney.com slash ear. Honey, the easiest way to save money

while shopping online. Ear Bizkis is also supported by Warby Parker. Buying glasses can be expensive, annoying, and overwhelming. Warby Parker cuts out the middleman, cuts them right out of there, and sells directly to customers online and in their stores. That's why Warby Parker cuts out the middlemen, cuts them right out of there and sells directly to customers online and in their stores. That's why Warby Parker is able to provide high quality,

great looking eyewear at the fraction of the usual price. You know what Warby Parker thinks about middlemen, Link? They don't like them? They, I mean, hate couldn't, might be too strong of a word because they didn't authorize us to say that, but I would go as far as to say they've cut the middleman out because that's exactly what it says.

With Warby Parker's completely free home try-on program, you can order five pairs of glasses online, then have them shipped directly to your home or office. It ships for free and includes a prepaid return shipping label. It's kind of fun to get them all and try them on. I like playing dress up. Head to warbyparker.com slash ear to order your free home try-ons today. Then you got five days to try them all and try them on. I like playing dress up. Head to warbyparker.com slash ear

to order your free home try-ons today. Then you got five days to try them on and show them to friends and family for an honest opinion on what looks best. Don't show them to that one person that you know is gonna hate them though. Picky, picky, picky, you know? Show them to people who like glasses.

It's 100% free and super easy. Glasses start at $95 including prescription lenses. Lenses include anti-glare and anti-scratch coatings. And I love this, for every pair you buy, a pair is distributed to someone in need. Yes, you can do good while you're getting yourself some good glasses. Go to warbyparker.com slash ear and order your favorite pair.

They'll even call your doctor if you don't have your prescription handy. Oh and while you're there, check out Warby Parker's app where you can use their brand new feature, Find Your Fit. It maps and measures key facial features, then recommends approximately 12 Warby Parker frames that are likely the best fit for your face. The process is seamless and feels very futuristic.

Only takes a few seconds. Go to Warby, that's W-A-R-B-Y, parker.com slash ear to get started with a free home try on. That's warbyparker.com slash ear to find your perfect pair of glasses today. Ear Bizcus is also supported by Robinhood. Robinhood is an investing app, not the movie, not the character of folklore, it's an investing app

that lets you buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptos, cryptos, you gotta be getting into them, cryptos, all commission free. They strive to make financial services work for everyone, not just the wealthy. It's a non-intimidating way for stock market newcomers to invest for the first time with true confidence, simple and intuitive, with data presented

in an easy to digest way. Other brokerages charge up to 10 bucks for every trade, but Robinhood doesn't charge commission fees. Honestly, I don't even know how they're in business. Can they even do that? You're trading stocks and keeping all, all of your profits. They give you easy to understand charts

and marketing data as well, so you can place a trade in just four taps on your smartphone. Robinhood is giving you a free stock like Apple, Ford or Sprint to help you build your portfolio. Sign up at EarBiscuits.Robinhood.com. That's EarBiscuits.Robinhood.com. Now back to the biscuit.

So if we have a babysitter come over, Yep. I feel like, Here you go, here you go. We have to disclose there are cameras here. Would you agree with that? Yes. And then, I mean, how do we feel about that? I mean, it's like when I think that's okay

because we're hiring somebody to do a job and I like that there's an added level of accountability that like Christy and I are out on a date or maybe we're doing something overnight. So it's like an extended period of time. We can just check in and see what's up and like there's a sense of accountability at any point we could be watching.

It is a little creepy but it's a professional relationship where you're paying somebody to do a job. We have cameras here for security purposes but it's totally legal because it's a professional relationship where you're paying somebody to do a job. We have cameras here for security purposes, but it's totally legal because it's a business where these things happen. Now we don't monitor our employees in that way for accountability, but we could. We could. Legally.

Right. And I guess that applies at home too. I shouldn't say guess, I assert that that's the truth. But I do feel like I need to disclose that. But what about we got friends over? Or my kids have friends over. Should I put up a poster that's like just a disclosure that like once you enter this premises,

it's like here in LA, you walk into places all the time, there's like big placards that say, you will be filmed if you enter this premises, it's like here in LA, you walk into places all the time, there's like big placards that say, you will be filmed if you enter this establishment. Yeah, you should have one of those on your front door. Christy will love it. Okay, well, I'll tell you what I think my policy is gonna be when I get these 10. Maybe I'll go 12 cameras, I don't know.

Okay, and then I'll tell you what I, the experiment I performed performed on my wife. Wow, is it related to the cameras or are we just talking about? Well, it depends on what you're about to say. Okay, so I think that obviously, like I said, the primary purpose of the cameras in my mind is to serve as,

to protect the, not the privacy, but the security, to ensure the security of my family and my belongings. And so therefore, it is primarily a deterrent because any would-be booger, as you said, is going to see that there are cameras, there's gonna be cameras on the outside, There's gonna be cameras on the outside, there's gonna be cameras on the inside, a total of 10. And then I think that the secondary purpose

is in the case of an incident, it is a record, like you said, for identification purposes. For me, that is the sole purpose of the cameras. Now, I do think that you should tell anyone, anybody who's watching your kids, you should be like, yeah, we've got cameras. Anybody who's a friend, usually you're gonna be in their presence.

If it was a friend who was coming to like house sit, be like, hey, there's cameras, just so you know. I would probably also say the next part of my personal policy, which is as a rule, I do not randomly review the footage or watch the footage for entertainment or voyeuristic purposes, just so you know. The purpose of the cameras-

But you'll have to trust me on that. Yeah, you do have to trust me, but the purpose of the cameras is for surveillance, is a deterrent and then a record, but not, so I guess not for constant surveillance that I, of my family or friends or anybody who's legally in the house. Now, in the case where there is some sort of incident,

okay, for instance, the other day, I get a call from Lindsey who was watching the kids and does sometimes and does some stuff for us. And she's like, Shepard and Locke just had a pretty intense fight. There was a punch. I mean, there was a punch from Shepard to Locke. Locke's not gonna punch Shepard.

A 10-year-old punching a 14-year-old. Okay. It was a Halloween candy incident because Shepard had a lot of Halloween candy. Locke didn't have any and he just wanted a piece and then that turned into a fight. A punch. And a punch to the face that drew blood.

Oh. Okay, they're McLaughlins, this kind of stuff happens. Blood from where, the lip or the nose? The nose. Oh God, punch him in the nose. Yeah, you know, you can, I mean. What piece of candy was this? I don't know.

You don't even know? Probably butterscotch. Well, did you review the footage or not? Exactly, so now in the case that there is a discrepancy in their accounts of the events. Oh yeah. Then I feel like in those cases, I will have every right, once these cameras are installed,

to review the tape. Did you review the tape? No, they're not installed yet. Oh, dang it. They're gonna be installed any day now. That's the thing you want. For entertainment purposes, you wanna see, you know, Shepherd Punch log, right?

Yeah, and so I would do it out of curiosity, yeah. I would watch it, but I would also be like, you know, I might coach Shepard on his technique, or I might just say- It's in the hips, I think. I might say, guys, listen, this is ridiculous. Look at what you, look at yourselves. Listen and look at what you did.

Showing them, and even like when a kid pitches a fit, when a kid is being a typical ass like they can be sometimes, or maybe when I'm being an ass. Oh, yep. Jessie can say, a lot of times she's like, you said this, I'm sure of it. Oh, yes. We can go to the tape now.

That happens. I hadn't thought of this. So to me. Argument settlement. Again, I haven't employed this yet because I don't have it in my house, but to me that is the only time in which we can go to the tape

when the involved parties, if it's two adults, if it's me and Jessie, I think we both have to agree that we're gonna go to the tape. If it's the kids, I have the right as their guardian to go to the tape when I want to, but I'm not gonna be like, okay, one of them has friends over and I wanna see what they're getting into. That's a violation of privacy.

And then one of them has a girlfriend over and I wanna see what they're getting into. At that point, I think the fact that there are cameras will probably serve as a deterrent knowing that there's not a corner of my house you could go to that you're not under surveillance, which is actually not true. That's not the case, but I'm not gonna tell you

where the secret corners are. But my kids will know, and just knowing that there's cameras there, they're gonna behave a little bit differently, but they're also gonna know that, guys, I'm not spying on you. There's not one in their bedroom, you know? Right, right. So anyway, that's just sort of my general philosophy

that I've been thinking about. Well, I'm glad you said that because now when Christy and I get in a heated conversation, a disagreement, I'm gonna be like, can we move this conversation to the kitchen where we've got a camera on top of the fridge? You know, let's just. That's true, because a lot of those.

Of course, I may not wanna do that. Those arguments and discussions happen in the bedroom and at that point, you don't let's just. That's true, because a lot of those. Of course, I may not wanna do that. Those arguments and discussions happen in the bedroom and at that point you don't have. Right. I mean, you don't have. But you do for posterity. For posterity, right. You know, I thought about Buddy System season two

because this is actually a source of conflict between our two characters because it was discovered that you had surveillance of me. The top bunk. Yeah. Just a camera on the top bunk. And then the other cameras were just cameras that looked at the other cameras to protect that camera. Extremely, don't laugh at our own joke.

It was good. I mean, when we came up with that, I was like, this is great. Again, buddy system, freaking watch it! Start with season two, don't waste your time. Yeah, you don't have to watch both seasons, but if you choose to watch one season. No, season one, I'm proud of season one too.

Watch the second season, you don't need a first season to just dip right into the second season. Dip in, just jump in. You know, our characters worked through it, so can we. But I felt, my character felt very violated and I just, it's one of those things where, well, you know, I logged onto the thing this morning. Well, no, yesterday I was out with Lily

and I was just like, you know, I gotta get into the habit of looking at the nest to see what's happening at home. Again, I have the opposite mindset that you do. Why do you need to get in the habit, why? Get in the habit for what? I just like it. I like knowing. This is a weird disposition.

I'm a baby doll. Yeah, exactly. I'm just being honest. So I turn it on and I'm like, nobody's in that room, nobody's in the kitchen. Oh, there's the living room. Okay, there's Lando sitting on the couch. He's on Christy's phone. Oh, oh there's the living room. Okay, there's Lando sitting on the couch. He's on Christy's phone.

Oh and there's Christy, she's taking a nap on the other couch. And I'm like okay, that's good information. Now I'm not gonna call or text Christy because I don't wanna wake her up. See? But you're, and then. Okay, well.

But I didn't say anything or let them know that I was looking at them. And it felt weird. And then today, I was like, you know what, we're about to have this conversation. I'm gonna do it one more time to see what happens. I don't even know if Chrissy's at home. And I looked and there she was, standing in the kitchen just doing something.

Just start naked. She was doing something, she's about to leave the house and then I turned on the microphone and I said, hey. Oh gosh. And I saw her kinda look around a little bit. She looked down. She didn't know that it came from the upper corner of the bookshelf like near the ceiling in the other room.

And then Jade like runs over and I'm like, hey. And Jade starts freaking out and then Christy walks over and looks at the camera and I didn't have, I couldn't hear her for some reason because it wasn't connected. And then I called her on the phone later, I was like, hey, I told her why I was doing it for a podcast, not just because I'm peeping Tom.

And I said, even though I do have a practice of that, I guess it may have a problem. But I said, how did I do have a practice of that, I guess it may have a problem but I said, how did you feel and she was like, well, it felt weird. I mean, I'm not doing anything that, you know, it's that I'm embarrassed about or I'm trying to hide but it did feel weird that all of a sudden, you were watching me and I immediately thought, how long has he been watching me?

Right. You know, and that feels like a violation. You know, if something feels weird, you feel a little violated, you know, your personal privacy. Because, so I don't know what to do. I actually, I mean, is it about me using constraint or is it about me taking the cameras down?

Well, okay, so you heard what I thought my philosophy was gonna be was to not do what you did as a general rule, but I am open to changing and maybe one is better than the other. It seems right now that just given our general understanding of privacy in modern society that it's a wiser choice to not randomly check in on people, right? But some of the research.

But here's the thing, well, like sometimes if Christy's not at home, if I know she's out and I'm like, I know she's coming back, I could text her but she's driving and I can just look, she's enabled location services on her phone so I can look on my phone under the text screen and see where she is, see where her phone is. Well of course you can argue yourself into the-

That feels okay. Conveniences and the functionality of- Because she willingly shared that with me. Of this monitoring. My location, her location. Which we're gonna get into that. But I think that if we take a look at where we came from, you know, like in turn,

basically the historical understanding of privacy is a pretty fascinating thing. And then what is our current understanding of privacy and then where are we going in the future? And I think we might be able to land at what our policy should be. Okay, yeah, let's do it. So again, this goes well beyond security cameras.

This is all types of privacy. This is just the concept of privacy, which basically informs the way Christy feels about you checking in on her because she is a product of modern society, as is, except for the vampires, everyone who's listening. So this is an article from Medium, which anyone can write an article on Medium,

but there's a guy, Greg Ferenstein, who has this thing called the Ferenstein Wire, which was very well researched and I've only looked at this article, but basically pulled from a lot of different sources to kind of go through some historical examples of tracking the way we think about privacy, which I think we can camp out on any one of these

that we want to. Okay. But interestingly, and I will be, when it sounds like I'm reading, yes, I am just quoting Greg. So I'm not trying to sound like Greg, I am quoting him. Privacy as it is conventionally understood is only about 150 years old.

Okay, so most humans living throughout history had little concept of privacy in their tiny communities. And obviously the further you go back and the closer we get to diverting off of a common ancestor from chimpanzees about six million years ago, the less and less privacy mattered. The privacy has become more important sort of as we've advanced.

But you get the picture of being in like a hunter-gatherer community and just the idea of, I gotta go somewhere to do this thing was just not really, in fact, we see this in, there's modern societies that have been observed that not modern, but basically tribal people who have not been influenced by modern society. There's a few of them that are still studied.

Contemporary. Contemporary hunter gatherer communities. In fact, Jared Diamond, who wrote one of my favorite books ever, Guns, Germs and Steel, is a UCLA anthropologist. He said, because hunter gatherer children sleep with their parents either in the same bed or in the same hut, there is no privacy. Children see their parents having sex.

In the Trobriand Islands, Malinowski, which is a researcher, was told that parents took no special precautions to prevent their children from watching them having sex. They just scolded the child and told it to cover its head with a mat. Well, I think about, I remember watching Dances with Wolves and there's that scene with the, all they had was a rug, a bear skin,

well, a bear skin coat of some rug, a bear skin, well, a bear skin coat of some sort. A bear skin, I'll just leave it at that. A bear skin covered their bear skins. Right. But there were other people in the room. Right, were you gonna tell them to leave? And also, there was a similar scene in Vikings. You remember that?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, where it was like, well. I got that one in the memory bank as well. It was the kids, the kid was in the room. The personal DVR that I keep in my head. You're welcome, Matt. And this seems odd, I mean, I don't even. And this seems, first of all,

I acknowledge that this seems a little bit nuts, right, to us, because we have room. Most people have their own room, and we'll talk about why we feel the way that we do. Do you send Barbara out? I put Barbara in her crate. But does she have a view? Yeah. She has a view from the crate?

But she doesn't watch. You send Jade out? No. Is she in a crate? No. But she doesn't watch. You send Jade out? No. Is she in a crate? No. Is she in the bed? No. She's on the floor?

No. Where is she? She's on the couch. But your dog can't jump onto the bed. No. My dog can. Oh yeah, my dog. So my dog has to be confined.

When I put Jade somewhere, she stays there. Like she doesn't jump on the bed or off the bed. It's a wiener dog thing for their back. But the idea. She learns a lot. But the idea, she can't apply and neither can Barbara. Sadly. Although Barbara learned a lot at doggy daycare.

But first of all, she's a female dog. Second of all, she's been spayed. Is that the right one for female dogs? Fixed. But she learned something from some buddies at the place where they stay because we got her this little stuffed dog that actually looks a lot like Barbara and she humps it.

What is the canine psychology of a? She's like, I've seen my buddies doing this. Let's see how it is. She doesn't know what she's doing. She's just doing hip gyrations. You don't have to do it. Well, no one knows that I did that except those who watch on video.

And I didn't really do it, it just went like this. Anyway, so you can learn a lot. Your dog is learning a lot. That's all I'm saying. Just depending on how much you're gyrating. So, but the one thing I was- Wouldn't that be embarrassing if like we have friends over and it's like, what is your dog doing over there?

It's like- Imitating me. Oh, that's a special, that's a patented move that I thought only, oh gosh. See, we're very, I mean, it's interesting what's happening now, we're being so public with something so private, our wives will probably kill us with this conversation.

It's making people feel uncomfortable. But the fact is, yeah, we're just making, if you feel uncomfortable right now, that's on you because we used to be hunter-gatherers that fact, it was just part of existence. And now we live in a place where you gotta make sure that the door's locked, because God forbid your kids walk in on you

and all of a sudden their lives are ruined because they see the way that they were made? Really? I mean, that's the way we think about it now. And that is a distinctly modern understanding of privacy. But don't act like you wouldn't feel weird if that happened. I would obviously feel weird because I'm a product of modern society.

Okay. Speaking of that, Exactly. In medieval times, which is not that long ago, newlyweds climbed into bed before the eyes of family and friends and the next day exhibit the sheets as proof that the marriage had been consummated. That is from Georges Duby,

editor of A History of Private Life. I think that was less about privacy and more about something else, like something about consummation. There was probably like some sort of legal ramifications of that, that was actually what marriage made. Regardless of the reasons for it, the practice was, and there's actually a painting

associated with this particular quote in this article. It basically shows a couple in the bed and now they did have like the sheets, the curtains around the bed, but then the family was all standing outside the bed. And then the couple is getting ready to do it in the bed. was all standing outside the bed. And then the couple is getting ready to do it in the bed. Again, individual beds are a modern invention.

For most of history, it wasn't uncommon for there to be one large bed, not most of history, there wasn't a bed. But since there's been beds, it wasn't uncommon for there to be one large bed where everyone slept. That includes the entire family, some servants, and even guests. Where else you gonna sleep?

We've got a bed. And I don't necessarily know what all was going on in the bed, but this idea of personal space and privacy is something that was not natural. In fact, the way that Greg puts it is transparency is humanity's natural state. What's the weirdest bedding down situation you've ever been in?

Probably to share in a bed with a friend at a hotel. I think. I mean, we've had to do that. We've done that. In desperate times. Led to many altercations. Yeah, we have different sleeping styles. I sleep with reckless abandon,

as I have gone on record in saying. And when I sleep by myself, I go all over the place, but when I sleep, and when I sleep in a bed with my wife, I kinda go all over the place. When I sleep in a bed with you. You're like a rotten log. I just stay completely still, no contact. It's like, and it's like it would subconsciously

just stay with me the entire night. We don't do that anymore. We're that successful. That's right, we get our own rooms. That's why we do this, so we can travel and have our own rooms. That's why we have ads. However, in spite of this.

I think what you're arriving at is disturbing, but keep going. There seem to be some instinctual, instinctual, or instinctual preference for privacy. So it wasn't uncommon for people to choose to have sex outdoors. And I realize we're talking about having sex a lot, but I think that that is the most intimate thing

that you can do in the presence of other people. So that's why Greg used it quite a bit to help illustrate privacy. He's also a freak. People choosing to have sex outdoors rather than in the same room, if possible. So in Dances with Wolves, if it wasn't too cold, you might go outside but that doesn't mean.

To dance with the wolf. You know, exactly. It doesn't mean that you're not, they didn't choose to not have sex. I think that in certain situations, okay, for instance, let's just say that you, and I'm gonna quit using us and our wives as examples just for the reason you pointed out earlier.

I don't wanna get them too riled up. Too late. But let's just say you are a couple and you go on a trip with another couple and you are in a financial situation that necessitates sharing a hotel room. Oh, now you're talking about Fargo. Yeah, I don't really remember this scene.

Two double beds, one hotel room, four people. Right. And then, two couple. The question for you, listener, is, are you going to abstain from hanky-panky? Yes. Yeah, most, I would go as far as to say 95% of modern people in the Western world would say.

For one night, sure. I mean, if it was. Yeah, we don't have to do it tonight. If this was the living arrangement forever, we might have to start having a discussion and purchase a bunch of earplugs and I don't know, a divider. And I'm gonna, I wanna kind of rifle through

a few of these things just to kind of quickly catch us up to modern society, because I think this is when the, when the conversation gets very interesting. So what changed? Why do we think differently about this now? Well, so while transparency is humanity's natural state, there has always been a preference for privacy, but there wasn't a logistical opportunity often.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So if you could- Practically speaking, it was very hard to be private. And have your own room, you would have done it, but we didn't, that's not how we lived. But the invention of the printing press, again, this is, you know,

I'm sure Greg is drawing on a lot of sources, but this is Greg's thoughts and I tend to agree. The invention of the printing press laid the foundation for privacy. Because you could hide behind it. As it allowed personal and private. It was a big machine. Contemplation of writings,

most often religious ones like the Bible. However, this was an elite luxury. So meaning that having some time, because it used to be like, if you were gonna be read something, and which was usually done in the context of a religious setting, there was a public reading and you would all kind of gather around and listen.

But now with the printing press, we can take these writings and we can go and we can contemplate on them in private. And actually the concept of the private life and what's going on privately, again, a lot of this happened in a religious context, but there was also the concept of confession, which wasn't always a thing,

but the idea that you were gonna go and confess something to a priest, at least in the context of the Catholic Church. And that was an acknowledgement that there was a private life and there was an internal morality that needed to be brought into public. But it was this concept of like,

I've got things that I'm thinking about. I've got things that I'm reading on my own. I've got time that I'm spending alone and I'm contemplating things and I am planning things and I may be thinking things and I'm dealing with things on my own and I'm gonna, but they wanted to kind of bring that back to have it dealt with. But you started to get this idea that there is something

that I can kind of separate myself from. But you go into a closet and you shut the door and you talk through a screen. Right. Had a priest about it. Developing understanding of infectious diseases also necessitated private beds in hospitals because before they had individual beds Spread a disease, okay.

Individual beds in hospitals, they had communal beds in hospitals. Why do it any differently in the hospital? So you basically had a bed with a bunch of sick people in it and they started noticing everybody's getting sick in these beds, let's have a clean individual bed. And that's when the concept of the individual bed really started to take off for a lot of people.

But then it starts to enter into writing and thought. And again, this is incredibly recent. This is like literally less than a second ago in the timeline of human existence. The industrial revolution pushed it even further. So basically the material and moral wellbeing of workers depend the health of the public and the security of society depend on each family's living in a separate, healthy

and convenient home, which it may purchase. And this is a speaker at the 1876 International Hygiene Council or Hygiene Congress in Brussels, which was one of my favorite historical events. So that was when they started saying, everybody should have their own house, which led to everybody should have their own room in the house, which is kind of a later concept.

You kind of start getting that in like 40s, 50s, like post-war, 60s, and of course now. You gotta have your own TV in your room. Right. And then finally, with a webcam that's watching you and then you get rid of, you relinquish all your privacy again, full circle, but go ahead. It's exactly where we're going.

And the final thing that until we get up to kind of where we're at now, the legal concept of the right to privacy, in the Harvard Law Review in 1890, it was written, "'The intensity and complexity of life "'attended upon advancing civilization "'have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, "'and man, under the refining influence of culture,

"'has become more sensitive to publicity, "'so that solitude and privacy have become more essential "'to the individual, but modern enterprise "'and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, "'subjected him to mental pain and distress far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury. So this was the beginning of the recognition that. A violation of privacy is a true violation.

We've got to stand for our right to privacy because as we begin to introduce modern enterprise and invention, they begin to invade privacy. But there's another thing about us as humans. Not only is, so transparency is the natural state, but we began to fall in love with privacy because when we can make the choice to choose privacy, we will do it as has been demonstrated by history.

But we have a problem. We value convenience over privacy. So obviously you've got modern examples of just like choosing to do online banking and stuff like that. And that brings me to, I mean the Time article I was reading details what researchers call the privacy paradox,

which is we care so much about our privacy, yet we keep giving our information away. And it says we do it because we reason that our future self will probably suffer no consequences. We figure that the worst that will likely happen is we feel kind of violated by all the corporate algorithms and maybe the government tracking us along with everything else,

but it's worth it because we get to use the app or we get to buy the thing so quickly or we get to enjoy the entertainment or we get to connect with people or we get to share something and get boosted in our ego zone in a digital sphere, you know? And meanwhile the- So it's not, we care about it but we care about convenience,

connectivity, dot dot dot, a lot more. And the people who have all the money and all the power, the corporations, they know that this is the way that we are. And that's why they continue to give us the conveniences. And they continue to whatever degree, we can talk about what the degree is, track us and listen to us and understand the things

that we like and that we search for to begin to develop a profile of us as individuals so they can then turn around and sell stuff to us. According to CBS News article, Google has said it has access to quote, quoting Google, 70% of credit and debit card transactions in the United States. According to the author of one study,

again this is still the CBS News article, Google has trackers on 76% of websites while Facebook watches us on 23% of sites. And you can, that's about six or nine months old, this article, who knows how much that's changing day to day, but it gives you an indication of how much is being tracked. Well, and you can download, you can actually find, both Facebook and Google provide ways for you to do this.

You can find out everything that these companies know about you. And I read an article where a guy explains how to do it and I think from Google he had 150 gigs of information. Now interestingly, and we've talked to our friend who knows a lot about these issues, explained to us that Apple has a very different approach to privacy than either Facebook or Google.

And as a result, the return that you'll get from Apple when you find out what they know about you, and again, I don't know how to do that, but you can figure it out, is like, for him it was a page. It was just a page. Now, and it's interesting because Apple has chosen to say, at least thus far, that we're going to respect

your privacy more. And obviously, Even to the FBI. That has been a, obviously they would be more successful. Maybe it was the CIA, I don't know. They would be more successful as a company. They'd have a higher profit if they were taking advantage of the information that's out there. But before we- And I will add one more thing because we're all starting

to have this experience of you have a conversation and then you get an ad. You're like, okay, my phone is listening to my conversations and it's uncanny. Even though they will say that they don't. Yeah, because I mean, Google said, "'We do not use ambient sound from any device to target ads.

This is still the CBS News article. Facebook had previously said we show ads based on people's interest and other profile information, not what you're talking out loud about. There are sites though, there are apps that do listen and you can control what the microphone on your device is allowing access to but the amount of people who know.

They don't even need to do it. That would be so much data if they were constantly listening, they don't have to do that. The computers are so smart with all of your, just your digital footprint that it can predict things that you want and know so much about your spending and your salary and everything. Instagram.

Where you are. Instagram knows me so well. They don't need to listen, they don't need to listen but it's just a testimony to how effective they are that you're convinced that they're listening. Yeah. And maybe I'm wrong but I think I'm right

and I think that's a stronger point that they know that much and they're not even listening to the audio. That's even scarier to me. But they're devices like Alexa or they are listening. I mean I don't know what they're doing with information. Publicly they're saying that- They said they're not storing it.

Yeah, yeah. All I'm saying is that we don't really know, but we know that a lot of information about us as individuals is out there and it is being used to then sell things back to us. And let's not forget the government. You know, I'm not one to- Let's not forget it.

I'm not one to, I just wanna, there's a lot of people that would say that at this point. It's like, you know, you can get worked up about Facebook and Google, but don't forget about the government themselves. That's not something I find myself personally thinking. I have this default trust, but again, I think for me, as I hinted to at the beginning,

I value convenience and I scroll down, scroll down just to click accept on the terms and conditions on anything that I've already convinced that I gotta have in my life. And everybody does. I buy cameras and then realize I've become a peeping Tom, for goodness sakes. It's just, I'm being facetious at that, you know,

but I am not a peeping Tom. Well, let's get back to that because, okay, you being a peeping Tom, no. Backing up just a little bit, this is not a modern concept. Like there were some examples in Greg's article about us beginning to, out of convenience, sort of say, oh, privacy is not that important. Postcards, you know, postcards invented

in the early 20th century. People started using them like crazy and they would write very personal and intimate things on these things that could be read by the mailman or anyone who happened to see the postcard. Party lines, you know, before there was individual telephone lines, there were party lines where you basically had a phone for the community and you had to trust

that your neighbors were not listening to you and they were listening to you all the time because all you had to do is pick the phone up. It was just like listening to your sister talk to her boyfriend, it was so easy to do but it wasn't just confined to a house, it was within a community. We have been willing to have intimate conversations

via text and via our voices, even knowing that we could be listened to, it's not a modern invention. So as soon as we began to value privacy, it was being eroded and it was being attacked. And now obviously with what's happened with the internet, it's just been accelerated to the point where, in fact, a guy named Sam Altman, who is the Looped co-founder,

who is a guy who pioneered paid geolocation services, he said the magic age is people born after 1981. That's the cutoff for us where we see a big change in privacy settings and user acceptance. So obviously. Meaning looser privacy settings and more acceptance of just willy nilly just letting it into the ether. Yeah, now we have a pretty high level

of paranoia and skepticism. We're born, I mean I was born in 77, you were born in 78, so we're before the cutoff. But given what we do for a living and given our personalities which is a very high value of convenience. We simulate a much younger age. I tend to be a proponent of,

my brother-in-law has historically been very concerned about his privacy when it comes to online banking. I remember having a conversation with him 15 years ago where he was making the transition to online banking because it was still something that was happening. Yeah. And he was just like, I just don't feel comfortable with it.

It seems like anybody could get, I was like, but here's the thing, there's safety in numbers. It's inevitable. We're all doing it. You can't really function in modern society without doing it. Yeah, your hand is forced. And so then, just recently, his son is applying for college

and apparently there is a new service that allows you to create one account and then basically make your applications to a bunch of schools at the same time as opposed to what we did, which was like handwrite to the few schools that you wanted to apply to. But if you wanna go to 15 different schools or apply. Right. And it required my nephew putting in the birthday

and social security number of both parents and of course himself. And my brother-in-law was like, I'm not comfortable with this. And again, I said the same thing. I was like, you know what? with this and again, I said the same thing, I was like, you know what, anybody who wants your social security number and birthday, who's motivated to get it can get it.

So you- But if you wanna keep your kid out of college, then that's on you. You know, it's like, again, your hand is forced and you have to make the decision. So he had to do it, right? Of course. He did it. You made him feel a little bit better about it.

I just said, just have a credit monitoring service. Here's the thing. I was like, just make sure you have that. I feel like, well, I don't have anything to hide. But then if you go back to, but it's that moment that your husband comes over the webcam and is like, hey, that all of a sudden you have this feeling of

how long have you been watching me? That's, you know, it innately feels like a violation. Now you've made a historical argument that it's cultural, is what I hear you saying. It's in our Constitution. Our preoccupation, okay. Is that an inalienable right? Well, maybe.

But okay, let's talk about this. I just wanna, my specific question is, in tracing privacy, were you making an argument that it's just cultural and that we need to get over it? Because, and I'll just go ahead and state everything and you can revisit any part you want. I have this sense that, you know, I just can't worry about this stuff.

Our hands are being forced, but if I am gonna worry about something, it's not, to me, it's not the government and many people argue, well, that's a big mistake. Or it's not Google or Facebook or fill in the blank with whoever other corporation it is and other people say, well, that's a big mistake. But it's the people or Facebook or fill in the blank with whoever other corporation it is and other people say, well, that's a big mistake. But it's the people who are going to,

the bad guys who are gonna steal it and use stuff. But I'm like, even then, what's the worst that can happen? So I'm just like, I just don't wanna worry about it. I wanna live my life. Give me the chip. Give me the pill, whatever it is. You're willing to take the chip, which is happening in pretty significant numbers

in Sweden at this point. Right. So I don't wanna talk about the chip per se, but you know, it's like, and maybe you can go even further into the future, but again, so that's where I'm at. Drill in anywhere you want. You're post-1981 for all intents and purposes.

But are you making an, so did you make the argument just get over it, are you with me? I'm not, well, here's what I'll say. In some weird, it's just crazy, right? Transparency is the default state, the natural state of humanity. Meaning that we don't have privacy naturally or a desire for privacy to the extent that we do now.

But modern invention led to the development of a preoccupation with privacy that then further advancement in a very short period of time, 150 years, led to the essential complete evisceration of privacy. And we are in some weird world returning back to a state of transparency in the modern world. And I think this is where we're going ultimately.

Sex in front of our children. Exactly, this all comes down to having sex in front of your kids and you should go ahead and just start doing it now to embrace the future. Nope, that's not exactly where I was going. Use a bear rug, please. I think this is where we're going. And again, I don't know what the timeline for this is,

but I think we are going to a place, the technology is leading us to a place, and literally the technology will lead us in one point. We've talked about that before. To a place of constant surveillance, constant surveillance. That makes 1984 Orwell's book look like child's play, the movie with Chucky. Which would be a great collab.

But we're getting into a place where not only where we're gonna be being. 1984 starring Ryan Gosling and that puppet from Chucky. Not only are we gonna be in a place where we're being monitored by cameras, but we're gonna be being monitored everything down to our thoughts, right? I mean, I don't know when this is gonna happen,

but basically all that's happening in our brain is some electromagnetic signaling and we can't really figure it out yet, but we will be able to at some point, not in our lifetime, but it will happen. I don't believe, I believe that the brain is so complex that that will never happen. I mean, before it all implodes on itself.

Okay, that's a fair argument that we die off as a species, but the technology is inevitably getting to that place. But even if it's not true, it is helpful to paint that as a worst case scenario and then like, how bad is it? So keep going. Well, we are moving, we are essentially moving to a place where we are an organism, right? Which interestingly, is where we started from.

An organism that we all came from. And we're going back to a place where like a beehive, and again, this is absolutely makes your skin crawl as it should if you're a healthy person. The idea of being in a place where ultimately your thoughts are not even your own, but they're being shared and directed by a collective of intelligence

that's not even limited to humans. I mean, read some Asimov and you get to a place where, it's just crazy that he was able to talk about all this in the 50s, but basically, this is where the technology leads us. Now, there's gonna be rebellions against this, right? There's already people who are like, I ain't getting the chip.

You know, there's the matrix, right? There's all these examples of the people rebelling against it, and that's probably a healthy thing, and there will be rebellions, but the general trajectory, unless we destroy ourselves, which is very likely that we will destroy ourselves. Let's just for argument's sake say that we won't destroy ourselves. The general trajectory is towards a place

of us becoming an organism. And individualism is a super like American thing right now and we're all excited about it and we want to defend it and we're willing to fight and die for it right now and we're all excited about it and we want to defend it and be willing to fight and die for it right now and that's great. All I'm saying is it's temporary and it's not even a natural thing when it comes to humans. It's just something that was an anomaly,

a blip on the radar of existence that happened because of some technology that got existed, that brought into existence. I think that's probably the biggest contribution of the self-driving car is how it will be a big cultural shift of acceptance of community. Well, I have one last wild theory. I believe, I'm kind of on the Elon Musk team here

and thinking that statistically speaking we're probably in a simulation. We've talked about this before. If we're in a simulation and the inevitable trajectory of the simulation is that we are getting to a place in which we recognize that we're all one organism, it's all data, and it's being controlled, experienced,

and exchanged as a collective. At that point, we basically become indistinguishable from the computer that is powering the simulation that we're in, which is all based on data, all right? I haven't read this theory anywhere. I'm sure somebody else has come up with it. But at that point, once you're this collective and you're just kind of existing in the world of data,

that is essentially a computer hard drive. And at that point, when we get to that place in this indistinguishable, the simulation is indistinguishable from the computer that is making the simulation happen, that is when we will be delivered. That is when we will be delivered as a species. Delivered. We will get out of the simulation.

I know me and you tried to do it one time. I used to think that maybe just admitting that it was a simulation and holding hands with your best friend was how you got out of the simulation. That didn't work because we tried it. We tried it many times since then. Let's not try that again. But now I'm beginning to think that it is just.

Let's beat our head against the wall on this day. It's just a recognition. It's not a recognition. It's not a recognition, it is an assimilation into the actual data that is making up the simulation. You have to become the data and once you become the data, you break out of the simulation. We collectively transform into an 18 wheeler. Distant future. An 18 wheeler.

Yeah, we could also just destroy ourselves and take a chance that the simulation ends at that point. But I don't wanna take that chance. So are you in it to win it? So I guess what I'm saying is. Caution to the wind. I guess what I'm saying is. Privacy be damned. Temporarily you.

You're doing it for the singularity. I'm not going to watch my family and friends because it makes them feel uncomfortable. But in the back of my mind, I know that everyone's gonna be watched eventually. I'll let it come when it's inevitable, but I'm not going to usher it in. And I might be part of the resistance.

I'm not saying that I'm not gonna be part of the resistance because Morpheus is really cool. I was about to say that. You know what I'm saying? I can tell how you switched the cool switch turned on. You were like, well, hold on. Actually, it might be cooler to be on the other side, so I might be part of the resistance.

I can tell, I saw when it happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Whatever's the best experience for me, man. You know, at this point, I'm putting it on you. Hashtag Ear Biscuits, let us know. And you know what, what I don't want you to do is just rip me a new one for being a peepin' tom, okay? It's like, I'm gonna slow my roll and as a family,

we're gonna put some ground rules in place and then we're gonna have our own, so to speak, placard on our door. I'm just saying that I'm not really, if you wanna talk to me about it, that's fine. But I just said my piece. But then the larger question of how, I am curious how you relate to these issues of privacy.

Hashtag Ear Biscuits, let us know. Yes. The conversation must continue. And we will be listening.