Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast - Ep 602 - Future Man (feat. Kevin Ashton)

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Support the D.A.W.G.Z. @ patreon.com/MSsecretpod Check out Kevin's Book 'The Story of Stories: The Million-Year History of a Uniquely Human Art' OUT NOW on all platforms Go See Matt Live @ mattmccusker.com/dates Go See Shane Live @ shanemgillis.com Go See Shawn Gardini Live if you want  @  https://www.shawngardini.com/live Yo0o0o0. TGIF we have a bonus cast for you. Hope you all had a good week. Kevin Ashton is a future man, tech pioneer, and our bro. He and cusky blessed the podes for a lil bonus treat this week. Check out Kevin's new book!! Please enjoy. God Bless. Try ZipRecruiter FOR FREE at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/secret Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/DRENCHED and use code DRENCHED and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wow, Wow, Wes. Hey, what's up? What's going on, everybody? I'm already fumbling over my fucking words. Dude, I suck. I'm here with Kevin Ashton. How you doing, man? I'm good.

How are you? Pretty good. So how would you define yourself? Obviously, author. Yeah. Futurist. Future. You think you're old now?

Oh, gosh. Yeah. What? 57. 57. 57. I'm not too far behind. I'm 40.

Oh, that's young. 40. I think 40 is kind of, I still feel like a boy. Like, there's never, the switch has never occurred to where I'm like, A little bit I feel like a man. I go in the grocery store. They're playing the music I danced to when I was a kid. Really?

That makes you feel old. Oh, when it's in the grocery store. Yeah, it's like the music now. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of a cure or whatever. That was old when I was. So what was your, what was your music back in the day? What was your go-to?

Oh, I was a jazz funk guy. Really? Yeah. Jazz funk. It's like the, it's a British name for like R&B, basically. So like mid-80s, it was like Luther Vandross. Oh, yeah. You're smooth.

brother. Oh, yeah. All the working class kids in London. That's what we're really. There you go. Nice. The posh kids like, you know, the punky stuff that we were. So I got to ask you then, is it true? Because I have a friend who's from London and he loves soccer. Okay. And I, you know, naturally. And in America, soccer's looked at as a sport kind of for girls. You know what I mean? Not so much now, though. Yeah, not so much. When I was trying to explain to him, when I grew up, it was like, we everyone played football. That's what we call America. We call American football football. And I was like, you know, I was just kind of getting under skin.

I was like, it's kind of for like weak guys and he was like, no. And I was because I played rugby. He's like, rugby's for the posh boys. That's true. And so it's true. Yeah. Rugby's such a more brutal sport. It's such a more brutal sport.

Why is it for the posh boys? It's just the way the school system. I mean, I was like, it was suggested that I go to like the posh school in town. But they didn't play soccer. They played rugby. And there was just, I was like 11. There was no way. Really?

I was going to school that didn't play soccer. So it's kind, okay, so it's almost like over there, it's like, if someone played water polo over here, that would be very posh. Yeah, or like lacrosse maybe. Like cross isn't very, it's not posh. It's, it's, yeah, I can see that actually. It is in New England, I feel like. Yeah, you know, you're right. The lacrosse are, I would say, borderline posh boys as well.

Yeah, so cricket and rugby are like the posh. I feel ashamed to play the posh sport. I thought I was flexing on them. Here's a guy's for poshers. Yeah. You could play soccer on the street corner. Yeah. You know, you just tossed down your sweaters and you got a ball in you're away.

do that. We can't quite do that with rugby, you know. Yeah, you'd have to play like touch. Yeah, it'd be like landing on that street. Yeah. Yeah. Well, shit, you're right. I was hoping I would, uh, he would get overturned, but that's completely true. Yeah.

Dang. Well, all right. Thank you for coming to the podcast. So, okay. So futurist, how do you get the futurist title? Oh. So that's like a thing. Like, you can't study at school, right?

There's no like major in futurism. I mean, I, it's not a word I use about myself so much, I guess. But, yeah, I mean, I started a lab at MIT. Okay. In the late 90s, that's why I came to the U.S. And like I had this idea that I called the Internet of Things. Yeah. And everybody thought it, what the hell is that?

It's crazy. And they're all interested in like the dot-com boom and everything. But, you know, we got lucky and our research did well. And now the Internet of Things is everywhere. So you kind of, I guess when you have a stupid idea and it comes true, you move from being like an idiot to a future. That's awesome. Well, it's funny because I watched a video and the origin of the internet of things,

you know, which we'll explain in a second because I always heard that term. And there's something about it. I'm like, man, I love that term. I had no idea what you were talking about. I just like, I was just like,

it's like the internet. I had this nebulous idea in my head. I'm like, it's like the internet and just fucking stuff. And, you know, I didn't know what it exactly was. You came up with the term.

You were pitching a thing for Procter and Gamble, right? Yeah. I saw that. And it sounded like, kind of just like pulled it out of your ass. You're like, I wanted to like, because you wanted to what? Like make them use the internet for their supply chain.

It was the mid-90s. Yeah. And like honestly, it sounds crazy now, but the senior executives didn't even do email. Like you sent them an email and it came back in the internal mail. Most people went to what the hell that is, but like a special reusable envelope. Their secretary had printed it out and they'd like write a reply to your email. Like that's how technical these guys were in the mid-90s. And then suddenly I've heard about the internet.

And it was kind of like the thing you had to know about. Yeah. So like I already had this idea for like like putting chips and things in in the product. So we could know where they were. But they didn't want getting that. So I figured if I could put the word internet in there somehow, then, you know, they'd be interested. And then just tacked on of things.

Yeah. Kind of like. Like I mean really like what am I going to call this PowerPoint presentation? How about this? Internet of things. Yeah. And here we are now 30 years. later. Yeah, that's cool because then like that idea for the presentation became almost like a

career launching point. Oh, it did. Yeah. That's insane. And I have to pretend like it was like some real. The best you ask about what the internet things, have you heard of teledildonics? Hmm? Telly-dil-dil-donics. Have you heard of? Teledylodonics? Have you heard it? Telly-dil-dil-dynx? No, I have no idea what is. This is my favorite. People say, what's the internet of things? I say teled orda. It's the internet of things of sex toys. Oh, okay. It's like vibrators you can like turn on from like the internet anywhere in the world. Oh, the vibrating butt plug. Yeah, yeah. The vibrating in. But like, you know, through through Wi-Fi or your phone. That's how you define the internet of things. That is one of the

first killer apps of the internet of things. They're always the first adopters of everything. And just so, and just to explain it, because again, I feel like if you're, it's, it's a simpler idea than you think. It's just using, attaching sensors to things that are connected to the internet and then can bring in information. You're plugging the world into the internet. So So, did you come up with that idea or were you just describing the practice to these guys and you coined the term? I was one of, like, there was a small room full of people who all came up with similar ideas about the same time. Yeah. But like the internet was new.

It was dial-up. It was kind of crappy. Yeah. You know, you did have graphics really or anything. So the idea of using the internet for like anything past like email was kind of on the wild side of things. Yeah. So yeah, but like plugging the real world into the internet. so you knew where stuff was.

So, like, you could have things like self-driving cars that, like, know where they are and they're communicating with your phone and stuff. Yeah. And this was before Wi-Fi. Oh, dude. That must have sounded insane in 19. Oh, he did. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. People thought it was, it was like maybe 97, but like, yeah. Yeah. People like, what the hell? This is why it called the Internet of Things. True. Because, like, at least I could, they wanted to pretend they knew what the Internet was.

Yeah. So you just like right on that. That's pretty cool. So that was, the whole idea was you, you know, back in the day, you'd have these companies or advise them to attach basically just sensors to regular objects. So then those sensors could then gather data. Yeah. Which basically, so, and this was before the smartphone then. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. This is way before the smartphone. Yeah, this was like business systems. Like we got a lot of money from the defense department because, you know, you go to war. Yeah. You got to have enough stuff. Yeah. Where the hell are my bombs?

Yeah. Where the hell to put those bombs is one thing. But like, you know, soda cans. And like body bags, bibles, you know, toothbrushes, all that stuff. You've got to know where it all is. And so, you know, that was one of the first, like, obvious applications. It was just like logistics. Yeah.

That's where all the money came from to fund it. But yeah, then a few years later, you got the smartphone and it becomes easy to put it in everybody's pocket. Yeah. So how did that, like, you know, were you kind of following the development of the smartphone? Did that just come out and you're like, hey. Yeah. I mean, it was funny. I was, I guess like.

can say the name now. Like I was, I was on the board, the research board of Motorola. Okay. And we were trying to explain to them. This was like the flip phone. And one of the perks was they gave you their best phone every year. So I always had like the quote unquote best Motorola phone. It's terrible. Like do you like the razor, the flip razor? It was awful. I mean, the funny thing is like Motorola even had a partnership with Apple before the iPhone. Really? Yeah. It was called the rocker, right? It was like an iPod in a Motorola flip phone. Okay. Whoa. They fucked it up so badly that Steve Jobs was like, yeah, no. Oh, I don't want anything to do with your own thing. We're trying to explain these, me and some other like futurists. We're trying to explain to them like, you know,

touch screens, graphic user interfaces, guys, sensors. Yeah. Have the phone like no when you pick it up. Like this is not expensive. It's not hard to do. And then the first, the iPhone wasn't the first one. like LG came out with a thing in Korea. Oh, okay. About six months before. That makes sense because I had a droid way before I had a, my first phone was a droid. Yeah, I think it was actually an LG. Yeah.

So LG had this like, it was called the Prada. Don't ask me why. Like the clothing company. Yeah. But it was basically the same as an iPhone. And then the iPhone came out. And I remember like I went back to the Motorola guys who had another meeting and we were like, so you know, that thing we were telling you about for years, it's happened.

Oh, no. What do you think? And the head of, I swear to you, the head of research, Motorola said, yeah, but it doesn't have a very good microphone. Like people were, like, lining up around the block to pay like $1,000 for this phone they'd never even touched, right? And this guy was like, when it has a crappy microphone. And that was kind of true.

Yeah. But who gave a shit? Yeah. I don't, you know, Motorola is kind of not in business anymore. No, they, and it's funny you say that because they were, like, cell phones. They were like number one. Nokia, Sony, all these guys. And probably in all those companies, there was somebody saying,

hey, this is what the future is going to look like. Yeah. And they were like, yeah. So, yeah. So who is there? Yeah, who's above you? This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. I always find it impressive when someone can,

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That's ziprecruiter. com slash secret. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. That's right. So the, that's pretty crazy, man, to think about it that long ago

where it was like, because they, it's almost, there's like a super like mystique around the iPhone where it was like, you know, just almost,

you know, people a lot of times are like jobs was just like taking acid in the woods and was just like completely tapped in. So that had been a slow ongoing process. He was a guy like,

it was like a really good. DJ who like is just ahead of the trends who like plays tune you wouldn't have thought about and then you realize it's actually he was that guy for like tech like yeah he really had a good eye for what was coming and yeah and so what happened with the iPhone like and this is kind of what we all saw it was it wasn't really a phone phone was a thing you know if you think about your smartphone now like how often are you actually making a call yeah right it's just one of your apps there's always always used it a camera use it as a video game use it as you know GPS mapping, whatever you use it for.

Yeah. And that's what he saw. You know, so you got the iPod idea and the online video idea and the phone idea and the handheld video. Just all stick it into one thing. Yeah. And he really, I get in because I had the droid first and I, you know, I was like, and I will say there was something about when I would like tap it or touch it that when it would buzz every time I did that, there was, I don't know why that like made me feel so happy. Every time it would like respond back to me. I don't know. I still like, You know, I had to turn it off my phone because I just, I do like those little noises like, Oh yeah.

And if you watch the first like presentation on the iPhone like way back when like he swipes on the screen, I think it gets a standing ovation. Yeah, that's so funny. We take it all for grinding now. But yeah, so it was it was fairly clear in the late 90s, early 2000s that something a bit like that was was going to happen. Well, yeah, that was my whole thing. Apple, like when I had the droid for a while, I'm like, this is cool. But Apple was like, it was like intuitive where I was like, oh,

this is so easy. Like I don't have to spend time figuring it out. I was just kind of like this makes it's just so much easier to use. Yeah. Because I mean, Jobs wasn't really a technical guy. You know, so he he was kind of like our representative in the room who's like, yeah, it's just too complicated. Yeah. Make it easier. Make it easier. And then you end up with, you know, what we have today, which is great. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So the, so here's the thing. So, okay, internet of things, term you coined. And when you gave the meeting, were you like kind of aware that like damn i think i'm crushing it right now or like this is a thing or do you have you know what i mean like oh man this is it's a long time ago so i could so

uh the CEO wanted to see the talk of procter and gamble and i was in the UK i don't think they realized that like i got an email saying yeah come and see the CEO like the day after tomorrow or something proctrine gamble's based in Cincinnati i'd never even been to the US right Fortunately, I had a passport. So, like, I got a ticket. First place I ever went to the United States was Cincinnati. That's pretty sick, actually. I was fairly disappointed.

Right to Ohio. And I'm in this, like, walnut paneled, like, boardroom kind of place. And they all come in, like, there's, you know, the CEO and all these other, like, really senior guys. And I do my thing. And basically, we go around the room and, like, all the other. like the entourage guys are like yeah that sucks that never work i don't like it i'm like oh damn you know but then the CEO's like well i like it i think it's a good idea and funnily enough like it's like watching the dominoes go down like all these guys who i i swear had just been shitting on my idea

yeah like yeah you're right that's a really yeah what a good idea so yeah if it hadn't been for kierga wherever you are thank you if it hadn't been for that guy who was ceo at proctor at the time i don't know what would have happened but yeah he got it he said yeah we're going to pay for you to go to MIT and make this real. Whoa. So, like, yeah, first time we went to the U.S. was like Thanksgiving. Yeah. It was like Thanksgiving of 98.

And then by September the first, 99, I was in the Smithsonian Institution announcing the Internet of Thanks to the world. And I lived in the U.S. Whoa. So it happened really fast. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, it was crazy. And they were like, well, does it give you, we'll pay for you to go to MIT and

just figure this out of business. Yeah, and they gave me money so I could fund the research. And then we got a bunch of other companies involved. And it just snowballed. And what did you do before that? Well, what was, I was,

I was, I was, uh, I ran like part of the, uh, oil of Ola business, the Procter & Gamble. Okay. In Europe. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I was like an expert on mascara. And you were like supply chain side of it. No, it just, the shit was never in the store and I got pissed off and I was like, why is my stuff never in the store?

Why is, you know, why is this particular color of lipstick that we know everybody likes? The literally true story is never in the, I go to, get my groceries, it's never fucking there. And the first answer was, well, it's just in that one store. And I'm like, yeah, no, there's no way. It's just the store I go to is. So I did some research. It wasn't anywhere. Like, we were paying all this money to advertise it. You couldn't

actually buy it. I wanted to fix that problem. It just wasn't getting there, basically. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was in the back or something, you know. Wait, so you have like computer training? Like, are you like a systems IT? No, but like, I was like, there's an idea. I was at school in like the early mid-90s and like I had a computer when I was 10. I had like a shitty home computer. You know like the age of like if you've heard of like Commodore and all those kind of really early computers. No, no, no.

I only remember the windows and like that early Apple thing that was like purple on top of it. So yeah, but my generation was like we were the first kids to have computers at home. You had like you either had your Atari video game system or yeah. Commodore 64 or home computer didn't do very much. What was the Commodore? I remember Atari. What was the Commodore? Commodore 64 is like a keyboard that you plugged into the TV and it had like basic computer ability

and you could like buy video games on cassette tapes and like play them into the computer. Damn. It would sound like a fax machine and it would like load it in and you could play some little game. That's awesome. Yeah. So yeah, I just grew up with computers. So like I was like, well, there's got to be a, this is an information problem. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And like there was. Dang. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it worked out. So you and you walked home that day like I think I crushed it.

Did you have an idea like you were just completely That day? I went from there to a meeting at MIT And I was having breakfast in the Cambridge Marriott hotel Which is at that time was like the only hotel near MIT. Yeah. And a senior guy from Procter and Gabriel Campbell came busting in to find me at breakfast And it's like they've just approved for you to like transfer to MIT

How quickly can you move to the United States? And I was like, shit uh how about two weeks and they're like yeah sure that's awesome and i like went back to my office and like the human resources team and they yeah we pay for your apartment we pay for your plane we pay for all this stuff i'm like oh my god so yeah it was like it was life change that's insane that's honestly it's like a fantasy of mine i always wanted to go in a board room and hit them with the you know a million dollar idea god that's awesome i would love that yeah i mean it landed but like i'm not kidding you, like the first five minutes of feedback were brutal.

It is funny, like, nah, like it. What was there, do you remember their pushback specifically or they're just like, this will never work? It was just like they had some bullshit. I mean, the thing you always heard back in that days was, oh, the laws of physics. You know, if you want to put a radio microchip into like a bottle of moisturizer, it's going to cost $10 and it won't work. This was before Wi-Fi.

It was before Bluetooth. And there are a lot of people who are convinced that you really couldn't send data. over radio or barely. And that's crazy now. Like we think about like, you know, you can download like a high-deaf movie on your phone over like the cell network. Yeah, yeah. But in the 90s, it's like, yeah, that won't work.

It's going to cost too much. We already know where all our stuff is anywhere. I'm like, no, you don't. Yeah, yeah. You know, guys whose job it was like to know. They weren't going to be like, yeah, you know, he's right. We actually have no fucking idea. True.

So like, this is not a problem. That was one of the, you know. So what were they, how did they like, the guy who knew where all the stuff was back in the early night? They would just call a warehouse, I'd like, yeah, did you guys get that stuff? Well, they'd know, like, they'd know like down to the nearest like million or something. Right. But was, because I used to get this. Like, even after we got to MIT, we'd have like CEO type guys come through and we'd pitch them.

And they'd be like, yeah, we already know where all our stuff is. And I'd be like, okay, you sell this product and you've got a store down the street in Boston. How long would it take you to find out? many of this one product are on the shelf in that store. And they'd be like, yeah, well, you know. And that's supposed they couldn't do it. Yeah, of course. I used to work in a beer distributor in the, when was this, the early 2000s?

And they, the guy would still walk around, count every single case of beer. He had a piece of paper. So I remember I stole a 12 pack from him one time. Yeah. And he could, he was like, did you, I was missing a 12 pack of MGD. And I was like, God damn, you really had this thing. Oh, that's good. Yeah.

He was the only guy. That guy owned that. store, I reckon. He was, he worked very closely with the owner. He was like, he was trying to get a citizenship and he like lived in the, he lived in the warehouse itself. So he was, it was like his ticket to America. He's invested. But like in a big box store like no. No, there's no way. No, especially if you go to like a target still to this day, you go to a target sometimes and it's like just crap every like I it's pretty bad. Oh yeah. It's a mess. Yeah. Well, cool. So you came up, came up with that idea and that kind of, I don't know, did you ever feel like kind of, um,

Since you weren't, you know, technically like a, you know, you were savvy with computers, I guess. I guess if you used a computer regularly in the 90s, you were a tech guy. You know what I mean? Well, you know, I was kind of too stupid now. Stupid I was really. But my experience had been like the first computer I got had 1K of memory. And I saved up, we should deliver newspapers. I saved up for months and bought a 16K, like K, not megabytes, gigabytes, gigabytes, kilobytes.

memory expansion for that thing cost like a hundred bucks or whatever and I felt like I had more memory than I would ever need right this is in the 80s and by the 90s you know it's like we're talking about like maybe megabytes yeah and the stuff you you can do was like a million times better than the stuff you could do in the 80s so like in my dumb brain it was like well things just get cheaper yeah things just get smaller and that turned out to be true I mean I didn't know how it was true or why it was true but like you just figured it out yeah I'd seen that happen for like 15 years at that point. Yeah, I saw a video. So there's a video from you 11 years ago and you were doing you had like three predictions. And the one was 15 years from now. This is 11 years ago.

15 years from now most cars won't have steering wheels, which I took as like automatic cars basically. Yeah. So kind of nailed that because I don't know if you see, I mean, obviously you see all the waymos here. I got here in a way. I finally. I love the way. I actually love the way most. So you're so you were kind of spot on with that 15 years ago or 11 years ago you were like, yeah, self-driving cars. I don't like people really 11 years ago they're like no way oh they were no and the thing is like what's happened is a lot of cars like new cars are more self-driving than people realize it's called like enhanced driver age yeah so it tells you if you're like going out of your lane it can tell you if you need to break suddenly you know there's a whole bunch of stuff they're like building in gradually so like

what used to just be like the automatic gearbox or like cruise control or something yeah it's like now getting more and more sophisticated so you're getting closer and closer to like that self-neutral Yeah, the lane assist. I like it. I took a Waymo and I actually kind of really enjoy it. I thought I'd be like, I don't know. It's pretty reliable. It drives like a regular speed.

First few minutes is kind of weird and then it just gets old. Yeah. And I like you. I enjoy talking to people in Uber so I don't mind the human interaction. But there is something really peaceful about just like being there by yourself, putting on a song and just kind of just chill. And I like really, really, I don't know. I find it really relaxing.

I still catch myself about to say something. something to the drive. Oh, yeah. Or I'll say thank you. Yeah, it says hello and it says your name. And I always want to say, you know, hello back. It's like there's no one here, dude. So the other one was, and I'm curious to see what we're coming up with this. Five years from now computers won't have batteries. What were they run off? Oh, I was cheating at that point, right? Because they're, I mean, so there's a thing called an RFID tag, which is like the sort of one of the main technologies in the internet of things. It's just like a little chip with an antennae. And you buy something from Walmart or something.

They use it for inventory tracking. Yeah. You buy something from Walmart. It might have a sticker on that says EPC. That's the thing we've met at MIT. That's the electronic product code, right? Okay. That's a computer.

A RFID tag is a computer, but it's very small. It's very simple. It doesn't have a battery. It gets power from the radio waves that are communicating with it. There are more, even when I made that prediction, there were more RFID tags in the world than than any other kind of computer added together, smartphone. I mean, these things cost a few cents.

They're in like your speed pass and the products you buy and they're used for tracking in Amazon warehouses and whatnot. So there's billions of them and they don't have batteries, right? So that's the cheat in that story. Gotcha. But, you know, what's happening in computing is two things. One, the amount of power it uses goes down by about half every two years. That's crazy.

So computers just keep getting more power efficient. right so they need less power but also then we're getting better at like sending power over the air harvesting power from like vibrations sound vibrations stuff like that so yeah we're definitely moving i mean it might be your smartphone always has a battery but you probably notice you get a lot more life out of a charge now than you used to yeah so the power budgets go down ways of putting power in go beyond batteries that's that's been happening for a while that'll keep happening damn so those little okay so those are what's the difference between a computer and a computer chip Nothing.

Really? Okay. I mean, because you think a computer and it's like short-hand for like personal computer, but that's like a chip with like a keyboard, like a memory or, you know, a fan or something, right? But the thing that's doing the computing is a microprocessor. Gotcha. And that's one chip, one integrated circuit. That's crazy.

They just pull the, I guess, the energy out of the Wi-Fi and that's why, yeah, that's why my Easy Pass keeps rocking. I've never charged that. There you go. Yeah. Dang, nailed that too. And what do you think? I'm nervous.

That was the third one. No, the third one, I think you're spot on. Kids and grandkids will live to 100 on average. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's coming, I think. Worldwide, we're definitely getting there. You know, I mean, the pandemic, like, screwed up, like, life expectancy. Because the thing about life expectancy that nobody knows, right?

It's what age are people dying today? So if you're 20 years old and you're like, you go on the internet, we'll say your life expectancy is 80. But that means that the people who die today are average age of 80. Yeah. That's not actually counting for the fact that it will probably get better as you get older. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so most people are going to hit 100 unless they have a bad accident or something.

Yeah. That's definitely on the way. Yeah, hopefully they can do that, you know, little like tiny small robots that can go around your body and be like cancer cell. And then you just get like a thing on your rot. Oh, really? I mean, that's kind of sort of happening. Yeah.

Like at least customized drug delivery. Like it's kind of a bit more modified for your, you know, your DNA, your body type, stuff like that. We're learning a lot. And the thing about healthcare is you solve one problem. Like when I was a kid, like all the men were dying in their 40s of heart attacks. Yeah. They were smoking too much. They were drinking too much. They were eating British food too much, you know. Yeah. And we figured out heart attacks, right? Doesn't really happen. So then people start dying of something else when they're 50. Yeah. And then we figured that out. And then, you know, you get, and now, so now it's like dementia type problems.

dementia is the big one right now. But, you know, there's a lot of interesting work happening. and there's a lot of money being thrown at that. I guess someone will figure it out. And then the other side of that there's, there's something else that people will 100 die of. Yeah. I just don't know at what point do you like, does it stop working that you can't fix the thing that people are like?

Yeah, I wonder what the new thing will be. I'll probably be one who finds out. Yeah. Call me in 30 years. Dang, man. So, okay, so we've figured out how you become a futurist. It's, uh, do you have any futurist like pals that you talk to that you kind of like, oh yeah, there's like there's a little bunch of us and we shoot the shit and we

we like, you know, like we post rationalize like you're giving those predictions. A lot of guys are completely wrong. I won't name names. But you know when you said that yeah, but what I meant was. Yeah, futurists. There's this thing over here that I found on Google that actually proved. So yeah, you know, I think I'm an honest futurist. Like if you, if you had said you predicted this, it didn't happen up and yeah, you're right. Oh yeah. It's hard. that up. Yeah. But like there are a lot of guys who, yeah, who won't ever admit that like they got it wrong.

Yeah. You get a lot of stuff wrong. Like now, if one of your futurist bros were to go like too far into the future, would you pull them back being like, bro, you can't go that? Like if there were like 700 years from now or would you be? Oh yeah, yeah. I think that's like, I mean, because you've got to think about, there's two things, right? If you think about 700 years ago.

Yeah. There was no way anybody could have described this, right? Yeah. And as population gets bigger, you get more ideas. And people have more leisure time as technology gets better to think about new things. So technology improvement accelerates, like, massively, right? Which is why we've gone from, like, I mean, the first, like, main TVs were like in the 50s, I think, was like the big U.S. television revolution. Yeah.

Like some shitty TV about, you know, this big. Yeah. And now you've got like 4K on your phone. Yeah. So, like, the idea of, like, looking more. than like 50 to 100 years ahead in any meaningful way. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, because like one thing leads to another and at some point, you know, it's just

gone in a direction you didn't see coming. Yeah, and that's what I like, I do like in terms, because you have a pretty optimistic outlook on terms of the future and technology. Oh, yeah, a lot of people, you know, especially with the sensors and this and that, feel like they're, they're slowly getting closed in by like a giant, you know, surveillance apparatus that's going to like lock them out in the room. People use good technology for bad things. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, generally, government's not always. And that happens. And, you know, you try and control it. But you, if you don't invent something because someone might do something bad with it, you know, you're never going to invent anything. Yeah. But the other thing is, like, it's safe to be an optimist because, like, I'm going to tell you right now, like, the world is not going to end in our lifetime. Yeah.

And if I'm wrong, hey, who's going to, who's going to know? True. You know, you can't really lose betting on that. Yeah. Well, no, I feel like it's a lot of, you get a lot of, I personally think it's really invoked to be very negative and very kind of doom and gloom with the history, especially with AI. Everyone I know is like freaking out about it.

And I honestly don't, I don't know. Again, it's like, yeah, it erases a bunch of jobs, you know, seemingly overnight. That's, it's going to be a problem. But I really feel like they'll figure it out. I don't know. I don't like. Yeah. Because it's like, especially if you like go back to like the fall of the Roman Empire.

Dude, if you were to ask any of those guys back then that have been like, it's done, we're done, everything's over. They would have never been able to conceive of the fact that it's like not only not over, but it's going to be a million times different and better. Oh, yeah. I mean, and bad things happen, the good things happen. AI is like a big, complicated topic, but like it's very close to the internet of things. So I've been like dealing with AI one way and another since the 90s. Yeah. So like I'm not like all doom and gloom or all like hype about it.

I'm kind of like in the middle. You know, the thing is, I think, and I'm not trying to raise a billion dollars right now, so, you know, it's easy for me. But like, it's just a more complicated toaster, right? Yeah. You know, like a toaster turns bread into toast. It doesn't know what toast is, right? It doesn't understand meaning. AI is the same.

AI is just like brain toast, right? You know, it's, it doesn't know what it's doing. It's just a machine. And, you know, like, there are things that only humans can do, right? And the thing that only humans can do, one of them is meaning. So if we like tell stories, we can only tell good stories. Computers can't, they can tell bad stories because they don't know what anything means. Yeah.

I mean, it's like in comedy, like the best comedy is the truest comedy. Yeah. People laugh most. They get the most emotional reaction from something that feels most true. And that's true in all storytelling, if it makes you scared or if it makes you excited or sad or whatever. But the more it makes you feel something, in comedy, it's laughter, the truer it is, generally. The more it means something. Miss jeans can't do that.

I can't do that. Yeah, that's kind of, that's been my feeling on it. And I've, I've like, it's useful for like editing. You can have an edit. You can have it flag errors. But like, I don't know. I feel the same way because it's like, I mean, I guess in terms of like producing a good story, maybe they could like draw from, you know, 100 of the best authors of all time, copy some sort

of like, you know, pattern to that. but I don't feel like I've tested rock before by being like, you know, here's a joke I'm thinking of. And it was complete nonsense on purpose. Oh, yeah. And it was like hilarious. You're chewing it. And I was like it's literally, you know, it's like the guys who run it.

They like, they like sycophants, you know. They're like, yeah, people suck up and they think you like that too. But like, I mean, I can't imagine you like asking AI to write you a bit. They can't. And then you're going on stage and being like, yeah, I can confidently deliver this. No, I can't do it. Because I was, I remember hearing like, oh, it's going to, you know, at first or whatever, not the first, but the last writer's strike, there's a big thing. Like, AI's coming. It's going to take. And I was like, how close is it actually for comedy

writing? It's so, so bad. It's horrible. Yeah. And crap, crap AI storytelling is like crap human storytelling. Yeah. You know, like, what's, why is a bad comedian bad? It's because they're saying something that doesn't really mean anything that doesn't really ring true. Yeah. Right. And like a, like, you see a crap. You know. You know, like, what's, why is a bad comedian. It's, crappy, like straight to video kind of movie. And it's kind of like a mashup of a bunch of cliches you've seen a million times before. Yeah.

Doesn't really have any kind of thematic thing. So I say, their comedy is truth-telling. Yeah. So I grew up, again, I'm old. I grew up on like Bill Hicks. Yeah. Eddie Isard. You can still, you know, you know that Bill Hicks?

Yeah. So you can go back and look at Bill Hicks like from like the 80s or 90s. He's still funny. Yeah. You know, maybe the president he's taken the piss out of has changed the name or something but basically it's it's still true right and so you know that's that's that's all storytelling whether it's comedy or anything else it's got to be real it's got to be true it's got to have meaning AI I don't think he's ever going to be at that point yeah where like you could say okay I'm

gonna have it tell me write me a joke and I'm just going to go say it and people are going to laugh yeah yeah I don't think you could do anything meaningful at least you know I don't think so I think you could crank out like children's cartoons like Paul patrol if you were to do like, you know, like a children's animated show, I've noticed as I've, I've watched a good amount with my kids, almost all those cartoons follow the exact same storyline where it's like, you know, an animal's loss, it needs its mom. And it's like you could, I think it could like crank out slop like that. But yeah, I just think it's good for like organizing. It's like a super spell check where it's like it can go flag errors, you know, but yeah, I'm not worried about it. I know so many

people like it's going to become sentient and like realize it doesn't like us and kill us and it's like people have stopped saying that since they started using it yeah like this like actually this is kind of crap exactly yeah sorry to interrupt the podcast guys but this episode is brought to you by prize picks shoot your shot on prize picks and get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5 that's right prize picks is now giving you $50 in lineups when you sign up and play your first $5 price picks makes every dunk, every dime, and every board that much more exciting. So don't miss this chance to get started on America's number one app for sports picks. Hmm.

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Download the Price Picks app today and use code Drenched to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code drenched to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Price Picks, it's good to be right. Hey, real quick, while I have you guys, I have some shows coming up and, well, we have some good news and bad news. the good, well, it depends on. For me, the good news is I'll be in Cleveland and Pittsburgh this weekend, March 6, Cleveland, March 7, Pittsburgh. And I'm not fron. I think both shows are going to sell out. So if you want to come, here's your CTA, your call to action. If you want to come to those shows and Clits, or, if you want to come to those shows, almost called it Clitzburg.

That's crazy. Cleveland, Ohio, or Pittsburgh, Fordian slip. Yeah, just come. You can get my tickets. I think there's a link in this video to get them. Pretty sick. And also after that, I'll be in St. Louis, Missouri, Indianapolis, St. Paul, Missouri, I guess. M.O., Missouri, Des Moines, Iowa. Phoenix. Here's the big one, guys. All of them are selling pretty well.

God damn, that Phoenix Celebrity Theater is, it's not until April 17th. So we have some time, but that shows in the round and I actually enjoy performing in the round. So if you want to see my butt for like good 10 second stretches while I do my thing and, you know, I'll turn around. I'll show you my bulge at the Celebrity Theater as well. It'll be butt and bulge all night at the Celebrity Theater. Just an angry little micro bulge. I'll wear some joggers that night. So everyone gets their money's worth.

They can all go, ha, ha, ha, look at that. It's barely sticking out. Guys, I'll be in Tucson, Arizona. Toronto's a big one. Two shows, again, not bragging, nature of the beast. two shows both have sold out in Toronto. I'm thinking about adding a third. So Canadians, I know I've said a lot of bad things about your country.

I was just fucking kidding around. I love you guys. You guys love me more than all these bastards in fucking Phoenix, Arizona, apparently. So come on out to the shows. And then Chicago, of course, I'll be at the Riviera Theater. Probably going to add a second show there, hopefully, because that thing, done, sold out May 26. So whatever.

Hopefully that makes sense to you guys. Go to Matt McCusker. com and yeah come to a show man we're having a good time also i'll be doing algonauts in austin texas that's once a month i do that where me and tim butterly take people's cell phones project their algorithm through instagram usually on the screen and you know try to get a picture of like who is this person what are they what is the algorithm being sent in them or what is being sent to them through the algorithm what does that say about them what doesn't it say about them because you can't just judge someone on their algorithm or maybe you can i don't know come out to

that that's at the creek and cave uh so if you go to creek and cave at xx You can get that. And last and I don't remember the saying. Last and cool enough, guys, I'm tired. Last and most importantly, Noble Bomb, I'll be in Philadelphia, March 16th. I'm just visiting family figured I'd strut my stuff on the old flagship stage. That is helium, Philadelphia. I'm going to get some of my friends.

And we're all going to try newish materials, stuff are working on. It'll be fun. Come out. It'll be St. Paddy's Day weekend. You can get drunk if that's what you feel you must do. And if you're trying really hard not to be drunk well, try to hold out. Come to the show. Be sober. You know, be fun. Learn how to be fun while sober or get fucking hammered on St. Paddy's Day. It's really up to you. All of these, I'm laying out choices. That's all I'm doing. I'm not trying to coerce you. I'm not trying to manipulate you. I'm just giving you choices. Do whatever you want. Love you guys. Back to the show. Pardon the interruption. Pardon the interruption. This is Sean Gardini. I just wanted to let you guys know that I'll be in Salt Lake City, Utah at Wise Guys Comedy Club March 27th and 28th with Nate Marshall. So please come see that show if you'd like. And I'll be at the Comet in Cincinnati, not Comet ping pong, just the Comet in Cincinnati on May 22nd and 23rd. So please come to those, that was a little joke there, but I'd like, I'd really like to see you guys at the show. So please come if you can.

Tickets are at shongardini.com. And we also have optimum noctus at the creek in the cave in Austin, Texas, me, Nate Marshall and Lamerly, every first and third Tuesday of the month. So thank you very much for your time. Pardon the interruption. Enjoy the rest of the show. But, but yeah, the other, and the other thing, too, is like, I saw you talking about, God, what was it mozart that fake letter oh yeah yeah where like all of his songs would come to him like in this yeah he'd be in a great mood and they would just start to finish they would come and all he had to do

was kind of write them out yeah and how that was everyone believed that was like oh for sure but it's it's literally fake guy worked his ass off probably like you do like just yeah i mean maybe once in a while you're stuck at a red light and you like get the seed of an idea that's quite a good idea sure i don't know you but i'm guessing like most of the comedy you write you're like sitting there like thinking about it and like making a little bit better and a little bit better again and getting pissed off with it and throwing it away. And, you know, that's, that's how great creators create. They just work.

Yeah. There's talent and all that stuff. It's not like anybody could be Mozart. Sure. But even Mozart had to be like writing things down, crossing them out. You have to play something, listen to it. Oh, that's good. That's not good.

That's how everybody does it. Yeah. That's kind of a, you know, what you come to discover. It's like, it really is like, you know, if you want to do. something cool in any capacity usually it's just like you have to trade your time like you have to trade tons of time and just deal with stuff that like sucks yeah so bad and just keep plotting through yeah whereas i do think there's yeah there's a thought where it's like i can just link into the i i feed it prompts and it's like i don't i don't think it's going to produce that's why it sucks to be like

on a deadline or in a hurry yeah because you kind of need luxury to be like yeah i've spent a week on this but it sucks and i don't want to but i'm going to have to start over yeah you know know. And so if you if you don't have that luxury, you've got to go with the thing that sucks, right? Yeah. True that. So about the book, we got the story of stories. Where'd you, when did you kind of like, you know, because you were talking about things, what made you, what prompted you to switch to thinking about stories? Oh, well, it's like, I was, so we talked about smartphones. And like this year, about 90% of the people in the world, in the world, own a smartphone.

Okay. And that's like 15% of those people are like us in advanced economies. We maybe had computers before that, TVs and telephones and all that stuff. But the other like 75% of people, they never had any of that stuff. So you've gone from like not owning a telephone, you know, watching a TV that 10 other families watch on the corner of the street to having a smartphone in your pocket. So the beginning of the story of stories was like, well, what does that mean? Like, how does that change things? And, you know, the way it changes things is this is the first time in human history

when anybody can tell stories to anybody, right? If you have a good story, like, you can put it on the internet, on Facebook or whatever, and if people start sharing it, like, very quickly, like, it can kind of go all the way around the world. That's never been true. Like, you know, storytelling started about a million years ago because we invented fire. Yeah. So we invented fire and at about the similar time, alcohol, drugs and cooking. So you're sitting around a fire.

What else is there to do after you've eaten some food, gotten drunk, gotten high? Right? You start shooting the shit. So that's how language happened, right? Language didn't give us stories. Stories gave us language. So you know, you're a million years ago. Like your long way human ancestors and you only know how to like, you know, say, oh, there's a pioneer

over there or let's have sex, right? You've got a few kind of barky sound. But gradually, you've got to use sound because you can't see because it's firelight. So gradually over a long period of time, you know, you evolve to get good at talking. Yeah. About tomorrow or something you remember or like where the stars maybe came from or whatever, right? So storytelling is what made us human, right?

And at that time, like, it was like you could talk to like five guys, you know, that you're buddies around the fire, right? But then you get like maybe drawing, like you can draw on the wall of a cave or something. People can see it like even after you die. Then you get stuff like singing. So it makes it really easy to remember a story. And then of course, you know, writing, printing all the way through to like smartphones and AI. It's stories all the way down, right? So the minute I was like, what the fuck does it mean that everyone's got a smartphone? You know, I kind of went backwards, I guess down the rabbit hole and ended up with, well, it's all stories. You know, the way to tell the story of what's happening now,

that one's arguing about whether this is true or that is true or this conspiracy theory or whatever, that's really being enabled by smart phones, right? It's all storytelling. Storytelling is deep in our brains because it evolved with us. So that's where the story of stories came from. I mean, this is like, I'm kind of a slow thinker. I have to read fucking everything and it takes ages for it to like, you know, settle in and like makes sense and I chase squirrels, I got a rabbit hole, so I like up in the morning,

like, how did I get here? But the point was like, what does it mean about the smartphones, basically? Yeah. And then one thing leads to another, you end up with the story of stories because that's the only way I figured out how to answer the question. So what did you, what in terms of like a prescriptive, I guess, or if you have one, what do you think the answer to that question is in terms of like where it'll go or like how do you handle yourself in a world where like you have a million people telling you

a million stories and especially with like the deep fake stuff and you know it's coming down the pipe I mean I think there's a couple I I I can't really do prescriptions like I but what I what I think is we got to understand that stories are really integral to how we think about the world like some people think of stories they're like oh I read a book I saw a movie yeah but yeah stand-up comedy is storytelling right this conversation is storytelling right most of what we do is storytelling one way or another yeah the thing I'm sorry to go the thing from the book that really you know I I think as cool is the kind of the idea of like, you know, how you're majority, oh, I guess maybe the whole entire thing of your identity is literally just you telling stories or continuing stories,

like the person you are. And to be, and it's like, you know, you're saying too, like how you're all yourselves basically die. Yeah. Except for your eyeballs and like the just a little bit of the lizard part of your brain. Yeah. Like a couple of little. That's crazy.

That's the only thing over your whole lifetime that lives the entire, the cells don't die. Just you have your original eyeballs and your little like lizard stem of your brain. Yeah. Everything else dies comes back. Again and again. It's all made of food. So, and I do get that because there's like, okay, that's fair. So like your physical form is actually kind of coming and going.

And the thing that's actually sustained is a story you're telling yourself. The only caveat is that there is a form, like a shape to your physical cells and stuff. That's the one thing that does. Well, actually, no, it doesn't because then you grow and you. I mean, you went blown looking like this, man. Actually, I came out. Exactly. came out 192 pounds like no that's fair that's yeah okay yeah so and then you can also alter

your form so yeah I'm wrong so that is kind of cool to think of like I was like reading it last night kind of bug first of all bugging out about people's telling stories a million years ago over fire which is just like like like oh just like groaning noises to each other and uh how that becomes basically you know that's that's evolved into where like literally that's how you experience yourself as who you are through stories. And the thing that I really like, too, is like stories being vehicles of like shame and glory delivery systems where it's like you tell it. It happens all the time. The news is like the number one thing where it's like it's a giant shame, mostly a shame apparatus where it's like this person, piece of shit, they suck. And it's, you know, and you're listening,

you're like, yeah, I hate that guy too. There's no gray, right? It's like, you're a hero or you're a villain. That's that's, that's the story shaped brain. Yeah. So you got to understand. Like, that's, That's not how the world actually is. Everybody's kind of like a bit good and a bit bad. And some people are really quite bad and some people are really quite good. But we think in terms of heroes and villains just because all that stuff around the fireside, right? You know, because we're shooting the shit around the fireside getting high. Well, we're the heroes.

Those guys over there, they're the villains. That's just how the brain works. So, like, understanding that is one thing. Like, your understanding of the world is like 99.9% based on stories that you have heard. Yeah. And most of those stories were based on stories that the person who told you the story had heard and so on. Very little what we know we know through our eyes and ears and so on, right? Yeah. We told it. That's unique about humans. So you've got to be really, I think, just like you might think about the food that you eat, right? You kind of got to be a little bit picky about what stories you expose yourself to. Yeah. But also then like don't just take them at face value, you know, especially if it's something you want to believe. Yeah. Like if someone tells you're here. as a hero, that might be the best time to be like, well, I'm going to think about that a little bit harder because there may be another angle here, you know? And this is a challenge, like, because the story of stories kind of, the first wave of it is this one person can tell stories

to five people to now everybody can tell stories to everybody, right? That's kind of, we're at the end of that first wave. But what we're seeing now is like, is this story real? Right. Because throughout human history, like, you know, you look at this painting, like, we know that's a painting. We know that's not actually a naked woman sitting right there. But as we move into this world of like ever increasing screen revolution, so it looks more and more three-dimensional, ever better AI, deep fake technology, we're going to reach a point sometime soon when you actually can't tell. Yeah. Are you looking out of a window kind of thing or are you being told a story? Like how real is it? How fake is it? And that critical thinking that we already need to be like, is someone bullshitting me right now?

It's got to get a lot sharper. Yeah, that's going to be real. I was like thinking about that, especially with the Epstein files, because I think that is going to follow, whatever the next election, like the, you know, presidential election, I think that's going to be weaponized

to try to like take the either, you know, people trying to take their opponents down with that, which is like, okay, fair enough. But then it's like, we'll be in a place now where you're going to be accused of horrible stuff as a politician. There could be a video and you'd be like, that's a deep fake. You see that already, right? Yeah.

You know, I mean, there was not the longer, like, I think Syria was accused of gassing its population or something. And, like, there was video. It's like, oh, yeah, that's all AI, you know. Yeah. That's, that's a, it's bullshit. But it's common. And, you know, I mean, obviously people in Epstein, I mean, you know, raping kids is bad. Those people suck.

They should all go to jail. I'm totally for that. But, yeah, I mean, just on the story of story side of it, the Epstein files exist because of email. Yeah. And there's so much, like, like, you know, this like, police, police brutality stuff. we hear about now? Like, that's not new, but you get to see video of it. Like, right now, there's like 10 smartphones pointing at it, and they're all on the internet, like, immediately. Yeah. So there's good and bad with this new technology. We're getting this paper trail.

Like, are the Epstein emails fake? We kind of know they're not, right? Because they just, they look real, right? And there's so many of them. So, but at some point, yeah, you're going to be showing a cell phone video. What happens now. Like, look, what this, you know, this person did. It's going to be BS. Yeah, so I saw a video of a. bombing recently where like literally the cars just like flew up in the air and I was like damn it was in like the Middle East and it's like 10 people like this is AI not true and it's like fuck it's kind of weird you could generally find some expert online now though like who can explain that can get it this is or isn't real yeah I think I know um yeah I think Netflix has a

thing where they they actually screen if you give them something they'll run it through a filter to determine how much AI is in it and if there's too much AI they're like we can't use this I was watching a video yesterday. It was like some guy who was like cheating at like speed running. You know, like when you- The video game. Yeah, yeah. So like they video themselves, but like they'd analyze like the mouse movement and they realized

like the mouse hand was like kind of superimposed and it wasn't really there. Really? Yeah. So I mean, that stuff's already happening. This is a scandal. Why doesn't nobody hearing about this? Oh, I mean, YouTube man. Tells you everything you need to know.

But there's, again, good and bad, right? You can use this technology for like cheating. Mm-hmm. But there's another guy who can use the technology to tell that you're you think. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And that's what I wonder too, because again, with the, you know, if we go into a realm of just like political deep fakes, you don't know what's real, what's not. It's like literally genuinely impossible to tell. I wonder if, you know, because there is like a desire for like the truth, like especially with the Epstein stuff or whatever's going on.

Like I want to know exactly what happened. But then it's like, I wonder if people want that kind of access to the truth. If there's going to be some tradeoff where it's like, all right, We're all going to divulge everything about each other. Like, you know, live, we're all on camera 24-7. That way we have, like, we have the truth if we need it. I think everyone would be like, I'm all right on that. Instagram filters are there for a reason, right? Face tune and all that.

Nobody wants. They want to make you think that's what's real. But, yeah, there's, I mean, there's never any proof of anything, right? There's only evidence. Yeah. And we have to be, you know, we already are because our brains are built this way, but we have to be smart and awake about, is this evidence real? Does this evidence add up to the story someone's trying to tell me?

Why are they trying to tell me this story? Because of the other thing, like, if anybody's ever telling you a story, even like in conversation, like they've got an agenda. It's not like neutral or objective. They're like, they want to get a second date or they want to make you laugh or they want to impress you or they don't want you to find out what you did, what they did or something, right? Yeah. Always.

That's not a bad thing. That's just the way of the world. So you've got to be kind of on to like, is this bullshit? Yeah. And that's, no, for sure. And it's hard, you know, that's kind of a hard thing to do. Because I feel like a huge part of that is like taking yourself out of the equation as much as possible. It's usually like what version of this makes me look the best.

And it's like, well said. Yeah, that's, I think that's what happened. You know, it's hard to like be aware enough to not do that. But even with like the, again, with the Epstein stuff, it's like, like you said, obviously child rapists are horrible. Horrible, horrible thing should be punished, you know, beyond even. whatever they get. But then the thing I've saw is like it becomes very almost, I don't know if trendies the word to be like to ramp it up to the point where it's like we're now controlled. People are like, I'm sure of this by pedophiles entirely who are like eating kids and it's like

and again, if there's proof of that, it's like obviously punish that person. But the thing I worry about is like you do get a charge. Like whenever you talk about something like somebody, being bad makes you feel good in some way. We're like, that guy's a piece of shit. And, you know, it's like how much of it is like, you know, like if they're fucking cannibalistic pedophiles, obviously fucking punish them. But it's like, A, what if that's not as true as you think? And like, what is that weird ego charge you're getting being like these fucking pieces

and blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, they're in control of the entire world. It's like maybe. Heroes and villains again. Yeah, yeah. That's the one kind of thing that I get a little hiff in it. But it's sucks. It's like, what are you sticking off?

It's like, no, not at all. Like, again, if you catch somebody doing that, like, do whatever you have to do. But it's like when you, there's like a, there's this thing where you ruminate on it endlessly where you're like, what are you getting out of that? Or it's like, it's kind of sick on both. Honestly, I think it's storytelling again. Like, because like, you know, you've got the Pizza Gate thing, like it's blood sucking, Hillary Clinton or whatever that was about.

Like, that's a story. That's like a movie. Like, good conspiracy theories are kind of like good movies, right? Or the other way around, right? Real life, even with these heinous crimes, The other thing about the Epstein files is kind of how tacky it is. You know, these people are like cheesy. They're kind of cringy.

It's not like an action movie or, yes. It's like, you know, what they're doing is horrible. And but also like they're just like having these tacky kind of email exchanges. Really? Yeah, that's the one thing too, how dorky it was. Oh, I'm addicted to J.E. I like, you know, I miss my. Hey, that guy stood right there.

Really? Seriously? Oh, shit. Sorry. Sorry, that guy. But like, what the fuck? I've been making fun of J.E. withdrawals as soon as I heard it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Have you looked in the Epstein files for yourself? I have not, no. Oh, I have. I'm not in there. I never knew the guy or anything. But like, he was hanging around MIT when I was. Oh, you know, there's plenty of people like, they'd ever met him. But like, he loves. Oh, yeah, there's a list of like, you know, names or people presenting at something. But yeah, I was very pleased. I don't think I was on his radar. Thank God. That was the other thing for the guys. So again, there's pro. Comedians came out probably well. They did. Thank you.

But yeah, that's the, yeah, that's the one thing where it's like, you're totally right. We're, you know, it's like we have to recognizing how deeply stories kind of alter your reality. Yeah. It's like one thing to be like, let me sit back. Let me take a breath. Especially I know myself as I have my own biases. Like, if I read a thing and I'm starting to get pissed, I have to like train myself to be like relax. Or I'll feel myself.

I'll be reading an article and I'm like, this better not be fucking true. And I'll start like trying to right away pick it apart automatically. That's emotion, right? That's emotion and truth. That's that thing. It's like, oh, I'm feeling something here. Yep. That's really good to notice.

But it's hard not to be like, fuck, yeah. That's possibly what. Yeah, I'm going to fucking share this. I'm going to comment. I'm not actually going to like read the article because I just saw the headline. Yeah. Yeah. And that's my thing too, though, with on the flip side of the conspiracy stuff, it's like,

you have some people to be like if something even sounds outlandish, they go, well, this is a crazy. It's like it could be true too. I don't know. I don't know either way. Could totally. That only thing about the island of pedophiles was out 10 years ago and everyone was like, you're out of your fucking mind. And it was true. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, you know, that that's the one thing where I try to just like stay as neutral as possible where I'm not like, you know, hoping it's true or hoping it's not or it's like maybe it is maybe like like like you know, and you mentioned COVID in the book. That was the that was a great example of like, you know, because again, like I my family was just kind of like whatever. We'll just like, we'll just

live life as we see fit and it seemed fine. And then you'd hear people like their half, their family would die. And it was like, it was crazy. You know, it's kind of nuts. Yeah. And that's the thing about stories that like really serious. It's like it changes how we behave. Like, you know, if you believe the Loch Ness monster is real, like it doesn't really

matter. You know, it's not. There's not a dinosaur in a Scottish lake. But like, you're not hurting anybody by leaving it. You're not hurting yourself by believing it. But the minute you're like, you know, I don't know, Jewish people are like, pitiful, sucking blood, I'm going to, like, you know, go, go yell at a mosque or, like, I'm not going to take the COVID vaccine.

You just did Josh's Instagram. Oh, right. It was just that, like, words. Yeah, I know. And that's the, if you hurt yourself or somebody else, that's a bad story. Yeah. And especially, yeah, exactly. And especially, again, it's like just the awareness of being like, what of the odds that, like,

you know, I am the one who's like the good one. I'm the good guy and everyone else is the bad guy. Yeah. You know, and it's like, again, it's such a case-by-case basis where it's like, I could confidently look at Jeffrey Epstein and you go, yeah, I'm good compared to that guy, you know, but it's like when you start like grouping in thousands and hundreds of thousands of people and being like, I know what they're all about, you know, it gets kind of done. This is the identity being the story you tell yourself, right? Yeah.

The fact that Jepsy, Jeffrey Epstein is this heinous paedophile. Yeah. And God knows what else. Like, you know, bribing black men and whatever the hell he was doing. That doesn't change who you are. like one inch. Yeah. You're not a better person because he was an asshole. Just like you're not, you're more of an asshole because like there's some other dude who's like, you know, that's a depressingly low bar. I'll tell you what I don't do. I don't, you know, roast kids and eat them and, you know,

yeah, that's that is kind of a sad thing to get a charge on. We're like, what a piece of shit. Any story where like you're the hero, someone else is the villain. I mean, it always makes me laugh. Like, you know, you're an Eagles fan, right? You're a football game. Like, the ref makes a call. And if it's for your team, the ref is awesome. Like, the first time I watched a football game, like, I'd only just come to the US.

I didn't understand football very well. But I was like in a bar, it was a snowball game. Like, it was Patriots versus Oakland. And like Brady had like, what, looked like a fumble. Yeah. And they said, oh, now his hand was. It was a tuck rule game. And then, you know, Patriots.

Trits went on to win the Super Bowl for the first time ever. And like Boston, like, yeah, that's, that was great refereeing right there. That was exactly the rest of the world, like, fuck that, you know. But you know, damn, well, if that'd been the Eagles quarterback, if that been Donovan McNabb. Yeah. That would have been a great call. Exactly. If you have a little, I know, it's totally true.

You'd be like, no, actually, yeah, that's totally fair. It's heroes and villains every time. Yeah. Especially the big thing, too, is like, you know, in a marriage. It's like I can easily spin a yarn in my head where my wife is completely out to ruin my entire life, hates me, is genuinely evil. And then literally 10 minutes go by and I was like, I was being kind of a dick. I should apologize. I needed a sandwich.

It's also like post breakup, right? Like your friends are like, oh, she was. Yeah, you know. And her friends, like, he was an ass. And it's like, you know. Anytime you're the hero, everyone else is the villain and you're really sure about that, that's probably when the alarm bill. else need to ring. Yes, that'll be an interesting, you know, I'll be curious to see how people, you know,

what they do internally to kind of navigate the landscape. Because I do feel like people are starting to catch on and like relax and not get as triggers. Even like 10 years ago, people, you know, we were like hitting each other with trash can lids in the streets. And like it was people were pretty inflamed about like political storytelling and, you know, who's a good guys and bad guys on that side. I like to think a lot of the younger people I talk to, like, you know, early 20.

almost take like an ironic kind of stance towards a lot of the political like getting heated in generally. I don't know if you ever. There's a there's a there's a there's a like a Instagram video genre called rage bait where just like young 20 year olds will walk up to a you know about like 56 year old guy. I'm like what's up pussy? And it's like and they're filming it with mediglasses and this guy is like yeah I have to fight you now and they're almost just making fun of this whole idea that like anyone can be triggered by words to like react that poorly. That's especially a thing in the South. There's like science on this.

Like I forget what they call it, but like, Southern guys are raised. Like if anybody like looks at you funny. Yeah. That's like that's fighting talk, right? Whereas in like other parts of the US, it's like, I don't give a shit quite so much. So some of that again is the stories you get told about who you're supposed to be. Yeah. Even on the East Coast, I remember like, you know, people, I remember I was in Tulsa recently.

And, you know, I'm at, I'm at the bar and we're hanging out after. the show and there was this kid who had come to the show and he's you know he's just hammered he's talking to me. And then there's just like this black dude sitting at the bar and he reached over grabbed the dude's head and went ah and shook his head and I was just like this guy's gonna fucking punch you in the face because it's like you know if I were to do that to just like a random black dude in Philly they would I 100% I think 99.9.9 they would fight me like it's literally like you just can't do that and this I was like and I like he's so and I like he's so and I like he's sort of almost like interceding on his behalf.

Like he's hand and the guy was like, oh, he's just having fun, man. And I was like, and you know, it's not even if it was a light guy. It's a similar thing. But it's kind of like, how are you not fighting right? I couldn't understand it. I was like, I would assume you'd be fighting. But there, I mean, there are chill people in Philly too. There are, but it's not that many.

You know what I mean? That if that had been a bar that someone grabbed someone's head and shook it violently like that in Philadelphia. And again, just regardless of race, it would have been, I would have said a 80% chance of some sort of. least verbal, it would be a 100% chance of verbal altercation where it's like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah, my money. And that age group too. Oh, yeah. Talking like 50, 60, maybe 20 years was probably a fighter. Like he probably could have like killed the guy. He just was like,

he's having a good time, man. I tell you, if you're in a situation where it gets confrontational and there's one guy who's like really chill. Yeah. Yeah, true. He's like the MMA guy. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I'm not trying to be racist obviously. And black people will fight you if you touch it. Well, actually, no, that's kind of true, though. If you touch their heads, they spas. So stand by the statement. It doesn't sound good. I do that too.

I don't, because people touch my face. I don't like that at all. I'm from London. Like, yeah, fuck off. Yeah, you can't, yeah, you can't touch my head. But that was, that is, yeah, I don't know. That was just something that I remember that made me laugh. Because I remember I, like, interceded on a level where the guy was like,

don't worry about it. Relax, man. Like, you don't need to do all this. And I was like, all right, well, maybe your set had made that guy so chill. I don't think that guy wasn't at the show. I don't think he was just a chill he might have been the chillest guy but I think it is just like

and I was asking people from there and they were like yeah man like you know we just we fuck around it's not no one's that wound up around here in Tulsa like to that extent and I was like well that's a lot different I'm not used to that so

but yeah man so what else are you just you got the book when's the book coming out Tuesday? Tuesday yeah big day okay so we'll hold this we'll have this come out maybe day of dude we'll say

appreciate it'll be nice and uh What do you guys? So what's on the horizon now, man? So, you know, you kind of, what are you looking to do? Because I, you know, I had you pegged as like a complete technologist, you know, technologist kind of in terms of like not some. I thought you were like a diehard computer guy. And you're more of just like a curious kind of where will things go guy. Yeah. So where do you think yourself, could you predict where yourself, where you're going to go? I hope not. What's your plan? Every few years, like I'm amazed at like what's going on. And I kind of like that. But like, like, I'm working on.

a new book. Nice. You know, I'm promoting this book. I've got into calisthenics and there we go, you know, do my planch and all that stuff. Bloody hard. So yeah, that's me. I'm like, you know, trying to get my kids to pay me attention now that they're in the 20s. What's that like? I have a three and a five year old. Oh, yeah. I can't even imagine them. Yeah, they can't either. Like I said to my daughter when she was 12, you know, when you turn 13, you want to hang out with me anymore. She said, no, daddy. I'll never be like that. And like, yeah, you get a text once in while. which is great. It means they're independent. They're doing their own thing. True. True.

I mean, they're very impressed that like I'm coming on here. Yeah. Like two of my three kids. Really? Two of my three. I said, I've been invited on this thing. I don't know what it is. I'm like, oh, my God. Two of my three kids have met Shane. Nice. One of them has a picture. The one from Philly. She sent me a picture. Hell yeah. So I'm like, oh, okay. You know, so my kids will be in touch with me about this. So thank you. Nice. That's all. For once they're impressed. Oh, they're going to call. Yeah. The book coming out. It doesn't matter. But, oh. you know. Oh, yeah. You met Matt?

Oh, my God. That's so cool. That's awesome. Thank you. Well, dude, thank you for coming. The book's called The Story of Stories. Kevin Ashen,

appreciate you. Thanks for having me. All right. I'm not to piss my pants. Jack, too much water this morning. Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's secret podcast on Spotify. Do it.