The Biggest Problem in the Universe: Uncucked - Episode 25

Episode Date: May 3, 2018

Welcome to the biggest problem in the universe. I'm Maddox. With me is Dick Masterson. Hey, what's up, buddy? How's it going? And as always, Sean, our audio engineer. Sean is back from farming ass. Welcome back, Sean.

How was ass farming in China? It wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Oh, God. All right, that's enough. Quit while you're ahead. Who won? Well, before we get this, I gotta get this out of the way, Dick.

What? I love, I love praising. ourselves. And here is a great little bit of news. We are at 979,417 downloads as of this episode, as of this recording. By this time next week, our next episode, we will be at 1 million downloads. So that's just kind of a tease. We're going to do something special. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty amazing because we just launched in May. One million. Yeah, one million. We're only, what, five and a half months old? Yeah. Not even enough time to have a baby. And we've hit a million. That's what we do.

When Dick and I make a baby, it comes out premature. All right. It's getting weird. Who won? Okay. Which alarm is, Dick? Yeah. Oh.

Like a glow. Like a big baby. Oh, man. Yeah. Oh, man. I want to stress that I don't care about the voting. But fuck you, man. Yes.

Sure. I don't know. Did you see the problems, the all-time list? Not lately. Why? I need to call. shenanigans on the overall voting, which alarmism did not beat Ebola alarmism. Ebola alarmists are at 1546, which alarmists are at 1240. If you go to the website, you can

click on all problems at the top and see the entire list in order. So that's horseshit because which alarmist is still a bigger problem than Ebola alarmists. This week, someone died as a result of which alarmism. Did you see that? I saw the headline. Yeah, I got a bunch of of a bunch of emails about it. Some kid killed another kid with like a sword or a machete because he thought that the other kid was practicing

witchcraft. Right. So has anyone been hacked to death because they're wearing an Ebola face mask around airports? No. You know, Dick, an equal number of people in the U.S. have died now from Ebola and witchcraft. Witch alarmism. So there you go.

No, no, no, no. What about the witch trials? That was all witch alarmist? The Salem Witch Trials. Like a handful of people and people are still like, oh my gosh, the witch trials. I actually have no idea how many witches died in that. Oh, I got to mention this.

I just watched, you know, I'm like on this Halloween kick watching a whole bunch of like Halloween shows. I watched a movie yesterday. It's a Spanish movie called Witching and bitching. It's so fucking cool. The thumbnail of it is what sold me on this movie and it has this guy dressed up as Jesus holding a shotgun out the side of a window.

And it's like, yeah, it's like this bank heist movie that ends in like the coolest witch ritual. They're just attacking witches the entire time And it's like really intense And the bad guy at the end of the movie I won't spoil it is really really fucking cool It's this awesome looking monster Can you kind of spoil it?

Because there's no fucking way I'm going to watch one of these movies That you love. You love like dog shit movies You do. No this was actually pretty well done It's a Spanish movie and the end of monster It's like this really cool looking creature Where you know how you saw Lord Voldemart

And you're like oh that's disappointing It looks gross because they fucked with his nose, so it was distracting the entire time. Yeah, no, this is a really cool monster. You should check it out. All right, we got to get to the comments here. I got one from, speaking of Ebola alarmism, I got one from Rauno Kingus.

He says, I'd love to tell you guys a joke about Ebola, but you probably wouldn't get it. I saw that one. That's funny. That's a good joke. Yeah. I got about 30 emails telling me that Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey has been recalled.

in Finland, Sweden, and Norway, because it has an excessive level of propylene glycol. Yeah, I could it. Which is what they have, an antifreeze, Maddox. Sure. Did you know that? Oh, I do now, because everyone wouldn't shut the fuck up about it as soon as this article came out.

Seriously, when you go to my Facebook wall, and you're going to post this link, don't you see the other 30 people who've done it? You dicks? I get it. I've seen the article. I've seen it. You don't even have to send it to me

because I'm always aware of everything. So keep sending that link. Keep going to Maddox's page and post it. posting that fucking link. Try to trick him into clicking on it. Like, say, hey, here's an article somebody in Finland wrote about you. So Maddox clicks on the link. It's in Swedish or whatever.

It loads up. And then he's got to translate it with the little toolbar and see that it's another article about Fireball Cine of Whiskey. Thanks, Dick. Yeah. And, you know, it's such horrid shit, too. Because it's just a temporary recall because it didn't meet the European standards. In the U.S. it's fine.

There's propylene, glycol, and everything. It's not a big fucking deal. And besides, guess what? I'm going to drink Fireball. and I'm going to be invincible because I can't freeze. And Dick over here bought some fireball on Halloween. What's up with that, Dick? Look, there's one main difference between me and you, I think.

Okay. You have principles and I have none. If I say fireball, cinnamon whiskey is a big problem. I might immediately walk to the store and buy some because I don't care. There was chicks with us. I was trying to get chicks drunk. I failed. I ended up getting way too drunk and throwing my costume in the middle of the street

outside of the Red Rock bar. Yeah. Did you, do you remember that? No, but I did notice at some point you were just in your panties all night. Please, please. I call them manties. They're not panties. Yeah.

And I blame the fireball for it. Yeah. I should have just got some pop-off or something. Yeah. Well, speaking of- Chicks will drink it, though. Strange chicks will drink from a bottle of fireball that I noticed. Did you see me handing that out all night?

No, because someone poured me some and spilled it all over my fucking hand, so I had sticky hands all night. Did I do that? Yeah. Yeah, you in collusion with someone else. Oh, I remember that now. Hiss me off. I dumped it all over your hand on purpose, though. Oh.

The worst. All right. I love that gag. Great, good, good gag. I got a comment from Keel Joplin. So last episode I posted a picture of me from AnimeCon in my, uh, really interpretive Teckaman costume, which everyone called horseshit. But this guy says, oh my God, I'm one of the nerds in that third picture of you dressing

up as Teckerman. I'm the one in white behind the guy shooting daggers at Maddox. And I looked it up and this kid is actually in the picture. Oh, that's funny. One of the listeners that I, from this picture I took like two or three years ago. It's insane. So that's kind of cool. That's kind of a cool coincidence. I got, let's see, let me play this voicemail for you.

This is interesting. Do you remember making this call? Because it seems to be from your past self. I don't know if... Hey, this is Maddox from the year 2004. I have a question from my future itself. When did I become such a pussy? I don't care who wins and who loses guys.

It's not a competition. Don't make fun of me. God damn it. When did my grapefruit size balls fall off? If this is my future, I might as well eat a tub of beans and kill myself now. Face for nothing, asshole. I'm gonna go back to time. Is that you? Yeah, it is me. I'm gonna go back in time, kick my own ass.

Did he say eat a tub of beans? Yeah, that's a reference to one of my articles, how to kill yourself like a man. So confused there for a minute. Yeah, yeah, no. See, it is him. It sounded, that sounded like him, and that's something you would say. That's me. That's definitely me back in the past. I'm going to kick my own fucking ass. Because here's a thing, you little shit. Which alarmist, one, okay, at the end of the last episode, as soon as we stopped recording, I told Dick and Roger,

I'm like, you guys are problems going to win, because the system works. Not enough razor blades in candy shouldn't be high on the list of problems. That means the system's working. Like, Spider Woman's ass is one of the most downvoted problems on our list because it's not a problem. The system works. So you're taking credit for proving that the system works? Yeah. God, you're such a martyr.

Speaking of Roger, I got one comment from Aaron Eastler. Don't bring this smug asshole back on the show. I mean, Aaron, as far as smug assholes, go, man, Maddox, you are the king of smug assholes. I think I redefine smug asshole in a lot of ways. Roger is about the least smug asshole I've ever met. I don't know. He's got his... He does it in his own. Here we go. I can make a case. He does it in his own way.

Like, did you notice, like, the things, like, he cannot, he cannot even comprehend the possibility that anyone wouldn't like Halloween. He said, like, to quote him, too, is like, I just don't get it. I don't understand how anyone couldn't like it. It's a wonderful holiday. Look, Roger, like, not everyone has your, holds your opinion. And he wouldn't drink the hot sauce. I don't know if that makes him smogger, just a big old pussy. But I got a comment here.

I got a comment here from Borgar Dahl. He says, Dick, there are no polar bears in Oslo, you fucking idiot. I mean, yeah, you got me. I don't know. Did you know what I was trying to say? Somewhere where it's cold, where there might be fucking polar bears? Where are there polar bears? Antarctica? I guess. Is there a city in the...

No, no, no, no. No. Oh, thank God! This is where we missed you in the last episode. If there's anybody that'll know where polar bears are, Sean. No, the polar bears are in the north. They're in Alaska and in the Arctic Circle, but they are not in Antarctica at all. Only penguins. That's the two never meet. Reckiavic, are there any polar bears there? I don't know. Moscow? Polar bears? Not sure. Maybe I think I'm a lot smarter than I am.

Okay, so speaking of Dick, talking to your past self, I have a new segment I want to bring in here. Oh, great. Yeah, let's play this little segment. Here we go. Dick versus Dick. So I got a listener point out an interesting comment in one of the past episodes. This is what you said.

I believe this was your problem, the Facebook satire tag. Here's what you said about that. Basically in the world, dumbness wins. Everything is dumb down. and people who don't like things being dumb get screwed over. That's true. Yeah, that's true. That is true.

I agreed with you when you said that. Is that how I sound really? Yeah, pretty much. That's how I sounded chicks when I'm plowing them and saying nasty things in their ears. That's disturbing. Yeah, you're probably saying that exact same line. How do they get off on that? So that's what I was going to say, is that would you, I thought you were setting it up like that.

Yeah. I was, I was, you guys. I was setting it up. That's, yeah, okay. That's Dick Masterson for. from like episode 15. I agree with that. Yeah, now here's Dick Masterson again,

arguing against himself. There's a generation of smug assholes on the internet that love beating up the stupid. Oh, so which is it, Dick? Is it, are stupid people a problem? Are dumb people a problem? Or is it, that's what you were talking about

when I was playing that clip of that... You're taking it out of context. I know exactly what you're talking about. The Ebola alarms. The news guy, Johnny on the spot, Channel 9 News, was interviewing some stupid woman about whether or not she's worried about Ebola. Yeah.

And of course she sounds like a fucking idiot. Do you think that satire would go over her head or do you think she'd get it? Look, I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt. I don't think she's rocking any boats. I like to think she goes home and tries to feed her kids and get them ready for school the next day and that she's not even bothered with getting outraged on the internet. Wow, what a good mom. And I'm talking about you.

I just don't think you guys should congratulate yourselves so much. for nailing stupid people on being alarmist. That's what they do. They get upset about things. I run a website called The Best Page in the Universe. I started out this very episode

congratulating ourselves. What are we talking about? All right, let's get to the problems. No, no, no. I got a pretty important voicemail. All right. Let me see. Mad Ox, I just wanted to see

you're a giant pussy for not finishing that hot sauce, man up. And don't even tell me to drink your hot sauce because I'm looking on the store where to buy some and it's not on the store anymore. So how am I supposed to challenge you to a hot-paws drinking competition?

Either way, Dick's still a bigger pussy. Oh, damn it! I got to start listening to these voicemails all the way through before I bring them in. God damn it. Yeah, you know, here's the thing. So Roger was so gloating, like, oh, I'm manipulating you as a puppet last episode. But here's the thing, I like drinking hot sauce. I actually do.

I wanted to finish the episode, so I didn't have a bunch of saliva in my mouth from drinking pure vinegar and pepper. but I can finish the bottle. You know what? I'll finish it at the end of this episode. Just so I can have... At the end of this episode. At the end of this episode. There were a lot of comments about you being...

And I'm not saying this. I'm just quoting people. Yeah. You're a gigantic blubbering pussy for not drinking the hot sauce. Yeah, except I've already... Except I've already eaten the world's spiciest pepper. There's a YouTube video of me eating the world...

Two million on the Scoville unit. Between one and two million. I don't know. You throw in a bunch of numbers at me. All I know is there's a half-drank bottle of hot sauce and your tongue was sweating so bad. You couldn't read one of your arms. Hey, Dick, let's see if you can see through your eyes when I splash it in them.

Splash what? Hot sauce? Yeah. I got a half a bottle for you. That's not necessary. I know. All right. Any other comments, problems? Voicemails. I don't think so. I got a bunch of voicemails. I love the voicemails, but I always run out of them by. Oh, I think there's one more. Wait a minute. Oh, yeah. From Kujo Jataro. I just wanted to point out that Maddox is a pussy for not being able to admit that the hot sauce was too hot from. Oh, sorry, I forgot this was another hot sauce. A real man knows his limits and aims to conquer them, not hide from them. Very eloquently put. Piece of shit. You know what, you fucking assholes? I'll drink fucking hot sauce all day long.

I don't give a shit. I drink it to stay awake when I'm driving. It's not a big deal. It tastes delicious. I like it. All right. I'm just reading you what the people said. Yeah, the idiots.

We don't need to hear from them. You want to get to the problems? Yeah, what's your problem? My first problem is cop motorcycle fairings. Okay. Explain what fairings are to people who don't know. Ferings are the front bit of the motorcycle. The part that goes around the handlebars.

It's a part that kind of looks like a shield. The windscreen, the plastic, all of that shit. So motorcycle cops have a very specific look on their motorcycles. It's always white. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's that gigantic, like, Harley-sized white cop faring.

Right. Okay? So you're driving down the freeway, right? Yeah. Maybe you have a beautiful lady in the car with you. Maybe you're taking her to the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, right? You're cruising at about 85. because you're showing off a little bit.

What do you know? Next thing you know, you see that fucking white diamond pop into your lane in your rearview mirror, right? And what do you think? I'm having a fucking heart attack. Great. How much is this going to cost?

How much is showing off going to cost again? When am I going to fucking learn? And you have that moment of humility. Then all of a sudden, this asshole whizzes by you because you hit the brakes immediately. And what is it? It's not a cop.

It's just some shithead that likes looking like a, a cop. He's got big old white cop motorcycle fairings. He's got a big fucking white helmet just like a cop. He's got big aviators and he's got big leather boots. Why? Fuck you, man. Fuck you. You're fucking up traffic.

Everybody around you are a sphere of slowness on the freeway. You are projecting like a wizard like an asshole wizard. Everybody around you hits 55 miles an hour and there's nothing you can do about it. Motorcycle cop fairings.

Yeah, I was going to come down on you pretty hard on this. Another one of classic Dick Masterson bullshit-ass-ass-ass-ass-ass-ass-brom. But then you mentioned the sphere of slowness, which is a problem. The sphere of slowness. It's the worst. Oh, it's the worst. So for those who don't know, who haven't, like, maybe you don't have a driver's license yet or you don't drive, you live in New York, whatever.

When a cop is on the freeway, he is basically the speed limiter of everyone in front of him. No one wants to pass the cop. And if you do, you have to inch by him painfully slow, maybe a mile an hour extra above the speed limit. Otherwise, he will fuck you over. You're done. Yeah. So if the cop is speeding, it's great because even if you just tail them and stay behind them as fast as they're going. So at least you have that.

But when they're not... When they're not even cops? Yeah. What the fuck is wrong with these people? I don't know. Why are they dressed up like cops? Why are they allowed to dress up like cops? Fuck with you like a cop.

And you can't do anything about it. It's pretty hilarious if you think about it. You know what that is. The motherfucker on the throat and shit at you. Would you do this? Are you going to get old and be a pretend cop? Oh, yeah.

On the freeway? You mean, I do this right now. Yeah. You know what you just dealt with is a road troll. You're right. That's a road troll. You're right.

I actually wrote about this in my book, The Alphabet of Manliness. I wrote in one of the chapters of road rage how to induce road rage with someone. So if somebody is trying to exit the freeway, you can either speed up or slow down to let them pass, right? or you can go the exact same speed

and call your friend who's also on the freeway and kind of like box them in so they can't exit. Do you do this shit? Have you ever really done that? No, but I have, I have if someone's a huge asshole. Excuse me. I have. If you have some more hot sauce in you from last week.

Real funny dick. I have if someone's a huge asshole. However, my new move now is if somebody gets on the freeway and they're in the middle lane or if they're on the right lane and they need to get into the left lane, I don't necessarily let them. I'm not going to slow down or speed up to get to,

they need to figure their shit out, because they don't need to be in that lane. They're just doing it out of their own convenience. Wait a minute, what do you mean? They don't need to be in which lane? The very far left one? The fast one? Well, the middle lane.

The middle lane for the entire freeway or the middle lane for your direction? For the entire freeway. If somebody gets on the freeway ramp, right? They just habitually want to get out of that right fucking lane and get into the left lane for some reason. Because that's the fast lane. No, not always.

It should be. It should be, but it's not because everyone's trying to merge into it like a moron. If you just stay in your lane and just speed up, everyone will be fine. Just keep going. Don't even tap your brakes. You know what? Get rid of your brakes. We don't need brakes in society.

All right. That's my problem. Well, motorcycle cop farings, I think, is a bigger problem than brakes. Prove it. Yeah. Yeah, you know what? If people didn't have brakes, then they couldn't slow down if they saw the motorcycle in their rear window. No, I fucking hate these guys.

I have one in front of me, I really want to know what goes on through your fucking mind. Do you think all of them, all of these old assholes, these wannabe cops, are just fucking with people? Because I doubt they're that sophisticated. Dick, maybe they just bought a motorcycle, and that's what they had, and it was cheap. Dude, it's a very specific purchase to get a motorcycle that looks exactly like a cop motorcycle. I don't think they're big sellers. I don't think big, burly dudes walk into a motorcycle store and go, you know what? Give me one that looks exactly like a fucking cop's motorcycle, not a chopper, not something black and badass.

Give me one that looks like a... Give me one that looks like I-Robot, please. Do you have any bikes like that? I don't know. I kind of want people to fear me like a police officer. God damn you. Yeah. I kind of like that.

Because it's also those people who buy those cars that have been repurposed, those old police cruisers. And they still have the light on the side, so it looks like a police cruiser. Every time I see one of those, I slow down. I'm like, well, I don't want to fuck with this guy. I don't want to cut them off. Oh, which by the way I did big time. I was on my way down to San Diego for Comic-Con. And there was just a torrent of shitty fucking slow-ass cars. And there was this car kind of tailing behind me so that there was a car in front of me and a car behind me in the right lane. So I wanted to switch lane so I could pass this dipshit in the left lane, right? This car behind me was just kind of lollygagging. And if I cut him off, it would have been too close.

I decided to pull the trigger and cut him off anyway. Now, hold on a minute. Yeah. Because anyone listening to this story has in their mind a very specific criteria of what is too close to be cutting someone off. And I guarantee yours is way more liberal than everybody else's. What is too close to cutting someone off for you? Less than 10 feet. That's standard.

That's okay. Reasonable, right? That's reasonable. Surprisingly. Yeah, this was close to about six to eight feet. It was really close. Like too close to be cutting someone off. Okay.

But I did it anyway. Also, because my windows are dirty. I didn't quite see you. So anyway, so I cut this guy off, and then I noticed in the, I look through the back, because I'm like, oh, this guy's got to be pissed. Because I, you know, I made him slam his brakes. And that's a dick move. I admit it.

But then I saw on his back, he had, like, the shotgun in his rack, and he had police lights on the front, on his roof. I'm like, oh, shit. I seriously cut off a cop, like, big time. So I'm expecting him to pull me over at any second. And then as soon as I pass, I get in the left lane, and he, like, rides by and calls me an asshole and then doesn't pull me over and I thought wow that's pretty amazing and it was

border security uh border security police uh and they probably would have except down the line down the down a couple miles on a freeway I saw them pulling someone else over they were responding to a call so they couldn't pull me over I got lucky get away with anything down there around the border they always got other stuff to do yeah

uh well now you're talking about a real cop I'm talking about pretend cops I like pretend cops I think you're a fucking asshole and I can see you doing this. I think these desperate pricks just want to incite fear in people just constantly as they're driving around. Yeah, why not? All right.

Is that all you got? Should we get to my problem? Yeah, that's all I got. That's all you got. Good. All right, my first problem this week is this is actually a listener sent us in. His name is David Diley, and he suggested doing Herbalife. Okay.

Do you know what herbal life is? Have you guys heard of this? It's essentially, so the problem is pyramid schemes. Things I hate in it already. What? Herbs and life. Yeah, herb of life is essentially a pyramid scheme. And here's the first clue you know something's a pyramid scheme.

When someone mentions it to you, the first thing they say is it's not a pyramid scheme. Yeah. Right? Except it has all the trademarks of a pyramid scheme. I have a little questionnaire here that if you, yeah. Well, that's like when guys, you know, my favorite thing to do is when a girl will show me messages that guys have sent. like a friend or whatever, like, hey, check this out, this guy sent me. And so many of them will lead with, hey, I'm not a creep.

Like, dude, you can't put the words out there. If not, you could say not a billion times. You could have a certificate of not creepiness. And just because the words there, you're a creep. Yeah, yeah, creeps don't, people who aren't creeps don't have to remind people that they're not creeps. No. And now I'm thinking, well, what do you mean?

No. Should I have been thinking that? All right, now I am. But so I agree with you with the pyramid scheme. So this isn't a pyramid scheme. Yeah, here's the questionnaire I have. So first of all, did you pay to join? If you did, then are you asked to recruit other members?

If you answered yes to that, then do you get a cut of money from every new member you recruit? If you answered yes to all three of those questions, it's a pyramid scheme. Who's defining that? Me. That's my own definition. Oh, that's your own definition. Yeah, my own definition. Essentially, that's it.

That's all a pyramid scheme is, is you pay. to join a network, and then you recruit other people to join that network, and you get a cut of everyone underneath you. Yeah. That is literally a pyramid scheme. Yeah. And so I was looking at this herbal life. This herbal life company is essentially a company that sells health supplements,

powders, protein shakes, candy bars, or like protein bars and things like that. Shit that hasn't been proven to do anything, stuff like that. Well, I mean, it's essentially just generic protein formula that you can get off the shelf of any store. Or that you can buy from China in bulk for like tens or like cents per pill, like two cents a pill, and then turn around and sell for like $60 a bottle. Right, that's essentially what this is. It's just a bunch of protein powder, which is Wei.

Way is just a product that comes out of milk, and that's all it is. And they're selling it for a huge premium to these people in this pyramid scheme. So here is ABC News did an investigation about Herbalife. and here's part of that investigation. Irbalife is also a company now under investigation by the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission in the wake of widely publicized allegations with flashy headlines that the company is an illegal pyramid scheme. Right. So the FBI has been investigating Herbalife for years and years. Actually, since like the 1980s, they got in trouble for this.

Their president, I think back then was Mark Hughes and he was accused of being dishonest. then they have they did this undercover investigation and they found that people like herbal life supervisors were telling people that their stuff cures brain tumors sure yeah and uh and like helps with fertility and all this other shit 60% of their distributors are Latino so they're very they're very targeted they're targeting the

Latin American population yeah why is it that that population seems to be more susceptible to marketing or is it because they're it's new to them because they're also like huge on religion. Like, they're the biggest growing Mormon population, I heard. Is that, Sean, is that true? You're not. It is true. That's true. Yeah, it is true. I don't know if it's that necessarily they're more susceptible.

It's just that it's possibly a new segment that hasn't been marketed to with this stuff before because now Americans are kind of getting, are wisening up to new markets. Right. And Spanish and Chinese is going to be the next. Chinese is going to be a next huge market for this kind of stuff. Anyway, it costs $3,900 for this package. To become a...

distributor? Yeah, to be one of these herbal life, I don't know the exact package you get for this, but it has all the diet shakes and all that other shit. So, I have this other clip. 3,900 bucks, that's a lot. $3,900. This is from a supervisor.

They recorded this undercover at one of the Herbalife meetings. Listen to exactly how she defines the business model here. The final speaker at this session told us how to make the big money. Not by selling the actual product, part-time, but by signing up other distributors, what's called a downline, and then taking

a cut of their profit. The secret is to get five other people to do the same thing every month. Yeah. And teach them to get five other people to do the same thing every month. That's the secret. Before you know it, not only will you need a supervisor, but you'll have five supervisors under you, we'll have five supervisors under the exam. Oh.

So, that five supervisors are exploding. Wow. Overnight, you're a millionaire. But if you think about the math, isn't like in, you know, five or ten steps, all seven billion people in the world, they're selling fucking herbal life? Yeah, to each other. Oh. Yeah, it doesn't work. I'm glad you asked that, Sean, because I actually have that, yeah, that's exactly what it is.

Thank God you're back from farming ass, John. Yeah, so let's say like a typical pyramid scheme, if you have, if you bring, if you're at the top, right? If you're the first person who starts this, you have six people underneath you. Let's say you get six people underneath you, right? then the second level of those, each of those six people have to get six other people. So that's 36 people each. The third level, each of those 36 people has to get six people underneath them. That's 216. By the time you get to the 13th level in this pyramid scheme, just 13 people deep, right? You have to find 13 billion people in order to make as much money as the person at the top.

That's greater than the population of Earth. you would have to get twice the population of Earth. And then there's a modified pyramid scheme, too. What are we selling in this pyramid scheme of yours, this company? What do you? In this fantasy company that we're all in right now. Well, Professor Maddox is hot sauce and chest hair tonic, of course. Oh, okay. All right.

I don't know if we could find 13 billion people who could take that. Yeah, I don't think so. Definitely not Roger. So there's also the eight ball model. This is just find two people underneath you. So rather than six, and this is a modified pyramid scheme, the eight ball model. Essentially, it's all powers of N. Like, they're not going to be able to find enough people to make as much money as a person at the top. These things seem to me like a way that companies use desperate women to bilk their friends out of cash.

That's what it seems like to me. Well, it's not just women because, Dick, a long time ago when I was a programmer at the telemarketing company, one of my coworkers, really sharp guy, just smart dude, great programmer, was able to whip out projects so fast. But he was susceptible to this. He fell into one of these pyramid schemes and he came over to me and they always start with this. They come up to you and they say, hey, Maddox, you seem like a pretty smart guy.

Oh, man. Great. All right. Feed the ego first. You're right. I am. What else? Yeah, we agree. And then they say, well, how would you like to be financially independent? And of course, this is always a colleague at work who's, you know, working for the same boss as me who's not financially independent. But he's trying to sell me this pipe dream that he's on this little thing and he's going to get me in and we're going to become financially independent together.

Now, so this guy got really deep in this pyramid scheme. This one at the time, I think this one was called Quickstar. There's Amway. Amway. There is, oh man, there's another one that my other buddy got into. But it's always the same horseshit and they never make any money and they keep stringing you along and it turns out to be a big shell corporation out in the Cayman Islands where they just take a bunch of your money and the CEO hops on a boat and then you never hear from them again. No, my friend was in a literal pyramid scheme

where they weren't even selling anything. Well, it was a Ponzi scheme. You just bring in money. Yeah. And you bring in money, you get referrals from everyone under you, and then they just keep the machine growing so that as long as you're bringing in new people,

the people above you get paid. Right? So you're just literally just handing cash over to these people, right? And I think it was called Ziegler or something like that. Ziegler rewards, it was a huge, it was like a huge bust. Yeah.

The amount of money that was trading place every month to keep it going was like in the hundreds of millions, I think. Oh, yeah. It's insane. They make so much money. So here's why it's a problem. The victims here are usually the poorest people. They're like lower middle income, middle class, lower middle class people who just have that taste of financial freedom. They can see it.

It's like a shell of a business. It's the veneer of a business. They're selling you this pipe dream that you're buying these products that other people want. and they convince you that other people want these products. The problem is the products they're selling aren't unique. They're not special. There's nothing special about they're just buying, like, toilet paper and protein shakes and all those other shit that you can buy from grocery stores,

except they're adding on a percentage, and that percentage is what the fat cats at the top are making. They're just pocketing that money. Yeah, I would agree with you that it's preying on people who are low-income and desperate. However, I also think that all these people have that little spark in them that lets them totally fuck their friends over by onboarding them. Like that woman was saying, you get five under you, those five, get five under them, they're all going to be your friends.

Yeah, it's always your friends. And they want the fucking money. They want to be financially independent enough so that they'll sell their friends out. Well, that's why I don't feel bad for them. Yeah, okay, Dick, I like to think that my friends aren't super cynical and aren't trying to fuck me over. They are. Oh, I know. I know.

I'm sitting across from one. So, yeah, you're going to sell me some time share? So this ABC news piece was actually really well researched, and they found that, so Herbalife may be kind of shady, and they're doing this pyramid scheme, right? Allegedly. According to you. Oh, according to me.

That's your opinion. And the FBI investigation, and they've also been caught in the 80s. Yeah, the FBI is allowed to say that kind of shit. We're not. Yeah. Okay, it's an allegation, of course. Yeah. But it sounds a lot like a pyramid scheme.

I'll say that. But they've also found that the guy leading the charge to kind of uncover Herbalife as a pyramid scheme is this guy named Bill Ackman, who's a CEO for this hedge fund group called Pershing Square Capital Management. And they have mounted a $20 million media campaign to prove that Herbalife is a fraud. Now, why would that be? Why do you think this guy, this manager of this capital firm, is interested in proving that they're a fraud? Is it like a backdoor thing? Is he secretly tanking, torpedoing the study to show that it isn't fraud? No, no.

Is it like a rope-a-dope? Nope, good theory, but he's actually trying to short the stock, and he stands to gain about $10 billion. Oh, okay. That's a pretty good plan, too. Yeah, so talk about cynical. There are no white knights in this scenario. They're all these fucking dickheads. Everyone out to cutthroat, everyone's out to, like, throw everyone under the bus, and the CEO of Herbalife, he's convincing people.

He's denying that it's a pyramid scheme, and he's saying that there is no promise or guarantee that you can make a huge fortune through Herbalife. But that's just like a tiny little disclaimer that they kind of throw away. Here's what the CEO said on this ABC News segment. The reality is that most people know that this is a wonderful way in which to pay for a $50 or $60 startup fee to earn a few hundred extra supplemental dollars a month. That is what we are selling. Yeah. Doesn't he sound like Snape from Lord of the Rings? Yeah. You know the guy, he just sounds like a creepy weirdo.

Yeah, it sounds like a creepy weirdo. That's the guy who's trying to sell you this pipe dream. He sounds like a gremlin. Like a guy that would appear on your shoulder and try to screw you over. Yeah, he sounds like the devil version instead of the heaven version. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what they should do? So the lottery, like this is, this appeals to the same part of people as the lottery, I think.

Yeah. And when, back in the day, like when America first started, there was shitloads. of lotteries everywhere. Like you could just throw in for a lottery. And the government finally said, look, people are too dumb. No one is allowed to do lotteries anymore except us. Okay. So only governments are allowed, only the U.S. government is allowed to do

lotteries, right? Okay. Because then they take the money and do whatever they do. Yeah. It seems like the same kind of thing, the same kind of mentality that goes into buying a lottery ticket, goes into lumping in with one of these pyramids. schemes.

Yeah. So that the government should just say, hey, you guys aren't allowed to do this shit anymore. No matter what you say, you're not allowed to pull these scams. We're the only ones who can do it, and we're going to call it Social Security. Dick, I knew it. I was waiting for it. Yep, let's hear this fucking libertarian slant. Here it comes.

Yeah. And, of course, I thought the misdirect here was like, oh, we should have the governments take care of payments schemes. Yeah. Yeah. I got you. I got you. Classic libertarian tricks.

Are you done? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just want to respond to that. Just one other thing. The lottery analogy is okay. However, with the lottery, it's at least up front. You know you're gambling.

But with the pyramid scheme, it's more insidious because it's selling you the promise and the hope that you can amass a fortune through this pyramid scheme. And you can, of course, if you're at the top. But no one is, virtually, a very small percentage, less than one to three percent, I think, are at the top who are making any amount of appreciable. income from these pyramids games. Well, you can't even get a couple hundred bucks a month. Like, this reminds me of, it seems like everyone out of college goes through this phase

where somebody will, they just get shitty stuff. Or maybe it's good stuff, but they just go sell it to all their friends and family. Yeah. Like, Sean, your brother sold, they were good knives. His brother sold knives out of college. Cutco knives. Yeah. And their whole thing is they recruit kids out of college.

They pretend like it's a real job, like you have to come in an interview. But then all they do is give you a catalog and they say, okay, go knock on Or is like a vacuum cleaner salesman in the 1930s and sell these fucking knives. But what ended up happening is they just go to their friends and family and sell them these fucking knives. Yeah. I got called in for a job interview one time with Citigroup and I thought, oh, wow, this is kind of cool.

It's a big bank. You know, they want to hire me as a, they said some kind of like IT management type job. So I go in there, all prepared, resume, all spiffy, everything. And this guy starts selling me this fucking pyramid scheme. I'm like, you fucking asshole. I make more money than you, you fucking tool. What are you going to hire me and give me a pay cut, you dip shit? And what are you going to exactly hire me for to sell your pell, your bullshit?

I'm a fucking professional here. And why don't you just cut out the middleman? Why don't people just buy this shit way off the internet and sell it themselves? Yeah. Like, why does it have to be branded herbal life? Exactly. It's just magic powder. No, it's the same stuff.

That's it. If you have, basically, if you can buy this stuff for wholesale, you can be selling stuff and making money the normal way, which is, that's essentially just a business. You're buying things at a low cost and selling it for a slightly higher cost to make a profit. That's essentially a business. We should start a Kickstarter. where we just do our own pyramid scheme. We'll call it like, just call it a pyramid scheme.

You know what, Dick? That's a really good idea. Let's not air this episode. I forget everything I said, everyone. Forget everything I said. What's your next problem, Dick? Hey, you know what's not a pyramid scheme? What's that?

Harries. They make a hell of a shave kit. This episode is brought to you by Harries. Go to Harries.com and use the promo code. Biggest problem to save $5 off your first purchase. Maddox, Harry's was created by two guys. who give a shit about shaving. Yeah, they really care.

Is that in the copy? No. It's something like that. You know how fucked up my mind is? When I look at something, I'm pretty good at remembering the gist of things, not the exactness of things, and that's how I remembered it.

I read it. Here's what I actually read. Harries.com was started by two guys passionate about creating a better shaving experience for all men. No, no, no, words, words, yours was better. Yeah, mine was.

Who gives a shit about shaving. I got a lot of shit to remember here, okay? Yeah, let's contact Mr. Harry, and let's tell him, we got a new copy for him. Harry's bought a blade factory in Germany that has been crafting some of the world's highest quality blades for almost a century. Their starter shave sets start at just $15. I've actually been, you know that starter sent they sent us? Yeah. I've actually been using it.

Me too. Yeah. It works great. Yeah. It's awesome. I like it a lot. And then, and finally, I got the shave gel, too. It still shoots out like a rocket, but I kind of managed it. If you scored it right into your fingers, it's fine. I use the cream. I know you don't like the cream. Oh, man. But I use it.

I'm not a fan of any kind of shaving cream. It feels like you're putting butter on your face. Yeah, have you ever shaved with real butter? No. Isn't that a thing people do? I mean, it's a thing peasants probably do. Oh, well. Yeah, I'm not a farmer. Hey, I like getting drunk and screwing, too.

Peasants do that. Great. Screw like a pet, like a peasant. Harry's h-r-r-r-R-Y-S dot com. Enter promo code. Biggest problem to save five bucks off your first purchase. We should also say that that promo code changed last time. It wasn't our fault. We didn't get it wrong.

No. Because we've never, well, maybe I have. But I don't think either of us has ever gotten anything wrong on this podcast. In my life, I've never gotten anything wrong. They changed it because it did too well. Yeah. That's how I understand it. That's, so what they, we got this email saying that the code was leaked or something.

Like, it popped up on some kind of discount coupon website. Some shitbox web's coupon site. Because there's a some, they have a scraper that goes through different websites and it looks for code words for. Harry's and discount. So when we posted it on our website, I think it scraped it, posted it on this other website. However, our fans are really loyal listeners, and they're helping, they're supporting our podcast by clicking on these sponsor links. And so probably what happened is they got this huge blip from our podcast, which was our first time airing, and they probably looked at the stats and thought, wow, this is unbelievable. No fucking way, these two assholes

could send this much traffic. These two clowns. Well, guess what, Harry's? We just did, buddy. Yeah, so if you went there and put in the old coupon code that got discontinued, we're sorry about that. Sorry for wasting your time. But it's still a great product. We stand behind it. I'm still using my blade. I haven't even switched out my blade. It's that good.

Me either. Yeah, it's sharp. So what's your next problem? My next problem, I don't know how to phrase this. I'll just call it cat calling. Okay. Okay? Sure, it's a problem.

Well, it is a problem because of how it's being portrayed online. or because what we're seeing is cat calling, what it's become. Yeah. I want to defend cat calling to a degree, to a degree, because I think it's fun. Oh, right.

Here we go. There we go. So this video came out, right? Yeah. Let's talk about this video. From the hollaback group. It's a group dedicated to ending street harassment using mobile technology.

Yeah. They encourage women to hollaback by sharing stories and photos using social media. I don't know if that's going to do anything. But they put this video together of a woman walking around in New York City for 10 hours. Yeah. And just getting constantly harassed. But there's something I brought in the audio for the...

Do you want to play a little bit of it? It's two minutes long. And I figure maybe people have seen it. But maybe people are like me when they see shit trending on Facebook. They're like, oh, fuck it. I don't care. Yeah. Skip it to you about like 30 seconds into it if you can. All right. Hey, baby.

Hey, baby. Hey, beautiful. That guy sounded nice. No, this cat called me. Hey, beautiful? That's nice, though. Nice. Damn.

A little over the top of that guy. Yeah, it's a little disrespect. Mexican Eagle. The guy was looking at her butt. Oh, he's looking at her jeans. Yeah, she had an American Eagle logo on her butt. So there was a segment, too, where some guy followed her for about four minutes. Well, that's what I want to talk about.

Because there's a big difference between saying, hey, mama, what's up beautiful? Hey, beautiful. How's it going? and following this woman, like, you're hanging off her like Michael Jackson's chimpanzee. Yeah. Trying to get any kind of attention from her. Okay, there's a big difference. Yeah.

And I don't think that's, I don't think that's part of this conversation. Like, you can't just say, no one's saying that. No, so the problem with this video, I actually have the top comment on this video right now on YouTube. I hope you're going to say what I think you're going to say, because I also have this same problem with this video. Go ahead. I'd like to hear what you say. But one of the big problems with this video is that by lumping in stalking, that guy was stalking her. Absolutely.

Right. Which is totally over the line. It's illegal. It's illegal. It's illegal. Stalking is a crime. Catcalling is not. But stocking definitely is.

And by lumping that in with the same video and giving it the same weight as cat calling or saying good evening to someone, you're lessening the impact of that crime. You're making it cheaper. You're saying that, okay, these are equal weighted crime. No, they're not. And first of all, one's a crime and one isn't. and you're making it seem like it's okay, you know, it's equal under the law or equal under, in terms of harassment to stalk someone as to call them out. Yeah.

As the cat called them. Totally agree. That's not what I was going to say, but I totally agree. And by the way, Dick, I have to take issue with the way you characterize it at the top of this video because you said she was constantly harassed. She wasn't. In that entire 10-hour day, she edited down, she in her disguise, she edited down from 10 hours down to about three minutes.

And if you count the guy stalking her, let's say, let's say, let's. let's say five minutes. Yeah. Out of a 10-hour day, that's less than 1% of the day. That's not constant. In fact, she encountered, if you, I did the math on this,

if you encounter, say, 20 pedestrians per minute, which is very conservative in New York, and of those, she found about 100 of them had cat called her or harassed her, right? Yeah. That's less than 1%. So over 99.7% of people she encountered were decent human beings,

and there's not a story here. And let's keep in mind. This is, and this is one of my big problems with this video. This video is racist as shit to me. Yeah. Because it is all black dudes and Mexican guys who are hanging out on street corners in wife beaters not doing a goddamn thing during the day. Yeah.

During the day. That was actually, I made a Facebook status to that effect saying, man, I hope all those guys who are sitting around in lawn chairs during the day. Yeah. Learn their lesson when they go home and hop on their broadband connections and then see what videos are trending on Huffington Post and salon.com. I hope they're ashamed of themselves. Oh yeah. They're going to be, they're going to have their lesson taught by checking social media. These fucking idiots. And this Hall of Back campaign, she's asking people to donate to this campaign. So I went to the website to see what it is. Like how are they going to potentially solve this problem with street harassment, right?

They're going to make it illegal. Oh, really? They're trying to make catcalling illegal. They said it's illegal to honk your horn in some parts of New York City. Why isn't it illegal to catcall? That's part of their platform. Yeah, well, it's called the First Amendment. You're allowed to say shitty things. things to people in public. You can say racist things. Like, hi, beautiful.

You're allowed to say shitty things like, Good morning, beautiful. Yeah, so I read about this. I read the comments about this, and it's kind of polarizing. Most women... It is. Isn't it shocking? It really is.

Yeah, but most women actually are like, yeah, this is something that all women have experienced. First of all, I don't think it's something that all women experienced to the same degree. This girl, this lady, this woman who was doing this video is busty, young, and relatively attractive, right? Well, I think she's overweight.

Okay. So my point is they hooked up an overweight white woman and trolled her through Harlem and that's a viral video. Are you fucking kidding me? That's racist as shit. That's not the point. Well, of course, this video has some racial subtext here. But you're saying something different. Yes.

Okay. So I think that cat calling and street harassment happens, excuse me, it happens way more often to attractive and young people. If they had hooked this up with, say, a 65-year-old woman who was out of shape and not necessarily attractive by conventional standards, she probably wouldn't have gotten cat-called hardly as much, if at all, right? Oh, man, you know what, I got an interesting, I got an interesting, I got a couple interesting stories to that. Because this, like, reading women's stories about cat-calling made me think about the women I've dated. Yeah. And some of them would get cat-called all the time.

Yes. Whether we were on dates or not. And some of them just would never. and I could never figure out. Like, I thought one was just as hot as the other. Yeah. I think objectively, they were, but you know, you know who. Like, guys would do a U-turn in traffic

to pull up on the side of the road and ask her if she wanted to go smoke weed with them. Yeah. And I want to know how often that works. So, okay, so Dick, you're making a joke, but this is actually an interesting point because there was a study I read a while back too where maybe it wasn't even a study,

it was just a comment, but someone said essentially the difference between street harassment, like catcalling, and say, you know, someone who's picking you up is how cute the guy is, right? And I don't think that's true. Well, I got an empirical evidence that says it is, because I have a friend who is a male model, and he is just an attractive dude by all objective standards. You can just say my name.

You don't have to talk about me in the third person. Dick. So this guy, this guy is actually guilty of catcalling. He told me, like, the last, like, three or four dates, he's just, like, been driving by and he turns around because he sees an attractive girl on the street, and they always give him their number, and they go out on dates because they like this guy. This guy looks attractive or whatever.

But if it was an unattractive guy, then it's harassment. Well, I think women have real good bullshit detectors. Like when they know what a guy's deal is right away, like if you come on like some of these guys, like, hey, hey, hey, baby, what's your number? What's your number? Dude, you've got to calm the fuck down. Right.

Like, you can't come on that strong. And I think probably your male model for, friend knows how to not come on too strong because I talk to women in the street all the time. Yeah. Like, you know my theory, and when it comes to dealing with women, is just talk to all of them. Sure. It's a numbers game. Like, if you are not having good luck with women, don't try to up your game.

Just talk to all women all the time. Okay. And you will get laid. Terrible strategy. What's terrible about that? Because you're essentially saying, I'm an idiot. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. So it's just a numbers game.

I'm going to keep doing what I do until I find the square peg to my square hole. Evolution is a numbers game. You evolve constantly in all different manners, and the one that's supposed to live will live. That's God's plan, man. But Dick, you're essentially saying is you're counter to evolution because you're not changing anything about yourself. You're staying the same and you're hoping to find someone who doesn't have a sophisticated enough bullshit detector. Oh, get out of here, sophisticated enough. How sophisticated is shit.

I got a comment from Twitter about this because I kind of posted a comment about how, you know, speaking of numbers here, that the vast majority of people treated her respectfully, didn't cat call, and she's trying to paint this picture that it's misleading to suggest that this is such an epidemic. It's happened to the majority of women I know, of course.

And it's disrespectful and I don't like it. It shouldn't happen, of course. Well, that's... I have a problem with the should word too. It shouldn't happen. Like, yeah, this is the way. guys are, especially broke dudes that hang out on street corners.

This is how they behave. And there's probably chicks out there just like them who respond to it. That's also part of the... I'm not even sure it's a problem, but... It's a culture clash. Some chicks do respond to this. Absolutely, they do. And it's not just a problem unique to men. I've been with beautiful

women before. I dated this model for a little while. Bragging, here we go. Fucking bragging. Just one? You just said a couple seconds ago you were with two objectively hot women and guys were doing uterus. Get out of you. I didn't even notice that I did that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Let me pull up this Dick versus Dick segment again. So I was with this woman one time, objectively beautiful, and it's a model, right? We walked by guys would just constantly, you know, say something as we're passing by. And then one day we were walking by, and a woman passed by and said the exact same thing a guy had said just minutes earlier. She just passed by and said, you're beautiful. And I interject and I said, thank you. I took that compliment. Yeah, I intercepted that one.

I've done that. I was walking with this girl who's getting cat called, and I did the same thing. I was like, I think you was talking to May. Yeah. And she loved it, of course. Yeah, of course. And it's like, you know, there was like talking and like bonding and the things that make up a relationship between people. Yeah. You know, cat calling, I hate to say this, but actually, it's not entirely, it's not something that all women objectively just hate across the board.

If it's disrespectful, sure, but if it's a respectful type of approach. And they say it depends on the intent of the men. They don't have good intentions. Yeah, we don't ever have good intentions. Get out of your dick. You fucking idiot. So here's the thing. So let's take the most egregious example of the cat calling in that video.

Like someone who's just a damn mama or whatever. Like something kind of disrespectful that kind of... Damn mama. Well, whatever. It's just something that makes her feel like, I don't know, kind of sleazy. Sex object. Yeah, kind of, right? So let's say these guys are objectifying her sexually.

And if you take that at the, at the, crux, right? What is their intention? Well, their intention is to get late, right? I don't know. See, that's why I wrote, well, keep going. Keep going. So, I believe... Maybe it is, but I think they're just kind of expressing something. Well, some part of them probably wants that woman to respond, doesn't, don't they? I don't know. I don't know either. I don't know that I do. I've never cat called. By the way, I've been cat called. Yeah. By women. By women. Yeah, me too. How many? I don't know that. Well, let's write our numbers down and then we'll see who has more.

All right, I wrote mine down. It's 979,417. Two. I win. And they didn't, I don't think they wanted a response at all. Yeah. No, I've been, yeah, I've been whistled at, both guys and girls. Two guys, two guys have tried to pick me up in the last six months.

The last two hours. It's me and Sean. You guys? Sean's ass farming gig didn't pan out. He's trying in this room. Okay, so I just want to read this comment real quick. This guy sent me a shitty message on Twitter. His name's Christian at Arcade Hero 64.

He says, Manox Rules is always so quick to not rush to the defense of women that you've got to wonder if he's some kind of gigantic sexist asshole. Wow. Thank you, Christian. What a hero. To which I responded, I said, first of all, I've never said cat calling isn't wrong.

Of course it is. Like, I don't think it's a good thing. Ah, see. Well, hold on. All right. I said, I think you have me mistaken for a straw man. And I sent him a picture of a straw man. That's funny.

Yeah. But then I also pointed something out because listen to the way he says this, right? You got to wonder if Maddox rules are so quick to not rush to the defense of women. I said, hey, Christian, it's also pretty condescending to suggest that women need men like you to rush to their defense. And I'm the sexist one? Women don't need men to defend them. No. They don't need any help ever.

No. No, I agree. I'm laughing because it's true, but they don't. These, like, this fucking white knight, he's trying to be, he's such a fucking condescending smug prick. Like coming out here and saying, oh, you got to rush to the day. defensive women. They don't need you to defend them, dipshit. That's sexist. To say that women can't defend themselves, that they need you to argue

their battles for them? Fuck off and let them talk and say whatever they want. I've only ever heard bad advice given to women when it comes to catcalling, especially now that it comes up because all these stupid, I don't know if they just like showing off on Facebook or whatever, but all these people are like, yeah, I would say this. I would get in their face. Like, you,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want to do that. That's the last thing you want to do to a guy is engage him for any reason. Yeah, well, No, that's not necessarily true. You could... By the way, you know what's kind of funny about this video. So she pointed out this guy who, like,

kind of stalked her for four minutes, like kind of followed her around. But the woman, who's complaining about the guy following her around for four minutes, followed a guy around for ten hours. So let's put this in perspective. So here's what I think cat calling actually is. Because I don't want it to get lumped in

with this harassment type of shit. Stalking. Stalking and assault, we'll call it, right? Because assault isn't physical. It's just, the intention of there might be something physical than happens. A threat. Like, yeah, and I talk to a woman.

So here's rhetorical questions only when it comes to cat calling. You don't say, hey, what's your name? That's not a rhetorical question. Right. Not what's your number? Where are you going? It's quite, you got to say, if you want a cat call properly, you got to go like, hey, do those legs go all the way up?

That's a rhetorical question. Right? I feel like, that was too natural for you to say. I do it. Okay, great. Where you been, baby? That's a rhetorical question. You're breaking the law potentially.

What, doing this on the internet? Okay, no commands. No command. Yeah, don't command people. Smile. No, no, no, no, no, no. You can't tell people to smile. Suck my cock.

That's also something you want to stay away from. You know, you know, Dick... You know, when... That happens. That happens. That happens. The guys don't know. I'm trying to help here. No, no, no. But when I first...

Or else it's going to be illegal. When I first clicked on this video, that's what I was expecting. Like, a bunch of dickheads who were, like, saying some really nasty shit to this woman. And these are some of the most polite cat collars I've ever heard. Like, good evening, ma'am. Have a nice day. Yeah, I don't know why they edited that in. You're beautiful. Yeah, it doesn't make a strong case. However, to be completely objective,

you have to say, okay, well, she felt harassed by those. So I guess you... Fuck it. Fuck that. Hubba, hubba. That you can say. That's not a command. Hubba, hubba. I mean, it's annoying. Yeah, it's cute, though. Oh, great. Girls like that. Right. Yeah, girls love that. And pretend your mom is listening. You can get away with some sexy erotic stuff, even with your mom there.

Because you've got to code it a little bit. Yeah, that's, you know, Dick, the smile thing, though, I want to go back to just for a second. Go ahead. Because I got to do this again, but Larry David, this is something that's not just unique to women. Larry David in one of the episodes of Caribbean enthusiasm was kind of pointing this out too, because it happens to guys too. I pass by sometimes people and they just tell you to smile. You?

Yeah, yeah, here's the clip. Listen to this. Smile. And mind your own business. How about that? Smile. Smile. Yeah. So it happened.

This is something that's so common that they even put in this episode of Caribbean enthusiasm. Yeah. Pretend your mom is listening. I was walking with, actually the same girl, the girl that I said, I think he was talking to me. Yeah. She was this, like, statuesque black girl. It's beautiful. Right?

Right. She was calling you. No, no, no. I was, somebody cat called her, and I said, I think he was. He's talking to me. Oh, okay. And she started laughing, and then I started talking to her. We get a couple blocks down Hollywood.

And there's this guy, there's this guy on Hollywood Boulevard, who every single time I've passed him, multiple times a day sometimes, sits on this bus bench and says, handmade jewelry. I'm selling handmade jewelry. That's all he's ever said. That's all I've ever heard him say, right? Uh-huh.

For four years, this one fucking day, I walk by with this beautiful woman. And he goes, whew, you beautiful. Like a sexy stallion. It's like, that's a perfect cat call. Perfect. Great. You know, your mom could have heard that. Yeah, sure, sure.

Call her a horse. You're sexy like a horse. There you go. That's my thoughts on catcalling. Yeah, so if this didn't work to some percentage of women, then why would guys keep doing it? Yeah. Because, I mean, I don't know. I can't answer this empirically because I've never done it.

I don't cat call. I don't think it's... Your honking horn? No. No? No. At one point do you think you're going to be driving by

and a chick's going to hear a horn honk? She's going to be like, oh, damn. I got to drop my panties for that guy. It's not a cause and effect thing. You don't do it to get something. You're just like, hey, baby, I see you. I see you. That's another good line.

Hey, I see you. Oh, yeah, great. Oh, awesome. You got to have fun when you're doing it. That's all. That's all I'm going to say. Or don't do it. Or just have fun.

Dick, the amount I honk all the time in traffic. I should be getting dates left and right. I'm honking all the fucking time. No one's past, no one's past, no girl's ever going to hear my horn and be like, here's my number. Never. It's not about getting a number.

It's about just having a good time. It's like you're cheering for a sports team, except the sports team is a hot lady. No, I got a, I gotta side with the women on this one a little bit because when they, I talked to a girlfriend of mine and she was telling me about this, like cat, I was talking about this cat calling issue because I've been asking various women,

friends of mine, whether or not they've been cat called, how they feel about it, because I'm just getting a survey. I'm getting a feel for the number, of women who get arrested. They're pretty much... You're copping a feel of their... Yeah, okay, go ahead.

Yeah, it's pretty much all of them at some point, but a lot of guys have, too. I mean, it's not like... But it happens more often to attractive women, especially the most attractive women. And I asked them, I said, well, what... So what is it at issue if, like, a guy in that video said, good evening?

Because I, just as a guy, don't understand how that's harassment. She explained to me that it's not about what they say, necessarily, but the threat they feel. She said that as a woman who's walking alone on the streets. She feels constantly vulnerable. She feels like she might be attacked by somebody

at any given time, and it's that fear that they instill in you, and that they are kind of like, it's like a beacon that doesn't leave them alone, so they can't be lost in her own thoughts. And yet we've never been safer, right? The streets have never been safer. We can't even make good 80s action movies because our streets are so fucking safe. That's true.

Like Robocop, the original, was believable because it was a hellhole. Yeah. Detroit's awesome. now. Well, it's not as bad. Yeah. L.A. is not as bad, and yet everybody's fucking terrified. Crime is near historic lows. And it's not just, like,

with harassment and assault and stuff. Like, everything's down across the boards, but it's also pedophilia. Parents are so afraid of child molesters. They're afraid anyone's a child molester. They don't want their kids to talk to any kind of strangers, which is true. It's possible, but it's so rare.

We're getting off the topic. I don't want to eat. No, I don't mean to interrupt, But I want you to have plenty of time for your... Yeah, let's get to this. We're running out of time here. So my last problem this week is pennies. Pennies. Big problem, guys. Yeah, fuck pennies.

I agree. They stink. They do stink. They fucking stink. I hate them. Yeah, they smell like what a robot's toes would smell like. Yeah. They smell like ass. Yeah. Yeah, that's like a perfect analogy, right? Sean's nodding. Yeah, that was oddly accurate.

Not that any of us know what that would be like. But if we did, that's probably what it would smell. like. Yeah. Penis would smell like robots' toes. Yeah. We'll go with that.

Or by the way around. Yeah. So here's the problem with them. First of all, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil,

Norway, Britain, Switzerland, and Finland have all stopped producing pennies. Oh. These are modern nations. This is what modern nations

do when they realize that they're just hemorrhaging money on money. Okay. Penis are so fucking stupid and worthless. NPR did the segment.

What do you mean hemorrhaging money on money? Well, so here's what I'm getting at. So a penny is worth only about according to coinflation.com, it's worth only about 60% of the face value. And by some estimates, by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, this is from NPR, they said it's only worth 4% of the face value.

So it's 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper. There's hardly any copper in it. It's worth, so it costs 2.4 cents to make a penny. Uh-huh. We're spending almost almost 1.5 times the amount that it costs, that is worth it to make it. And copper was worth a lot, isn't it? It is.

The inflation of... It's been like... It's worth a lot more than it was. It is, yeah. It's why everybody steals it out of job sites. Right. Penny's, like, I think 1982 was the cutoff. They changed the formula for pennies

so that they reduced the copper in them. They used to be predominantly copper. Now they're copper-plated zinc. And they're basically worthless. If you go to coinflation.com, it's kind of interesting. They show all the different breakdowns of the melt value of a coin. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. And quarters, same thing. Before 1964. I think for a while they were using silver in the quarters. And those were worth about $3 a piece. I find them all the time. I find silver quarters and I keep them. They look different than regular quarters.

Now, wait a minute, because I saw, I read some libertarian shit where if the quarter was kept as a silver coin, it would have kept up with inflation from this, from 1965. I don't know if that's true. Did you uncover any of that in your research? No. Where if it would have kept, because, you know, the value of the of the, of the increases over time. So instead of just being a token, it is actually valuable as a metal. Yeah. Well, sure. But I guess, yeah, because the value of the silver has increased with time.

Right. So it's no longer worth a quarter. It's worth the value of a quarter-sized hunk of silver. Well, potentially, but you're running out. I mean, there's a very finite supply of these precious metals. That's why they're called precious metals. So I don't know if that's a sustainable economy. But the bottom line is, we don't need quarters. It's costing taxpayers every year, $60 million. We're just pissing away on making pennies that nobody uses. This guy called into this NPR segment that I was reading. It's called The Problem with Pennies, I think. And he was talking about how he's a mechanic,

and he's worked on some job sites where he's made very little money, if anything, at all. And he says when people bring in junked cars, he's not a mechanic guy, actually. He just works in in a junkyard. He says, people bring in junked and wrecked cars, and he scound, he, excuse me, he scavenges them for pennies. And he says he collects them all and then takes him to the, to the store, to one of those coin exchange machines,

just buckets full of them. And sometimes that's the only money he makes. And the host was like, well, how much money is in a bucket of pennies? He's like, yeah, that's 13, 14 bucks. So he's like, yeah, it just doesn't sound like a very good use of your time. It's probably about as much as you make an herbal life for about the same amount of work. So you don't have to take your friends over. Yeah, and they don't have to drink a bunch of bullshit protein.

Yeah. You're trying to shove down their throats literally. I hate pennies too, man. Whenever I clean my car, I have to, like, scoop them out of the... the middle console. Yeah. Every time I travel to another country, too, I like their coin system a lot better,

except for Mexico. Other than Mexico. Their coins, their pesos. Don't they have cutouts in the middle? Like their square cutout? No, their bills are fine, but the pesos, like, their equivalent of a penny is worthless.

Absolutely. It feels like monopoly money. It's almost plastic. I don't even know the kind of metal they're using. You know what? You know those candies you get on cakes sometimes, like wedding cakes where they're silver-coated candies.

Yeah. I think that's what they're using to make their pesos. Chiquets? Yeah, you just eat them. They're garbage. So next to the Mexican pesos, the coin pesos, the penny is like the worst currency I've ever had. What are we going to do about it?

All these pennies. Who's going to stop them? Just stop using pennies. So I looked into it. It's not really a big problem if they just stopped using them across the board. They said one way they could solve this problem to get rid of all the pennies in circulation

and started to kickstart the economy is to make every penny currently worth five cents that's in circulation. So people would start using those pennies, right? That sounds insane. Yeah, well, it would give a boost to the economy because everyone who has all these pennies and stuff laying around suddenly it's worth money,

then they're going to go out and spend it because the people who have pennies aren't rich people. They're housewives and people in the middle America, they're going to have a bunch of expendable income that they didn't have before, that they're going to go out and spend. It's going to be like a stimulus to the economy. Oh, that would be weird.

Yeah. So this guy who's, this junkyard dude who's collecting buckets of pennies for $13, $14 a pop, suddenly he's getting like $50. You think he's going to invest that? No, he's going to go out and spend it and probably on burgers or something. Buy some natty ice. A couple cases of natural ice. There you go. It'll go right into the coffers of 7-Eleven, make some fat cat rich again. That's how our economy works. But no, it would be a good stimulus if they made pennies worth $5 cents and then just eradicated them right across the board. Does anybody just not deal with them? Yeah, rich people. Well, like when you're getting change from a, you get coffee or something, just like, you're just rounding up to five.

Who fucking cares? Can we just stop pretending like this is worth anything? You round up to the penny, so just round up to the nickel. Yeah, that's what people are saying. They would round up. So some economists argue that it would hurt the poor and the lower class by rounding up because a lot of companies, instead of cutting the costs of items, like say 99 cents, they would just,

say 95 cents, they would round it up to the next dollar. So everything across the board would cost a dollar more. But they said that with inflation, especially if we enable this five-cent penny thing, that it would cancel out in about five to ten years. That'd be interesting. I like when silly games are proposed at the government level. Let's just change the value of pennies to a nickel and see the chaos that erupts from that. You know what people can use their pennies for?

What's that? Is buying a bonus episode of this show premiering tomorrow? Yes, sir. Bonus episode coming tomorrow. This is something that we've been working on for a long time. We're excited about this is going to be, and a lot of people, frankly, have been asking for. The bonus episode is going to be awesome.

Yeah, my dad actually says, last time I saw him, he's like, you know, you guys talk about a lot of problems, but you never have any solutions. Yeah, a lot of people say that. And sometimes they try to, They try to hijack our show with solutions. We're like, that, that, that, that show's not about solutions.

It's about problems. Yeah. Yeah, so that's a little sneak peek of tomorrow, a little teaser of the episode. We're going to announce it's on the website. You'll see it on the website. It'll be available for everyone to download. And, yeah, we hope you like it. Scrounge up your pennies.

Yeah, scrounge up your pennies. And if you like the episode, recruit someone underneath you. All right, so motorcycle farings and cat calling. Cat calling. and my problems were herbal life or pyramid schemes and pennies, which are worthless except for our episodes. So bonus episode coming tomorrow. Vote for these problems on the website.

Thanks for listening. Thanks.