The Daily Zeitgeist - Reese’s Stepped On Product? Trump’s George W Bush Impression 02.20.26

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

In episode 2010, Jack and guest co-host Andrew Ti are joined by comedian, Troy Walker, to discuss… Trump Making War Noises At Iran, AI Push Continues As Nobody Is Really Using It, Reese Grandson Sparks Peanut Butter Cup Controversy and more! Adam Silver: AI Will Give Us ‘Most Significant Change’ in Presentation of Sports Thousands of CEOs just admitted AI had no impact on employment or productivity—and it has economists resurrecting a paradox from 40 years ago Big Tech to Spend $650 Billion This Year as AI Race Intensifies Grandson of Reese’s founder alleges Hershey has switched to cheaper ingredients – sparking family feud ‘Oreos too’: Utah man bites into Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Then he notices something different LISTEN: Siesta by BSEARL Pre-Order Troy Walker's Comedy Album ESQUIRE Here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's up, guys? What's up? How's it going? Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Thanks for doing it. Congrats on the new special out today. Album.

It's just an album. I wish it was. Album. Yeah, it's just an album. And, yeah, tomorrow. We'll be dropping this one tomorrow. So I exist in a universe where we are on Friday. Just this is Friday time.

I'm a method. Detroit. So the only thing that's different is that I believe that it's Friday and I'm going to be doing a lot of cool stuff like talking about, thank God it's Friday. That's going to be most of the show. It's just cool stuff about how cool Fridays are. Casual Friday. Oh, you like casual Fridays too? Oh man, casual Friday. Change your life. Change your life once a week. Just go real cash with it. Like to wear pajama pants. Pajama pants Friday.

Oh, shit. That's called unemployed. That's right. Yeah. Soon enough, it will be. Yeah, that's got fired on Friday. Yeah. Fired Fridays. I haven't worked in a real office, like workplace since, like, decades ago.

Do people, because I have seen how people have changed what clothes they wear on airplanes. They've gone full pajamas. You're doing no one wears a suit on the airplane anymore. I'm furious about this, Andrew. But like, I do wonder, have casual Fridays gotten more casual since I was last working in an office? I don't know. I mean, you're looking very sharp for a podcast right now. You're looking great.

Business cash. Thank you very much. I'm going to, well, I'm going to dinner a couple of hours. This isn't for us? I would not be, no. Absolutely not. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. At a Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King's senior. It's the true story of protests and rebellion in black American history that you're You'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles.

I'm Mennelick Lamumba. Listen to the A building on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people because of what happened in Alabama? This Black History Month, the podcast, Selective Ignorance with Mandy B,

unpacked black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty. I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, is where culture meets the soul. Honest conversations about identity, loss, purpose, peace, faith, and everything in between. Celebrities, thinkers, everyday people, some have answers. Most are still figuring it out. And if you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to if you can hear me on my iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What if mind control is real?

If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming.

Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet, and welcome to season 4. 426, episode 5 of Their Daily Zytheist! This is a production of I-HeartRadio, as a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness

through the day's news. We also have a new non-news history version of the Daily Zykegast dropping each Monday morning where we do a deep dive into the zeitgeist through the lens of a different icon. Last week we did Tony Hawk, and beginning of this week, we

had this guy, Andrew T. On to look at the very strange history of the original cocaine cop. Sherlock Holmes. I said, I say smoke cocaine more times than I normally do.

You do. You said it a lot. I love that he smokes. He injects cocaine. Injects cocaine. A very underrated way cocaine delivery. I'm not going to say underrated,

but underutilized. It's really falling out of fashion. The cocaine injection. Sherlock did it and people were like, maybe not that way. It might make you too observant. Right. That's the problem.

This guy's too dang. Too dang sharp. It's Friday, February 20th, 2026. My name is Jack O'Brien, aka Potatoes O'Brien. I do apologize to the Discord. I've just had a crazy morning. Otherwise, I would have used one of your A.K.A.s. I'm thrilled to be joined in our second seat by one of our very favorite guests,

a hilarious and brilliant producer and TV writer. You know him from the Yosus Racist podcast and the new. a starter track podcast. It's Andrew T. The Phantom of Pod Opera is here. Johnny Davis suggested I was the Phantom of Pot Opera? No, just the pot opera. Phantom or...

Podopra. Yeah. Podopra. It looked more like... Podopatrist? Well, I don't... This is my brain, just getting, I guess, Epstein pill. But even seeing POD is just like,

I'm like, whoa. Oh, no. Okay. Yeah, that's three of the letters right there. Yeah, it's too much. It's too much. I don't, I can't. Why are you Phantom of the Pod Opera?

Other than just being a sick podcast. Apparently, apparently I suggested at some point doing an episode entirely in AKA song parodies the whole episode. And you would be hiding in the rafters of one of our recording studios. Yes, of course. Yes. I did install a chandelier over Jack. Just in case.

Don't worry about it. Oh, look at that. It thinks fancy. It thinks fancy and it has a swing built into it. I do wear a tuxedo at all times. At all times. Whether it be on the plane, whether it be on a private plane, and we're not going to talk about what the tail number is on that private plane.

Whoa. Come on, dogs. Andrew, we're thrilled to be joined by a very funny comedian whose new album, Troy Walker Esquire, is out today. It's Troy Walker! Yo! I'm very excited to talk to you about all manner of news and nonsense. There you go.

We're thrilled to have you. A sharp dressed man. Looking good. I know. This is the only shirt I own. The only shirt I have with buttons. I really do have like a handful. Like I have like maybe two or three button shirts.

And I go into the office and like take like in person meetings rarely enough. that I'm like still, I think I'm at a good place where like they haven't figured out my shirt. Yeah. It's just like, what if I wear this button up shirt unbuttoned with a different color shirt underneath it than the one that I were last time? Nobody's caught on yet. Switch it up. My, my situation is similar, but a little different in that I get, I only have a few button up shirts, but I get new ones. When the old one stopped buttoning.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, now when you go, who got tight. This one got tight on me. Who shrink? Who shrink my shirt? That's right. Shirts do shrink, and they do shrink, and that's a fact, okay?

The big shirt doesn't want to admit. Yeah. All right. So tight around my neck. Troy, we're thrilled to have you. We're going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell the listeners a couple of things we're talking about. Donald Trump's making some war noises.

So we do just, I mean, as a service, we'll tell you what exactly is going on there, all very rational, very sane, and, you know, very well-reasoned. We'll do a quick checking with AI. Also, I feel like this is dominating news headlines lately. People are like, okay, but seriously, this time AI is about to get ready, fuckers. Come on, brother. Give me just another, just another, like, a couple billion dollars in, like, all the water in Nevada. Come on, come on, brother.

That's all we need, and it will magically make your job disappear. The promise is, you know, it's almost too good to be true. Can't wait. But we just want to look at, like, what is actually being done with AI, which is so rarely part of that conversation. It's really just like, we will convert. trillions of dollars of investment into stock prices that go up and executive CEO boners. Yeah. Trillions of dollars of investment into millions of dollars of profit for something. Some people. And then we'll also, yeah, so we'll look at a new report about how often the CEOs, the very people who seem to be most excited about this technology are actually using.

that shit. And then we'll also look at a new fully AI run school. Oh, hell yeah. That's almost as good as that implies. And also, the grandson of the Recy fortune has been like, look, let's admit it, these are getting worse, right? These suck. They suck now. What an ungrateful motherfucker. How dare you speak out against the family. But I do, I do think this.

is happening and I don't think we have a great apparatus for like spotting it when like a product just get worse. So I do. Boiling frog problem. The Boiling frog problem. They're just every month they make the Reese's cups a little bit smaller and nobody notices until it's, you know, we're all, you know, celebrating and, you know, using a knife and fork to divvy up the Reese's cup to our family. And it's actually the size of what used to be. the little fun-sized cup. You're like a note anymore. A cartoon hobo with a bean.

Exactly. That's how I feed my family. All of that plenty more. But first, Troy, we do like to ask our guest. What is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? Well, yesterday I googled Days of Thunder cast. Hell yeah. I don't know if you've seen that movie Days of Thunder.

Yeah. No, I mean, no, but we. How did you get into it? Here's that. So I was on the plane. I'm in Chicago currently. And Days of Thunder was available in my, I don't want to brag, coach United States.

Okay. Okay, sir. So you weren't in a steerage? You weren't in the overhead bin the way I like to travel. I just, yeah. So we're talking about the Tom Cruise. Yeah. The Tom Cruise film Days of Thunder.

For some reason my mind went to, isn't there like an Australian magic mic show called like, Thunder from Down Under? Thunder from Down Under. It's vastly inferior to the Magic Mike Vegas show as far as that goes. Make sure they caught strays real quick. But Days of Thunder, yeah, classic 80s movie that I saw when I was like nine. And it's been like preserved in Amber as a pretty good movie since I saw. since I saw it.

Yeah, I mean, I haven't, I haven't seen it in a long time, but I was talking with a friend about it just the other day because I also saw it when I was a kid and loved it. And it is also one of those movies that's like just very in my movie wheelhouse by like idiot dude movie wheelhouse. Yeah. You know, because it's top gun with cars. It's just like, and like I love Top Gun, Top Gun Maverick. Give me a little. I'm like apparently one of the only. people that thinks F1 deserves to have been nominated for an Oscar.

I was going to say, isn't it the same writers, F1, or same director or something? It has some DNA with F1, I believe. Yeah, I believe. I mean, I don't know if it's the same director, but it's, uh, it may be. They're both scripts written by the same seven-year-old who's like, Cargo fast. Room. Cargo fast. And car left.

I will say, Days of Thunder, not like for whatever reason when you just mentioned it, it was like my brain wasn't contextualizing it correctly. As a title, it goes so much harder than it needs to. Like F1, even Top Gun is just like, top gun is the best gun,

the one that's on the plane. Days of Thunder is like, okay, all right, Shakespeare. Pretty beautiful title for this NASCAR movie with characters named Cole Trickle. They just certain names, certain parts of, they're like, yeah, this is a very straightforward NASCAR movie about a kind of a dumb sport,

and we're just going to pack poetry into the title and the names of the characters. You just had to do real titles at some point. Yeah. Tom Cruise and a young Nicole Kidman, and you're going to love us for it. Oh, yeah. You're going to love us for it.

He's a doctor. Is that where they met? I believe it is where they met. That makes sense. I think it's maybe like her first big Hollywood movie. I'm not sure that's accurate, but I think it may be. Yeah.

This is vibes only. By the way, Jack, this podcast is vibes only for me. Yeah, yeah. No facts. No facts. No, no. But it's, look, I could be wrong.

I was Googling the cast. Yeah. Are you saying you could be wrong that Tom Cruise might not? be in that one? No, no, no. I'm saying I could be wrong as to whether or not it is Nicole Kidman's.

Yeah, yeah. But she's got the curly long hair and she's in a doctor's jacket and she's just staring at Tom Cruise going like, you idiot, you gearhead idiot. And then she's like, but I love you.

And I think, you know, there's something beautiful about that. According to Google's AI overview, Nicole Kidman's first major Hollywood movie was the 1990 action film, Days of Thunder. Troy, congratulations.

Man, you have me, I felt like that American Idol apprehension for a second before you revealed that you had like a little bit of a pause. No, I don't know, American Idol. Is that kind of like masked singer? Is that, is that masked? That's my favorite. You gave it that reality show, reveal pause. And it's like, am I about to look?

No. No. No, you're the John Henry of movie facts. You're you versus the AI and you're going to win. Or you're going to die? I don't remember what happens at the end of the John Henry. Can I tell you something? One of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me.

Yeah. The John Henry of Movie Facts. I'll take it. Have you guys watched The Masked Singer, by the way? I'd never watched it. I had never watched it. And then we, for the Tony Hawk icons episode, that one kind of has like a sad, the Tony Hawk icon story

kind of has a sad ending where it's like, you know, the end of TAR where she's like conducting music for a video game and like another country and like her career, like that's kind of how it felt with Tony Hawk like being the

first eliminated from the masked singer. But I had, I like watched the clip of him being revealed. I was like, wow, this is like truly dystopia. Like just the feeling, the editing. It really is like on the nose what a filmmaker from even like 15 years ago would have done like it feels like the TV from the universe of Robocop.

Yeah, we're in the Paul Verhoeven verse. Yes. We live in a very Verhovian. It's it's it is depressing especially because of the fact that it feels like you can almost hear someone's agent going, okay, so dancing with the star, said no. That's right. Like it feels like right below that level of like having fallen off, you know? Yeah. Just the whole idea where they take the thing off and it's like, oh my God, Sarah Payland.

Right. Yeah. God. And they like pretend like they can't get it the head off so that like there is some, like really build up the suspense. And I learned and I learned from that. And that's why I built up the suspense on the Google A. I love the acting skills of the judges, too, like when they reveal it. And they're like, whoa.

Oh, my shit. Whoa. For Giuliani. blown away. Oh, my God. Which person who can't sing is going to be inside this mess. Ah, yes, of course. What is something, Troy, that you think is underrated?

Chain restaurants. Underrated. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. Good answer. Good answer. It's very underrated, I feel like.

Certain ones better than others, but, you know, I think you can't really, you need to appreciate the ability to be in almost any city in the country and go. Hell yeah. Yeah. I'll be at least satisfied. Yeah. You know, there's no, like, mistakes. Stuffed. You know.

There are certain things that hit with, like, almost every chain restaurant. Like, anything. Anything in an egg roll, like, that's just been, like, fried crispy and has various cream-cheased ingredients inside is just like, come on. That's going to be good. Every version of mac and cheese. There's a reason those shits are chained up. There's fucking, they're good. They used to not be chain restaurants.

I can tell you that much. I will say this. And my genuinely, I'm on somewhere on social media, public record. my friend Catherine, who's like a food journalist, like an honest-to-god, full-ass, food journalist, did like an Instagram poll or something at one time. It was like, what's the most underrated restaurant in Los Angeles? I replied, it is the Arby's that is on Sunset Boulevard.

By the way, RIP to that RBI. Yeah, closed down. Yeah. She did say that one got the most responses of people being like, it actually is. It is this one. Andrew's right. It's this one.

It's so rated so. low and it is fucking awesome, even if it doesn't anymore. Yeah. It used to, yeah, I used to, I used to stop at that Arby's. I used to stop at that Arby's and really crash out. Yeah.

Like, really just like black out and come and then leave with like, why did I order all of this? That Arby's is the you just left a general meeting in Hollywood and it didn't go great and you're about to get on the highway Arbys. Yeah. It's right next to the Netflix headquarters. Yeah.

Yeah. And you just said to yourself, like, you know what, I deserve two French dips. Yeah. They had me pitch off next to a iPad AI thing with like a smiley face on it and I lost. Yeah, the mask writer. What if we took your premise and gave it to this AI? That sounds good. That does sound good, actually.

Troy, do you give us one order from a chain restaurant that you feel like is, like, underrated or like something that everybody should. get. Okay. So have you guys ever been to Texas Roadhouse? I think I, is that the one with peanuts on the floor? Yeah, yeah. They have a bucket of peanuts on the, hell yeah. You're starting to see the through line between this and Days of Thunder. It's like, this is very me, this old thing. The bone and rib eye at Texas Roadhouse. Yes. is one of truly like you cannot lose. You cannot lose. Because that is an ambitious order for a chain restaurant to go with a, you know what I mean?

Yeah. It will be perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned every single time. And it's like $25 for a 20 ounce bone in ribeye. It's like easily one of the best steak deals you can get. And they have it everywhere. And because you're at Texas Roadhouse, you get a bucket of peanuts. and those rolls with the cinnamon butter. People love to, yeah, love to fucking rolls.

Texas Roadhouses, man, I'm an evangelist. The way you've reacted to my, me saying the place with peanuts on the floor is leading me to believe that maybe it only has peanuts on the floor when I'm there. Like, are you not supposed to just throw them on the shelves on the floor? I mean, what I remember is like it was like kind of, yeah, I guess people probably do just throw them on the floor. It's just me. We got to look under, we got to look under Jack's desk right now because it's just coated with. It looks like a hamster cage down there.

Right. Nothing but peanut shells. Yeah. I don't know that they've actually got like a. They're not like, this is fine. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think like the corporate manual is like, so, you know, part of your side work is sprinkle peanut shells on the floor.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. I think maybe this was, it was also the last one I went to was when I lived in Kentucky a long time ago. So maybe that was specific to Kentucky. I feel like you just sort of like pig pen from from peanuts. You just got like a cloud of peanut shells or bit of you at all times. Now that would have made sense why that strip was called peanuts. You know? He got peanut. He does have peanut show. I kept waiting for a punchline. Troy, what's something you think is overrated? In and out. Okay. Oh, probably our most, our most frequent overrated, I will say.

Really? Yeah. Okay. It's just rated too high. Yeah, that's right. Do you think it's bad or do you think it's just rated too high? No, I think it's good. I just think that, you know, like when you talk to people in California about it and it's like, you know, people in front of cool, it's like, it's like the most fresh, most delicious.

This is such a good impression of California. like your California voice. Holy shit. This fucking. It's so good. It's so good. Look at me on my skateboarding. Yeah.

Your voice is giving somehow stoned but still calling the cops on someone at the same time. I like to thread the needle. But I think, yeah, I think it's good.

I just think it tastes like Wendy's. Oh, like I don't think it's. It tastes like. Which is also good. Wendy's really has, like, gone through its ups and downs. Let me say this.

There was a time when Wendy's had fresh produce in their birds. Wendy's the best. I fucking love Wendy's. Sometimes. Sometimes it's not so good. It's like people would oversell. Like, you know, I'm from Colorado. So, like, people would, you know, before there, now there are in and outs in Colorado,

but before that, people would just come and, like, tell tale of it, you know, like, but they would, like, come and, you know, be like, oh, you know. Oh, in Atlanta, in California, you must try. It's better than anything you've ever tried in your life. And then one time I drove out, the first time I ever went to California, I tried it, took a bite and went, oh, this is Wendy's. People will travel to, yeah, people will go out of their way to go to In and Out. That is definitely true.

Now, is there a little bit of Colorado protectiveness here? Because that used to be true of cores, which I didn't realize until the first season of righteous gemstones. But that was like, there's this Colorado delicacy called Coors Beer and you can like only get it in Colorado and people would like drive to Colorado just to get it. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh. I don't know if there's, I mean, I don't know if there was something special about original recipe cores or something. Like anybody in from a state that's a square, you have an insane pride for things that are really worth.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like I don't even like beer, and I'm still like, yeah, Coors. Got it must have Coors. That's a hometown thing. We got Coors Field where the Rockies don't play baseball. It's colder than your beer.

It's got mountains on the can. Yeah, that's right. That's how you know it's good. But our city and our state have largely pivoted to craft beer. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are really polar on beer. You're literally the worst and the best.

Spears are from color. It's really, we've really leaned into the craft brewery situation. Yeah. You know, as it's become like a real city. Oh, yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break. We're going to come back.

We're going to talk about the news. I do have to give a quick shout out. Super Producer wanted us to shout up. The triple dipper from Chili's. That's right. Which is, I don't know if it's underrated, but it is. The rating, the problem is, Jack, you're, You and I are a bunch of fucking coastal elites.

We underrate everything at the chain restaurant is the problem. That's right. It's all way better than we think. We're showing up to Lexington, Kentucky, being like, have you guys tried Ruby Tuesdays? Yeah. Yeah. What the fuck out of here? All right. So good.

It is good, though. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm in a Nicolip Lamouba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

both been assassinated, and black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Almermata, Moore House College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr., and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying.

In 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What do you do in the headlines? Don't explain what's happening inside. of you. I'm Ben Higgins. And if you can hear me, is where culture meets the soul, a place for

real conversation. In each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks. And we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff, identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore, loss that changes you purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down, faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you.

Listen to if you can hear me on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Bowen-Yen. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina-206 winner Olympic Games, we've done. been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bowen, hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo.

Hey, Matt, hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to two guys, five rings on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What if mind control is real?

If you get control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade some? someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.

NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP might actually work. This is wild.

Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. No. And let's talk about war. Yeah. What is it good for? That's what those average are for. Everybody's content.

That's right. It's fun. It's fun content. This is just, you know, it seems like Donald Trump is desperate for a distraction from the Epstein files and the ice goons and the economy and the naked corruption and like everything else that, you know, is happening with the administration. So they're going to go full George W. Bush on all of our. our asses. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of saber rattling going on. He claims he's negotiating a deal with

Iran, but it's not really clear what the ask is. Like they say this is about the nuclear program. Iran has stated that they are fine not having nukes. So it's like, okay, so we're good, we're good here. God, can you imagine. Let me make up something else that I need to get from this. The thing that he wants least is Iran cooperating, which is so what a weird dynamic. They're just like, we can just fuck with him by going like, yeah, all right.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Sure. That's fine. It's all good. You don't even have to do it. Funny because he's the one that like blew up the nuclear deal that the Obama nuclear deal. He like got rid of it. And now they're like

make a nuclear deal. Right. We want a nuclear deal. It's all good. Just like, yeah, the whole thing is just kind of like he breaks something and then, you know. But it's also like, if you're Iran, it's so easy to be like, yeah, okay, and then just don't do it. Because what's he, he's not even going to know. Like it's like negotiating with like a five-year-old. Just like, yeah, whatever.

Just let's lie to his face. Who cares? What's he going to do about it? We do, of course, know that the U.S. is not the only one negotiating here. And that Nekhnyah, who's been talking with Trump about these talks and they've, Probably both. They're coming from different places. They have different end games. Trump seems to be fine with being like, I got Iran to stop doing the nuke. And then Netanyahu would rather drag the U.S. and the world into World War III.

Yeah. Regional World War III. I guess they're all pretty regional. Yeah. I always refer to World War II as a regional conflict personally. That's what I'm like. I'm cool like that. Yeah, I don't know. At this point, my. might be cool to start raising Israel's 200 plus nukes. No. Maybe that should be something that we introduce into the conversation since they seem to be a little bit loose cannon-y, little rigsy.

They're chill. They're the chillest. And that's important to keep in mind. That's right. All right. Moving on to AI, which I do just feel like I'm seeing a lot of headlines. recently, that it's just like, no, guys, but for real this time. Here comes AI to for real change your world.

Do you know how fast this AI is going to know facts from Days of Thunder? Do you know how fast? That's right. Troy, you're fucking toast, bro. I know. John Henry, finished. That's right. It does, like, every time this happens, I just do need to go and do, like, a couple levels,

deep research to be, like, Like, wait, is it actually amazing now? Does it do anything good? Uh-huh. That, like... Yeah, they still know. I'm going to be like, oh, yeah. That's...

Like, they still have the one thing where they, like, figured out the structure of the proteins, protein molecules. And, like, that was... If I may, uh, Jack, I saw this in the notes. I will also point out, though, they love to hold up, like, the one time it works. Because that's what they do for video creation,

for, like, fucking chatbot shit. it's like, oh my God, look at what it can do. And they don't ever point out the 9 billion other 999999 billion other times that it doesn't work. Yeah. So, you know, great assault on even the protein thing. It's just like it took so many shots in the fucking dark. One of them had to work.

Right. And also like that video, they were, everybody was sharing of the AI, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, like flying on the top of a building. You know, and it's like, yeah, that looks. good, but whenever it goes in a close-up, you're like, I kind of feel like I saw this from seven. This is just a space from seven. You know, it's like that kind of thing. I kind of feel like AI is only really going to, it'll work to like supplement things.

Yeah, yeah, it's a tool. Like when you just Googled, yeah, got your little, uh, the AI summary that you, that you just got a second ago. It'll be that and like, it'll work for porn. Yeah. Yeah. I think those will be like the two things that'll work. The Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt thing, too, was just a face replacement.

They, the Twitter people were like, oh, you know, it was like a blank thing. We just said, show me Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting. It turns out it was like a shot video with a face replacement. They just put their faces on someone else. I think. As far as I saw on like blue sky, so who knows? But we don't source things. We don't fact check things because we hold ourselves to the same standard as the thing we're discussing, which in this case does not.

fact check anything and is permitted to hallucinate facts. But it just, yeah, as best as I can tell, we're not seeing any, anything that's cool or like that change it. Like even if, let's say the Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise thing is real, they just type, make Brad Pitt fight Tom Cruise into a AI engine. And it makes that video like, what does that do? Like, who's that? How does that change the world?

Like, I still haven't seen that thing other than using it as a tool for, like, scientific research and discovery. Great, yes, please, keep doing that. But they need all this investment. And so it's just these, like, broad pie in the sky things. The thing that made me think about it was Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, who are, have many problems going on with their,

and, you know, owners and players directly funding or participating in war crimes, et cetera, et cetera. They are, he like gave this state of the league thing at All Star Weekend, and he said, as I look at the world and the predictions, and we're seeing much of it already on how AI is changing everything about our personal lives, our business lives. For me, there's no doubt AI will have the same impact on sports. Oh, dope. What? One area in particular that I think is worth addressing is impact on the fan experience.

One of the things we're beginning to see already is how we're going to more than personalize, almost hyper-personalize our telecasts. That's going to suck so bad. Yeah. That's going to be so bad. I think these people genuinely don't understand what a culture is. Right. Like, because these people, the other things, they bring up all the time is like, oh, you could get it to generate an episode of Game

of Thrones just for you starring you and your boys or whatever. And it's like, that's not television. That's like a card for yourself. No one else wants to see that. And then you're just in a vacuum by yourself. It's so insane that they think people want that. A lot of the stuff is like, oh, here's your AI companion. That's just sad. Has anybody had a good experience in that, like, I know people who have used it to be like, hey, could you organize my computer, like, help me organize these files? Has anyone had, like, a good,

personalized experience? Like, I feel like the way this is going to go is you're going to be watching an NBA game that, like, just, like, complements you. Yeah. And it's like, look at that play, Jack. Jack. Jack. That was amazing.

Yeah. It's amazing that you're watching this NBA game. Exactly. It's amazing that you asked about how many rebounds. Only a really. Yeah. Like, I think it's just a, what's the definition of good? I think there are a lot of people that enjoy that interaction,

but I think the data seems to be showing that's not good for them or for anyone. I think it'll be good for video games, porn, and it's like a fun thing to play with, but that's not how it's being pitched to anyone. I feel like it'll work well as a tool to help you get, like, cut down on how much work you have to put into stuff. And then it'll work for things where, like, the actual quality is not that important. You know, it's like, that's where it'll be. That's why I think, you're, I think you're right. It's like, oh, okay, it'll work kind of for video games and help them code.

And then there's, like, the weird, like, AI girlfriend porn stuff where it's like, you know, these are guys who are buying fleshlights. They don't care if she's got six fingers. Yeah. They're going to get into that. Gotta consider that six, six thing. Yeah.

So it's kind of like this, like, I feel like it's got to be, it'll be helpful in, as a tool in stuff that requires quality control. Yeah. And people can plug whatever into it

and have it kick it out for stuff that doesn't matter. I mean, but like, the personality pitch every time the AI bros talk it feels to me like their pitch basically boils down to hey we've all wanted to have

a slave haven't we and it's like no dog what are you talking about that's genuinely how they talk they're like well wouldn't you want this and it's like oh really man it kind of work around the clock and tree like shit yeah it always

it always kind of it reminds me of like the Bitcoin stuff where it's kind They're always like underlying it is kind of like this like, I can't function in normal society aspect to it. Of like, no, man, I don't want regular actual money. I need money where no one knows where it came from or where it's going. I need like, you know, my bank accounts have been closed. Yeah. What if this dollar bill could be worth between half and twice as much as it is at any given second?

Like that. Don't you see the advantage, man? Don't you see the advantage? The government can't seize my assets. It's like, yeah, I do, but like, I have to admit I've never really been that concerned about that. That's weird that you're so worried about that. You know, it's kind of like that kind of thing. Yeah, just in terms of like what they're actually using it for, because this does seem to be a thing that Wall Street is starting to pay more and more attention to is like, okay, so like, like,

When will there be results? Because they're just shoveling money into AI research. And there's been a couple of studies recently. Some people have even suggested, like, this is why they're going so hard on the, like, get ready to have your whole world fucking rocked guys. It's because there's like these surveys, like they just surveyed thousands of CEOs.

And two-thirds of executives use AI, but they use it for an average of 90 minutes. it's a week. Yeah. Like, they also are like trying, you know, there was this initial pitch in 2023 from an AI researcher being like, this is going to increase workers' performance by nearly 40% once it's adopted. And like, of the people who have adopted it, they, like, haven't increased productivity

at all. It doesn't do the thing that it's supposed to do that is like the entire promise of it. It's changed. I think it's changed. the nature of a lot of people's jobs if they're forced to use it because their job has now become, well, now I have to double check that this lying machine is not lying as much as it could be. It's just like, you're still spending the same amount of time. There's no way to do that. The promise of it is definitely overrated so far. It's kind of, it always kind of feels like

it's like it's coming from people who maybe weren't who were good at like tech and not at other stuff and so I want the tech to fix the other stuff you know like it's like oh it'll make sport I wasn't good at football but it'll make football so much better I can't act but I can do this thing that thing that's right make actors it's always feels like it's kind of this other other thing I feel like as far as like actual legitimate business it'll help in some ways but I mean it's kind of part of the issue is that you don't, you're not okay with error from the robot, right? It's like if you were going to get like an AI travel assistant and ask it to book you flights and like plan out a trip for you and it messes that up.

Oh yeah. You like don't, you won't be okay with that the way you'd go like, oh, my travel agent's a moron. Right. Like it's like this weird kind of thing where because it's a robot, it needs to be perfect that It can't be perfect. Interesting. It's bad at its job. I feel like people are on the, I'm at the opposite side now.

I'm like, it's an AI. Of course it makes the stakes. Yeah, but they, yeah, yeah. It's like at a certain point though, yeah, the results are going to start becoming a problem for them. Like there's just this like really broad learning curve that I feel like we are, we're giving them a lot of grace with the like learning curve of the AI because they are, are asking us to, I guess,

because so much of their money is that Yeah, because the CEOs are just like, hey, they need it to be true. Yeah. They need it to be true. They need to be able to lay off 40% of the workforce and that's all they're Jones in for. Yes. Yeah. To go back to the NBA,

like I feel like this is like when a GM can't put a winning team together, so they just keep like, they're like, oh, we're tanking, we're like just acquiring you know, picks for the future. and just selling this hope. And eventually it's just like people get tired of that.

Yeah. Amazon saw their share prices drop earlier this month after it was announced that they're spending $200 billion on AI. And people are like, but like you don't have any results. Microsoft, same thing because they announced that the return on AI but AI investment would be further off than anyone expected. but like people were worried when they were spending $250 billion in 2024. They're expected to spend $650 billion in 2026.

Yeah. So they're just ramping it up. Well, it's also like, there's something to show for it. There's something to show for it will crater society. Yes. That's right. This is going to be great. You're all going to be out of work.

Yeah. Yeah. Like best case scenario is that it puts millions of people out of work. Troy, to your point about this being like the tech, the tech guys being like, this is going to be great. We just like won't ever have to interact with each other. It reminds me of their solve for food when they were like, soilant. Yeah.

You know how the worst thing about getting nutrients and like getting through the day is having to eat, spend time eating delicious food? Well, we've solved for that. It's like this is like, you know how the worst part of doing anything? Like, yeah, there's some busy work that sucks, but it's just like they just want to streamline everything. So there's no human interaction at all in anybody's day. So yeah, I'm still not, still not buying. I genuinely, I have a theory that income disparity in Silicon Valley, the Bay Area, San Francisco specifically,

means that there's not enough teens on the street telling these guys, they're not, they're dorks. and this is why we're here. If we just need teens and tell them these people, your fucking sociopathic nerds, their businesses would be in a better spot. Just import mean teenagers to San Francisco, to the Bay Area. This is a great pitch.

Andrew has two goaded Hall of Fame theories. One is this, and the other is we just should never do satire. Satire never works. I just don't think it ever works. We just need to never do satire ever again because people are just like, American Psycho? That should be a real guy named Clavicular. I want to be Walter White.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. It flies over people's heads, too. Yeah, it does. And then people just like it. Yeah. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk about Reese's cups and whether they're getting worse.

We'll be right back. Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Minnick Lamouba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. had both been assassinated. And Black America was out of breaking point.

Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Almermata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King's senior and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in, what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die.

1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What do you do in the headlines Don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins

And if you can hear me, is where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us,

what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff, identity, when you don't recognize yourself, any more loss that changes you purpose when success isn't enough peace when your mind won't slow down faith when it's complicated some guests have answers most are still figuring it out if you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story this show is for you listen to if you can hear me on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast i'm bowen yin and i'm matt rogers during this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast

in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina 2020-2016 Winter Olympic Games we've been joined by some of our friends Hi, Boin, hi, Matt, hi, Matt, hey, Matt, hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.

Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of, of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP, might actually work.

This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the eye. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Guys, we're running out of time. So we're going to skip the important story about AI schools. It's not going to change. It's going to be the same tomorrow. Yeah, we'll talk about the AI schools on Monday. We might even talk about the Olympic ski jumper getting hit with a leaf blower on Monday,

depending on how jam-packed the Olympics are with scandals over the weekend. But we do need to cover this important story because there's been a lot of online theories over the years alleging that Reese's peanut butter cups just don't taste the dang same anymore. I've always found them to be, first I will start this off by saying they're my favorite candy. Oh, okay, that's why. I love them. I also don't have never thought that, like, so the thing that people say is like that it tastes more like more chemically. yeah like waxy probably right like that's always been the thing

the chocolate has gotten waxy yeah yeah chocolate has gotten waxy okay but yeah I agree I agree like I don't know man I think you might have these people might have slightly rose colored glasses of what it was like to eat candy as a child because they were shitty then I promise

I know that's the thing like we can say movies are getting worse because we can go back and watch the ones from the 80s and be like these are kind of the seem to be made by people who like movies. Whereas, like, candy is not there. Like, we only know when they've made their product shidier, when they're like, all right,

we're going to do an ad campaign where we admit that our products sucked. Like Domino's did that one time. Otherwise, we're just having to kind of guess at it. Or in this case, when one of the heirs to the Riesie throne, H.B. Recy came out and was like, hey, look, man, I'm, I'm old. I don't really give a fuck. They're replacing real peanut butter with peanut butter flavored creams. Man.

H.B. Recy. Sounds like a conspiracy theory from like the... Sorry. I got that wrong. This is Brad Recy. Brad. 75-year-old grandson. of H.B. Recy.

Yeah, okay. The mad chemist. When I say I'm a peanut butter cup, man, you will believe me. My name is H.B. Reisy. Yeah, sounds like a guy who died on the Titanic. Yeah, yeah. He died doing what he loved, killing other people and combining, combining peanut and chocolate. I will say, I don't know if this is a direct quote or it's written down, but on the dock, it says peanut butter with peanut butter flavored creams.

Clams. CRE, which genuinely sounds nicer than peanut butter. I have to say, what's a crem? I don't know. I don't know. I kind of want to just hang out with a handy conspiracy theorist. Just a guy who's going like, they're replacing the peanut butter with peanut butter

flavored creams, man. Don't you get it? I mean, I think the confound is give any five-year-old a Reese's peanut butter cop and they are not fucking complaining. That's true. Yeah.

But I also do think they're smaller than they were. Definitely. That one is definitely happening. It feels like we should be able to just like look at the old packaging, see what the ounces were. But yeah, they're definitely getting smaller. I mean, we covered, like, this was an openly, this was openly happening before Halloween this year was because of the floundering economy, chocolate prices had skyrocketed.

and companies were openly admitting that they were lowering the chocolate content of chocolate and just raising sugar. And they're like, people won't complain if you just like make it more jam-packed with sugar. And it's like cheaper for us. Yeah, it was like the tariffs on the cocoa or something, right? And they were just like, okay, we'll give them more sugar.

Good old American, and by sugar you do mean good old American corn syrup, right? Probably. There's no way it's actual sugar. Yeah, yeah. It's funny to see when corporations just have us absolutely pegged like that. Yeah. They're just like, his pigs will take this.

Yeah, they're definitely referring to us as piggy's. Yeah. Because they're not. Their rightful counterpoint is who's going to say shit? Who's going to do something about it? And America, collective is like,

not me. Yeah. Yeah, we went from a model of capitalism where it's like, and, you know, people will have. have to compete with one another to give us the best product.

And now it's like one really powerful guy just being like, what fuck are you going to do about it? Yeah. Pushing us in the chest and then like giving us a feeding trough. Yeah. Yeah. And go, what do you think of that? What do you think of that?

Yeah. Look at you. Oh. Yeah. Look at it. He loves it. We don't even, we don't even respond. Our mouths are too full of trough.

All right. Well, Troy, such a pleasure having you on The Daily Zykeyes. Where can people find you, follow you, experience your new album? I am at Troy Walker ESQ on socials, and the album, it's called Esquire. It comes out today, February 20 on all the places you get comedy albums. iTunes, all the places you would, if you said to yourself, I'm going to go listen to a comedy album. You can find it.

That's where it'll be. Is there a work of media you've been enjoying? I've been really enjoying Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Oh. That new series. Their usual co-host is really enjoying that as well. It's really, really, it's a cool take. because I didn't know what it was

in the last, whatever that last Game of Thrones spin-off was, didn't really grabbed me. But this one I like, because it's, there's like a lot of humor to it. It's much funnier. Comedy Game of Thrones. Yeah, it's great. But it also

is, it's, yeah, I'm really enjoying that. And I've also been rewatching Southland. Oh, which, you know. Southland is the cop show, right? It's a cop show. from like...

NBC? It was on NBC and then it like did the first season on NBC and first or second and then they moved to T&T. With the kid from, with the kid from a

DOC. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's so good. I think it might be one of the best cop shows ever. Wow.

How about that? This is the first I'm hearing that this is something to check out. Amazing. I recommend it enough. It's on Netflix. Wonderful having you. Andrew.

Where can people find you? Is there a work in media you've been enjoying? Andrew T on social media, Starter Trek as available at Sub Optimal Pods, really enjoying that. Shit, what was the piece of media? It was the, no other choice. I know people have been watching it.

Yeah, I can't wait to see that. Still too expensive on the rental front. It's like $20 to rent. No, yeah. Just wait. I guess it's just like on the B side of award seasons. I do very much understand why the Academy was like, we already gave Paris.

We already gave these people a parasite. Come on. We can't. But yeah, I really, really, I mean, there's nothing new, but I really enjoyed that movie. Nice. All right. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien,

Blue Sky, Jack, O, B, the number one. Instagram, Jack, O, underscore Brian. Working Media, I've been enjoying. I'm going to go off of no other choice and shout out, Decision to leave the Park Jamwock's last film, which was also really good. And I don't feel like it got some attention back then. But in case you missed it, Park Jamwok's decision to leave, you can find that, yeah, it's good.

It's like, you know, it's the director of Old Boy. I don't know if you ever saw Old Boy. Yeah, I did see Old Boy. Yeah. I love Old Boy. Yeah. The director of Old Boy, it turns out, rarely misses. He's made some fucking bangers.

You can find us on Twitter and Blue Sky at Daily Zekeyes. We're at The Daily Zekegeist on Instagram. You can go to the description of this episode wherever you're listening to it. And there at the bottom, you will find the footnotes, which is where we link off to the information that we talked about. In today's episode, we also link off to a song that we think you might enjoy. When Miles is out, we like to ask super producer Justin Connor. Justin, is there a song that you think the people might enjoy it?

Yeah, this is a fun, high-energy track called, Siesta by B. Cyril. Miles talks about how he loves to listen to drum and bass when he's biking to keep his stamina up. And the song is definitely useful for that. But you could also use this song to just chill and go in the opposite direction. Because nowadays, we could all use a siesta. So this is called Siesta by B-Cerl. And you can find that in the footnotes. The Daily Zekeyes is a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts from my heart radio. Visit the IHeartRadio Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for us this week. We will be back with the weekly Zykeyes, which is a bunch of highlights from this week's episodes tomorrow, and then back on Monday morning with the icon episode for this week, which is Tupac, a very fun episode. So come through to check that out on Monday morning. Otherwise, have a great weekend.

We'll talk to you all next week. Bye! The Daily Zykeyes is executive produced by Catherine Long. Co-produced by Bay Wang. Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M. McNabb. Edited and engineered by Justin Conner. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people because of what happened in Alabama?

This Black History Month, the podcast, Selective Ignorance with Mandy B, unpacked black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the board of trustees, including Martin Luther King's senior. It's the true story of protests and rebellion in black American history that you'll never for again. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Mennelick Lemoombo. Listen to the A-building on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel

empty. I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, is where culture meets the soul. Honest conversations about identity, loss, purpose, peace, faith, and everything in between. Celebrities, thinkers, everyday people, some have answers. Most are still figuring it out. And if you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to if you can hear me on my iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What if mind control is real? If you can control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some

suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.