The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 312 (Best of 3/4/24-3/8/24)

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 328 (3/4/24-3/8/24)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just

starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one nonstop infotainment laugh-stravaganza. So without further ado, here is the weekly zeitgeist. We are thrilled to be joined by a tech journalist, writer behind the newsletter, Where's Your Ed At? His new podcast with Cool Zone Media, Better Offline, is a must listen. Yeah, yeah.

Also, how I found out about that New York magazine, The Cut, personal finance expert being scammed to the tune of $50,000 cash in a shoebox. I think how a lot of people found out about it. It's Ed's Intro! Ed! What's up? What's up, YouTube? That is exactly

where it's from. Every single one. Yeah, dude. Rudy? Rudy, fantastic album. Yeah. It's Rudy, right? With the ape,

that like albino ape one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a great song. What a great album. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, we're starting on a high note, Ed.

Oh, yeah. I mean, next time, yeah, we will give you ample time to prepare an AKA that either has to do with Fecal Matter or Circle Jerking with the Beatles or something like that. Or something of your own choosing. You can start preparing now. Just sit in that thing for your next one. What can I put to Bush's glycerin? Yeah. Glycerin.

Glycerin. Sometimes they just... Like, doesn't that song say got a machine head yeah he's just like it's a cool title and i'm just gonna be like got a machine like it doesn't really than the rest green to the red right green to red machine head yeah not exactly shakespeare no not quite they would like come up with a cool word and then just be like, I've got one of those. They're not as good as the hives, though. The hives are just complete nonsense.

They're my favorite. The joker got a smoker and a bong got a gong. I listened to the latest album recently. It was like, this is awful lyrically. Yeah. I feel like I'm getting a concussion listening to it, which is i get listening to it right yeah yeah that's what happens is i feel like with uh the bush guy it's a little bit yeah gavin rossdale is a little bit of the bubble like the um 30 rock episode where john ham is a doctor who's just so good looking that people are just like damn man

you are the best doctor ever and he like doesn't know he doesn't know shit he's like hey here try my special recipe orange chicken and it's just chicken cooked in orange gatorade like i feel like gavin rossdale is just so stunningly you think he has people problems oh yeah i think he's just a good looking guy gavin rossdale wasn't he i mean mean, I mean, people were definitely thirsting over him in the U S in the U S and when Bush first hit, yeah.

When Bush first came out for sure. I mean, he looks like a slightly upgraded Jeremy Clarkson. Come on. Wow. I don't know. I think I, I get,

I gave him a lot of credit once he got with Gwen Stefani, you know, he went with Gwen. Oh, so he is the reason why they haven't made a good album since return of saturn that's right yeah exactly exactly anyways this is uh album talk yeah no ed how are you doing where are you coming to us from las vegas nevada where i live yeah yeah beautiful las vegas nevada how long you've lived in vegas three years okay where'd you live before that?

California. I was in Oakland. Oh, okay. Wow. You went from the East Bay. Wow. You really followed the Raiders. Oh, yeah.

Well, I didn't do it for that reason. No. Would you look at the product on the field? I love it here, though. Yeah. You like to go visit the immortal flame of Al Davis. Yeah. And just kind of shed a tear right in front of it. The Raiders will to go visit the immortal flame of al davis and yeah i shed a tear

right in front of it the raiders will to win yeah yeah when you go there and do the tour they all say that stuff to you it's all that propaganda oh it's just like you can't be you can't be saying that shit anymore when maurice jones drew was like an exciting guy on your team it means things have been bad for a while yeah yeah oh man mjd yeah what is it like living in vegas are you hitting any of the shows is it what i imagine to be just you know rat pack shit every night you and yeah just me rolling down the street yeah martinis yeah no so i'm a huge home body yeah i don't like going out so i'm at home most of the time but when i do go out i like to be very precise i don't like to go out for an evening i want to go out have dinner

have drinks come home vegas is so convenient you can get pretty much anywhere here in 20 minutes this is great if you're i guess i'm addicted to staying at home and drinking diet cokes which is pretty easy to manage but if you have another addiction, Vegas will find a way to bring it to you. Oh, yeah. Or bring you to it. Yeah. And so this place drives people insane, but it has one of the best food cultures I've ever seen. Right.

It's really cool. If you are in control of yourself, it's amazing. If you're not, it will burn you to death. Yeah. The economy is like based on, so like people who are in control of themselves get to like have better times than they would otherwise because the economy is fueled by all these people with very difficult problems. But also it's become a lot more respectable. Like it's a lot more like going out to nice restaurants and shows and music now than it used to be when it was going out and making a mistake or five.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's less that it's the strips much nicer. Fremont streets. Horrible though. I, people need to stop saying go free.

It's horrible that it's also really expensive now. Yeah. It's a very strange place. So it was everywhere. It turns out. Yeah. But yeah, last time I was in Vegas, I had the thought that this would be a good place to take my kids. Yeah.

Which would not have been the thought I had. At the Luxor and you're like, oh yeah, you can go see bodies. It's a blackjack table. Yeah, exactly. I love this. Sharks. Like, there's a whole thing that's just, there's a whole, like, thread of culture and content that is, like, just all woven throughout the strip that is, like, aimed at 5 to 12-year-old boys. There's, like, Sharks and Michael Jackson, which they're really into. Well, I mean, I don't want to put him in the same sentence as 5-year-old boys.

That's true. sentence that's right that's true there is yeah i remember a time when my mom would go with her friends just like they would go gamble she'd give me 20 or something and be like i'll be back in a few hours yeah and i was like yeah i can make this work and i just went mortal combat or something yeah exactly yeah zarin elizabeth what is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are or what is one of the most recent things that you have screencapped that is revealing about who you are. Elizabeth, ladies first. Oh, thank you, sir. I was just looking.

I was doing an image search yesterday, psychic horses. And that was for social media for the episode that dropped today from us. And then, you know, I was looking at my search history and it's just a lot of like misspelled things. Or I go to hit the space bar and I hit period instead. So it's like, you know, brigatoni.pasta.recipe. Brigatoni.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's not very thrilling. Prison pasta. Yeah. Not particularly thrilling. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, that's not very thrilling. Prison pasta. Brigatoni. Yeah, not particularly thrilling. But psychic horses. Psychic horses are a common scam, right?

Oh my God, they're everywhere. Surprisingly. I can't leave the house without, you know, every day. Sign a jar in front. You know, they're everywhere. You never hear about like a psychic beaver. You don't hear about a prognosticating owl no it's always the psychic horses yeah and why don't we give dogs because dogs also like isn't the way that the scam is pulled off a lot of the time communication between

like unspoken communication between owner between human and horse yeah like yeah totally so it's called the clever hans effect, actually. Yeah. So why aren't dogs being used in this way? Is it because they don't have a mystique about them? So we're just like, dogs are fucking dumb. Oh, you think the dogs are rejected? The dogs are like, hey man, I can't do this. This isn't right. We're taking that lady's

life savings now. I think dogs are jocks. That's why they're in the AKC. They just want to compete. They don't want to do spelling contests they're just not not into that man can i run i want to where's the balls i can jump over rascally they can't be dependent on to participate that's also a good one yeah i think also there's probably like a power of being like hold on let me get next to the horse because it's like a bigger animal that you're like yeah uh-huh okay like i think visually seeing like somebody like embrace the horse you're like, yeah, uh-huh, okay. I think visually seeing somebody embrace the horse, you're like, no, man, the horse is fucking spitting game.

There's something inherently mystical about horses that I think impresses people, impresses me. I've lost a lot of money to psychic horse scams, so I'm just wondering where this starts in me. Yeah, let's investigate that for you. We measure power by horses. I mean, clearly we understand the pull and the compulsion of a horse.

I mean, yeah. I mean, they're tools of colonization too. So they've got a storied history. Is that true in the psychic community too? Are they like, this psychic has like 45 horsepower? Oh yeah, totally. Psychic brain. This thing's got a fucking V12 up there, man.

Smack that top of their head. You know how many psychics you can bag in here? How about you, Zarem? What's something from your search history? Okay, so I was looking, and I had a lot of stuff from work, and I'm not going to tell you my work stuff because it's all like,

oh, of course you'd be looking at BB King, but the one thing that I did look up on my own was foreign accent syndrome. You familiar with foreign accent syndrome? One of my favorite syndromes. Yeah, it strikes dozens of people every century. Okay, so I looked it up just because I wanted to make a joke with Elizabeth about it because I just happened to – I don't know. The best way to put this is that would be one occurrence I'd be like, you know what? That'd be kind of cool to get. I'd be like, oh, man, it'd be really happened to, I don't know, best way to put this is that would be one occurrence I'd be like, you know what, that'd be kind of cool to get. You know, I'll be like, oh man,

it'd be really funny to me. But then I realized it would only be funny that one day. The first day it happened after that, you're like, please doctor, how do I get rid of this? So I was looking, how do they get rid of foreign accent syndrome? The only treatment is learn to sing. That's what they tell you. Because hopefully, because you know, like when you listen to someone who sings like the Beatles, it doesn't sound like an English accent as much as it sounds like singing. Except Green Day, who develop an English accent when they sing only. Yes, exactly. See, they would be able to get rid of their, you know, fake English accent by singing in American accent. They'd be like, OK, I'm back. But you know who had this apparently for a little while? George Michael, the singer.

So he was a singer and he was able to get rid of it really quickly. What was his accent? He had West Country accent. It's the English accent. I don't know English accents well enough. I wouldn't be able to say, oh yeah, that's not an upcountry. Yeah, but that's not the big step away from most of these people. Most of them, it's like a whole continent.

It's usually like some English lady who gets a really offensive offensive chinese that's the classic i remember that one colwell yeah they did a whole show on her and you're just like for real like really yes it sounds mad racist you're like come on lady you're like no this doesn't happen you're like you're just a bad comic like i don't know what you're doing you're like no you're trying to go to extended bit george michael goes like 50 miles away yes Yes, exactly. Okay. Yeah. But also, it normally happens to women at like 87% to men's 13%. Interesting. Wow. Yeah, so it's based on the

brain, the Broca region of the brain. So when a person has a lesion or a stroke, all of a sudden this happens and then they can't do anything about it. So you can hit me in a particular place on my head and we can try and make this happen. Much more likely for you. No matter how many times you hit me in the head, it's probably unlikely. Yeah. Alright. this happen. Much more likely for you. No matter how many times you hit me in the head, it's probably unlikely. Roulette. Go get a golf club.

Alright, next one. Do the next one. Is it usually based on something they have experience with? Does the person who developed it? No. It's just an accent they saw on TV. The Chinese accent was not good. Sometimes it's not even that they know the accent. Yeah, the Chinese accent one. Suddenly they're like, it's not good. Yeah, well, sometimes it's not even that

they know the accent. It sounds like the accent. Like there was this Norwegian woman, she had it where her accent suddenly sounded German to everybody. So they couldn't stand it

and they made her leave town. They exiled her because her accent sounded German. So it wasn't that it was like so crazy. It just, her accent no longer sounded Norwegian.

They're like, oh no, you sound like a Norwegian. It's a German speaking Norwegian. Out of here. That was just a couple of weeks ago, right? The one who got exiled from town. Yes, exactly. That was in January. What, uh, what's something you think is underrated? Right now? Uh, women's rights. I thought we had women's rights locked in. Like when I was on the come up in my twenties, early thirties, I was like, we are really crushing it on women's rights right now no i didn't know i didn't know that this could all get taken away so fast we got

we're fighting for abortions and we're fighting for uh we got no um paid maternity leave we have no affordable child care i mean we're people are saying ivf embryos are kids now. Yeah. I didn't realize. And then you've got all the microaggressions, being a mom right now, traveling with my kids, still all the microaggressions, like what's this mom doing with her two kids out in the airport? Get your trash ass back home

and cook and clean in silence where you don't have to see. It's like, it's all the microaggressions plus the expectations that you have to be like beautiful and effervescent and well-dressed and you get no child care and you get low wages. I'm just like, come on. I thought we were I thought we were past this. Now we're heading back.

Yeah. In America. Yeah. Yeah. We're just talking to about how Joe Biden also like just can't straight up be like, yeah, man, like we're going to figure this out rather than being like, you know, I'm not. He's we talked about this two episodes ago. He's like, I've never been supportive. You know, it's my body.

I can do what I want with it. It's like Donald. Say that your body. Right. Yeah. It's actually the Lord's. Because if we were forcing Joe Biden to donate part of his liver to save a life, which would basically be the same thing, using somebody's body to keep another person alive. Right. He would be like, oh, no, you're not coming for this liver.

Yeah. Fuck out of here. You're not going to force me into a liver surgery. No, no, no, no. Right. Have you seen the scar? I'm not getting that scar. No, no, no.

I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach this summer. That's right. Yeah. You also have Sky on Paw Patrol. Oh, man. This is a deep cut. I don't know if you guys are with the Paw Patrol.

Maybe you are because you have kids. Man. All right. Paw Patrol. You got it. All right. So I don't know why I've been watching so much Paw Patrol with my son. But Sky, I think, is like one of the only

or one of the only girl characters. I think so, yeah. Is she the only one? Maybe there's one more? Yeah, I think it's like a Smurfette-type division. Like, it's just one girl or, like, maybe another one. That's right. But Chase is the main dog or whatever.

He kind of gets all the action, but he is always, like, petering out on the courage. Like, he's he kind of gets all the action but he is always like petering out on the courage like he's like i'm gonna go save it oh no i can't and then sky's like i got it you know let me go up there and save the day sky is always handling business she has no fear she has no excuses and chase is up there getting all the all the action and then they gotta then they gotta make him feel better like Like, that's okay, Chase. We all get scared. It's like, Skye doesn't get scared. Skye's out there in the airplane, saving the day.

It's like, man, not even Skye can get the accolades that she deserves. It's hard for me to watch. I'm like, come on. And instead it's the fucking cop. It's the cop that's fucking being like, yeah, do that. ACAB does include Chase, by the way. We have established that on this podcast. In, yeah, do that. ACAB does include Chase, by the way.

We have established that on this podcast. In this house, we do believe ACAB does include Chase. Twitter is Twitter. It's not X. And ACAB does include Chase. Those are the two things on our yard sign. Every day. Oh, and also, Facebook is we will never call Facebook

meta. It's meta. But to be fair, nobody else will either. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Everybody's confused as fuck, for sure. Also, just from a strategic standpoint, Sky is... Your problem-solving group has a fucking Air Force.

It has a clumsy fireman is one of the dogs. Chase, who's just, yeah, a cowardly police officer. So just a police officer. It's got Rubble. Rubble's the construction guy. Yeah, Rubble's got tools.

But then they have a fucking air force. Like that would be, that is your best weapon. That is the leader of your pack. Yeah. Is the one who can fly. Who can control the skies. Yes. But yeah, they underrate

because of women's rights, you know? That's what I'm saying. Come on. Man, we're off this Paw Patrol. Man, yeah, get your son off that Paw Patrol. You know what I mean? We don't need that copaganda. You know? Put him onto something new. It really is. And his little buddy, what's the boy's name?

I was like, man, y'all with your little buddies. It's a bad situation. Yeah. I always want to call him Chase, but he's not Chase. But yeah, there's like a human 12-year-old boy who is the leader. And do not trust that guy. Is he white? Yeah.

Is that boy white yeah oh hell no bro yeah he's he's the one pulling all the strings getting the cops to do things okay well maybe that is good for a child to see to be like no this is actually this give you an idea you know what i mean of how how shit works yeah he runs like the call center or something yeah it's like 9-1-1 he's a dispatch children yeah it's like there's child labor in this show too yeah he's got a fucking job the mayor is a woman of color and is a bumbling fool oh no but the mayor in the movie is like a white guy with the top hat who says things like an unqualified politician what's worse that could happen oh wow oh really that's where they went oh yeah yeah that's where they went all right that's getting political who says things like, I'm an unqualified politician. What's worse that could happen? Oh, wow. Oh, really?

That's where they went? Oh, yeah. That's where they went. All right, Paw Patrol. That's getting political in the Mighty Pups movie. Yeah. See, I missed the movie. Thank God.

We had aged out by that time. Catch on Prime. What is, what's something, and that is also, yeah, you're also here to promote the Paw Patrol movie.

Right. In addition to your stand-up problem. Get a percentage of all the sales. Just go through my affiliate link and that would be great. Thanks. What is, what's something you think is overrated? High heels. High heels.

100% overrated. Don't want to wear them. Don't want to think about them. Don't want to wear them. Don't want to think about them. Don't want to see them. My feet. Like I, at one point I had all these high heels. I just,

I threw them away and it was so fun. It was like, it was like, I was like, Oh, this is the time when I actually want to, you know, burn the trash.

It was like, it was like, it really high heels. It's too high heels it's too much it's too much so overrated did you just snap the heel off the shoe like like a wishbone like in an act of liberation you're like ha like give me another pair that sounds like it would be a wonderful sense of release yeah maybe next time what are you wearing now what's uh what's your foot what's your foot game like like now i like fancy sneakers yeah i'm into the i'm into the fancy sneakers especially you know on stage whatever and then boots that's it boots and fancy sneakers okay

boots i was talking to somebody who was like a real like foot, like footwear snob in a way that I hadn't encountered where he was like, well, see, the thing is with you, with most kids shoes, the toe box is too narrow. You need to let their toes spread out. And like most of our shoes, you're like walking in a pillow. You can't like grip the ground. You need like shoes that have like barely that make you feel like you're walking bare barefoot and it all made sense to me sounds like a lot of work is that the kind of person who wants you to wear the toes that that like the shoes that are like toe yeah he did not and i asked him a number of times i was like but you're trying to get me to wear those two toe shoes right you're part of that cult that has the articulated toes at the end of the

shoe. But I truly, based on everything he was saying, I can't imagine a worse thing for a human foot than fucking high heels. Unbelievable.

Shouldn't be allowed. This is, I don't know if you see this. This is a video my friend sent me when they went to a parent-teacher conference of another parent who had leather toe shoes. Wow. That's real. Wow. Those are, and I was like, they look like if Darth Vader was wearing those toe shoes. Like the aesthetic of the shoe.

Yeah. I mean, it looks like a costume. It looks like a. It looks like a costume it looks like a looks like it's like christian bale's batman like became like dropped lsd and like moved to portland yeah it became skin basically yeah well you know i've i like being barefoot so like i'm not like against the idea of like something that mimics that but part of me is like, I'll just be barefoot. I do a lot of barefoot around the house or just if I have to go up the street or something,

I'll go to the mailbox in bare feet. Really? Yeah. So there's no dog poop in your neighborhood? I know how to dodge it. I'm nimble. I'm spry. I can dance around it.

But as a kid growing up like in la i just was always barefoot especially in the summer so like the black top like my feet like just became accustomed to summer asphalt barefoot and i kind of take that now it's a point of pride although the bottoms of my feet look terrible they look like flintstone shits but whatever flintstone shits yeah wow i mean like you know the shit oh yeah yeah not not they're not they're i just thought there was a part of the flintstones that my brain had blocked out oh no but you're just saying they're like the skin on the bottom of your feet is like three inches oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and anytime like i've i've gone to like uh i remember i got like a pedicure once when i was working on a

campaign with all the other campaign people like it was like right after election it was on election day we're like all right our work's done let's just we can that's a fun way to treat yourself yeah yeah it was cool because i'd never done it before and like all these people i was like no no go ahead come on come on they went and the amount of time they spent on the bottom of my feet i was like oh maybe this did they do the sanding thing like the cheese grater on the bottom of your feet where there's just like a pile of grated parmesan a foot yeah they yeah they put a respirator on and like uh like an air vent like they were cooking at like a teppanyaki restaurant or something. You needed one of those treatments where the fish come and eat the dead skin off your face.

Yeah. I see that all the time. Yeah. I'm like, but then part of me is like, is that really good eating on there for you guys? Is that good eating? Okay.

They just give up. You're their dream. They take one bite and they're like, geez. Enough. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little tough.

Yeah. Right. I get some tenderizer. Yeah. I get some A1 on this. It's a little tough. Yeah, right. I get some tenderizer. I get some A1 on this. It's a little well done. Salted a little bit before you come in. Damn. All right.

Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about some news. We'll be right back. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two

decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary

if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Santer. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.

Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. had fun last season? Well, you were right. And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs. We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach. That's my husband. Daphne Spring, Daniel Thrasher, Peppermint, Morgan J. and more. You got to watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us,

but you got to listen. Like if you're watching us, you have to tell us. Like, if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window. Just, you know what? Listen to the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. You guys heard of this Donald Trump guy? You guys seen this Donald Trump guy?

You seen this? You heard about this? No, tell me more. So this campaign occasionally is feeling like just keeping a running tally of the deranged soundbites from each candidate oh yeah however this weekend trump was really like putting some numbers on the board yeah he referred to the country of argentina as a great guy great guy called biden obama likened migrants to hannibal lecter from silence of the Lambs. He said, they're rough people. In many cases, from jails, prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums.

You know, insane asylums, that's Silence of the Lambs stuff. Hannibal Lecter. Anybody know Hannibal Lecter? I love that he said he had to survey the audience. Anybody heard of him? Well, he's like a fucking comic. He's just like doing a crowd. Well, Well, he's like a fucking comic. He's just doing crab. He also had a lot of

speaking errors, too. He was running up the score on trying to say things as well, but hey, that's just part of the campaign from all candidates. I feel like every person during the course of their life has a certain amount of drunkness

to get through. And even if you don't drink, as is his case, he's just like burning out all the drunkness now. Well, doesn't he have that theory that everyone is born with a certain amount of energy? Yes. You just have a certain amount of energy. Right. So he has that with drunkness too. He's got to burn through it. It's also burning through, just plowing lines of Adderall, I think. Well, yeah, there's that. Also has something to do with him slurring and not seeming fully coherent.

But sandwiched amongst this sea of bullshit was a new concerning campaign promise that probably deserves more attention than the mainstream media is giving it. He declared in Virginia that, as he's been hinting at since last year, if he is elected president, he will withhold funding for schools that have a vaccine requirement. They were cheering. It was wild.

They were like, ahhh! And I think some people were like, wait, I think that's bad? Wait a second. Iron lungs all around. Which, back to general like not just COVID. He means like everything, MMR, like anything. Okay. But I think he's playing to a crowd that would probably not distinguish between those.

Sure. Hey, they're not saying you can't get the vaccine. They're just saying they want their freedom as Americans to not get a vaccine. To bring back polio! To practice vaccine safety is like the fucking phrasing that you hear with these people. You know, we haven't said rubella in a long time. There's a big measles thing in Florida, right? Measles is running rampant.

What about mumps? Yeah. Mumps is hitting. Mumps is fun. It kind of makes me want to shake my shoulders a little bit. in Florida, right? Measles is running rampant. What about mumps? Mumps is fun. What the fuck is even mumps now that I think about it? I don't know. It usually affects the glands on each side of the face.

These glands call it... That's got to be really painful. Oh, yeah. God. Okay. Well, hey, man. Freedom. It's all about freedom. Bringing m bringing polio back it's you have that that thing with the the vaccines and the whole like science denial but i also when they're putting it into the schools they have like this larger plan to dismantle public education yeah right you don't want to put your kids right yeah it's a two-edged sword that works for them in a number of ways that they're excited about.

And then, like, siphon it to, like, charter schools where they'll just teach, like, white national. Privatize everything. Exactly. That's the ultimate goal. Yeah. But experts, which, you know, we trust those guys as far as we can throw them, but experts have warned that this could create, quote, a public health catastrophe for the nation. Yeah. Yeah. quote a public health catastrophe for the nation yeah yeah that's peter hotas from baylor who like

you know was like one of you know really out there during covid like sounding the alarm and telling people about like what their risks are but yeah in fact he's like yeah that's uh don't just fucking cut the brakes on this thing yeah i i feel like i'd be like, well, you know what? Cull the herd, but it's not going to affect just those. It kills the rest of us. Exactly. We can all have mumps together. Oh my God, it would be so fun.

Team building. We haven't heard from Aaron Rodgers on where he's coming down on this, so we're waiting to pass judgment. The real expert. We're waiting. I just want to know, what essential oils do you use for mumps? It's a combination of. It's aromatherapy, actually.

Oh, it's just aromatherapy. Well, it's that and colloidal silver, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen Mother God, but you kind of want to do something like that. Or maybe emu oil. Is that helpful? You want to rub that on the scalp?

Yeah. Just, yeah. Gently. Yeah. Okay. Yep. And then fill a bath full of eucalyptus leaves and just breathe that in. Perfect.

Yeah. Anyway, but these are all things that we can do to fight off the coming, I don't know, retro pandemic that's coming. Anyway, but despite all this stuff, it looks like voters are pretty chill about Trump not being a dictator or being one. They don't know because a lot of the Biden campaign, like their electoral messaging is their strategy hinges on Biden reminding voters that Trump is indeed

a wacky piece of shit that is bad for America. And they've been very explicit about this. And that makes the findings of a recent poll a little unsettling. There was a poll that was asking people in swing states that was specifically designed that was asking people in swing states that was specifically designed to only include people that potentially actually vote for Biden, meaning no one who voted Trump in 2020, none of their answers were taken into the analysis, or people that

believe the election was stolen, those people's answers were also left out of the analysis. So again, these are voters in swing states that potentially could vote for Biden. The poll asked these people about 10 of Trump's, quote, most authoritarian statements, things like he would how he would like terminate parts of the Constitution, that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. bowed apart in January 6th rioters, the promise to prosecute the Biden family with no evidence. His threat to, quote, inflict mass persecution on the, quote, vermin opposition. Only 31% of respondents said they previously had heard about these statements by Trump. They're like, oh, that's what he said?

Oh, interesting. Didn't he say he also wanted to, like, do it? Did they include the one where he was like, yeah, I'm not going to do a dictatorship except on day one. Day one. That's when I'm going to do it. Just day one. Just day one. Enough to kick it off and then I'll let my minions do the work.

But yeah, so not great if you're betting the farm on, you know, screaming about how Trump's, you know, what like what his record is. And but I guess the positive news here is that when people did hear about this, their feelings changed. So people began to see him as, quote, out for revenge that jumped up by five points after hearing this. The percentage who see him as, quote, dangerous rose by nine points. And the percentage who see him as a dictator went up seven points. And a lot of like the accepted wisdom in dc is that like people already know that this guy's dangerous you know like just stop wasting your time uh but this poll says otherwise about a third of people were like huh what so at least there's room for people to get rightly freaked out i guess is the silver here. There's room for more freak out silver lighting. I suppose so.

Yeah. Freak out's a weird thing because you have to manage it, though, because if you get people freaked out, they don't want to stay freaked out, so then they'll stop listening to you if you freak them out for too long. So you have to only freak them out in spurts, basically. Then there's also the problem is, essentially,

that we're talking about this Trump issue. I think here's a good analogy. It's like a crime, right? You cannot go to the police and say, hey, I want you to investigate this crime until there's a crime. You can tell people what Trump's going to do, but they won't believe you until he's done it.

But we can't have him do it because then he's done it. So it's the issue of we have to think differently about it. So there was this woman who called the police and she wanted them to find her missing i think it was her sister and instead of saying it was her missing sister she phoned in that her sister's car was stolen they found the missing car and they found the sister they would not have looked for her sister otherwise but they knew that the cops would go to find the missing car the stolen car because they care about property and it's easier for them to look for blah blah blah blah right a car you don't think like give us 48 hours exactly before the car needs to be gone 48 hours before we consider it stolen yeah

so i think that the democratic you know strategists need to think about the stolen car messaging of how they can manage this moment because they're going to have months that they have to freak people out about trump and you do not want to turn them off. So pick your moments. They got to do a little bit of freak out edging. I guess. Don't fucking go too hard to boil slow. Yes, exactly. But I think it just reveals sort of like to your point, like this disparity between how elected officials like wonks and like Capitol Hill reporters see things and how normal everyday voters do. Yes. Again, that's why like hinging this whole thing on telling people about how Trump couldn't be as your entire strategy. I don't know.

You also kind of need to do more to help people understand also what your vision is. It's like being on the dating game, right? And like you're, you're courting one of the contestants and they say, oh, suitor number one, what's your favorite romantic date? And they go, let me tell you about suitor number two. He's a dangerous piece of shit. Fuck that dude. He's wild.

He's crazy. And you're like, he's literally- I'm right here next to him. Rodney Alcala. As the person who's like the one about to go on the date, they're like, okay, what about you though? Can we talk about you? Well, this guy's crazy.

Yeah. You ain't seen suitor number three yet. So it's like, okay that's like what are you going to do that's another part of the process here that they really need to actually understand like that's good to sound the alarm but you also need to give people a vision of the future they can invest in that you know and i know this is hard for the establishment democratic party but like you know can you can you do something a little bit more than the status quo that might that might also help too yeah swing with both hands like you know use that right for the attack and use the left for like okay defense like okay i'm gonna keep trump off but tell me what you're gonna do too i think it's a really

good point which is you hear the voters saying that and yet democrats tend to at least at the national level want to maintain a momentum machine rather than like they talk about the threats to what you may lose from the other party, as you're saying. But they never talk about where it's going to go. It's just been, oh, you get to keep going the way it's going. You love this. Don't you love stuff? All the stuff you have. It's great.

No, that's not going to work. The stuff that they claim. Right. Exactly. Yeah, because they've hit the sort of like end of the rope, because at this point, if they go further, they're like, I guess do we defund the police? I guess we actually do something about the climate, like in a really aggressive way. I think that's the thing. You got to be brave about it. Yeah, right. The voters have helped our society. They're brave. You kind of go out

on a limb. So it's like you're saying the one-two punch of like, look at this really bold thing we're going to do. P.S. This guy's fucking out of his mind. I want the FDR. The LBJ. Give me like the fight and the program. I just want the FDR in the sense that I want

polio to come back. We're working on it. We are working on that. Six months, don't worry. Right. The dating game analogy, I made reference to Rodney Alcala, the serial killer who was on the dating game, and he won that shit.

So maybe... I don't know what the other... I don't know what the other or the other contestant strategy was if they were like I wonder if the guy was like this guy's a murderer

I think he's a murderer I'm pretty sure this guy is wanted for murder I don't know you sound like a hater and they're like oh my god

this guy's intriguing you sound negative why are you guys like so obsessed with him this isn't like I'm so intrigued now

yeah he went on the date and the date ended prematurely because the person found him creepy right ah yeah yeah it was unfortunately in the case of trump on day one when he's like dictatorship it will be too late for us to find him creepy yep yeah yeah but also the democrats why can't they talk about what he did the first time he was president and say and then connect that to what he's going what he says he wants to do talk about what he actually has done his actions and then go and he wants to do more of that if they're going to talk about it rather than just wagging a finger and being like you know he's gonna do because then it sounds like he's got

all this power like this guy's just gonna get in there and do stuff people his voters, a lot of the moderates, they kind of dig the idea that this guy has some energy and plans to do something. So don't give him credit for wanting to do stuff because it backfires for lots of reasons. Yeah. Yeah. Dictatorship, I think like after, you know, like we mentioned, a lot of people's disillusionment with the Democratic Party is their propensity to be like, well, we promised this, but throwing up their hands like the powers that be. It's like you're the president. Aren't you the powers that be? Well, and I swear to God, if any other any like top politician comes at me with, you know, you got to get out and vote. I'm like, look, bitch, I voted and you haven't done

anything about it. Stop telling me to vote because I keep voting. I keep voting. Right. And then it's what at some point you got to hold up your end of the bargain here. Right. But I do wonder if like, you know, there have been a lot of interviews and polls with Trump's supporters that indicate that they're not voting for him in spite of the dictatorial vibes, but because of the dictatorial vibes and because people are like, yeah, it's time for something different. You know, Mussolini, I don't know. Guy had real energy, had riz.

So, all right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and we'll talk about the guy who got stung on the ball sack by Scorpion. We'll be right back. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high-control

groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out

in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary,

but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone. I am Lacey Lamar. And I'm Amber Ruffin, a better Lacey Lamar.

Boo. Okay, everybody, we have exciting news to share. We're back with season two of the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. You thought you had fun last season? Well, you were right. And you should tune in today for new fun segments like Sister Court and listening to Lacey's steamy DMs. We've got new and exciting guests like Michael Beach. That's my husband.

Daphne Spring, Daniel Thrasher, Peppermint, Morgan J., and more. You got to watch us. No, you mean you have to listen to us. I mean, you can still watch us, but you got to listen. Like, if you're watching us, you have to tell us. Like, if you're out the window, you have to say, hey, I'm watching you outside of the window. Just, you know what?

Listen to the Amber and Lacey, Lacey and Amber show on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. And, you know, the thing about the companies, the people making the decisions, deciding what these products actually are and how they interact with the consumers, like that being completely insulated from the actual people using the products or viewing them as piggies who we don't mind if they get sucked out of a door that pops off the Boeing jet. Feels like it's of a piece with, like, you'll read these articles about how economists are baffled and they're like, the old rules of macroeconomics no longer apply. Like, just look at the pandemic and the, you know, there was supposed to be this massive recession because fucking everything shut down.

And yet we kept these good economic metrics throughout or like the, you know, the stock market never fully crashed on us and we're baffled. market never fully crashed on us and we're we're baffled and it just feels like the whole thing is part of this system where the people who are at the very top and who are like involved in the stock market are completely insulated from everything going on below and yes it's all like it's that as much as it is like a problem with tech and tech has made it has been like the thing that has allowed the disease to spread uh more quickly it feels like it's good old-fashioned just like yeah like monopolies and like all the shit that was a

problem in the early like 20th century late 19 century. It's just like you just have these people who are making all the important influential decisions who are 100% just decoupled from the people who their decisions affect. Yes, and that is the overwhelming problem and a symptom of an economy ruled by weak labor standards and weak antitrust. Right. And the market, you're right, it is a problem outside of tech.

Boeing being a great example of a company that just wanted basic safety. Tesla, another great example. They are not a tech company. They are a car company. Elon Musk is trying to claim they're an AI company because he's just a crook and a liar and that's all he's capable of doing. Tesla is a great example as well of just like

a stock completely decoupled. It's a meme stock at this point. But it's such a successful meme. I mean, it's a meme stock that has made him the richest person in the world. For now. For now. Can you talk about...

The board of directors is going away. Can you talk about, like, what... How people perceive Elon Musk? Like, my dad will say to me, like, Elon Musk is, like... I mean, that guy must be so smart, right? He, like... I've even heard this from, like, people who pay attention,

who, like, work in finance and are, like... I mean, the guy disrupted three major markets in the course of a couple... I think the public image of him is this Tony Stark, once-a-generation genius, and that is how he invented Tesla in his garage or some shit. Whereas, how did he actually grow his fortune? What is the thing that

he's good at? I think you've compared him to the CEO of Google. They're good at the same thing, which is creating the illusion of growth that you can sell. Elon is a marketer at his heart. He is an operator and a marketer. He is good at mobilizing capital

and good at mobilizing capital and good at convincing people to put money into other things unless it's a consumer product right he has never done well with any kind of consumer product car he has done like largely because he knows how to hire people or at least he did before he went crazy he has always been kind of a shithead that's also an important thing to know. He has never been a great guy. The myth of Elon Musk being this super genius that invented Tesla is also wrong. He did not.

Someone else. I forget who. There's a couple of people who actually designed Teslas and founded the company. Elon came in with money. He invested. You know what? He invested well, and he's been a champion for this, but he's also got lax labor standards, horrible racism problem over at Tesla. This has been what

he dogpiled a reporter called Aaron Bieber in like 2017, I believe. He has been this guy forever. But what Elon is good at is hype. And he realized in like 2013 that the press would pretty much print anything he said forever. And he used that again and again and again in a way that should not be legal. Like I'm actually really like if we had a strong enough SEC to actually like surely there is a side where it's just a guy being like, yes, so we put the first Neuralink chip inside a person. They can now see the future. And everyone's like, yeah, let me just put that on CNBC.com. That sounds true to me. This guy is a liar, but people have printed

his shit forever. He promised autopilot like three years before it even got close to existing. He has made up stuff about Tesla for over a decade. He is just a liar, but he's realized that this is how shit works the people are just like people will just fall for this shit and people will buy his lies he hasn't really corrected the record that he isn't the inventor of tesla despite the

fact that he didn't invent tesla he didn't invent any of the spacex stuff right he didn't invent the starlink thing he didn't invent any of this stuff. He's just the hype man. And that was better before he was like, what if I went and just posted something Hitler adjacent on Twitter? That'd be great. Like he's just, I actually genuinely think as well people turning against the tech industry,

people being angry at tech, have done so because they've kind of seen what he is, what Elon is, the kind of person he really, really really is and how little value he actually has and also they've seen how poorly he's run twitter right right yeah is there like you know like with all this like we all know basically there's just it's all this illusory shit it's just to give the like the the feeling that there's growth but not offering a product that actually drives it and the and people are investing more and more but into something that like doesn't exist what does it look like when it like the market corrects

or the bubble pops or will it or they're so deep in it like because i'm trying to like what does that reckoning look like for people like elon musk and things like that musk less so though i think twitter at some point will have a reckoning. I think it is inevitable that this company burns more money than it makes. And also with the fact that Elon now has to replace multiple members of the board of Tesla. Right. But the thing that I think is going to be the reckoning is artificial intelligence. Because right now they're trying to put generative AI into everything.

A product that no one really knows the reason why it exists. But they're putting it into everything. And the way that this is growing revenue is Microsoft invested in OpenAI and Google invested in Anthropic, the two largest model companies. So that's guaranteed revenue. Those companies have to use them now. Bookable cloud revenue.

As the AI industry grows, so does their revenue. Guaranteed. No antitrust law to stop them from literally just investing in a company that would then invest the money that they just invested back in the company. It's a horrible circle. The reason I think this might fall apart is because they're also scaling up their data centers to match this demand. Because AI is extremely demanding. It's extremely demanding. You cannot just run it on your computer at home. You need specialized chips and you need a lot of them. And so as they massively scale this system that's deeply unprofitable, eventually people are just going to not use it if it's not useful.

If it really isn't actually useful, so suddenly you're going to have companies like Microsoft and Google that invested billions and billions of dollars and hectares of real estate for data centers and they're going to find themselves like Microsoft and Google that invested billions and billions of dollars and hectares of real estate for data centers, and they're going to find themselves with their dicks out. They're going to be like, oh shit, we put all this money into

something that no one wants. I think that will have a severe enough correction that things will get slightly back on track, or it destroys the entire tech ecosystem for a few years and everything's kind of screwed. There's a big chance of that because this stuff doesn't make any money.

None of these things are profitable. None of them. Not one of them. And if users stop using it, even if they're forced to, what's left? All of this real estate, all of these data centers,

NVIDIA's market market cap where the hell does all this money go it doesn't go anywhere it will affect the tech industry and it will be bad and i think people are laughing people are kind of done with generative ai already like the a regular person does not know why they need chad gbt the seven million dollar super bowl commercial for microsoft's co-pilot ai they had a thing in there where it's like do me a logo of a classic truck mike's truck if you actually type that into chat into microsoft co-pilot and chat gpt generative ai can't do letters right it can't do letters so it's like it looks like cthulhu yeah yeah and there's another thing and there's

another thing in there where they're like, oh, do the code for my open world game. These aren't ideas. No one's doing this. These aren't normal people things that people, no one saw that and was like, wow, I can now make an open world game. No one's that fucking stupid. Or at least if they are, they'll do it and then nothing will happen. So I remember this one story where I was like, like I talked to somebody who's familiar with markets and was like so much of like the market growth, I forget what year it was, but was like propped up by AI stuff. And so I was like looking, I was like, so what does that mean? Because nobody really knows what AI is. How is it being propped up? Like how is that translating to value? And like one of the metrics that they were using was like all about user

adoption of chat GPT and how it was like the fastest adoption, like faster than TikTok, faster than any social media up to this point. And it turned out to be bullshit. Like it was internal numbers that were bullshit that they were lying about. But the thing that was exciting and that got people excited enough to invest money was the lie. And so that's still the thing that just lasts. It really feels like in addition to them being the input of information coming from the investors, they're also controlling it so that no bad news gets circled into that system and it's just this like bullshit economy that just like cycles back and forth in the top and like won't it won't allow that input of information that all of this

is bullshit and people aren't using it really i. Except what's going to happen is this push, this big lie that you're correct about, by the way, is going to have something bad happen as a result of it. I don't know if you remember back in 2012, Knight Capital. Knight Capital was a hedge fund that due to an incorrectly installed algorithm invested billions of dollars in stocks it could not afford it lost them about 410 million dollars they ended up having to sell for parts yeah something like that is people all the time yeah well it wasn't even fooling the people it was just it never stopped buying that was it's a quite complex thing but the algorithm was off so it didn't have a point when it stopped buying stocks it just bought way too much yeah haven't we all been there but i bought too many

stocks yesterday i feel sick i'm something like that is going to happen though yeah and gemini which is google's generative ai they had a big problem where you typed in what do the founding fathers look like and it generated a black guy a black like the concept concept of a Chinese George Washington is terrifying to these anti-woke guys. No! But that was actually significant enough that Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, had to say something about it. I think something bigger and worse happens

with someone who adopts generative AI that destroys a company. I think it does something so significant that that scares the market. Because there was a Wall Street Journal story a few weeks ago where they were saying Anthropic and OpenAI were having trouble selling their stuff because of the hallucinations, because of these mistakes it was making. And in the article, it's great. You can see the journalist trying to be like, so how are they going to fix this? And the quotes were like, well, at one point, we'll tell the model to not say anything

if it doesn't know for sure. And then the next thing was someone saying, yeah, but the problem is if you tell an AI that, sometimes it will just stop answering at all. It'll go, nah, mate, I don't trust myself. It's like taking someone's keys away when they've been drinking. But that's the thing.

At some point, people are going to notice this doesn't do anything this is not they want this to be the next there's a phrase that no one ever gets fired for buying ibm right they want this to be that but it isn't useful and every person who's a big fan of it it's like well it will be and then you ask how and they're like i am really sorry i gotta take a phone call i'll be back in three hours please don't wait here i do not have an answer and it's just i also think that this is overwhelmingly this kind of stuff is becoming more and more obvious for the regular people and they're going to get angry i'm angry about it yeah no i think everybody should be angry about it i just don't know like it feels like they have built this system

to insulate them from our anger at this point. And at a certain point, I don't know what it looks like, what the event is that makes it so they can no longer ignore that anger. Because, yeah, I'm definitely a product of having grown up in this system. And, you know, my first memories being like Clintonian, you know, bullshit and just like not being able to imagine something different. But something different is definitely coming. I think that it's just you're going to start seeing the Facebook advertising model break down. Yeah. Online advertising is becoming less profitable and less useful.

As that starts dying, the tech industry is going to realize that they've got a big problem. When Meta's market cap goes down and when AI stops generating revenue, when it stops being the buzzy thing that you have to install, that you have to integrate,

even if you don't know what it does, what happens then? What's up? Mark Benioff, every time, like I think at least once a year, will say that AI is now in Salesforce, and he has done so since like 2016, every year. Salesforce claims it has AI in it. It is just a giant con at times.

It feels like that. And it feels like, I know it sounds a bit conspiratorial, but it feels like they're laughing at us on some level. Yeah. Well, I feel like they're also scared, right? They should be. So they need to allow Google to become a monopoly and just abuse the smaller companies to remain profitable because Google is too big to fail. Because all of these companies are already, like that lie that you're talking about that

like that crashes the economy like and that is the thing that everybody from the fucking president down to you know the top 0.2 percent of the economy like can't allow to happen but even then google doesn't need to operate like this they They make like $10 billion of profit a quarter. They don't need to run like this. The economy doesn't have to run like this. Tech companies were plenty profitable before. And there are ways to do the Uber. The thing that really frustrates me about Uber is, had Uber been done slightly differently and much slower, it could have been the single most disruptive and important tech company of all time.

and much slower. It could have been the single most disruptive and important tech company of all time. Had they done everything they did but made it so that, this is the crazy thing, had they done like labor rights

baked into it? Yeah. Would have made them less money, would have made them slower. In the short run, yeah. But just charge them, charge people more. People would have paid more.

You would have created a new class of employee. Yeah. One covered, one protected, a massive change in labor. That company would have created a new class of employee yeah one covered one protected a massive change in labor that company would have been worth several trillion dollars just to be clear yeah would have taken them 20 years to get there but they would have been instead we have this massively unprofitable labor screwing piece of shit company that has the monopoly on cabs because cabs were built on another kind of exploitative system, the medallion system.

And it's just, things can change and indeed I think they will through awareness alone because when I did the first Rot Economy episode, I've got so many emails from people being like,

oh shit, I didn't know that. I feel that more people knowing will put that pressure on there. People will stop using these products. And as users stop being interested in these dog shit products, things will change. Yeah. Yeah, it's just more about creating enough of the awareness around it. Because I think most people get caught up in the razzle dazzle of it all.

And you see even the people who, you know, it's like we're a country that's ran by older people who don't understand technology. So they're not with they're not understanding what the borders should be or the guardrail should be. So that creates this environment for people to just completely shift the thinking to be like rather than, you know, like making a product. What we need to do is like sell one of those companies because that's how people talk. And it's not about making the thing. It's like, yo, man, we got to create a company we can sell. And that's just it. And because of that, there's no value in it. And it merely societal problem with the concept of business itself. I think that they, we have lionized big companies over good companies. Yeah.

Yeah. I go, I run a small PR firm and I have, and people for years were like, you need to scale. And I'm always like, why? And they're like, cause that's what big, good companies big. Yeah. It isn't. And I think we, we lionize managers and management. But I think especially the pandemic proved this.

It's very obvious that the managers and the CEOs don't do the work. And I think there is a labor awakening. It's slow, but it's happening. That will change almost every step of everything we're talking about. No, this whole conversation has been, you know, having worked at and run Cracked back in the day. And just, you know, it started out as this website that had these really good articles because we had like a handful of really talented people. And we kept like bringing these talented people in to focus on making the good product. But there was also these people who were like focused on doing the ads in the sidebar and making those ads trick you into thinking you were clicking on content.

And that is what the entire internet became. The people who made the content got choked out and the people who do the sidebar fake ads that trick you into thinking you were clicking on content where you're actually clicking on something that is going to fuck your computer. You know who got rich off

of Reddit? A community entirely made up of free contributions? Sam Altman. He made $400 million. Like that is the guy, not the moderators, not the Redditors who made the internet better

for their Redditing, I guess you'd call it. No, Sam Altman, a guy whose only role at that company was to put money in at one point.

Right. This is something that I feel like if more people are aware of, they will turn on the tech industry and they bloody well should.

Yeah. Absolutely. All right. That's going to do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like the show. It means the world to Miles. He needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend, and I will talk to you Monday.

Bye. Thank you. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out

when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.