The Gargle - Snitch app | Crypto feminism | Bridge theft

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Josh Gondelman and James Nokise join host Alice Fraser for episode 57 of The Gargle, the weekly topical comedy podcast from The Bugle - with no politics!📱 Motorist snitch app🚔 Police pull over driverless car🤷‍♀️ Crypto feminism🐦 Post-Musk Twitter🌉 Gang steal bridge⛅️ ReviewsProduced by Ped Hunter and Chris Skinner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's producer Chris from The Bugle here. Did you know that I have a new series of my podcast, Richie Firth Travel Hacker, out now? It's the show where Richie Firth and I talk about how to make travel better in our very special way. In this series, we discuss line bikes, Teslas, the London overground, and a whole bunch of other random stuff that possibly involves wheels

or tracks or engines of some variety. God, what a hot sell this is. I mean, you must be so excited. Listen now. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Every sport has their big, juicy controversy. Boxing has the Mike Tyson ear bite.

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Acast.com. This is a podcast from The Bugle. And then at your darkest moment you see something in the dirt, a nugget of amber that will change everything. Not just your future, everyone's future, the future. Families will save for years to visit the park you build. Hundreds will die due to repeatedly inadequate security measures. Jeff Goldblum will show a sexy disregard for properly buttoned shirts. You pick it up, your fortune, your legacy, your hubris. There, frozen and preserved in amber, unmistakable is the gargle. The Sonic Glossy Magazine to the Bugle's Audio Newspaper for Visual World. All of the news,

none of the politics. I'm your host, Alice Fraser, and your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are James Nukise and Josh Gondelman. Welcome. Hello. Hello, thank you. I feel like I should introduce you separately so you have a chance to be individuals. No, no, no. I like this. I think we're a team. You're indistinguishable from another. We've both dressed a little bit geeky, but also with baseball caps.

As you know, Alice, I'm a big fan of visual jokes on your audio medium. Yes. They're both very, very men in baseball caps. To paint a picture with words, we look like we are at a niece or nephew's sporting event as spectators. And how supported that niece or nephew would feel. Let's take hands together and plunge recklessly into the hot pool that is this week's headlines. But first, let's have a look at the front cover. The front cover of this week's edition is a sexy Easter bunny

in a sexy Playboy bunny outfit looking very confused at the base of a crucifix containing a sexy Jesus with all the apps. The headlines are, He died for your sins, now sin again with these criminally good Easter hats. The best buns to memorialise your dead Messiah and where do your favourite celebrities hide their eggs? The satirical cartoon this week is Joe Rogan and Bill Maher doing a podcast together, smoking big joints and holding hands.

The speech bubble reads, man, I'm really against this unthinking tribalism and then there are about 40 other speech bubbles from each of them all saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. True, man, yeah. Now let's have a look at our driving tech snitch app news. That's Pokemon Go is great, but who hasn't wished that instead of catching digital cartoon characters, we could use it to catch real people while simultaneously pushing society further towards a dystopian sci-fi police state.

Now you can. Josh Gondelman, you live in New York, the city of cars. Can you unpack this story for us? Sure. So there's a new app that exists. It's out in the world, right? It's already out in the world. And it is for people to record and then report other drivers speeding.

And finally, there's a way for people who call in noise complaints on their neighbors at 7.30 p.m on a saturday night to enjoy the road the same way they enjoy their homes also if you open this app to take a video of another car and send it to the authorities while you're driving you should immediately receive a ticket for driving while distracted and being a loser that's what i think like when you download the app it should straight up just instead of an app it should just be an mp3 that says nobody likes you like truly like i don't know the idea of this is so stressful and like repulsive to me that like beside the fact that you can put someone

in real danger by calling law enforcement on them kind of wantonly like do i get a state pension starting it when i'm 50? Why am I doing your crime reporting? I'm not a deputy. If I see a crime that's not actively hurting anyone, I look the other way because those people doing the crime are members of my community and I want them to thrive. Critics have suggested it is a bit like something out of Stasi Germany based only on the tenuous reasoning that it is exactly like something out of Stasi Germany. The developers say they can't see any downside to encouraging the general populace to constantly police and report one another to the state. James?

I think what's disappointing is they've called it Speedcam Anywhere when Car Karen was just sitting there waiting to be taken. Josh is from New York, which is the city where the term snitches get stitches originates. And I just think trying to turn drivers into snitches already, you're just escalating road rage to a new level. Totally agreed. I don't even drive. There are a lot of cars in the city.

I rarely drive. So for me, it would just be punitive. It would just be for sport, right? I would just be sitting by the side of the road the way you bird watch and then trying to take video of speeding cars. It seems even outside the spirit of the snitchery that they're intending. I mean, if you're going to pretend to be a cop, at least be one of those ones that does exciting things. You know, just like at least kick someone's door in and do a raid on a meth lab. You don't be a traffic cop by choice.

Or you take a video of the car and when they pull over, you start stripping. Like it's like surprise bachelorette party. Sexy cop. Whoop whoop. Your ad section now. And you can't be what you can't buy. They say there's more than one way to skin a cat but that was before the amazon cat skinner now the only way to skin a cat

you love pistachios but wish they were slimy and alien now they are with oysters oysters what if pistachios were invented by hp lovecraft do you like pistachios? You know, I'm fine with pistachios. I like any nut. I also like any shellfish. So this is perfect for me. Interesting. I don't do oysters. I've never had an oyster in my whole life. James, where are you on oysters? I'm down for it as a palate cleanser. I do not agree with it as a solid meal. Yeah. Oh, totally agreed. I feel like an oyster is like a champagne toast where you only take one sip. We're like, we're celebrating, but it's like not like this isn't getting the job done that food is for. I just feel like it's too much like it hits my taboo too much of that.

If you've sneezed something out, you shouldn't re-ingest it. See, that's why I like it. It's kind of like, ooh, the forbidden mucus. I think I've been to that bar in Amsterdam. An Atlantis used to be dry and adequately hydrated, and then they got greedy. Half a glass of water, any more, and your civilization could become a soggy myth.

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Every sport has their big, juicy controversy. Boxing has the Mike Tyson ear bite. Cycling has Lance Armstrong. Baseball has its steroid era. Curling has... Broomgate. It was a year I'd like to forget. Broomgate, available now.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Available now. Now it's time for your driverless crime section. How do you arrest a car? It's an ethical quandary that once belonged only to the kinkier Transformers fan fiction. Then this week, a San Francisco police officer pulled over a car for driving at night without its lights on, only to discover there was no driver. The driverless car then took off, apparently lost its nerve and parked somewhere safe. The real question is, if this goes to court and every American has the right to a jury of their peers, how are they going to fit all those cars in the jury box? James? Well, look, this is the GM cruise converted Chevy Bolt that we're talking about, which goes with the Adolf Tech adage, if you don't want a car to bolt, don't name it Bolt. It's just doing what it's named for.

It can't help its nature. I feel like this is like the balanced story in society to snitches. Like you're making human snitches and so cars are like taking up the crime angle. Like, oh, well, shucks. If you guys are going to be speed cameras, then we're going to speed off. Be the criminals instead. I don't know. On the one hand, you're scared because technology is becoming aware enough to speed away from the cops on the other hand you just i mean again maybe as

a new yorker you're just kind of proud you're just kind of proud that cars are doing it exactly how i feel exactly how i feel like look you're gonna make a car that can get pulled over look i don't think a car should be exempt from the thrill of a high speed chase just because there's no person in it. Let the car do what it's born for. Like you were saying, James. I feel like cars are just going to escalate until they're like driving slowly along with protesters. Just like with flashing signs on them going defund the police. I feel like it's just, it's all building up i love

that i think every time a driverless car gets pulled over it should start blasting nwa full volume also i feel like this technology is just like straight up not ready to be on the roads and every big company is just like no no no it's fine which is wild to me it's like if there were time machines on the market but once a week one of them just like sent a person's body parts to six different eras throughout history at once now it's time for our reviews as you know each week we ask our guest editors to bring in something to review out of five stars james nukise what have you brought in for us this week i have brought in my dad's office, which I am doing an episode in for the first time in a long time, which is why if you see pictures of me in this episode, there will be a lot of crucifixes behind. I've really gone for an Easter theme happening. But my dad's office is

full of all the books of a professor of theology. But like also just all the books, cause he's a big dork. So on the one hand we have decolonizing the university and a search to recapturing indigenous themes. And then on the other hand, we have collected assortment Terry Brooks, trolls and bridges.

I think there used to be a J.K. Rowling book but in the interests of parents not quite understanding the world right now, that seems to have disappeared very mysteriously. But I give it I would say out of

a score of nine I will give it seven hard copies. Josh Gondelman, what have you brought in for us? I'm going to review days when it's sunny outside, but still pretty cold. I hate these days. Oh. I always leave the house in like a light sweater

or just a flannel. And then I have to huddle for warmth on the subway platform like a little matchstick girl it shouldn't be sunny and cold that's my point of view that's this guy tricking us and i don't think that's fair nature should be honest obviously i'm not against the cold sometimes i think we need it for balance but i think to let us know that it's cold it should be gray when I look out the window or snowy or at the very least, like visibly cartoon windy with tree branches swaying around. I need that. And I know I can just look up the weather on a website or an app, but I don't appreciate the mixed messages

that the outdoors are sending me. One star would not recommend. are sending me. One star would not recommend. Now it's time for our crypto feminism section. Sure, NFTs are a pyramid scheme that harm the environment while contributing nothing, but there is a downside too. So far, it's mostly men being scammed by men. And that's something that Gwyneth Paltrow, Mila Kunis, and a host of entrepreneurial women are setting out to change by convincing women that the next step in feminism is buying cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Companies like BFF and CryptoChicks are springing up either to empower women or profit by exploiting feminism. We'll find out when we've given them our money. Others are seeking to redefine charity like She256, a non-profit dedicated to bringing more women into crypto, which is a very nice

thing to do if you don't think it's a horrible pyramid scheme. Josh Gondelman, you know a scam when you see it. I do. Look, I love a scam generally, but this one is two fish in a barrel. People at this level of celebrity shouldn't be scamming. It's stolen valor from grassroots scammers like Elizabeth Holmes, right? Like, we're taking all the wrong lessons away from the Theranos story. It's like a bunch of famous women went, oh, I can be a success and an imposter and I don't even have to pretend to know science? Count me in. I mean, when you open your jacket to show a bunch of fake Rolexes, it shouldn't be a $40,000 jacket and they shouldn't be real Rolexes.

Right. And you shouldn't be doing it like, you shouldn't get to like go on The Tonight Show and be like, check out my fake Rolexes. I just don't, I don't know much about money, but I feel like crypto can keep going up and up and up and up in value and forever, which would mean nothing because it's useless. Or the bubble's going to burst. And I just think it's embarrassing to lose your life savings buying JPEGs from a cast member of that 70s show. That just feels humiliating to me. And I know I'm not like the right messenger for this, but something isn't feminist just because a woman is doing it, right? Like if Mila Kunis stole your paycheck out of your PO box, she can't be like, actually, it's not male fraud. It's female fraud and it's changing everything.

James, would you buy an NFT from Gwyneth Paltrow? Well, I'm just really proud of Gwyneth because she's selling something while espousing feminism and has so far managed to not involve her vagina in any way, shape or form. It's progress for her. I think she hasn't managed to make the crypto look like it's the shape of her vagina.

We haven't, you know, it could be coming. It could be, I'll be honest. Wait, the cryptocurrency or the vagina? Well, I think with Gwyneth, it would probably be something both, but for charity. I mean, I do think NFTs of Gwyneth's vagina are imminent. I think that's not even satire to suggest that. I think that's fortune telling at that point. Maybe that is the positive effect of Mila Klunas and we are just not

giving her, you know, anyone who's married to Ashton Kutcher knows that embarrassment can come upon an individual very quickly. And she's just looking out for a friend. Again, are we talking about the vagina coming upon? That's all the time we have for our surprisingly suggestive crypto feminism news. Look, I don't disagree with these women i mean all money is fake anyway so there's no reason why this should be less fake than other money in that case you kind of want to get in at the ground floor i agree with that i do i don't think regular money is like somehow like empirically legitimate. I just don't trust when someone's like, look, all money is fake. So give me your real money

and I'll give you my fake money. And that's a fair trade. I think honestly, I'm sitting in a room surrounded by Christian paraphernalia. So it's not really my place to criticize anyone for their belief in make-believe empowerment. Look, I am anti-cryptocrypto feminism and pro-crypted feminism

which is where uh bigfoot's a lady enough yeti more yet she and here's our social media pullout section elon musk buys nine percent of twitter what is the best way not to get banned from twitter don't be a jerk what's is the best way not to get banned from Twitter? Don't be a jerk. What's the second best way to get not banned from Twitter? If you have $2.6 billion, it's buy 9.2% of the company. Elon Musk is now Twitter's largest shareholder. What is he planning to tweet now? And why didn't Trump think of this first?

James, what can you say? Well, look, I think it's quite the Bruce Wayne maneuver to just buy your way into Twitter. And I like how everyone just kind of got freaked out. I really feel at this point, Elon

Musk, we're just going to have to wait till he's dead to let history decide whether he is just a bumbling rich idiot or a trolling genius. He secretly did it. He didn't go, I'm buying Twitter. He just secretly put together, let it get discovered. And then was like, yeah, I kind of own 10% of Twitter. He did a poll first that said, do you think that there is too much censorship on Twitter, more or less? Do you think that this cancel culture freezing effect is happening on Twitter, more or less, that do you think that this like cancel culture freezing effect is happening on Twitter? And then when people said yes, and by people, I mean, the people

who follow Elon Musk on Twitter said yes, he then allowed it to be revealed that he bought 9.2% of the company. It's an interesting move. I mean, every plutocrat needs a media outlet. I think this is a genius move. I mean, the guy who bought the Washington Post is going to be kicking himself. Who's that? Oh, Jeff Bezos, the other richest man in the world. So look, it's a good move to buy the people who are going to be writing because no one can hurt you when you're that rich, except people talking mean shit about you. Josh? Yeah, I know. I think you're both right about this. I think it was smart of him, which I hate. right about this i i think it was smart of him which i hate uh i don't like that it's also like he has such like a weak sense of humor where he's gonna be like oh how and it's gonna just make it

unusable like he's gonna be like uh actually every time you tweet someone automatically replies that's what she said now or like every tweet automatically gets 69 retweets and 420 likes that's a joke still right and it's just like i just hate his sensibility i hate the his labor practices i also just like 10 respect 90 resent the way that like every other business person like deals with him like he's like a regular guy like they offered him a seat on the board because he bought so many shares of stock right and so that he couldn't just like buy a ton of it and control it and he was like oh yeah i'll do that and then he was like psych not gonna be on the board and i just feel like he exposed the 10 that respects that is like he just exposes that business is like a hundred guys who just agreed to only trick regular people and not

each other and that his whole move was just like yeah like let's do business and then like running his hand through his hair suavely uh you know his his new hair implants and so like it just everything he does infuriates me but i do like that he makes other rich people mad at him because like at least some of the rich people should be mad. At each other, yeah, for sure. I think the nice thing, the Elon Musk has said that the reason he's buying Twitter

is because he's a free speech fundamentalist, that he's a free speech. He believes in free speech 100%. I think he has failed to register that the moment you have an algorithm, you do not have free speech. You have a robot that thinks it understands you and is telling you what you like. It is the equivalent of somebody reading your Tinder profile, reading that you like long walks on the beach and then coming to the first date with eight barrels of sand because that's sort of something like what you think you like. I find it very frustrating when people argue about like, oh no,

all of this censorship online and they don't look at the fact that like we are all being served things by a robot that doesn't care. But I feel like a robot that doesn't care is Elon Musk's best friend. I feel like you just described his nanny growing up. Agreed. A robot that doesn't care. Elon Musk's dream best friend is just like a nihilistic robot smoking a cigarette doing skateboard tricks. Hey, don't go like that on Joe Rogan.

Speaking of trolling, now time for bridge news. Burning your bridges is never a good idea. What you want to do is dismantle your bridges and sell them as scrap metal. I'm never sure how that would work figuratively, but it worked literally in India, where a group of ballsy thieves claimed to be working for the irrigation department and stole an entire bridge. I respect that ambition. Josh Gondelman?

Yeah, this rules. It was an abandoned bridge. This wasn't a bridge. Like they didn't take it leaving a line of hundreds of cars with people being like, how am I going to get home from work now? This is a bridge that was not in use. I think it's great. I think it's great that after 30 years, Carmen Sandiego is finally inspiring copycat crimes.

I think that's fun. The government is now looking for the people that stole the abandoned bridge. And it's like, why? Let them have it. You weren't using it. This is basically recycling. And such brave recycling too,

because they've just rendered that entire thing of like, I've got a bridge to sell you, no longer the example of a fool. No, you can actually sell someone a bridge and they can use the scrap metal. I think that's excellent. It's one of those crimes that if you don't get caught in the moment, you should legally be declared to have gotten away with it. It's like when you rob a casino. Like if you didn't want George Clooney to take all your money, you should have built a sturdier casino. I will say,

just as a caveat, I don't think that this extends to stealing andy garcia's money in real life and it's also like why are you concerned with this what are they gonna strike again where are you gonna put the second bridge you steal just let them have it james my favorite part of the story is that they did it over two days like that's they showed up just wearing construction gear and for two days and just like oh now we're taking down the bridge no one checked in no i mean like this is this this all over oceans 11 and especially ocean 12. it's on itself but like i think for british listeners this is like an amazing this is healing comedy level kind of crime you know this is like an amazing, this is Ealing comedy level kind of crime.

You know, this is, I want to meet the mastermind behind it who was like, hey guys, if we get the gear, I reckon we can just deconstruct. And then the bad part is they just sell it off. This is a whole scrap metal business in India and they're just like selling it off. We don't know what they're doing with the money. I'm going to pretend they're giving it to the poor. I'm going to pretend they're giving it to the poor i'm gonna pretend they're giving it to a kickstarter for building a bridge i think

i would give an enormous amount of money to be part of the heist putting together crew gang where you're gathering all the people that you need to bring down a bridge like what are the skill sets that you need i mean i think it's a lot of the same you need a driver you need an explosives guy I mean if this was America then like in about 10 years they maybe I hope they do I hope somehow they hear this podcast and they're inspired in 10 years to just write the book we stole the bridge and that just becomes a Oscar winning movie I feel like in America if you stole a bridge they'd be like oh this metal is already too decomposed to even sell as scrap. America,

living in the ruins of its own civilization. What fun. That's all the time we have for our bridge thieving news because that is the end of the show. Josh, have you got anything to plug? Oh my gosh. I'm doing a little standup out in the world again. JoshGondelman.com. I'll have you got anything to plug? Oh my gosh. I'm doing a little stand-up out in

the world again. JoshGondelman.com. I'll have all my dates up there. I'm going to Vermont soon, to the Vermont Comedy Club next month. And I'm performing at Wilco's Solid Sound Festival in Western Massachusetts, which I'm very excited about. And Desus and Mero back Thursdays at 11 on Showtime. Excellent. James and N. James, what have you got to plug? As always, I have a mental health podcast called Eating Fried Chicken in the Shower, which people can find online. And if you want to see me live in the UK, I'll be over there in July and August. God knows why, Alice.

I don't know why any of us would do that. But we're sadists and we've run out of material in the southern hemisphere so off we go. Well I will also be doing shows. I'm currently at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. I will thereafter be at the Sydney International Comedy Festival, Perth Comedy Festival and then I'll be at various

places around the UK in June and July and then in Edinburgh in August. Follow me at alliterative on Twitter and Instagram. That's A-L-I-T-E-R-A-T-I-V-E or patreon.com slash alisfraser. One-stop shop for all of my stand-up specials, podcasts and blogs as well as my weekly TVL salons. This is a Bugle podcast, an Alice Fraser production.

Your editor is Ped Hunter. Your executive producer is Chris Skinner. I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programs from The Bugle, including The Bugle, The Last Post, Tiny Revolutions and The Gargle, wherever you find your podcasts. Are you a busy millennial boomer, zennial Gen Xer or generation agnostic orb struggling to find time in your day? Do routine self-care tasks get in the way of your important work as head flamingo keeper slash crypto miner in your socialist utopia? Are you breathing too lustily after diving into Dancy Lagarde's latest historical epic from another dimension and need to hydrate but don't

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Additional quarter glasses of water can be consumed as necessary to achieve the desired hydrating effect. This message is sponsored by members of the Bugle Facebook group. No flamingos were hurt in the making of this advert. F*** you, Chris.