The Vergecast - The man behind Bitcoin and the return of 'Shaq Fu'

Episode Date: March 7, 2014

The Vergecast is a discussion of all things relevant and irreverent in the worlds of art, culture, science, and technology — and anything else that pops into the twisted minds of this week's hosts. Join Joshua Topolsky, Katie Drummond, and T.C. Sottek for a discussion on the reported uncovering of the man behind Bitcoin, LSD therapy, and the return of Shaq Fu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 3rd, 2014. I'm Josh Topolsky. I'm T.C. Sodick, and I've been forced here against my will. I'm Katie Drummond, and then same thing. Yep. I did not volunteer for this? Did I say this was the Verge cast? Please help.

I meant it's the prisoner cast. Please help. Seriously, this hair is out of control today. It's fine. This is the first time I've seen it, and it sucks. Look at this. It's like 1980. The year is 1988.

Michael Keaton is preparing for his role in Batman, Tim Burton's Batman, and this is my hair. You know it'll fix that hair. Anyhow, this is the Vergecast where we discussed the week in topics of interest to you. Maybe, or maybe not. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter because we're going to talk about them. Anyhow, you can't stop us. TC and Katie are here, which I'm very excited about.

Katie doesn't want to be here against her wishes. No, it's fine. I'm happy to do it. Oh, and we're classing it up. These guys got ahead of plan. I came in and they're like, we're going to class it up with a bottle of wine. What is that? Tell us about this one. It's an Avalon, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, in 2011. Do you hear that pronunciation? That's because

that's somebody who drinks a lot of wine. It's because Katie is not only a wine drinker, but a Canadian. But a Canadian who is a native French speaker. True. Is that true? Cévre? Yes. Of course, the, of course, the, as we know, the Canadian variation of French is quite guttural in its sound. but, no, I'm kidding. Animal. It's like animal. It's like animal grunting.

No, it's a beautiful language and a beautiful people. Thank you. So wonderful that we have one of them on the show today. Thank you so much. I'm riffing. I came from a doctor's appointment, a baby doctor appointment. Let me tell you about the baby. Yeah, definitely.

Baby's great. Baby's great. It's confirmed today. Did I talk? I don't know what those sounds I just made where we're not actual sounds. Did I tell everybody the name of my baby? I don't know if I want to do it if you weren't going to do it. I didn't want to do it if you weren't going to do it.

The baby's name is... Don't say it. It's private. It's private for right now. The baby's name is Satoshi Nakamoto. My baby has been doxed. She is the creator of Bitcoin. Okay, so this is a story to be...

And aggressively doxed. Aggressively doxed. But that's okay, Reddit's going to get back at those people, at that writer. So really interesting story Newsweek today. They claim that it has discovered the true Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. But the story is really weird because it doesn't actually... actually provide any, there's no evidence whatsoever besides like the name and some coincidences. I mean, he's like a libertarian.

There's no smoking. They're like, he likes computers and he hates the government. He's a Ron Paul's. Well, I think that's a little bit of a flip reaction. I mean, I think coincidences, it's like a series of pretty compelling, you know, a pretty compelling timeline and some pretty compelling facts. You're trying to balance this opening of the wide with... This is not very compelling. No, no, no.

The story is actually really interesting. I agree, though. It is like, as I read through it, I wish there had been one thing there where I was like, yes, definitely, slam dunk. Well, what about the... Sorry. No, go ahead. What about the quote from him where he, it sounds like, said something along the lines up,

I'm no longer involved with that. It's been handed off to other people. I really, like, want to be a private person. I don't know. I feel like, yes, that's kind of a smoking gun. And, you know, that combined with his name. It feels a lot like a plot from the good wife, as far as I'm concerned. Oh, I'm on season two right now.

Oh, my God. It's great. Oh, I don't want to ruin it for you, but there is a Bitcoin. Yeah, it kind of seems like this guy just, like, was a nerd who created this thing with his real name on it. Yeah. But then, like, because nobody knew who he was, it became this big conspiracy theory. Well, what is the saying that it's, um, it's, uh, serve myself first. It's never, never, uh, it's like, don't assume something is highly complex when it's actually

probably pretty stupid. The absence of evidence is not. The evidence of absence? No, that's not it. It's not the other one, which is like, it's not the one where if you eliminate, if you eliminate all possibilities, whatever remains, however. But it's not that. But it's something, I'm sure just tweeted me if you know what I'm saying, but there's this

saying, which is, uh, this is exciting. It does feel classy. Cheers. It does feel. Yeah, hold on. Wait, let's all cheers. Can I have. Thank you to Avalon.

No, don't thank you to Avalon. We paid for the wine. Avalon did provide us with law. I'm making them for me. Are you cheering for me? I was going to double fist, but let's do a little, let's do a little. to a more classy. We come underneath experience.

Okay. All right. Chaloms up. Hmm. Hmm. What a great mouth feel. I like that. It goes perfectly with the mouthwash I just wish with 20 minutes ago before leaving the house.

Very, very bold. It tastes a little cheap at the end. Yeah. It has a finish of a stingy jerk. Right. Yeah. Like somebody like, you know, asking for more, you're splitting a check and they're asking for more money than they're putting in.

Anyhow. Thanks to Ross Miller, our in-house sommelier. Yeah. Ross, great job,ish, great-ish job. It'll do. Katie. It'll do, Ross. I have to say, if, I'm sorry if you're listening to this or watching this right now, because it can't be entertaining.

But I think it's relatively entertaining to us. So anyhow, the Bitcoin story. Now, the interesting follow on to this is not that they have potentially discovered this guy who is, Occam's Razor is what everybody's saying is the thing. What is the actual, like, rule, though? I'm trying to remember the wording of it. I can't. This is what people are tweeting at me right now.

Occam's Razor? Yeah. What's Occam's Razor? I can't remember. People, like, literally, it's just coming in. I keep seeing this alert that people are like, Occam's Razor. So immediately, after Satoshi Nakamoto was docks by this writer,

Reddit took to action, flew into action. ready to docks the address, the home address, social security number and phone number of the writer for doing, it was a woman, right? What is her name? Leah McGrath-Goodman.

Yeah, for doing her job as a reporter. Like, this is what reporting is. It's like you don't know something. There's some legitimate ethical concerns. Are there? Yeah, because she went undercover. She misrepresented her identity. So you're like, you're on Reddit.

You're like, let's get it. No, I mean, first of all, I'm so sick of Reddit. Yeah, I'm over it. I'm sick of their sanctimonious bullshit about, you know, anonymity. It's like 4chan with like a... Persistence. ...with an agenda or something. It's like 4chan that where the messages don't go over.

It's like 4chan if you're, for Ron Paul supporters. But I don't know. I mean, I read this first thing this morning and just as a reader, it made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. And I think that's, I mean, this is... Great journalism is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. I was just going to say that, but... I don't know.

That's not a rule, by the way. It's just like the showing up at someone's house when they don't want you there. It always, there's something about it that just doesn't appeal to me as a reader or as a reporter. I think the question is like if this guy were responsible for like some kind of crime. Sure. Then you could get, you get a little more behind it. I don't have a problem with it because the story needs to, story needs to happen. Like we need to just discover who this person is and get over. Yeah.

Well, the question is like, is this information in the public interest? Like, is there a compelling need for people to know who the guy is? And I have read that argument today. I think there's an argument for that. I think there's an argument. I mean, I think that I don't think it's a great argument, but I think you can make one. I think it would be tough to say, like, no, it's not in the public interest in this. I mean, you know, when you get right down to it, we're talking about potentially a emergent currency or commodity.

And, you know, it would be good to know where it came from. But why? I don't know. You know? I don't have an answer for that. Like this guy just wants to live. his life privately with his family in California, I don't really see what public good it does. Well, it's his fault for creating a cryptocurrency that took off. I mean, that's what happens

when you become, he shouldn't use his real name if he didn't want to be found. That's what I'd have done, pseudonym. It's what everybody thought it was. You don't want to be discovered? Don't put your name on it. I mean, there are a factors. Like, he might have had no idea that it would get as big as it is today. I mean, when I write all my hate speech on the internet, I use a pseudonym because I don't want it to get back to me. My thousands and thousands of thousands of pages of hate speech that you don't know about. Joshua Ryan. DJ Joshua Ryan.

Yeah, no. I see the argument, but I also think it's a really interesting story. And I think that people have been asking this question for a long time. And also, he put his name on it. And I think that if the name was like, you know, Dr. X, it would be, you know, you might go looking for the guy, but it would be much harder to find him. Something tells me that at some point he maybe wanted to be found. Well, that's, and that's the other thing is that he has how many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin that he couldn't cash in because it would have docks him. No.

Would it have? That's not the point of it? That's what I've been reading today a lot. Well, Bitcoin transactions are not, like, perfectly anonymous. Someone really wants to find out who you are. He would have, like, a lot of Bitcoin and a, and he would be very, he would stand out in a crowd in terms of Bitcoin. So the argument is like he doesn't, he's not like a Bill Gates. or like a Steve, well, whoever.

He has 1.5 million Bitcoin. Right. Oh, really? That's not like liquid cash and the guy is just living, you know, in a rent, like a random house. What's the value of 1.5 million Bitcoin? Its current value is $645. Do you mean at one Bitcoin? Yeah.

So what's that? $645 times $1.5 million. Dude, cash this in now. Almost, what, almost a billion, billion dollars? I just would just say just cash it in. Well, yeah, you're done. Just get your billion. Buy an island.

Just get your billion and invest in something like solvent. And then you can buy some security guards. That's crazy, by the way. Yeah. It is. That's great. But here's what's what if I created a currency? And now he has a billion dollars worth of it.

And it's three years later or something. It's not like, you know, how long has it been around? And not just him, but there were other people like early on who were just like, yeah, I'll spend 10 bucks on Bitcoin when it was nothing. Yeah. And now they have a million dollars. It's funny. Somebody tweeted me.

They're like, do you have a bunch of Bitcoin? You guys write about it. I don't have any Bitcoin, but in the early days of Bitcoin, I had a friend who was overseas and he was like explaining Bitcoin to me. He's like, here, I'll show you how it works. Like get this set up and I'll send you a Bitcoin. It was when it was worth like $2 or less or something. And then recently, and I just had it sitting there one Bitcoin.

And it was like recently when it was worth $1,000. He's like, hey, can I get that Bitcoin back from you? I literally had to get a laptop out of my closet from like three years ago and open it up. and like update stuff and find the software and like just get give him his bitcoin back oh so he gave it back of course i mean it wasn't mine well well it was it was no i was just possession is 10 10 to the law you were holding it i mean that would have been really best if i was like nope yeah well would he gave it to you as a gift no he gave it to me as a to demonstrate how bitcoin functioned well his mistake that should have kept it like i got now i got this thousand bucks yeah exactly

Not a crazy shopping. Could have gotten a sweet haircut. It'd have been like in big when he gets like the loft and the arcade machine and he gets like something like a crazy car. He gets a go car. It would have been just like that. Except for $1,000 worth. So it would have been like me getting a bunch of sandwiches at a bodega. Remember the movie with that kid who just found a million dollars?

Richie Rich. No, not Richie Rich. I haven't seen either one of these. The different movie where the kid just found like a million dollars. The one directed by Danny Boyle, director of 28 days later. What is it called? Blank check? Blank check is so good.

Can we play the trailer? He's like, that's my favorite. Blank check trailer. That is a great movie. Never seen it, never heard of it. This kid just, like, finds a million dollars in this botched. Charles Grode. Robbery.

What actors are? And he buys like $20 million worth of stuff. It was with some cutey little heartthrob. Yeah, here it is. It's from 1994, so I was... I'm sorry, did you refer to this nine-year-old as a heartthrob? I was nine. I was nine years old when this came out.

I was nine. If a man had said that about a girl, boy, the cops would be in here right now. He was like the... Double standard. Like McCulley Culkin, like, B-List edition. Who is he? It's probably Stephen Dorf or something. Brian Bonsal.

Oh, Brian, Brian Bonsai. Is it Bonsal or Bonsai? Brian Bonsal. Don't know either one of those people. He's a former child actor. Wait, he was in a TV show. He played the part Klingon, part Human Son of Wharf on Star Trek the next generation. That's the show that he was in.

I'm very familiar with this actor and very familiar with one of his most beloved characters. He is retired from acting. Such a shame. He has no interest. Oh, he's had some. substance abuse problems. Well, he was a child actor that kind of goes to the territory. They hand you when you get your first contract as a child actor, they also hand you a crack pipe.

Yeah, sounds like you'll need this to just get through, get through the next year. Is it? Why is that a heft up? You know it's true? This is so sad. Have you seen Lindsay Lowhan has a new? Oh, the Oprah funded documentary. Well, it's like a reality show.

But it's like a little bit more classy, so it's like a documentary. Watch it with that. We only have one bottle. Yeah, take it easy. We know how you like to hit the wine. Am I right? This guy's Instagram. Stop dox.

It's like, it's like, don't dox my Instagram. This guy's Instagram is like, hey, check out what we got on the shelves of our liquor store. Quit doxing me. I'm like, wait a second. That's just TZ's house. It's upsetting. Disturbing and I'm worried about him. Anyhow, so maybe the creator of Bitcoin has been revealed.

And also, it's extremely mundane. Yeah. It's not like a conspiracy. It's not a shocker. The thing that really gets me, it's like there's definitely a balance somewhere. But if all you do is read Reddit, It's like if you unveil someone, their real identity, you're literally like worse than Hitler. I guess.

They get so mad. Their jimmies get really rustled. What is it? Except when it's like when you're trying to find the Boston bomber. Exactly. Right. Safety's off. Fire and will.

If you're looking for a brown guy, no problem. But if you, you know, it's like, I don't know. I mean, I think it's a real double standard on Reddit. Well, you know. It's not like they have like some law books, some rules. They're like, hey, this is how we do it on Reddit. They do have rules. It's like, no, doxing is like their number one.

Yeah, right. And they like ban. And they're, yeah, I'm sure we're going to get banned for talking about it on Reddit. That's what they, that's what they love to do. They're going to dox me. These are, these are a compromised journalist because they don't like Reddit. They're going to find the name of my, my everquest character. And look at my.

You mean, uh, I'm trying to think of a cool name for an EverQuest character and I didn't have anything at all. I'll never tell. What is it? Give me a name. Don't give me the actual name, give me the kind of name you might give to an EverQuest. It's a great, like a, like, mythology, greyhorn. Greyhorn?

Yeah. Like Lothar, Greyhorn. Like that. You obviously play. I'm a level of 400. Can you get to 400? No. All right.

Anyhow, what's our next topic? I mean, for God's sake, this is, definitely a different pace to this. Yeah. Than the last one into any, any past. Yeah. I just want to say,

No, it's all right. Occam's razor. We're a little more on top of it. We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomenon by the simplest hypothesis of it possible. Yeah, that's not really like layman's explanation. Yeah, I don't like this. It kind of works. Okay.

What else in the news? Oh, this is speaking of Bitcoin. Oh, yes. Adrian Jeffries did, I think, a really excellent report this week on the Lakota tribe creating its own, it's called Mazakoin, its own cryptocurrency for Native American tribes, for that particular tribe. And they're basically saying, like, look, we're a sovereign nation. We have a right to have our own currency.

It's not covered under the laws, the laws of the federal government, you know, and how we regulate currency. And we're going on our own on this one. And they're basically like, yeah, it's like we're going to battle the U.S. government for whether or not we can have our own currency. How do you think this will turn out? I mean, the government has said, like a lot of different regulators have said, well, we're not really responsible for this.

So I think it'll, I don't think it's going to come up for a little while. Yeah. And I mean, I think as Adrian pointed out really nicely in the piece, like, they depend on a lot of money from the federal government. And I mean, that's a huge problem. Right. But there is a concern that introducing this threatens to diminish the amount of money that they're receiving through that channel. The situation is insane. I mean, let's just be clear.

The whole concept of Native American tribes in the United States of America is completely bizarre and not really a nothing, none of it seems possible. Yeah, I was just going to say it seems very hard to wrap your head around the fact that this is actually a situation. Right. And that sounds like a very ignorant New York thing to say. No, but it's completely, it's completely reasonable to say because it's such a complex and impossible thing. thing to do, which is like, they're like, yeah, oh, yeah, hey, we stole your land and killed you, and we're going to give you that back and you're going to be sovereign, but actually not really at all because we have all, we're entangled in all these ways and you need things from us now.

And it's like to detach those things at this point is just seems really. Yeah. Well, they're not even, they're sovereign, but in limited ways. Right. They're still considered what's called domestic dependent nations. Right. So we don't even treat them like we do foreign nations. we treat them like children.

Right. It's insane. It's insane. We're terrible. America's terrible, but also the greatest country in the world. Don't get me wrong.

I love it. Love it or leave it. You know, these colors are... No, it's a really interesting situation because it creates a unique... Like, you know, you had Paul Krugman come out and talk about... Kroggungman?

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Talk about how Bitcoin's evil. That was like the headline of his piece. Well, that was the headline of his piece, but his actual piece wasn't really about Bitcoin being. Right. And in a functioning, like,

society and nation that has a government-backed currency. Like, sure, maybe that there are arguments who made there, but they're really interesting reasons for why this could be valuable to different communities who don't have their own currency. Yeah. Like keeping the money in the community. Right. Well, I think it also is, you know, you can see a place for something like Bitcoin in a lot of,

it's not just about like, oh, you know, they have this sovereign state, but you can see It's like this circumvents currency, you know? If you have enough people using it, it becomes a currency onto itself. And, you know, there's a big question, I think, because it's not physical. It's not backed by banks, you know, it's, I think it raises a lot of questions. This is interesting to me because if it could, if it could work within these communities, it seems like an incredible opportunity to see a cryptocurrency blossom as a day-to-day verifiable, usable form of currency.

I just don't see how the U.S. government would ever allow that to truly happen. I mean, the other wrinkle in this is that it sounds like some of these people are using like paper printouts of Maza coin and like a paper wallet. Sounds legit. Yeah. You know, it just...

That sounds legit to me. The logistics of it seem like an additional challenge there. Yeah. It's not sort of a really easy to use digital... Not that Bitcoin is particularly easy to use, I guess. No, it's not. And most likely if you do use it, wherever your money is will be stolen. Like nine times out of ten.

Yeah, that's a big problem. There are a lot of legitimate concerns about this, including, like, you know, if the value fluctuates wildly, like, these communities are already so impoverished that that could be catastrophic. Exactly. Yeah, really. I mean, the question is about Bitcoin or Mazocoon or any cryptocurrency is, like, who, who, if there's no, if it's not backed by banks and institutions, like, major institutions, who protects it? How do you protect it? Like, how do you pay for the things you need to protect it? And I don't think anybody has the answer right now.

Like, Mount Gox was not the best place for people to be keeping millions of dollars. I mean, he was run by like two guys. Should call it Mount Dox. Get out. Good one. Just leave right now. But, you know, I just think it's a... Swines almost gone, really tearing through it.

My lips are so dry right now. It's so dry in New York. Do you any balm? What do you go? Got it. I don't want it. Oh, it's so good.

It's Carmen. No, Carmex is my brand, but I don't know. In their mouth, you put it on your finger and then you put it on your lips. It's the finger system.

Strawberry? Are you kidding me strawberry? Yeah, my girlfriend got that for me. That's funny, because actually that's weird because I just said to Laura, I was like, I was looking on Amazon

because I need to refill my Carmex supply. You buy an entire supply of Carmex on Amazon? Add-on item. Okay. And I was like, did you know Carmex has a strawberry? You don't mind if I do this? Please, be my guest.

Uh-huh. Oh, wait. Oh, boy. It tastes good. It's got a good lip feel. There you. This is a disaster. Can we end? Are we, is it done? Have we hit an hour?

Hmm. Oh, God. Oh. No one's watching. Zero viewers. We can finally talk about what we want to talk about. TC. Can we call our mom?

What did you want to talk about next? Yeah. Do you talk about the hoverboard? Oh, yeah. We need to talk about this. Funny or die. They're amazing. Worst viral stunt in history.

So what is it? Okay. So does everybody, has everybody seen this? It's, um, funny or die created a fake viral video with a bunch of famous people about a real hoverboard. Now, first off, like, I can't believe anybody would have looked at this and thought that's real. Yeah. Like the idea that you could create this, that this technology is something that somebody's

working on in secret and you're just going to like jam it out one day is so ridiculously unbelievable for starters. This carmacks is amazing. Yeah, it's so good. But then like, there's. There's a bunch of like obvious tells in these videos. And I mean, they're pretty well done, but still, seriously, like you're going to make it look like the one from back to the future. Which is definitely copyrighted in all kinds of ways.

Like that looks fake. That looks totally fake. I'm sorry. Anyhow, so it turned out to be a fake, funny or die viral video. And that's Moby. I mean, I'm confused. Did people actually, actually think that? This was a thing.

Yes. Yes. Yes, they did. That's terrible. Yeah. Well, the thing is, like, Funnier die really, like, fucked it up. Yeah. Because there was, like, two, or, like, even a day went by, and they posted all these

Facebook things being like, oh, it's real. Yeah. No, we swear, it's real. Yeah. And then, like, immediately after that Funnier Die, instead of, like, milking it, like, what was their end game? Like, oh, we made it. I think their end game would get views on Funnier Die videos.

I guess. You know? I mean, this is one of my greatest. one of the greatest tragedies of the internet in its current form is that major brands and companies feel like they need to create viral sensations to have a viable business. I'm not going to name names, but there are plenty of people out there who think it's part of their job to be part of what is viral on the internet. And let me just tell you brands with millions of dollars creating viral videos, you've ruined everything that is good about what is viral on the internet. You've basically taken something that is sacred and special and magical and turned it into a belief. shit garbage marketing campaign and you've ruined the fun for everybody. Like when you, when you with your

million dollars create some sort of scheme to like dupe everybody, this goes for Jimmy Kimmel as well, who does the same stuff. It's like, I get that people are dumb and can be easily convinced of things that aren't real are real, convince the things that aren't real are real. But, but like when you do it, particularly when like you're the kind of brand that not only will do the stunt, but then like write about it or talk about it as if the stunt is a real thing, like you ruin what. is one of the things that is best about the internet. And, you know, it's like really gross. Like, we actually went to RaffleCon, I think, two years ago,

which was, like, a gathering of people who had become, like, viral sensations on the internet, the old way. The kids these days, the millennials now, they don't know what it's like anymore. But people used to become real viral sensations because, like, they did something stupid or awesome or whatever, like, were caught on camera doing something horrible or created some weird piece of art. And it was, like, a real thing on the internet. and people are like, oh my God, that's hilarious.

Right. Like, Rick Rowling wasn't created by Mattel or whatever. Mattel doesn't exist. Rick Rowling wasn't like a CNNI report, you know? Like that was a thing that happened. That was like a thing that came from like the ephemera of reality. I don't know what that means. That doesn't mean anything.

But, you know, it bubbled up out of something natural, which is like where many of the greatest things come from, most of the greatest things. Well, the worst is when the brands like on Twitter have their rapid response to like natural disaster. Oh, you know, like, Gloria of? Like, you know, 27 people get stabbed to death in China by Band-Aids, you know? Like, that's not an actual thing. Sorry, sorry, Band-Aid. But no, but what you just said is a bunch of people got stabbed to death in China.

We're living in a reality where it's possible. I'm not saying it happened or it will happen, but it's possible that the company that makes Band-Aids, who is it's probably Johnson and Johnson who makes Band-Aids. They're like, we're here, China, don't worry, or something like that, because that's what these stupid brands are doing. You've got it, like, it's like a variety of things. Like the thing I was talking about is like brands with millions of dollars creating fake viral sensation so they can like be part ultimately marketing something either themselves or a product to make money off of the people who who watch the stuff or see this stuff who have like completely ruined the concept of like what is like true viral true virality on the internet in the sense of like things that are created from the kind of dark heart of the internet the weird place that you don't know where things come from like who first made that joke like that's there used to be like like there used to be like. Like you look, you. Oh, yeah. Here's one.

Even porn hub on Martin Luther King Day said, happy MLK Day in honor of his death. Make sure to only use the Ebony category today. That's real. That's a real tweet. That went around. I mean, not like we expect porn hub to be classy or something. Like just let's, let's baseline. Baseline Born Hub's not going to be.

They really bottomed out there. That was, was that a pun? No. Bottomed out. No, like hit off bottom. But that's a pretty good pun. You've got to admit. I mean, anything could be a pun right now.

Not really. I mean, I think. But they really blew it. I mean, I thought this whole video was dumb and I just ignored the whole thing. Come on. No. Huh? Nothing.

Okay. Anyhow, the point is, it's a slow bird. That's a slow burn. It's still up. It's still up. I'd have been like, yeah, I guess that wasn't poor taste, even for Forn Hub. But that's, that's one thing. But the other thing is, like, I'm actually less upset about people capitalizing on

things that happen. Like, yeah, it's gross and horrible. But, like, at least it makes sense because you're a business trying to get people to look at your thing. And you're just being like, hey, look at our thing. thing. I'm more annoyed and saddened by the idea that like funny or die has gone from like making funny videos on the internet, like funny like sketch comedy videos to like we're just going to pretend to do, we're going to be like the double rainbow guy. By the way, the double rainbow guy for

all I know is just a, it's just an invention of Levi's. But actually this does have a history. Good genes though. Speaking of jeans. Well, that's what I was going to say is that Levi's did this like in 2004 with the I kiss you dude. What was I? Remember I kiss you? you? No. Do a search for I kiss you. I think that's what it is. I can't think of his name right now. John, somebody in the control booth must know this. Control. What's his name? He had a name.

He was like this weird Eastern European dude who was like writing in broken English and like saying he was like it's kind of like the thing that Borat is modeled after but like a real guy but he's not a real guy because it was like a Levi's campaign in 2004 on the internet. Nobody knows what I'm talking about.

Anybody, people on Twitter, help me out here. Am I crazy? Did I just make this up? And it's almost preferable to where Levi's went, which was like super serious. What if you realized that everything that you believed was a lie? Yeah, I'm not seeing this. We got it right here. Oh. I kiss you.

Can I get, can someone tell me what's going on here? All right, but seriously, how long until we have real hoverboards? Katie, our science expert. Let me ask you, yeah, Katie, you're a scientific minded, scientifically minded individual. How many years would you say away are the actual hoverboards? 30. That's a long time. That's the default, like, response to scientists.

Maybe when they have no effing idea. Yeah. So they go 30 years. Ross says they have no idea what I'm talking about. This just goes to show how quickly the internet moves. Of course, that was 10 years ago. Five years is like, yes, it's happening. 10 years is like, we're kind of working on it.

Yeah. 20 years is like it's a theory. Yeah. And anything beyond 20 years is like we have no idea. I think all the, I think all that... I just hated this whole, this whole story. I think all that matters is, you know, I mean, the thing is, you know, you don't think it's going to happen. You say 30 years and then somebody's just going to come up with it.

All that matters is that we now know. That's why everyone fell for this video, right? We now know, Ben Lamb. By the-the- Doc Brown will do it. That's the problem with hope. Here, is this the guy? Is this the dude? This is the KSU guy? Is this a trailer for alias? It's a trailer for this dude. This is actually like a later in the game situation here. Yeah, there he is. He had a website that was like a Geo City site. Yeah, that's him. The dude in the jacket. That is the guy. And what is his His thing was like

It was like a viral Like oh my God This is hilarious Look at this you know Crazy website This guy made He's like looking for a wife He's like looking for a date

On the internet He doesn't understand how the internet works It was like Tinder It was like all this crazy You know It was like GeoCity's like animated Like all kinds of animated shit And he wanted to kiss the ladies

It was like I kiss you Like I want to be or whatever But then it turned out That it was like some weird Viral like Levi's marketing For like jeans Did he wear Levi's? I assume.

Why would you want that creep in your jeans? It gets people talking, you know? It gets a buzz happening about things. All right. Yeah, well, the one thing we've learned from this is that Doc Brown will take a check

for literally any brand. There it is. Here it is. Here's the fake. Here's the fake. This is the thing here. So this is like fake. This guy's like an actor or something.

And it's just like he talks about. He's like, it's like a personal ad. I mean, that's kind of funny. This is proto-Bore out. There he is. Oh,

there is in Levi's jeans. You see? Yeah, he like sex. I like sex. I let's travel, I go three, four country every year. That's pretty funny. I mean, basically,

oh, he's a journalist. Basically, this is, like, ripped off from, I mean, this is what Borat, like, ripped off. Right. To be, to be borat. You know, but whatever. Long and short is, we've lived with these kinds of memes for a long, these fake memes for a long time,

but now it just seems like they're all over the place. Nobody cares. Let's move on. Nobody cares about this topic. You know, you guys are, you're not with me. I can tell. It stinks. That's fine.

You had a moment. I had a second. So one of our new writers, Ariel Duhame Ross, who is also Canadian and has a great name, very classy, like way too classy for the Verge name. And a great talent. Very wonderful talent, not just a name, also a great writer. Yeah. Did a piece today, which everybody should read. It basically is like, there are some people, have you met a person who's like, I don't like music?

I just don't like, I don't listen to it. I don't like it. A study has now sort of proven out or found that there are people who just doesn't, their brains don't work that way. They just can't appreciate or enjoy music. Yeah. Which is crazy. Like they don't show like a physical or emotional response to familiar songs.

Yeah. Are those people like, is there a higher instance of serial killers in the people who can't, who don't like music? What's going to be interesting is that after this, they're planning to do brain scans on some of these people and try to figure out what is different about them. Yeah. And I think if that sort of can perhaps match up with.

you know, other fMRI studies on, you know, serial killers. I don't think there's any correlation. You never know. It seems like you go hand at hand, though. Yeah, but if you're looking at sort of the brain's reward system, I mean, who knows? I just think it's, I think it's fascinating. There's a very, very weird, weird study. Anyhow, I think we came up with maybe one of our greatest headlines ever.

Yeah. I think, Katie, did you, were you, did you submit the bad brains part of it? This was me. It's just, you know, you have to know who bad brains are to get it, but it's a really, great. It's just very interesting to me that somebody tweeted me, they're like, is this the new face blindness? I think there is something that, it's there something similar about it in the sense that you have a, kind of a

you naturally assume that everybody feels the way you feel about basic things. Like, oh, you hear music. It creates an emotional response. Like, either it makes you happy or it makes you sad or I don't like the way this sounds or I do like the way this sounds. It's hard to imagine sort of like colorblindness, I guess, for me when I think about it. Like, I can't imagine not knowing. what colors are, you know. This one seems more severe, more deep.

It seems more deep. Because it's like music is basically producing some kind of emotional response. So it's like you're missing the ability to get a very common emotional response. I mean, I guess you'd save a lot of time. I feel like I spend a lot of time on music. Like making playlists. You know, you'd also save a lot of time if you just didn't exist. By the way, somebody.

That's horrible. Somebody just tweeted. You are out. Can I just say saying, we were making it. Death threats What happened? You made a death threat? It's not a death threat.

It's a philosophical. What was it? Can I hear it again? You save a lot of time if you just didn't exist. You wouldn't have to worry about like laundry. You said that to Katie? Is that a Katie? No, no.

Wow. You wanted to do laundry again. Things got dark here. You wouldn't have to have a job. Really cold. Listen, I think what he meant. He was being, he was being pragmatic. He meant like living takes up a lot of time.

Think about how much time. Yeah, exactly. You save a lot of time. Save infinite time. But I wouldn't have time. But that's the beauty. Exactly. I think that's the beauty.

That's not awful. No time is, no time is all the time in the world. Do you remember what it was like to be, before you were born? This is like, this is like, this is like being. This is like what keeps me up in an end. This is like when you're in a black, this is like being in a black hole. We can start doing Zen Co-ans if you want. Right?

Am I right? This is like if you're in a black hole. Imagine the faces of your parents before they were born. It's horrible. What? Yeah. This all makes me like really uncomfortable. Yeah.

Like conversations about like before I was born or after I die. Why? Or then I think about like, well, even if I go to. heaven at some point heaven will stop existing. No, it won't. No, it will.

Wait a second. Wait a second. First off, hold on. The universe will just implode in on itself and then what am I? No.

Heaven's not part of the universe, not the known universe. Heaven's not like up in space. It's not like a planet that we haven't visited yet. First of all, heaven doesn't exist. Number one. If I'm just like zipping around

out there somewhere. Yeah, in a DC8 in space. I don't want to be in limbo. So you think that you think that after you... And even if I am in limbo at some point, everything will collapse inwards and we will all just be nothing. Do you believe that after you die...

Well, Zinu is part of the universe. So consider that. The thing that I hate to think about is the space in between things out in space. That's creepy. Which is nothing. Like if you're one of those people that has tryptophobia or whatever it's called, where you're like afraid of holes. That kind of hurts my, that kind of hurts my brain a little bit.

Get me in a rocket chip. Just hang out. You want to go to Mars on? Would you be comfortable with being in a rocket chip? Have you seen gravity? I have. Yeah, I find that the concept now, especially having seen gravity, but prior to gravity,

the idea of being in space so utterly terrifying. I mean, I'm not going to be... It's like, dude, have you seen Event Horizon? Oh, my God. No, I'm done. You end up in hell. If you go far enough into space, you go to hell. Sorry, spoiler or that's what Event Horizon is about.

They fly into space and they end up in on like hell. No, they like fold space, right? Whatever they do, whatever they do, like devil, devil. And they don't have Buffy the Vampire on board. Have you ever played dead space? because it's the plot of Dead Space is a bad job. I got it for free because EA did such a bad job with SimCity 4. Yeah, space is a really, really good game and everybody should play it. But it reminds you of the horror of space, as does gravity, as does what you were just saying about. You know, this really dovetails well with this other thing that just came out today, which is this Mars 1 documentary teaser.

Oh, yeah, hold on me. Hold that thought. I want to get back to Katie. I saw that. I want to get back to Katie's depiction of heaven. So I'm very interested. I'm very interested in several things. One, that you believe in heaven. don't. I mean, that was just like a word. But I would like to think that I get to hang out somewhere after I die. Heaven is a bottle of Avalonapa Valley. In the ground. You get to hang out. Or unless you're cremated, in which case, not in the ground.

This is horrible. But here's my other question is that you think that heaven could end? I mean, everything will end. No. Yeah. The whole concept of heaven is that defies like the laws of space and time. Like if you believe in heaven, you got to go a whole, hog.

I just said that I don't believe in heaven. No, okay. But, okay, then if you, then whatever kind of thing, you just believe in a cool, you're like a cool cool planet where stuff is like free or something. I'm just like zipping around. Like my, I got to say my favorite depiction of, zipping, you don't zip around in heaven. I don't think that's what goes on. Not in heaven.

Because I don't believe in heaven, but you say it out somewhere. Yeah, but everyone has a space sec way. But you don't die and then start zipping around into the universe. I do. So you're, that's like a Scientology thing, right? You wear white robes and the backstreet boys are there and they're always performing a live concert. The movie.

And you're eating cream cheese. Yeah. Is that a part of heaven? On the cloud? I don't know. It's white. That's a bagel commercial. Okay.

You're like, I'm on a cloud having delicious Philadelphia cream cheese. That is an ad for, that's like a viral campaign for Philadelphia cream cheese. That's where I learned about religion. Oh, by the version of the Virgin Chess today brought to you by Philadelphia cream cheese. It's the lightest, creamiest cream cheese in America. It's going to be controversial, but heaven has nothing to do with Philadelphia. If anything, if anything, it's quite the opposite. Let's put it.

that way. Anyhow. So, music? Yeah, some people can't appreciate music. And as a result, they'll never get to heaven where they zip around eating cream cheese. Okay. Moving on. I enjoyed that. I like that.

That's my favorite part. Those are my favorite conversations that anybody can have on the verge cast. No, but we were talking about space. It was this Mars One video that came out today. It was a trailer, this trailer for this documentary about all these Mars One, people who are going to take the one-way trip to Mars. But can I interject briefly here? I actually saw the entire documentary because we were going to do.

We were working on the story. We were working on the exact same thing. Yeah. Great minds. And then we went to do an interview in D.C., I think. And they were like, oh, you got to check out this documentary we did. And we were like, what the hell? Guess we won't be doing the exact same story. Yeah.

But really cool, cool documentary. Basically, the idea is that everyone who wants to go to Mars is supremely depressed. Of course. They're like, get me off this planet. I don't care if I ever come back. you know and there's one guy who's like the only thing that would keep me here is if my son asked me not to go but then he was like well even then it's kind of cool um i don't know if you've lived through the winter that we've lived through in new york yeah a one-way trip to mars is starting to sound pretty good i need

need some more carmags you know they have carmex in space no if you pay it with you do they have carmacks in heaven you just think about carmacks and it's applied to your lips you don't need carmacks well that would be the thing when is that is that you don't you your lips never get dry in heaven Do they ever go off topic It sounds like that sounds like That sounds like a title of a country song Your lips never get dry in heaven I pity

I do pity the listeners today What is this note You want to talk about Shaq? Shack Fu? No, no, no, no, no. Game of Thrones rap album Can someone explain this to me? This is ridiculous

Can someone explain it to me, please? So I mean, I don't watch Game of Thrones But I did listen to the song That's on the album We have a we're going to play a clip of it in the moment. I thought it was terrible. Can someone explain the concept to me? Because I didn't actually, I saw the headline, have not read

the article yet. According to the Wall Street Journal, they want to appeal to African American and Latino demographics by releasing a free rap album featuring popular artists. So not only is that horrible as a marketing. Yeah. It's like, from like, it's like

pandering. And they're straight up on the record about it. Lame, sad. Also like, you know what? Make your show more diverse or something if you want to attract a larger audience, a more diverse audience. Is this it? This is Catch the Throne. Also, like, how lame it's like watch the throne, but they just changed it? Yeah.

Here we go. Let's listen. Like the rehab on my knee, it won't get that much longer. Before Cali see the iron throne. They call her the mother of dragons you under attack and they get this eye home. Targaryen. The rightful bloodlines. I just stop it.

Turn it off. Turn it off. This is funny. Okay. But here's the thing. Last week, you weren't here last week, but you were. We talked about the trend of in the 80s people doing songs for movies, like rap songs where they rapped about what was going on in the movie, like in Ghostbusters too. Bobby Brown has a song and there's like, he has a rap.

The whole song is about the Ghostbusters, basically. There's actually a couple of songs in that movie because I just watched it. This is much closer to like McDonald's. But they're like mentioning, they're like mentioning like the Targaryans in the rap. It is the, that's like, first off, that's like, oh, yeah, I have this shitty beat, not even B-side, like C-side that I was never going to. going to release, like you'll pay me several hundred thousand dollars for it. This is like when McDonald's does raps about chicken nuggets.

Those are more enjoyable. Because I'm more interested in a chicken nugget. And they only last like 10 seconds. Hearing a rap about Game of Thrones. It's just so off, so out of tone deaf. Yeah, it's really bad. It's out of control. Anyhow, I don't have anything else to say about it.

The track was called Mother of Dragons. That's whack. Is that big boy? I'm never going to be invited back. I saw a big boy show at Brooklyn Bowl a few years ago. And he was great. He should feel ashamed. I touched his leg.

Wait, what? You touched Big Boy's leg? Because I was in the front row. I'm sorry, I'm confused. I haven't seen one episode. He was really good live. Trey has something to say. Trey Shalhorn, our new Verge, our new Verge video producer.

Let's give him a round of applause. Let's get on the mic here. I'm actually African American. Wait, hey, hold on. Slow down. I'm confused. Okay. And I've never, and I've never seen Game of Thrones.

I haven't seen one episode. Are you not watching because you feel like it lacks racial diversity? No. You're not watching because you're not interested. Because I'm not interested. Are you more interested in that? Oh, here we go. However, after hearing that, I'm even less interested.

Boom. And I'm watching it. You're driving away. You're driving away at African American audience. No, I'm less interested in watching. Me too. This makes HBO seem a lot lamer. So you're not loving it.

I'm offended. I'm not. I'm not. I was partially offended. I mean, it's... You should be fully offended. I'm offended. I can be a little bit offended.

offended, but you all partially because, I mean, the assumption is that all African Americans listen to hip-hop. That's also, that's also offensive. It's not just that it's bad, it's not just that it's bad and like tone deaf and pandering and like, it's just like this lame way to seem like

you're more diverse than you are, but also the assumption that like every African-American is like, oh yeah, I love hip-hop also. Like, that's my favorite music. They should have had Keith Urban do it. That's what you're a country fan, right? Are you a country fan? I'm not a country fan. actually.

I have no idea what he likes. That would be... We just met. I don't even know his name. Trey. You guys haven't met? You were in the meeting the other day when we introduced him

to the team. You were very cold. You were cold. What is wrong with you? I'm sorry to think, look, I don't want to call you up. I'm sorry to think, that you're racist.

That's all I can imagine. I'm racist against new people that I don't know. Anyhow, I'm going, thank you for actually, like, chime me on this because it's like, it's a perfect example of why HBO's blowing it on this.

That's great. And also, Tray, you're a wonderful man. And by the way, now I think the best dresser in the office. We've all been talking about it. Chad mom has got... It's really nice to have like an Annie Hall moment too, you know? Like, what is that? What is that?

When we need an expert on hand, we're like, oh, if only we had... An African American on hand is okay. I thought you meant a well-dressed man. I feel like we're going down a racist path here, T.C. Very upset. Anyhow, T. Thank you. And as far as I know, T.C. is not a practicing racist.

Not practicing. It's terrible. This has gone off the rails. remission. Anyhow. This is a really weird tangent, but speaking of Game of Thrones. I'm listening. I did this Day Z story.

You remember that game? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a really sadistic game. Anyway, you can do, like, kidnap people and handcuff them, do all kinds of weird things to them. And a favorite tactic of... By the way, weird segue. That's the weirdest segue.

But one of the best tactics for avoiding being captured and handcuffed. Yeah. Is to just start telling Game of Thrones spoilers over the microphone. Have you? run away for you. Yeah. Yeah, it's like... You could do any spoilers.

It's like, mutually assured destruction. Any nerds spoilers? Like, you can be like, well, maybe I could handcuff this guy and, but maybe he knows a game of Thrones. You can't make yourself talking.

Exactly. They should figure out a way if you, if you've got somebody in handcuffs that you can... We can put duct tape over people's mouths, but it won't turn off your audio out. It's an alpha. It's not in the game yet. Right.

Eventually. That's insane. That's horrible. Speaking of games, Shaq Fu. Ugh. Shack, Shaq Fu is a fighting game based around...

I'm offended by this too. based around Shaquille O'Neal. And Shaq is going to fund this. What's he doing? A Kickstarter? Yeah. What's the story? If you...

Oh, he's doing an Indie Go-Go. Project for Shaq Fu, too. Somebody asked him, there was an article a few months ago, and it was like, what's up with... It was random. Can we just show the photo of Shaq and the motion capture? I think I actually met the, I think I met the journalist, actually. He was, I was talking to him at CES. He was like, yeah, I got this weird scoop out of nowhere.

I ran into Shaq. And I was like, hey, what's up with Shaq Fu too? And he was like, it's happening. And it turns out, thank you for Tommy me off. Is this a trailer for Shaq Fu, too? Yeah, yeah. I play this. No.

What's the plot of Shaq Fu? Can anybody tell me? Like, what's the... Is that Shaq? Shack's way more muscular in the game than he isn't really life. I was just going to say there's a picture in here of Shack 2014. And his abs definitely do not look like that. They look like a gut.

Yeah. This abs look like a gut, basically. Yeah. So here, I'm getting this. This is the story of Shaq Fu, one. I'm going to read it to you. In the game story line, Shaquil and he wanders into a Kung Fu dojo while heading to a heavily emphasized charity

basketball game. Heavily emphasized. I think they mean advertised. Charity basketball game in Tokyo, Japan. After speaking, I assume this is from the Wikipedia entry. After speaking with a Kung Fu master, he stumbles into another dimension, where he must rescue a young boy named Nizu from the evil mummy set raw. totally sound that sounds completely reasonable to me this is from the 90s I think this game is from

what 19 I'm gonna say 1994 this sounds like the plot to Kazam I'm gonna say 1994 it's like a really really bad street fighter knockoff right and this is like version 2.0 I mean this looks identical to a street fighter no this is the original right here check this out oh you know when I was a kid hey remember remember 4 3 ratio I mean this is like this is like Raius level in Street Fighter. This is a complete rip-off of Street Fighter. I'm like mad. I'm like legit mad about Shaq Fu ripping off Street Fighter. Do you want to feel even more mad? Yes. If you fund it for $500, I can't speak. If you contribute $500 to his campaign, he will follow you on Instagram. Yeah, Shaq. Shaq will follow you on Instagram for $500. I don't understand

what the value of that. Isn't that just, just makes me feel sick. We have, what's this? Oh, we have all of the and a nice nice little what are the what are the one on these are we are 10 stills what are the shack rewards that if you fund this can you tell me what they what are they where's the list do we don't have a list I have a couple here he'll record of you record your own voiceover for the game I don't know what that means or he'll record a voiceover for you how much you have to invest you can record a line in the game yeah like like what like let's fight okay like out mocap a signature move how much you have to pay to mocap a signature move Let me load this up.

This is not going well. For $750, you get a personalized YouTube message. By the way, $21,000 have been raised so far out of the $450,000 goal. And can I just say, I get that he's demonstrating the popularity of it and the need for an audience. But he should have remade Kazam instead of making this video game. Here's the thing. Can we get the Kazan. Can Shack funded himself?

That's a question on the page. Fair question. Of course he's got money and yes, he'll be investing a lot of his own time and money in this project. He also wants your money. But he'd rather not

and spend half a million dollars on this crappy video game. To be perfectly honest. That's money he could use for things that he enjoys and wants as opposed to this game. So here we go. Here are the levels.

You ready? For $15 you get a copy of the game, digital PC copy. $25. D.L.C. for life. That's, by the way, what I have tattooed across my chest. $35, limited edition character.

What does that mean? I think that means you'll get like a character that is not available to everybody when they first get the game, like a secret character. $45 bucks, beta access to it. This is, by the way, we're just doing a big ad for Shaq Food, too. $50, you'll get the game plus the digital soundtrack. $55 gets you a Shaq Food T-shirt. There's like 80 levels of this. By the way.

I kind of want a T-shirt to wear, ironically. It's funny because I was going to say if you're into the Shaq-Food T-shirt, there's probably something really wrong with you. You're like, yes. You're like, yes. Everything up to this, I was not interested in, but the Shackfoo T-shirt is. For $250, you can get sheet music spelled with a Q. Sheet music.

Please don't jump ahead. For $100, you get a Shack Fu poster. Nope. For $150, you can record your own voiceover. You will get to record a special line and have your voiceover integrated into the game and receive a credit as a voice actor. By the way, this gets you into the actors' guild, into SAG. $200 is Shaq Fu signed poster.

You get the poster, but it's signed. Sheet music, that's misspell. You're right. It's got a cue on the end. I don't know exactly what I did. So who knows what you actually get? It's like, what's music with a cue on the end? I don't think that actually counts as a thing.

For $300 you get, okay, I don't know what this means. Turn up the volume. Steve has graciously decided to offer an in-person or Skype lessons on the keys. Oh, this is the composer of the soundtrack. Steve. Cool. Steve Mullets. Or Mullets, depending on how you talk to.

For $370,000 you can mocap your signature move. One of our motion capture artists will create a custom animation based on a recorded signature move that you submit. What does that mean you'll be in the background somewhere doing a signature move? Yeah. I could think of, I would spend $375. You know, you know, 4chan's going to troll us. If I knew the signature move that I wanted to put in the game, would go into the game. For $400, Jack Fru Lodge Party in New York, I guess that means you get to attend, or your help.

to fund it. I'm not sure. You plan it and he shows up. You were going to, we are going to party like it's 1990. It's like, I got bad news for you. 1999 came and went. I'd rather party like it's this year. Yeah, but the graphics are from 1999. Right.

So. For another, for different $400, you get a Shaq Fu launch party in L.A. 475 signed Shaq Basketball. $500 signed Shaq Fu figure. A $500. Shack follows you on Instagram. $500. $500.

$5.00. Score the score. This is insane. For $500, collaborate with Stephen. Shack on making music for the game. I played a recorder. You're doing that at 500? That feels slightly desperate to me at 500.

How many? So like you get 100 people to invest for $500. It's like what, how are you going to use all 500, all 100 pieces of music or whatever? Okay, anyhow. I mean, it doesn't sound like they're making any promises in there. I'm going to just jump ahead. First off, just be honest, this game's never coming out.

British people put this together weirdly because it personalized with an S, voicemail by Shaq. What's the most expensive that you could fund? For $35,000. It's a word in there. For $30. For 30. $35,000 an evening at TNT Studio, the slam dog perk of all time.

One fan, only one, gets to bring two friends to TNT Studios, which, by the way, what is that? TNT, the TV station? No, that went out of existence. No, no, no, TNT exists. Exists? Yeah. Bring two friends at TNT Studios for a meet and greet to watch the taping of NBA on TNT and to have lunch with Shaq at the studio. If you have to pay $35,000 to hang out with Shaq, like, you.

You can do something more interesting for 35. If you have the money to do that, you should do something more interesting with your money. I would feel very pathetic. The best reward here, Shaq is basically using this like eBay. If you pay $3,000, you get two floor seats to a Kings game, which is basically just like Shaq has season tickets. And he's like, yo, I don't need these. I don't know.

I'm not going to $25,000 dinner with Shaq. I would go to dinner with Shaq just to like, just to troll. I would just be troll. He's like, sorry, I pay $20,000. You got to hang out with me. I got to ask you. a really annoying question. Maybe The Verge could do a story on this and then we could just pull it out of our budget.

No, I'm not going to spend $25,000 just to do a story on a shirt. I would be willing to get you a t-shirt if you can really produce some great content around the Shack Fu to get video game. You hate video game, so. That's just like an impossible triangle. That's not fair. All right. Well, you know what? This is what dinner with Shack looks like, by the way.

Can we get the dinner with Shaq graphic up? So good. I'm putting it in the thing. Somehow I'm not surprised. It's at the top, John. By the way, if you have six friends with $3,600 each, then you can group together to get this awesome perk. So, Shaq will have dinner with six people.

Listen, guys, I'm willing to put in $3,600. Who's with me? Message me on Twitter. Let's, well, six of us will go to dinner with Shaq. And we'll all take our shirts off halfway through the meal and make him extremely uncomfortable. This is the worst topic we've ever discussed. Yeah, I hate this. All right.

Do we want to talk about watchdogs? No, I don't know. God, I'm so tired of this bullshit. I feel like watchdogs was a really cool thing before, like, all these NSA leaks came out. Yeah, now it's all too real. Katie won't talk about video games. Let's talk about LSD being used as drug therapy for the first time in 40 years. Let's talk about that.

So LSD is a hallucinogen. True. It can create a wide variety of responses in users. In fact, users of LSD report wildly different experiences. Now, for instance, when I took acid back in the 70s, now I knew people who would take acid and they would get like wild visual. There'd be like wild visuals. They'd be like, oh my God, I'm seeing, you know, they would see the things that you associate with people seeing with acid. Like a cat, the Chezheimer cat is like doing some.

Sounds wild. had ever done LSD, I could tell you I did not get any visuals. It was all in my head. Anyhow, but so Katie, can you explain this? I would love to. Finally, something you want to do on the verge cast. God damn polite. No, no, you really have been.

You know what? To you, Katie, for, you know, why don't we just. Cheers. Cheers to you for just one of those right there. So classy. What's going on? Let's just get this over one. Come on, guys.

Please don't. Don't fight. I don't want, I wanted to be peace between the two of you. I need peace on this Vergecast. So basically this was the first study in the world in 40 years using LSD and they were looking at cancer patients, most of them terminally ill, to see whether an LSD trip under the supervision and guidance of a therapist could relieve some of the anxiety around the illness and sort of the idea of impending inevitable death. Oh, that's a downer.

I thought they were going to be like, oh, it turns out LSD cure cancer. We've been ignoring it this whole time. I wish. Not nearly as cool as that. No. And so the results, it was a very small study. The results weren't great. Some of the patients experienced about a 20% improvement in anxiety levels based on like

evaluations and questionnaires. But the results weren't statistically significant. I think sort of the real win here is a win for the idea of using. psychedelics like LSD in future research and in sort of medical protocols. Because we've sort of taken drugs like LSD and said, this is just bad. Just avoid it at all costs. Don't look at it. Don't study it anymore.

Don't think about it. It's a, it's illegal. It's illegal. It's dangerous. Yeah, right. And we just kind of put it on a, just put it in a safe somewhere and we're like, leave it alone. And I think it's something that in the last like five or six years has seen a real

see change or an evolution in sort of how it's perceived in the way the FDA and the DEA are handling studies like this with LSD or with, you know, MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, even marijuana. So, you know, I think this is an interesting example. Doesn't sound like it does great stuff for anxiety, which I can understand. It's a little inconsistent. I feel like this would not be my go-to if I was trying to treat anxiety. I wouldn't be like, oh, you know what would be good is the unpredictable sometimes terrifying LSD.

Let's give back to people with anxiety. There used to be a lot of LSD testing, though. Yes. We have a video here, John, of the British Army during World War II testing on British troops. Really? Oh, my God. Can we see that? Can we see that? Completely ineffective.

Of course. Of course. They were having too much fun. Can we see it? One guy climbed to me. I just want to say, don't do drugs, everyone, unless they're really good. Unless you feel like it. Can we see the clip?

Do we have the clip? Or no clip? No clip? I thought we had the clip. tough, tight ship we got here. Really, Roddy, just smooth, smooth, cool, right? There we go, here it is. It's like Reaver Madness.

Do you have sound? Is there sound on this clip? No sound. I guess we can just imagine, these guys are like, whoa, things seem weird. I mean, I don't know what they'd be saying. They have guns, too. I wouldn't want to. I don't feel good about this.

I wouldn't get, I wouldn't be like, hey, take this acid and here's a rifle. Yeah. Yeah, this guy just lost it. After 35 minutes, one of the radio operators had become incapable of using his set. And the efficiency of the rocket launcher team was also, very impairs. So dangerous. No.

Ten minutes later, the attacking section had lost all sense of urgency. What are they thinking? Not as they enter a wood occupied by the enemy. Yeah, I'd be like, no. Almost immediately. Don't go in the woods. The second commander tried to use a map to find the location of troop headquarters, and a prisoner's escort had to have the way pointed out to him. Although it was in plain sight, 700 yards away over open country.

We've all been there. 50 minutes after taking the drug, radio communication had become difficult. if not impossible, but the men are still capable of sustained physical effort. However, constructive action was still attempted by those retaining a sense of responsibility in spite of physical symptoms. But one hour and ten minutes after taking the drug, with one man climbing a tree to feed the birds. Wow. What I think is so wonderful is... We need to do more studies like that.

What it's so wonderful is how, like, in the old days, they'd be like, let's just give them some acid, keep the guns on. them take the rocket launcher and just do your thing or whatever like we nobody was worried that they would shoot somebody it was a gentler time a dumber time when people didn't know anything uh that's great that was hilarious i think those guys are like they're having the time of their life and i so actually there's a lot of like drugs drugs as a thing are are sort of back they're back and and there's like you know our attitudes are definitely changing um Colorado of course uh weed is legal in Colorado now. And there's the first ever commercial TV commercial for weed, I think legal weed that we ran a story on.

Do we have a clip of that? It's actually pretty good. I'd love to see it. It's pretty good. It's an ad for weed, correct? Yeah. Can we see a clip of the, I'm sorry that I didn't tell you guys that I, they're getting it. If you've seen an ad on the internet, it's 100% legal bud.

Yeah. And now what do you do? Is it for Colorado? I haven't seen the idea. Is this it? Can we get audio? Yeah. Well, it's for medical marijuana.

Can we get this? Can we start this over? I know that. I know that. And nobody's telling but me. I got tuna. I got salmon. I got sweet shrimp. I got the finest sashimi.

This area has seen in years. You need me and I need you. Let's make this work. You buy some sashimi. I'll throw in some rice paper, man. Totally free. Gratisse. I got everything.

Even California rolls, baby. You wouldn't buy your sushi from this guy. So why would you buy your marijuana from him? Marijuana Doctors.com is the only service that connects patients with real doctor for medical marijuana recommendations. Simple, confidential, safe. Visit marijuana doctors.com.

Or call 1-866-9-9-6. No, that's it. Well, first off, that guy was a little, like, okay, that's a great ad. I want to say something. That guy was, like, I've never been a drug dealer that excited. Nobody's buying weed from the guy here. Not that I've ever met a drug dealer, mind you. But if I had, I've certainly never met one that excited.

And, like, kind of nice, really. I was throwing me out of mama everywhere. He was just showing him. He had a lot of it. Ruined. It was no big deal for him to... He's making it rain. He's like, yeah, he's like, listen, when it comes to edamami, I've got plenty of it.

Which, by the way, I think for sushi restaurants, very true. Yeah. Plenty of edamama. It's like bread. It's like bread. It's like bread. It's like bread. That's right.

I think it's a great ad. It also, I think drives home a really important point. Like, who wants to buy drugs from like a weird drug dealer when you can just win the government just give it to it. It's so surreal to see something like that. Yeah. And no, it's on national, well, not national television. Where is that for L.A.? Is that for California?

Well, I think it's either for, actually, I don't know where it's airing. Is it medical marijuana in Colorado or is just like weed for people like Amsterdam? It's recreational. It's medical and recreational. Yeah. Do you need a license? You don't need a license, do you? Not for recreational, though.

Right. So how does that work in Colorado? There are weed shops there now? Yeah, absolutely. And they just, you just go, I'm in Denver. I just go to a weed shop. I got to go to Denver. This is amazing.

This is so weird. It's weird. We've spent our entire lives being told that this stuff is the, the worst thing in the world. You got to stay away from it. And if you smoke one puff of weed, you're immediately going to be a heroin addict. Yeah.

And like now it's like... Reefor Madness, John. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen Reefer Madness. I've actually watched it. It's depressing, by the way. It is.

You think Reefer Madness is going to be like a funny movie. You're like, oh, these guys in the 50s, they made this hilarious. They made this hilarious movie. I think it's from the 50s. Maybe actually from earlier. 40s. Anyhow. But it's actually a huge downer.

And then you realize it's all about... 36. It's from 1936. It's actually really, really depressing, and it's about, like, very sad people in very sad situations. Oh, here it is. Look at this. Wait, this is colorized. I don't go in for this colorized.

BS. Hey, if I wanted to see things in color, I would watch network television in 2014. What is going on with? You don't mean it's two stars on the DB. This hair is so, what do they know? It's so messed up. Your hair is. It's getting really long.

On drugs. Cool. Just do that for. Maybe it's time for a haircut. It is time. What are you saying? Is it time for haircut? I think we need to end so you can go get a haircut.

You know what? I think it is time to wrap up, unfortunately. This was a weird one. Yeah. I think this is a long week. I'm very tired. Me too. And we drank an entire bottle of wine.

We drank this wine. I didn't even realize, I haven't finished. I still have quite a bit, but you refilled. I finished mine. I had a baby. I had a baby. Not this week, but it's tiring. Yeah.

But we know now officially that it is a baby. Let me tell you about my baby. Yeah. It's put on weight, which is very good. It? She has put on weight I don't want to reveal What's her name, Link?

Hey, come on, man. How much did she weigh when she was born? Six pounds, nine ounces. Oh, a little one. She was early. That's like medium. No, it's a mid-size. It's close to right on.

It's a mid-sized scale. Now she is eight pounds, 10 ounces. Great. Which, fun fact, is how much I weighed when I was born. I was a huge baby. Yeah. Huge.

And I'm a huge adult. weirdly. I think my brother was like 11 or 12. Oh my God. And now he's like 105 pounds. Yeah. And I was small and I'm, you know, the Michelin man. You're the Michelin Man.

You're the Michelin. Don't listen. That's the Michelin man. It actually looks like he's in better shape, frankly. Yeah. Terrible. Why? This is abused.

Is the baby polite or rude? The baby is wonderful. She's great. She only has one problem, which is, um, she doesn't, she's not perfect. Well, she's a baby. She doesn't sleep at night. That's not that bad. I mean, it's horrible.

I take sleep very seriously. No, no, I know you get like nine hours a night, which is so insane. Every night you get nine hours? Can you imagine? Eight to nine. Anyhow, but she's a joy and a wonder and, you know, I don't know. Are you going to have another one? You know, that's a great question.

It's very insane. It's an insane experience. It's horrible for the mother. For women, I really, it's sad. Like, it sucks. I wish there was another way to do it because women have the worst, they have the worst situation. They have to carry that baby around for nine months. Then they have to have it, which is insane.

Any way you have it, it's crazy. And then they're responsible for kind of everything. Like, I can't feed the baby. I mean, I could if I wanted to give it steak, but you can't give it steak. Well, there's always science. You know, we had that story on cultured beef a while back. Yeah. Maybe we're going to have cultured babies.

I think that's great. Actually. That is actually a thing. That's a thing that I'm interested in. Me too. We have a, I think we'll have more on that. Yeah. On the verge, actually.

Funny, you should bring it up. Okay, I think that's, we should wrap up on that point. Anyhow, I don't know, I think I'd probably like to have. I don't, only kids are weird, right? Only kids are. Yeah, that's my. I feel like they're lonely. Like, they always want.

I want one. And then my partner in creating a baby is like, no, then there'll be a weirdo. We need to have two. He's right. That sounds expensive and annoying. Here's a photo of my, here's a photo. Yeah, single children are so entitled. Well, you do have more you can give.

Well, we have pennies, so it's already like we have two babies. You know what parents love is when people compare pet ownership to being a parent. No, but here's the thing. And maybe I said this in the last one. I think that's totally reasonable. I think I learned a lot from having a dog. It's like not that wildly different. Your responsibility level is much higher.

No, I'm sorry. I think it is. I learned a lot from having a dog, and I think it was less of a crazy. like, oh my God, this thing needs me to feed it and take care of it and make sure it's healthy and take it to the doctor and like, you know, make sure it's loved and all this. It's like it's very similar. It's like a Fisher Price training baby. But it's like 10% of how the 10% of the intensity. 10% is fair.

It's 10% but the basic rules are the same. All right. This was the last verge cast. I don't think so. Ever. This is the beginning of the end or is it the end of the beginning? Wine cast from now on. I like it.

I like the wine. Next week we're going to talk about cats. It's going to be the verge cast. I like the mellow nature of this, and I like that we touch on some topics that we don't normally touch on. Like heaven. I would like to talk more about heaven. Me too. That's for damn sure.

All right, that's the Vergecast for this week. If you want to get in touch to those, you can email us at Vergecast at theverge.com. You can leave a comment when this story goes up of this post of this thing. Actually, there's a post that is already up. You can leave a comment on, if I'm being honest with you. You can write something in our forums, write a start a conversation in our forums about the Vergecast. And you can also find us on Twitter. The Verge is at Verge.

I'm Joshua Topolski. T.C. is laughing stoic. I need to change that. It's horrible. It's horrible. It's like some weird emo. It's like some emo. All right.

Thanks a lot, Katie. And Katie Drummond is, uh, Katie, whoa, wow. The wine really is taking effect here. The wine is really having this profound effect on Katie Drummond. Normally mild, John. Normally mild-manored. I don't know if I've ever heard her use the F word. He threatened me.

Physically? Guys. Okay. I like this dynamic. I'll be honest. It's a little uncomfortable, but I find it to be somewhat enjoyable. I'm going to let hers sit next to you next time. Katie or Katie Drum. With two M's. Sorry. Of course. How can I forget? Yeah, you need to change that. Because you know what? It's a really stupid Twitter man. You know, because there are two M's in your last name. Yeah. Which is Drummond.

Yeah. Learn how to spell drum. You don't want to have drummond in the, in the whole thing? It was taken. Too long. There's another Katie Drummond. She's a real bitch. Wow. And that is the Vergecast. As always, we thank you for watching and listening. And I think it goes without saying, my family, your family, and the families of everyone you know and love are in great danger. And I can only hope they make it to the next Vergecast.