Tomorrow - 152: The Value of Distraction

Episode Date: February 26, 2019

On this week's episode of Tomorrow, Josh and Ryan tackle hard-hitting issues like the psychological impacts of social media, Microsoft's role in the military-industrial complex, what it will take to save American democracy, and whether we'd buy a re-released Sega Genesis. All of those issues are equally important and we will not hear otherwise. Download episode 152 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host Josh Wittipolki. Today on the podcast we discuss the Sega Genesis, Michael Cohen, and the thick phone. I don't want to waste one minute. Let's get right into it. Okay Ryan, we're back. You're back. You were down south. You went down south. It did. I think you went to Florida You went to the quarter water now. I should say that we are a little late on this one. We're actually a lot late on this one

Yeah, little mostly because Ryan was on vacation, but also I'm very lazy and And I don't deserve you get you listeners and you're too good you're too good and too I and I don't deserve you listeners and you're too good. You're too good and too. I tried to schedule it early and that didn't happen. And then I was like, I'm not putting a board in my carry on. So it's a lot going on.

There's just a lot happening. And you know, the thing about this is that I am a procrastinator to some extent. And it's an often I will procrastinate us out of schedule. And listen, we got a lot of balls in the air and then I went to Fort Lauderdale Pride and there was people more balls. Oh, no. This is a family.

This is a family podcast. Okay. This is a family show for children. Please don't talk about sex. Um, anyhow, please don't talk about balls in this podcast. You know how I feel? About sports balls, no balls sports or any other kind of balls. Um, look, there's a lot to talk about. There's a ton to talk about. There's so much news. There's so many, so many topics that are

that are happening in the world right now. Where do you want to start? Um, you know, start, I want, there's a bunch of tech stuff to talk about too, which I know everybody will want to hear my thoughts on. Let's go right into tech. Let's talk about tech. So, okay, let's just quickly, let's just talk about Reggie Fee Ami, the head of Nintendo CEO of Nintendo is stepping down.

End of an era. He's being replaced by a guy named Doug Bowser. It should be. It's just, I mean, whatever. It's fine. He's less serious Bowser. I did a great tweet, which I felt like really should have gotten more traction, which is that the new boss has plans to kill off the Mario character. This is the end of Malcolm Gladwell's Furious, because Sydney put out a big chapter in his

most popular book about how there was one kid was named good and one was named bad and one ended up being good and the other one ended up being bad, but not the one that were named bad. That sounds like a parody of a Malcolm Gladwell. No, that was a real article that he was like in this proves. It's like you think that people named good end up being good and people named bad end being bad,

but actually the opposite is true. Like, Blink, did you blink? You might have missed that. Okay, anyhow, he's a real schmuck. But anyhow, so yeah, I don't know what to say except that I feel like Nintendo is very much a company. I don't know. I'm maybe I'm wrong in saying this, but I feel like it is a company that has, is very

much like the sum of its parts. Yeah. Unlike in some ways like an Apple where I feel like, you know, without a Steve Jobs, they do seem like directionless in many ways. Like I don't think, I don't feel like Reggie was like, making all of the big decisions. Maybe he was.

I don't know the inner workings, but to me Nintendo feels like a company that will survive and thrive even without him at the helm. Yeah, but he was like kind of a great person out. He was like kind of a lovable like, he seemed like, listen, eat all executives and tear down all corporations, communism forever. He seemed like a really nice, regular guy. Yeah.

No, he seemed like, he seemed like a nice dude who was genuinely, he was genuinely into, you know, Princess Peach or whatever. And, and like, that's good. That's nice. I don't have a lot to say. Like, I help me miss, I guess. And hopefully his, hopefully Bowser won't blow it. Hopefully they'll drop Mother 3 at midnight, like Beyonce right before he leaves.

And we'll all be happy. I forget. What is Mother 3? I was at the, Mother's like the crazy, it's like a crazy RPG, right? Yeah, I don't happy. I forget. What is Mother 3? Oh, is that the mother's like the crazy, it's like a crazy RPG, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't know anything about it. They released.

I don't know anything about it. The other earthbound content in North America, and then the mother was supposed to go to the 64, and then it got scrapped, and then eventually they made a like masterful GBA title, and then they just kept saying they were gonna release it, then when they weren't gonna release it, then they were gonna release it, and then fans basically did their own translation and put it

online and it's been downloaded like millions of times so basically everyone's played it but they still won't put it out even though everyone would just give them five bucks for it and he has it's probably the thing he's most discussed as like the president of the one of the most powerful video game companies in the world is some GBA title that has never come out He's you know man. He's He's he's focused on all the right he was focused on all the right areas. Yeah, in my opinion pickman Sorry, I'm a little I have to admit. I'm a little bit um shook right now because just before we started I watched a video of Elizabeth Holmes talking oh yeah

I can't Shook right now because just before we started I watched a video of Elizabeth Holmes talking. Oh, yeah, and I can't listen. I don't Treat it so we did a treat that was like I could confirm this is the voice that I talked to dogs with and it is like It is oh, who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? Like I give to dogs which is like Who's a good boy? Like, the voice I give to dogs, which is like, I'm hungry, you know what I mean? Oh yeah, that was the tweeter. It was that, it was that's the voice,

the voice that I like think dogs use in my head or whatever. And then in the John Carrey book, I think, or in one of the related articles that was like big right when a first kid, that story first was breaking. Someone she went to high school with was like, yeah, I can confirm that's not how she talks. Yeah, completely put on. Yeah, anyhow, yeah, I can confirm that's not how she talks

Yeah, anyhow, sorry, it's total to a tangent not related to what we're talking about so yeah, so registry stepping down That's one thing. Okay, Samsung Anytime with this shit. Yeah, Samsung will announce a bunch of new things The bunch of galaxy s's all their phones have creases now all their Everybody has a small wrinkle No, they they introduced a bunch of new Galaxy S10 phones. And I'm just gonna say this, there's not a lot to say except, let me just say one thing. I have a Galaxy Note 9 which has the new one UI on it.

They're new like, it's essentially like touchwiz or whatever they used to call it. It's really good. Their UI stuff got really, really good. Like, it's very polished, it's very well designed. It's really good. Their UI stuff got really, really good. It's very polished, it's very well designed. They did a really good job with their slight tweaks to the OS. I think they've improved upon some things that Google did in stock, Android.

So for all the other... It still has a couple little touch-wizzy moments, but I will say it is much better. I don't find myself hating it almost at all. You know what this is? They put ringing endorsement for a product. Well, the thing I'm saying is they put a lot of stuff, they put almost too much stuff into the phone.

It's like, do I really need this? Like, I don't think I need this. Like, I get why you're doing it, but it's cool. I'm cool, like, anyhow. But so that's one thing it's cool. I'm cool. Like anyhow, but what I, but so, so that's one thing. The other thing is that, um, if you look at these phones, they don't have a notch. They have a, they're calling it, what is it? Like a punch hole or a punch out? What do the fun? Just play a bunch of play. There's a, in the corner of the display, there's a little camera. It looks to me very elegant. It's hardly noticeable.

Much better than a notch. Much better than a notch, much less intrusive than a notch. It's in an area of the phone that is rarely dealt with, basically. And it looks good. It looks really good. The other thing they did is they've got a new in-display fingerprint reader, which is, to me, is huge because I truly hate Face ID.

And I think that I'm not alone in this category. I know a lot of people who dislike Face ID. And I think that I'm not alone in this category. I know a lot of people who have who dislike face ID. John is a complete tanky for Apple products. And I showed him the one plus in in display fingerprint reader. And he was like, I want that like in like in like I mean, just tones. And it will be way better. The weird thing is that like the face ID thing is so it's's such a, you can just, it just feels like such a stretch to like, solving the problem that they invented. I think it's like,

we wanna make this like edge, edge display, but we can't actually do it with a camera and we don't wanna have no bezels, but we can't really do no bezels. So we're adding a bezel, but we're gonna like justify it in this weird way. It's not a bezel, it's a notch, which is an a bezel. I don't want, we don't have no bezels, but we can't really do no bezels. So we're adding a bezel, but we're gonna like justify it in this weird way. It's not a bezel, it's not, which is an a bezel. Like, I don't need you,

I don't need you to be able to scan my face. I get, there's no utility out of it. And by the way, a camera can scan your face without having to be like, what Apple did. But the point is, it doesn't need to be a connect. It's actually more convenient to use a finger print to unlock your phone, it's more convenient in a million ways. Like, when your phone is sitting flat on a desk

and you wanna see a notification you just got, it's just way fucking easier to not pick up the device or hover your head above it. I am so tired of posing in front of a display or clicking on fire hydrants to unlock things. I am so sick of it. Just put a fingerprint sensor in everything. I mean, they could have put it on the side,

they could have put it on the back, but whatever. I mean, the point is, okay, anyhow, my point is Samsung, like, did, basically did, like, it out-appled Apple in terms of like, making something elegant and like, useful. So that's one thing. So then the other thing is they introduced this folding phone, it's called the Galaxy Fold.

Here's to me, number one, I don't think there's a, I really don't believe there's a consumer that is asking for a foldable phone at all. I think that if you were to make a foldable phone that looked and worked just like a typical phone, but then also unfolded, people would be like, that's cool. But this is not that.

This is like a big, clunky, weird thing. With a thing that costs $2,000. Like a gross hinge. And like I get it's Gen 1, but like save it for like, save it for get to the gen that people want. Like you don't need to write it now. But here's the other thing. It's not what Sam's talking about, though.

It's like, no, but I'm saying everybody, other people have foldable phones too. Like, but here's what I'm saying. Here's the other thing. It's like, it, but I'm saying everybody, other people have foldable phones too. But here's what I'm saying. Here's the other thing. It's like, it unfolds into a tablet. It's like, do you know what people really don't want? Tablets, you know what they really, really don't want? Android tablets.

And it's like, I understand that you can do it. But have we ever asked as to whether we should do it? Like, should we investigate or interrogate? Like any high, I'm thinking a lot about this this morning because Energizer put this phone out. The Verge had a story about this phone, they have a mobile world congress, which is like a, it's like four times as thick as an iPhone.

It's like literally, it looks like an iPhone, but like it's been extruded. Yeah, she attacked. She protect, but mostly she's a fact. Yeah, it's like she protect, but mostly she's a It's like a literally very thick phone and very thick and I stand it I want it so now one I wanted to like okay listen It's maybe a little bit on the exaggerated side, but in all seriousness like I would be down with that Foldable phone not on the exaggerated side. I'd rather they solve a problem that I actually face than a problem they've invented.

Like I would be down, very down, with a phone that's twice as thick as the iPhone or whatever, but has insane battery life. Like I just think, I mean, the technology companies do this all the time. They're like, we made it thinner. It's like, I don't care if it's thinner. Like, they're like, it's lighter. It's like, that's nice, but it doesn't matter. That's actually not a thing. People aren't like, but it's for the ad campaign because the thing is, if you doubled

the thickness of the iPhone through in twice as much battery, guess what else you'd have space for? A headphone jack? Well, I mean, that's not even. I'm actually on the other side of headphone jacks. Now, I'm like, I'm all in on, we're gonna fight, I'm all in on wireless. I don't care. I don't want to fuck with cords. I hate cords. Listen, my AirPods are cute, but I really, really, really sometimes just want to plug in a regular set of headphones. I think it's nice to have the option. I get it. I've been to hotels where like there is no like Bluetooth speaker and I can plug in, but I don't have a, I've had a phone without a head phone jack that's happened once or twice. I was in a car this weekend And I had to do John wanted to do air play because he had all the directions for the we were going and I wanted to listen Put my music on but in order to do that

I needed the adapter which I didn't bring with me because we both have air pods So we had to decide if we wanted to know where we were going or have a good time getting there. Yeah. And it was not great. Tough. I mean, it's tough. But the point is, I'm not, look, I'm all for, Samson continues to put headphone jacks in their phones without sacrificing seemingly anything, and I'm like, down.

I'm like into that. I think the Galaxy Note, the one that I have the most reason, one, I mean, I'm very seriously considering trading it in for a S10 Plus, because I'm a sick person and I need help. But because they also have like an amazing colorway, it's like peach, it's like pinkish peach. Yeah. Like I basically kind of bought the note because they had like this lavender color, which I thought was really awesome. And now they have an even better color for the Galaxy S10 anyhow. This is something very wrong with me.

I'm looking very warm. My family can't, we can't afford to get groceries. I'm looking forward to the day that you're getting the iPhone 11, which only comes in black and white and looks in functions exactly the same as the 10 from two years ago. Yeah, I like it. Honestly, I have like three phones on my nightstand. from two years ago. Yeah, like, but honestly, goes out of Kibbutz, out of Kibbutz, I have like three phones on my nightstand, so I came into our room this morning, it was like, you have a lot of phones.

It's like, dude, I was like, don't even fucking get started with me, okay. I was like, this is my job, kind of, like not really, but it is. Anyway, so, so the same,

the whole photo, I just want to like, I would like, we've talked about this for a long time. Yeah, we have. We've talked, I've belabored this. It's just like, but here's what really annoys me, is that every fucking article I read is like,

I've seen the future and it's a foldable phone or like, foldable phones are here, finally, it's like, oh, it's like Samsung just threw down the gun, let it to Apple, it's like, yeah, Apple's gonna roll out a foldable phone the next event. You think that's what's gonna happen? Cause it ain't, like, I just feel, it's like, yeah, Apple's gonna roll out a foldable phone with the next event. It's like, you think that's what's gonna happen? Cause it ain't.

Like, I just feel like this is a non-thing that notes your mask or- And then people comparing the Huawei phone to the Samsung foldable phone, and they're doing like these like, these drooling pieces on it, and I'm like, isn't Huawei like, in a war with the federal government?

Should we maybe cover that in the history? A little more than a phone no one asked for? The whole shiny look I'm not trying to be like you know I'm not a crazy person or whatever but the whole Chinese phone situation where I mean listen I do know I think I don't trust like I Don't trust homegrown tech companies at this point, right? Like I'm very wary of all of those. I know put the second down. I don't know what's going on in China right now

I don't know what they're doing with my data. I don't know where that shit is shooting off to. And like, I mean, all the phones are main China. So let's be honest, like there's no doubt there is some part of the iPhone that is like sending all of my like, all of my nudes to, you know, the state run, state controlled media. To boobair.

To run the program. To day, hey, don't do it. Don't say, we should talk about that game. But anyhow, I'm just saying, I do think there's some, there's some, to me the most annoying thing about the whole Chinese phone stuff is like people are like, the news, you know how man, it's like, you can't even fucking, you can't buy it.

It's like, yeah, like I'll watch the YouTubers and they're like, check it out. Like this has a, it pops up the front facing. It's like, who cares? No one can buy it. It's not real. Like it's like a phone for a place that we don't live in. Like I don't know what to do with that. And it's all based on stolen IP.

And it's also not innovative. I'm sorry, like putting the camera in a different place is not innovation. It just isn't like wake me up when you actually do something interesting. Like seriously, you know, make a phone that, I want a phone that that melt, oh here's what I want, I want a phone that, that, that, Mel, oh, here's what I want, I want a phone that's like,

completely fluid, like a T1000. And like, instead of it being, instead of it being like, it can be dropped into like a VR headset, I want it to just, you just put it on your face and it's like one of those ice face masks you can get that you put in the freezer and it just molds to your eyes and stuff and like has little things that,

I want to sterilize the dream of the 90s, which is that phones are carcinogens, and they cause horrible brain tumors, but they can melt into any shape we want. I think you're living in that world right now. I say this while I'm pricing out, living in a pricey doubting, a Galaxy S. Nobia, which I've never heard of before this.

Always how I make my part. If I haven't heard of them, I'm like, here's my credit card info. Hey, are you coming for Kim, I'm starting right now? Anyway, it's like a liquid phone that wraps around your wrist like an Apple watch and then you like, yes, air wipe over it to like make it do things.

And I thought like, at least air wipe wipe at least someone's like, you know, trying something but like it's just an completely unusable product and I just gonna just gonna air wipe over this air wipe just you know just air wipe you don't mind. No listen, look, wait so what is it a watch? It's like a watch but it's a full full length drop a link drop a link into me. I'm gonna drop a link

Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, this is this is vaporware. This is the newbie. This is fake and it is fake You like news wait wave your hand over it you air wipe and then it changes I think as they may see it functioning. Yeah, there's video of it working. This is first off, one, it's so ugly. It's one of the ugliest things we've ever seen. Listen, nobody's gonna use this, but I at least was like, if we're gonna get crazy, let's get crazy. Like if you're gonna try to put this narrative on me,

might as well make it a phone shape, like a star that only exists on my left butt shape. Like why not? I wanna do it. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna phone that like a star that only exists on my left butt cheek. Like why not? Let's do it. I want to, I want to, I want to phone that's a belt. You could cinch. Like like the Batman, um, like, no, no, no, like a robe belt. I want one that's like, you could just kind of like put a lazy tie.

It's like, you know what I mean? You just actually, I want to, I want to phone this, that is literally a replacement for your robe belt. And I can just kind of lazily, you know, right after the shower, just get my phone belt out. Anyhow, no, look, I don't know. There's a lot of bullshit out there. It's a bad scene, but you just want to watch everybody drool over stuff that doesn't work.

What I really want is for more than anything, is for the media to be honest and clear with its audience about what is really going on, which is like we're in this ridiculous valley of innovation and people are desperately grabbing anything. People just miss drooling. I think that's what it is. We just miss like the covetous fun of new iPhones coming out.

Like, we're in a different, we're just in a different, seven, we're in a different era, man, man, man, like a man, I've like became like a man, Chester guy for one second. Anyhow, all right, what else is going on? That's, that's, is that all the phone news? I think it's all the phone news. We got any other, any other things? What, oh, I love that.

As you know, we want to go fun or sad, fun or sad. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm PlayStation and the Nintendo mini consoles, but that was announced a while ago. And then we didn't really hear anything about it until eventually, at Games, which is this like, dinky little, like, one of those clone companies that just like pumps out 700 game and one things and they put them out at CBS, had the license for Sega because it was just like a way for them to make money before this trend actually caught on. So then they pulled their involvement in this because everyone was like,

hey, if you're gonna do this, could you make it work maybe? And say, go, yeah, that's actually a great idea. So they got at games out of there and now they're putting polls on their website to try to see which games people want. Really, the emulation heavily optimized for. And so the thinking is that they're gonna really put effort into making this a fun little toy

for probably the holiday weekend Holiday weekend the holiday season. Yeah You're like you fast for it. You're like it's black Friday Here's what I have to say okay. I'm gonna give a I have a bold opinion on this. Yeah, you ready? Just let's say good do something Please no, here's my here's my opinion. So people went nuts over the NES Classic. Then the PlayStation Classic came out and it was kind of a bomb. Yeah.

And I think that we're done with the classic reissues of consoles. I think that what analog is doing is really cool where they're doing these kind of like enthusiast reissues that are like all of the most premium tech and the most premium treatment for the thing. And I think that's going to work for a certain segment of the audience, but I think most people don't want to have like six mini systems in their house.

I like my low mini systems and I do like the trend and I wish that we would get the N64 or like a dream cast or something, but I do understand that like it is a ridiculous thing to keep asking people to buy, spend $100 and get 20 really really really old games on it. Do you know what I mean? It's not a great model going forward. It's weird that the virtual console was something we had in 2007 that worked great. And now we have to buy a hacked Raspberry Pi

from Nintendo and a piece of plastic. And you only get a few games on it. Like that is a very regressive way of doing it but no, it's extremely regressive and it's like and they're not even really kind of like like they should really create a system where it's like okay we're doing this and there's an ecosystem of all the games in the games are like a dollar or two dollars or whatever. I mean there's just be a Netflix for old games it's kind of insane that we don't have that. That's a good no that's an idea I could get behind. But I think the reality is, the reality is that,

I just don't think there's a huge appetite. You can only have so many little boxes. Yeah, I just think that people are, and also I think it's a kind of a fat. It's like, I think it was like really a really novel thing when NES did is like, oh my God, a miniature Nintendo and also everybody had an NES, so it's like very global, but not everybody had a Genesis, you know? And like, I think not, I mean, PlayStation was obviously very popular, but I just think it's like, I don't know, it's a whole different thing. I think the distance between the original PlayStation,

even the PS4s, weirdly, less of a golf in many ways than Nintendo to now. Well, that's not, I mean, it is less of a golf, period. And I think that affects people in the way they feel nostalgic about things. Well, the idea of that Netflix for Games thing, I mean, that's what Microsoft is trying to do with Game Pass. And we had talked previously about how they were going to put live on the Switch and the

rumor that has developed is that they're actually going to try to just do streaming games in an app on the Switch and really be like platform agnostic and like they'll put out another Xbox as a way to like, you know, continue to cultivate that fan base, but that they really don't give a shit where you play Xbox games and they're happy to put an app on the Switch if it means you'll download 360 and Xbox One games and whatever else going forward and that that might be something they're developing.

And I don't know that I hate that idea. Like it's better than the way that we're currently like emulating old things, you know? Yeah, I don't know. I guess like, I guess like I yeah, I mean, I love the idea. It just the execution is To me, I don't know it just seems like it's got a sh- gonna have a short shelf life, you know That's my that's my vibe of the whole thing It's that the shelf life for having these little systems and and the fact that they have no ecosystem really, they're not providing them with like,

like is the ecosystem as like MU paradise and a USB cable. No, but I mean, yeah, but that's, but that's, but yes, if you want to like hack it, yeah, right? So they're not doing it like, it's not like they're giving you any way. They made it pretty easy to hack. Like it and it already has built in storage. But nobody wants to do that. No, I know. I'm saying they should make games available. They should do like free games, they should like you any way. No, but they made it pretty easy to hack. Like it, and it already has built-in stories. But nobody wants to do that.

No, I know. I'm saying they should make games available. They should do like free games. They should like charge a dollar. People would get into that. Well, and other Microsoft stuff, Microsoft's whole military contract debacle. Oh, yeah.

This is wild. So 50 employees signed a letter saying that they wanted Microsoft to no longer determine their contract with the military because they didn't sign up for jobs that are violent, I guess. But it's not a large amount of Microsoft employees. No, no, no, no. There are like hundreds of thousands of Microsoft employees. You need like more than a thousand.

You need like a lot of people. And what I would say is like, I question the ability for those people to organize. And they should get some help organizing because I think there's probably a lot of people. And what I would say is like, I question the ability for those people to organize and they should get some help organizing because I think there's probably a lot of people at Microsoft who feel the same way. I would mean E.A. employees can't organize to get like basic like workers' rights. I doubt they're going to get Microsoft to pull out of their US military contract. No, I think that there, I think one is I think that the Microsoft, I think Microsoft is actually somewhat receptive to pressure. I mean, as you can see, Google is any well organized, I think any well organized group of workers

can affect change within a company. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, there is a path to getting them to listen. But I think that, but I think that, you know, it's 50 people is not gonna do it. They made some noise, 50 people made some noise. You know, that's actually pretty interesting. I mean, let me read, can I just read

I tweeted this the other day. Under the terms of the deal, the headsets, which plays holographic images into the wearer, or field of view. Yeah, again, we should say this is about HoloLens, they're AR technology. Would be adapted to quote, increased lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy according to a government description of the project.

Microsoft was awarded the contract in November. Now, I think the part of the issue is that Microsoft has lots of government contracts. I would venture to guess that they provide all of the militaries or most of the military's computers. Or, or something. Basically, the entire military runs on Microsoft Office. Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, I would venture to guess that there are a lot of Microsoft Windows installs deployed in very deadly environments like for the government.

You know, environments where they're planning missile strikes and they're, you know, they're like, you know, working on AI to like better kill people of color or whatever it is the government's working on right now. You know, it's, it's, and so like, and so Microsoft is already in this shit. I think there is something that's visceral about the idea that like you're working on this like, oh, it's going to change, you know, you're going to change, you know, manual labor in America or something or in the world because this is going to make it so much easier to do X, Y, or Z. And then they're like, actually, we're going to make it easier for soldiers to hunt and kill people. And it's like, yeah, that's a pretty extreme deviation from what you think the HoloLens is going

to be about. But listen, but I will say has going to have a war application. Every, that's a pretty extreme deviation from what you think the HoloLens is going to be about. But listen, the whole thing has got to have a war application. That's every news agency that has covered HoloLens. It talks about how people who work on cars, this will make this technology accessible to them. What if you're a plumber and it's an easy way to access all that information and your day-to-day job. That's all really nice, but the reason all of this is being developed, if we're being honest, is because of a government contract

that they're gonna buy a fuck ton of them for soldiers to use in combat. That's immediately being done. Certainly a big part of it. But nobody ever covers that part of it. And so at least if these workers can get that to be part of the conversation, I mean, that's a start. It's just weird that there's only 50 of them conversation. I mean, that's a start.

It's just weird that there's only 50 of them. Like, I doubt that it's 50 people at Microsoft that have this opinion. It's there's 50 people at Microsoft that have this opinion or willing to like publicly name themselves. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's the problem.

I mean, I do think, you know, I don't know. It's like, can you get Microsoft? I mean, all these companies have these weird government contracts, you know? And it's like, can you get Microsoft? I mean, all these companies have these weird government contracts, you know, and it's like, Can you get them to stop? I mean, can you get can you get them to stop taking government contracts? I don't think you can. No, the government pays the government pays a premium. Yeah, you know, and so it's like

You're not going to get them to say no to money. I mean unless it's like not that much money and the public outcry is so great that it's overwhelming, you really do need, you really do need like serious, like, I mean, if you even want your percent of their workforce to have something, it would be more meaningful than 50 people. What is their, what is their total workforce? Let me just look real quick. Microsoft's total employees, including all subsidiary brands is 134,944 people at the moment. Oh, yeah. 2018. Okay. So like, yeah, 130,000, 134,000 people work for Microsoft. One percent of that would be significant. Yeah. A significant number of people. You need more than 50. And I'm gonna hate to say it. It's just like you need more. But I agree.

I mean, I don't know. It's hard to imagine working in a company like Microsoft and then having your, like, you know, I'm sure people Google feel the same way. They'll like, wait, you're, I don't know how much Google does government contracts and they show what government contracts they have. But, or Apple for that matter.

I'm sure there's a list of this somewhere. I should look at that list, but I'm sure it'd be a real bummer to be like, you're like, I'm gonna change the road. And you're like, yeah, you're gonna make it easier for the missiles to target people. It's like, no, there's not what I had in mind. Speaking of tech outrageous, Casey Newton wrote a piece of the verge about Facebook's, I wanna say labor abuses, because it is labor abuses,

but basically the way that Facebook forms out its content moderation to subsidiary, like smaller companies, third party vendors, that they pay extremely low wages for very highly taxing work and the ways that it's affecting the work forces there and that they sort of are through virtue of being able to pay slightly better than minimum wage or have a strangle hold on. These workers who once you even start doing content moderation work like this, you're in need of psychological treatment and if you

stop doing the work, you stop getting the treatment from the company. So they've created themselves like a little vicious bubble in which people are looking at horrifying images all day long for very low wages. And they're not official Facebook employees. So Facebook can continue to tout how well they pay. And you can still look at their like gorgeous offices without understanding that throughout the US,

there are these little pockets of thousands of workers in a facility doing work that would be, that is much harder and more taxing on your life than the work that a lot of people at Facebook or being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars or being paid to do. Well, there's, I mean, it's dangerous. It's dangerous work to look at people.

I mean, yes, and what's interesting about it is there's actually a lot of, the dangerous. It's dangerous work to look at people. There, I mean, yes. And what's interesting about it is there's actually a lot of, the story is great. Casey did a great job. Yeah, great. And it, and it feels, and it feels, and for that. Yeah, yeah.

No, it feels really meaty. Now, this story has been covered pretty extensively. I mean, the story about their moderators, I mean, Adrian Chen wrote a kind of definitive piece in 2014 about it. But, and there have been stories since then, but I think this story kind of really sums up that, I mean, what is most interesting is the continuing

tone deafness of the people who run Facebook. Not only, I mean, it's been five years and nothing has changed. Yeah, not only at the level of, well, they've increased the amount of moderators they have, but they haven't changed like their positions, a lot of their positions on like how those people need to be treated as workers and how, and how they view moderation. Like the, the, what's so interesting

about the piece is there's still so much like that Facebook doesn't see as problematic within its service. There's still so much that they accept as like, that they find acceptable, sort of for discourse. And what struck me was not even that they find it acceptable, though like willful blindness that they've created for themselves by having it at a distance, that they don't even accept, they don't even wanna know that this is the case.

Let alone like, well, yeah, I mean, farming it out is one thing. And then, you know, they're, you know, they're farming it out and then they're, and they're treating, and they're treating the people that are farming it out too really badly. I mean, some of the stuff in the story is insane. Like they get these like nine minute like,

like trauma breaks or what do they call it actually? Well, in this time, it goes, something like that. And it's like like people are like, oh, I use that to use the bathroom because it's like there are shorter lines. Now look, I mean, this is to me, this is exactly the kind, I mean, this is like some like,

the end result of like all this technical innovation is you've got this whole class of work or here that is completely abusing a brand new way. It's a psychological sweatshop. It's a psychological sweatshop is the perfect phrase for it. It is working, and I think that a lot of people would see this and they would be like, these fucking millennials or these young people don't know, it's like whatever, it's like no, like, like the way your, like what your brain sees, like what your mind is exposed to is like real, right? Like there's hard labor, that's one type of exposure, right?

Like for your body and your brain. And there's, and there's this, which is a different type of hard labor, which is like a psychological hard labor. And I think that like one, the reality of what Facebook is has created it, and it's created it, it's done it in such a poor way. It has built so few things into its system that actually allow for this to be done without having

to tax like a human being in this way. But also, it's like the conditions that they have set up for these people, but also it's like the conditions that they have set up for these people, the way that the average, the moderators make $28,000 a year. $28,000 a year is shit money. The average Facebook employees is a total compensation of $240,000. So, you know, these people are like getting paid

fucking minute less than a minute way. Like, Facebook made almost $7 billion in profit last year. I mean, they're not, you know, these people are like getting paid fucking minute less than minimum wage. Facebook made almost $7 billion in profit last year. I mean, they're not, you know, they're not, they're not giving them appropriate time to deal with this stuff. They're not giving them like psychological and mental mental health support. Like, but also, I just don't believe fundamentally that Facebook understands the problem, you know? I mean, like, some of these people have to are seeing the work, I mean, all of these people are seeing the worst that the internet has to offer. And if we think that Facebook impacted our election, even in a light way, or if you think that the what you see

on your feed shapes how you see the world, like a lot of people are starting to come around to the idea that seeing perfect bodies on Instagram is like changing the way they view themselves, we have to listen to the voices in this piece that are saying, I am starting because I am exposed to so many conspiracy theories. I am starting to question reality as part of my job. Like, I find myself believing that 9-11 was an inside job, even though I didn't believe that. And I can objectively say I would never have believed that.

I like find myself wondering about that as part of my job. And these people are being paid minimum wage. And at some point, we have to question like maybe uploading as much as we want of anything we want shouldn't be the goal of a company. Like YouTube has 400 hours of content uploaded a minute. Maybe that's an impossible thing to moderate and it's not responsible for a company to allow

400 hours of content to be uploaded a minute. That's insane. But like, there's also, I mean, when you kind of back out of this whole thing, what is going on that we've created a system where so much bad is being poured into it that has to be moderated? You know, like, is this a system that is good or not? Is the question that I keep coming back to, right? Like, and my increasingly, and this is my felt

this way for a long time, is that the system itself is bad, that the forum itself is bad. I mean, this is what we said about Twitter, maybe Twitter just isn't the end of that idea. Maybe this isn't the one way we post on the internet. I mean, I just think that I just think that that, well, but it's also about like the way we are arranging ourselves in society.

Like, I understand you can like find wonderful things on Reddit, but like, maybe the idea of like going to a thing where you look through lists and lists of things to find things that like distract you or entertain you is actually not the right mechanism. You know? And maybe the idea that the whole world is connected and we're all talking to each other in real time is actually not the right idea. And that there are other ideas that we could be exploring if we could just take a break

from this shit for a second and recognize that that doesn't have to be the form in which we communicate with one another. It doesn't have to be the form in which we communicate with one another. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't, we don't have to use those services. It's just that now we all think it's like a, you know, it's like, we're like, oh, well, that's just how it's done now.

Like, well, that's just how you do it. And it's like, it could be how you do it, but it can also be not, I mean, you can stop is what I'm saying. Like, and I think that, I think that what people need to understand is that I would say probably for 99% of the users of things like Twitter, let's say 98 to be generous,

for 98% of the users of Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, there's no, it has no material impact on your life. Like, it may distract you, it may give you joy, it may excite you, it may help you find information, but I don't think it actually, I don't think that that is like, your life is truly impacted in a material way by it. Like you'd lose your job if you're not on Facebook, like that's not true for most people.

Or like you need to be looking at Twitter all the time because you need to know it's going on in the world in real time, it's like that's not true for most people. Most people don't need to become an Instagram influencer as a career. That's just not the reality for most people. And so I think when you start to think about what is the utility, I don't think there is a lot of utility.

I think it's distraction. And if distraction extracts this high of a price from people, both on the moderation side and on the user side, I think we should really question what the value of that distraction is. Is it worth the price? There are multiple pieces that have been written about guys who get red-pilled because they get laid off and then they spend all day on YouTube just watching a millions of conspiracy videos and these conspiracy videos are made

because you can upload as much as you want. So you can just like throw a ton of shit on YouTube, hyper target it and whatever lands lands, you delete the stuff that didn't land and then you just go in that direction. And that is now a career option for people to just meld people's brains in these bizarre ways. And the idea that how we're gonna fix that is AI,

which is currently not a technology that works on scale yet, or we're gonna then pour tons of exploited workers into farmed out facilities and just expose them and have them click yes or no on a series of questions. It's just like this. How about we just don't do the initial thing of letting people upload as much shit as they want or like how about if on Facebook, you're caught posting a bunch of like fucking nonsense holocaust denial shit.

Facebook which has made its bread and butter, quote unquote, their real name system, so much to the that it is to the detriment of trans people and people who don't want to be part of a system like that, then says you can't use the service anymore. Like, sorry, or if you're clicking on these a lot, here's your limit for the day. You watched five conspiracy videos you're done.

Like, I know it sounds onerous, but like there's a point in which you have to be a responsible actor. And if someone was in a public library all day long reading violence shit and was caught doing violence shit and then adding books about violence shit, they'd be like, please don't come here anymore, sir. I mean, look, the reality is that we have, I think the technology has given us some incredible things.

I think that the one-to-one communication aspects of technology are incredible. I think that every time I've ever had is based on tweets. I think like, well, you're in a rare, you're in like a 1%, but that's the one percent. I'm in less than 1%. And also, I also think maybe this, because it worked one time, just because because it made an amaran became a comedy writer because of her tweets Doesn't mean that's the only system we need to be basing the internet off. I just think I just think that there's there is You know, the dream of the internet I wrote about this I wrote the I wrote this piece called the death of the internet

I think last year maybe I wrote in 2017, I don't remember. It's all blur now. But the dream of the Internet was this kind of like free and open forum where you could exchange information and kind of find anything you want. But the reality of the Internet now is that it's been completely co-opted and is now controlled by forces that are well beyond the understanding or power of the average user. And like you're talking about massive monolithic tech forces, you're talking about massive monolithic political forces.

You're talking about mob, like honestly, like literal virtual mobs of people who are like bending and breaking the technology to their will to get other people sort of indoctrinated. And so like we went from forum posts to YouTube algorithms and we went from like small communities of usenet users that were moderated by like volunteers about you know, hyper-specific things that people were super interested in in subcultures to basically forechand, which is just anonymous shitposting

to like encourage our most violent psychological and trollish behavior. Yeah, no, I mean this, what if, you know, the whole concept was like, what if you could kind of post whatever you want, it's like, yeah, what if that's not an experiment that I want to see play out on a global scale. With young people. When people's, I mean, they're literally Facebook is literally responsible for fucking like genocidal action in other countries because of the way that information spreads on it Like if we think Elizabeth Holmes needs to go to prison

How do we not think that there are things about Facebook that need the government to step in or need us as a society to step in? I mean if we had a government if we had a government that you could trust I mean like you know like if there was a if there are people in power who actually had brains right now But there are very few of them. It's true. And, you know, like we're also, but also like this is, you know, what reality is not whatever you are served, you know, it is certainly what you make it. Like your reality doesn't have to be the things that you're being told to do. So it could be other things.

You can actually change your mind. You can actually make a different choice. And I think that at this point, this has to come through human action. I think the change has to be in human beings. It is not going to happen by algorithm. It is not going to happen by artificial intelligence. Yeah, everyone thinks AI is going to save us. Only thing they can save us is ourselves. I got to tell you, I do think that what I was going to say, what I was saying about the people who control the internet, they don't control you outside of it. They don't control how you decide to interact with the things that they make.

You can actually say no to those things. Do you be really honest with you? My career as a journalist and as a person who makes things and tells stories in a digital forum has been for the last decade, very much predicated on like having people who follow me on Twitter and people who follow me on Facebook and you know me sharing things and talking about things and being in this kind

of like public forum. And there are parts of that that I love and have truly enjoyed. People have sort of their viewpoint for years. Do you know what I mean? And that's sort of what I'm doing. But if, but if, but if, I mean, if, if tomorrow there was a mechanism through which I could just like turn it off.

And by the way, there, I might just turn it off anyhow. Like I would, I would do it in a heartbeat. Because I think the things that are important in life are not happening. The things that are truly important in life are not happening on Twitter. And the things that we should be increasingly concerned about, like our planet and the people close to us and our community, our actual communities. And I mean, it could be the place that you live or the people that you identify as your community and the health of those communities. They are not, it is not about Facebook or Twitter or Instagram

or any of this other bullshit. You know, that is distraction. That is there to keep you paying attention to the wrong things for the most part. Because Facebook succeeds in wins when they have your attention and they don't care how they fucking get it. The same is true of Twitter, which is why Donald Trump remains on Twitter even though undoubtedly he has violated

so many of their fucking policies. Because they don't really have policies that are like kind of whack a mole, kind of like pick and choose, kind of like whatever's good for business today. You know, Instagram gives you nothing. Like if anything itself harm as far as I'm concerned, you know. And so the point is like I just think that that this is what kind of spinning out here is like to talk about this like but like, you know, Casey's pieces is is instructive because it is a great reminder that soup to nuts, these systems are broken.

And on either side of it, people are put into this like fucking blender where they're getting just completely eviscerated. And I think like we need to really question like what our role as willing participants in that blender is and how we fucking find an escape hatch. Yeah, I mean, I mean, we, the civil rights movement didn't happen on Twitter and like, act up fighting AIDS didn't happen on Twitter and I don't think that Black Lives Matter as much as

it was posted about and was able to gain prominence through social mechanisms. It was more posting about things people were doing in the real world. We get caught in this thing thinking that it's important that we all use the hashtag, but what's important is that we all believe the thing behind the hashtag and we put it into direct action in the world, not the like, performiveness of... Yeah, I don't think... I just want to say, I don't think that there aren't positive communities on the internet. There are. And I don't think, I wouldn't say that there's no situation where,

you know, there hasn't been a positive outcome from, from the use of social media. I think there has. I just think that increasingly, the positives are being out, the negatives are outweighing the positives by like a really high ratio. And I think we just have to find different ways, you know? And that may be different. That may be a different way of communicating digitally. But I think that like continuing to use Facebook and Twitter and Instagram to the way we're doing it now is what I mean. I mean, like kind of like everything,

people get stuck in a groove. They are like, this is how we do it now. And then they don't ever get out of it. And they just wait, they're just waiting for somebody to come along with a new idea. And like, I think, you know, we need to start, we need to start thinking about what those new ideas are

and what they look like. Because the ones in place right now are very broken and not working. And they're hurting a lot of people. And I don't see how we can continue as a society in this with the tenor and pitch of the conversation that has happened every day. And increasingly, and I think a lot of people feel this way,

do not want to be a part of that conversation. I mean, actually, there was a really great, I have to find the tweet. I think Tom Garra, who works at Buzzfeed Journal, is at Buzzfeed posted this, but it was a list of, or he retweeted somebody, it was a list of like, the most popular accounts on all of the social networks, and the most popular stuff on Facebook,

in terms of like, what is getting shared, is like, the drags of the internet. It's shit like nine gag, you know? And I think that suggests that there's a trend line for Facebook that is very like bad and very meaningful when you think about like where the information to the masses, what the information is trending towards. And I think it's a very, very bad sign. Well, thinking of large topics that we should all be

engaging with, and perhaps the answer isn't going to be tweeting about it, climate change predictions have gotten worse at the exact same time that Trump has nominated a climate change panel to discuss, I guess, whether or not climate change is real or something that the federal government needs to do anything about, and it's being led by William Happer, who once compared the discrimination against CO2 to the discrimination against Jews in the Holocaust.

The poor Jews during the Holocaust, I think is what he said. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's good stuff. We have a great government. It just works. It's just crazy that all these environmentalists are cutting out like stars of David and then putting it on CO2 and then killing CO2

and that CO2 is like a living, breathing human being. And it's just good that we're finally having this discussion and it's happening at the highest levels of government. No, I'm just thrilled. This is great. Well, look, I mean, here's the one thing we know is, the rot in our government starts at the top. I think it's gotten, I think it's gotten

immeasurably worse since we've had President Trump. And that at least the hope, my hope there is like, if we can vote in a better candidate in 2020, then hopefully the fixing of the problems will start from the top as they should, right? And you know, look, I hear people, I see people now, I see a lot of people fighting about the democratic candidates and like, I don't, you could run, run a fucking like an orange that's about to spoil, okay?

Well, the good thing is that we've nominated or we have confirmed like 129,000 people that we're now running for presidents. Yeah, only now, but none of them are good enough except Bernie. No, none of them are good enough. And anytime you like anything about any of them, it means you hate all the other ones. And you want to fail.

Why would you vote for anybody? I'll say it with scare. You know what scares me? What really scares me are fans. Fans scare the... Fans, not just fans, stand culture. No, stands, fans, whatever. If you're just do not be a fan.

Like I think it's good to like things. Yeah. But like when I see people talk about Bernie Sanders, by the way, I like Bernie. He's fine. I think he's got most of the right opinions. But so do a lot of other people running, to be honest. When I say I like people to judge,

it doesn't mean I disagree with anything Bernie said, even if I do. But the way the people talk about Bernie, I'm gonna be honest with you, Bernie people. You sound like the Hillary people, number one, okay? You also sound like the Trump, you also sound like the Trump people, and that's not a good look.

Neither one of those things is a good look. You know what, here's the thing, all politicians are cops. Politicians are the ultimate cops. They're like the top cops. That's the thing that's not fucking saying to me. Like, politicians, particularly the president, the top cop, okay?

And none of them are good. None of them are good. Like, just understand this, Bernie Sanders is going to let you the fuck down. I don't care how much you love him. I don't care how much you think he's the fucking, the absolute unit or whatever the fuck you're calling him. He's going to do something that you hate.

He's gonna fucking go back on one of his promises. He's going to say something that you don. He's going to fucking go back on one of his promises. He's going to say something that you don't agree with. It doesn't fucking matter. Just pick the cop who would do the least harm. That's what you're looking for. The least harmful cop. And by the way, if you think that's Bernie, it's fine. But you can say you like things about other top cops, comparatively to the like, you know,

Oscar the Grouch we currently have. I mean, I'm just saying like, people are like talking about Amy Klobuchar being, and now look, she's, I'm sure very hard to work for it. If, I mean, literally, Lauren, I've been talking about this a lot, the shit that she does, men do have done a billion times, nobody's written a fucking article about it. Nobody's written an article about it.

And it's fine to say, you know, she shouldn't do it and neither should men, like that's a fine discussion. That's right, make a whole. It's right, make a whole. Do burn any better that you don't like something about her. What did she throw in her phone and somebody, or what did she throw, what did she throw? She threw like a water bottle of something.

She's not a salad with a comb. She ate a salad with a comb and then told, she said to three of her staves that she trade any three of them for a bottle of water. And by the way, we've all been there. Also clotted that burn. Creeper. by the way, we've all been there. Also, clop the burn. Creep burn. Don't tell me you have a bid there.

Yeah, exactly. No, but like, yeah, shitty behavior. But like the amount of the fucking blood loss from, and I mean, people on the left, the blood loss from people on the left for any of the candidates, except for Bernie, at least what I've seen is really foul. And it is like, it may first of it makes you look

like a very blind fanboy or girl, fan person, okay. And that's bad, very bad. But also, you should recognize that like, what you really wanna be doing is finding the good in all of these candidates, finding, like figuring out who's the most good and the least of the least bad cop

and sorting through it in that manner instead of going like who can we tear the fuck down? Because the last time was we found the people, we found the things we dislike the most about the candidates and screamed about it instead of finding the things we liked the most about the candidates and screamed about it and this is where it got us. So by the way, all the Bernie stands, this is how people felt about Obama.

You don't remember because you were in elementary school, but this is how everybody felt about Obama. They were like, oh my god, he's so awesome. And Obama let everybody down, okay? Because that's what fucking politicians do. You're not looking for the best person. You're looking for the least worst person, okay? Because that's what fucking politicians do. You're not looking for the best person. You're looking for the least worst person, okay? And like, I don't understand how people can't see this.

Like, I don't care who the candidate is that runs against Donald Trump. I have one, there's one thing I want from them. Because I know that every single Democrat that is thinking about running and Bernie who's not technically a Democrat, every single Democrat that is thinking about running and Bernie who's not technically a Democrat, every single one of them has better opinions and a better brain than Donald Trump.

And they have better policy than Donald Trump. I don't care where they fall on any of the categories. I guarantee you that I agree with them more than I agree with Donald Trump. And so you've had to remember, you're not running the, yes, of course, the primaries are going to be brutal, but you need to pick the person who can beat fucking Donald Trump, and it's not just Bernie. There are other people who don't live in New York. There are people who don't live in LA. I'm not saying you gotta go with some fucking centrist,

you don't, but just keep in mind that the goal is not to have the most beloved candidate that makes you the most horny. That's the wrong way to think about it. It's to find the person who's electable. I'm just at the point, I think, where a lot of this stuff all sounds like noise because I know I sound alarmist,

but climate change is the most important thing we can deal with, and all of them seem to be getting onboard in a way that is not just heads and tails, like a complete 180 from what the Trump policy on this is. And so I am not interested in cutting down any of those people. I am interested in pushing all of them as far as we can, as far as they can go, and then whoever comes out in front,

we get them, and then we push them so that we don't all die. That's where we're at at this point. Like that's really how I feel. These people are like shitty on Elizabeth Warren. It's like, listen, you may not agree with every one of her policies or every one of her talking points. I've actually, you can actually see, there's like verifiable moments in her policy

where she has like fought really fucking hard for like the rights of like human beings and consumers against big banks and predatory fucking credit card companies and shit. That's real. And people real thing that's really happened that really helped people. And she's had a, and she's, which Trump of course is immediately rolled back.

But, and that's one of many, many places where she's been like an actual advocate for human beings. I'm not standing for her. I'm like, she's a candidate. But like people are like, fuck Warren, you're a fucking cop. It's I'm like, she's a candidate. But like, people are like, fuck Warren. You're a fucking cop. It's like, no, she's actually like a pretty good politician by comparison to almost every other politician that exists

because all politicians are cops. Again, let's remember that. All politicians are bad. All people who want that kind of power for them are bad. Anyone who wants to be a president is an narcissist to begin with. So you're already starting with a pool of narcissism.

I love AOC, but when the shick, whatever the thing is that comes out, that you don't like, So you're already starting with a pool of narcissism. I love AOC, but when the shit, whatever the thing is that comes out that you don't like, and you're all fucking disappointed, I won't be one of you. Whenever she has the bad opinion or the weird thing about her finances or like whatever it is that's gonna like turn you off

from standing AOC, you'll feel really hurt and really emotional. And I'm gonna be like, yeah, she's a politician. She's like desperately, hungrily grabbing for power. The more of it she can get, the better. By the way, she may do good things with that power. I hope she does. That's the best we can hope for in any politician. But you have to remember that it's a fucking game and they're playing it. And that's not normal. Most people don't play that game. And so, you know, I think if you keep in mind that

all politicians are basically fundamentally kind of like broken people that should be regarded with sort of suspicion, I mean the job is a crewing power. That's literally the job they signed up for. You know, and sometimes you use the power for good and sometimes you use it for evil, you know. Well, I mean, maybe that brings us to Michael Cohen stuff. Oh my God. Does it? Michael Cohen things are going well Michael Cohen I think we can definitively say bad for the Jews. I Mean I don't he doesn't seem I mean first off bad for America. Yeah, not bad for the world But yeah, you know, I don't love it.

He's kind of, he's like a son of Sam kind of character, you know. Like, you know, you're like, oh yeah, Berkowitz, I think he's only half Jewish, but like the half that matters when it comes to most of the public, which is his name. Yeah.

And then it's like, you know, you have to be a burcoids really? When you're not David Berkowitz and you're talking to the dog about like killing people, people are just going to make that association. Yeah. So Michael Cohen is like, so planned for his testimony is a bunch of accusations against Trump, some of which include actions while in office, not just campaign actions. Yeah, I mean, it's, the question is this

that I think with all this, it's like, I don't know, I don't know what's going on in the world anymore. I don't know, is Trump can Trump be stopped? And what, what, what, what, what, I was thinking about the access hall I would tape the other day, and I was thinking about at the moment, I was like, oh yeah, he's done. Like, people are gonna hear this and be like,

this is not a person we want running. Essentially, in charge of the free world, you know? And it didn't stop him. Like, somehow, I mean, now of course. The benefit of being terrible is that nobody shocked when you're terrible. You could just continue to be terrible. And now, and now, but what's so amazing

is what it really did, it's almost like it made it more acceptable. It's like, the thing about it is, it didn't make Trump look bad. It made the act of what Trump was doing seeing more okay. Oh, totally. And so with all of this stuff,

you're right. They've gotten so good at playing the talking points. And the way we're getting all of this is like, there's no mechanism being put into place. Like, yes, this Cohen's going to jail or whatever, but Trump's already spun this whole thing about how he's unreliable and he's a liar. And it's like at some point, it's just gonna be like,

oh yeah, like the shady Michael Cohen is saying a bunch of things but they don't really matter and they don't meet me in anything And there's no mechanism, you know nothing's happening to Trump From a legal perspective nothing is happening to Donald Trump at all and so until that happens Like I don't know what to make of any of the stuff that you hear people say like I have no doubt that Donald Trump Has broken many laws, both in his role as president and in his, I mean, he's been taken to court by the federal government on more than one occasion for racist, like literally racist rental practices. That's what he got caught he got caught, okay?

You think that he hasn't done shit where he, I mean, the guy's gone bankrupt like 17 times. Like, he's as dirty as they fucking come. And so, at this point, it's like, okay, but now what? Like Michael Cohen could say anything right now. He'd be like, I saw Donald Trump kill a young girl and bury her body outside of his New Jersey home. I mean, what it comes down to at this point

is that we need enough people to threaten the offices of the people in Jerry Mander districts so that they Republicans, so that they step up and nut up and say, okay, we don't like him either because you told us that we're not supposed to and then we'll take him out of office. That's really where we are.

It's down to the will of the people at this point, because legal mechanisms are not happening. It's just not happening. Like Bob Mueller's report is not gonna be the thing that, well, unless that's what turns public opinion, if that comes out and people just roll with it, like they have everything else, it's not a magic fix.

Like I worry that a lot of people on Twitter are like, well, when he gets impeached, it's like, that doesn't just happen. I mean, what will be the thing? What would it be? I don't know how you prove it or like what it is. I'm not Bob Mueller, but I think if you were to be able to make an illustrated digestible storyline,

because at the moment, there's so much going on, so many crimes, so many different threads were supposed to follow, who was wearing, who did this, and what hush payments were here, and is that related to Russia, and then he has a meeting with Putin, and then there weren't people in the meeting with Putin, and then we find out on June, we say, it's so much information, we need like a watergate style digestible storyline that we will be going with, as like, this is the main thing to focus on, this is what happened, and here is the series of events, and here is what to focus on, and here is what is chuff. And we need to know what that story is and we need people to understand

it and why it is bad for them in a large picture and understand that the world won't end if we fix it. If we remove Trump from office, it doesn't mean their taxes are going to go up or something. It needs to be digestible in the way that the Monica Lewinsky thing was digestible in the way that water gate is digestible. It needs to be a story that people can understand and how it affects their day-to-day life and how it reflects on him personally. And it can't be a giant web and network of payments

going through. It needs to be a clear explanation for people. And I hope that's what Bob Mueller is working on. But even then, like impeachment just don impeachment just happened because someone broke the law, because Trump has broken the law, has admitted to it, and it hasn't resulted in anything because public outrage is not telling individual people in Jerry Mander districts that they're gonna lose their election even though they've rigged their races. You know?

Yeah, I know. I'm just trying to, that's what I'm saying, is like, what is the, what gets the public truly on their feet, right? First off, every Democrat, I don't believe there's a Democrat who doesn't feel that Trump isn't a fucking criminal, okay? I don't think there's anybody who traditionally votes Democrat that doesn't feel that way. So let's just say that every Democrat,

I would say 99.9% of them are like, we're not gonna vote for Trump, right? We agree on that. So are we talking about Republicans? Are the Republicans who are excited about Trump right now? I think there are, but I think that there are, but there's a whack of do core fan base for every. I think they're a small, I think they've got to be a small component of the overall electorate. And then there's like the Republicans who just vote for Republicans. Now the question that I think you have to ask is like, will those people feel motivated

to go and vote, right? Are they going to feel like I got to get out there and vote because like, you know, we need to keep Trump in office. I think what Trump's doing will be apathy, which is like what Hillary's essentially watching. Well, it's like, it's just like, I think that the people who the regular Republican voters probably find most of his behavior distasteful.

And some of them, I think, probably will sit it out. I think a lot of people just think this hasn't been worth it because their taxes went up. You know what I mean? I mean, that's what we're coming're coming to my dad was like I can't believe my taxes went up I was like you can't but now I think he just doesn't give a shit either way about Trump because he thought he was Waiting you're telling me that your dad's taxes went up and he doesn't care now. He's like I don't give a shit I don't understand you're saying that You're saying that you your dad is not I

that you're saying that your dad is not. I'm saying I spoke to both my dad and when I was in Fort Launderdale this weekend, I met up with a bunch of people at Pride. It was wonderful, we're gonna talk about it in nice things. But I went to dinner and I sat down to two friends of a friend from high school who is like a centrist. I sat down with two friends of hers from college who work in a government-related job

to do with human rights. I don't want to say anything else. But they, they, are people that I thought would be classically liberal. And when I said like something like, you know, I just can't believe something, something Trump voter, they said, you know, full disclosure, we both voted for Trump.

And it's the biggest mistake we ever made. We fully regret it. We did it for selfish reasons. We did it for not really understanding a lot of the issues. And when we saw like our tax returns and that like things haven't changed in the way that we thought they would economically for the people that we work with and for ourselves, we were like, you know what, fuck him. And now I really can't sign on to a lot of his stuff.

They're still Republicans. They still, they're, he, she was like a Mitt Romney ran tomorrow and sign up and like, to me, that's bonkers, but I was like at least you have the wherewithal to say like this is chaos and it's unsustainable and maybe it took a selfish outcome for you, but at least I can see that nobody, you're not completely out of your mind at this point,

you know, and I think that is a lot, a large swathe. There is like probably 20% of his base that would support him if they stepped, he stepped their kid. Like he was right about being shot on Fifth Avenue, shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. Like he could do it. No, he was right. But that's because he knows the kind of like blind,

I was gonna say stupidity, but it's almost like blindness of the American voter, which now they've just been conditioned to just be like, I'm voting down the party line. It doesn't matter who the person is. And I think everybody could just, they held their nose, is what they do, right? They held their nose and they said,

I'm gonna, you know, he won't be as bad as I think he's gonna be. Yup, that's what they said. He won't be as bad as he's talking a lot of shit now. But, like the sky is not falling. When push comes to shove, he's talking a lot of shit now, but... Like the sky is not falling. When push comes to shove, he's gonna be fine. He's gonna be pretty light. That's the fuck up.

You know, I know this guy. I've seen him. And it's like, you know, he's worse than he said he was gonna be. That's the thing that's crazy. And people, you know, essentially, people need to... They need to like really, they need to like really, they really need to really care, which is really hard to get people to care. And so it's like, at this point, we just have to get,

we have to get more Democrats out to vote for whoever the fucking candidate is. And we have to hope that there's some apathy amongst Republicans, which will help.. Donald Trump gets reelected, then I don't know that I don't know I don't know that this country can come back. I don't know. You know, I think we may be too far gone at this point. If Donald Trump, if the person who is the president, who has created such a destructive and defensive and terrible presidency,

and gone basically back on every promise that he's made except the most racist and most unfair ones to his most crass and awful base, if that guy gets reelected in this country, then this country is, I think, fucking lost. And I have to believe that it is not. I have to believe that we'll see something like what happened in the midterms,

which was a huge surge of voters. But I get worried when I see these Bernie, the Bernie bros, man, I do. I'm like, what are you going to do? Like, you're going to sit it out again. You're going to vote for fucking Jill Stein. You know, you're going to fucking just try to destroy the person who wins the, you know, if Bernie isn't the guy. I worry about the lead up to it. And I worry about when we eventually get to the race, if it isn't Bernie, like how people are going to act for a month, but I do think a lot of people learn their lesson about. I hope so. I don't see it.

I don't see it on the internet. That's for sure. I see a lot of bad actors going back, dipping back in. But I think people understand the big picture a little bit and they get caught up in daily takes, but I do think that when it comes to big picture, people are gonna turn out to fucking vote. Look, I'll just say this, you know, early, it's a great show.

Felix from Chappell has been to several of our parties that we've had, and I was talking to him, I think it's our first year party or whatever. We were both pretty drunk, and he was like, look, I fucked up, I admit it, like I'm probably responsible for Trump getting elected. I hope that that's actually how they speak publicly and hope they understand that I hope all these people who are hardcore Bernie Bros understand that the stakes are a lot of fucking

higher than you getting everything you want for Christmas. I'm sorry, you can't have everything you want sometimes. Sometimes you just have to get like- Not the gay community, we know a little about that, but you make those incremental. There's a lot of people, there's a lot of people who grew up in a time. They don't remember a time before. They actually don't remember what life was like under Bush and what was going on in this country.

People don't remember, I mean, it's the thing with the gay community where people who, and I know I talk about a lot of this, this is the main way through which I understand the world, is that people don't understand what AIDS was like before Travada, a daily Travada pillment you could live in normal life. People don't understand what it was like before gay marriage or willing grace or like little things that all slowly have added up to a like massive change. There are young people who do not understand, but we work really hard to try to make them understand, but people aren't doing that at a society wide scale

And so they're I agree with every like sweeping what you should want for Christmas Yes, I am a socialist, but I also understand that incremental stuff will get us there eventually And I'd rather a promise of eventually than you know what I mean like I love the great new deal And I want everyone to get behind it, but if we can get 80% of it, I will be fucking thrilled. Yes. This is the thing, by the way, I would love to see a massive new tax rate for the richest of the rich. I think it's fucking insane how much money is hoarded by such a small group of people. It should absolutely be taxed to fucking hell and back. Because no one needs, like if you have $20 billion

and $10 billion of it gets taken away to give like to the world that actually needs the money to like give to the community that allowed you to get the $20 billion and you still have $10 billion in the bank. You're fine. You've done really fucking well. Yeah.

Okay. It's not that at all. It's not even close to that, you know? And I like most of these people, when the Amazon shit is crazy, if you look at the taxes they've paid, they've paid no taxes in the last few years. None.

I mean, we need to talk about HQ2 at some time when we have more time, but. Yeah, I know. There's actually a bunch of stuff we need to learn. It's more fun than I could even. My opinion of it has gotten so much worse, and I would love to have it out because we have to we should have that conversation. We don't have enough time right now.

Well, we do because we're going to do another regular show. That's right. Oh, that's that's right. We're going to do a dip. We basically double tomorrow. We double tomorrow, which is what you want back to back tomorrow. No, so we'll do another show. We'll probably record on Thursday.

Yeah, but we can talk about that stuff. But anyhow, we should probably wrap up. I wanted to talk about the Rotten Tomatoes thing. Maybe that's a teaser for the next show. Maybe we'll do it on Thursday. Yeah, I want to talk about the Captain Marvel Rotten Tomatoes stuff. Also, I saw Spider-Man into the Spiderverse, which I would like to talk about,

but maybe we'll save that. I think it actually comes out like today or tomorrow. Maybe it's out today. So everybody is like seeing it. We have to talk about the Oscars. We got a lot to cover. Oh my God, the Oscars. Yeah, so in two days we'll talk about a lot of others.

And it'll be pop culture heavy. And feel free to, and feel free to ping us at Josh with Paul Skier, at Ryan Hullahan on Twitter with things that you want us to talk about. And I always forget to say this, rate and review on iTunes, only five stars, but I never ask for that. Yeah, we don't, we don't make,

we don't want to put too much pressure on the listener, but if you want to give us a great review on iTunes, that goes a long way, or anywhere else, frankly, that you do reviews. We're asking for a favor when our episode is several days late, but we want to five stars. Give us a five star review on Amazon. All right, let's get to nice things.

Yeah, we got it, really got it. And then let's slam through it, and then we will see you at the end of the week. Just, yeah right, let's get to nice things. Yeah, we got it really got it. And then let's slam through it and then we will see you at the end of the week. Yeah, let's just slam through nice things. I'm trying, I'm gonna try to think of my nice things while you do your step thing. I got two, I got one that's really stupid, then I'm gonna go to one that's really meaningful.

The stupid one is, my new favorite thing to do around my apartment is, have you ever seen the commercial for any Lexus car? There was a commercial during the Oscars. There is a woman who does all their narration and has done it for several years now. And she talks in this way that her mouth is, is both, it's a British accent that nobody has. And she also talks with a mouthful of saliva in this really like ASMR voice. And I love her. And I love that only her and like Catherine Hepburn speak in this way, or

like more raros on Shits Creek and I love narrating things around the apartment so we're just talking, we're just rapsodizing about the Lexus RX so I'm gonna do it for you really quick and then I hope you that at some point during your day anybody listening tries it out because it's the funnest thing you can do for yourself so it's just something where you're like the new Lexus RX is the most powerful thing to ever exist and I would fuck it if I could. Oh my gosh. It's beautiful. In fact, I'd like to be a Lexus RX.

I started constantly. I know this person. I just love how in love with the Lexus RX she is and how she makes me in love with the Lexus RX. And now you've heard it so many times that the brand is just gonna be thrilled that I'm talking about it. She wants to fuck a LexusRX and I love her. So that's one of my nice things. I'm on board. The other nice thing is that I went to Fort Lauderdale

for their first ever Pride March. And it was beautiful, it was on the beach, which is one of the most stunning beaches I've ever been on in this, I've never been to Fort Lauderdale. It's like if you took a little slice of West Hollywood or a little slice of like P town or some other little like idyllic gay thing you've seen on the internet and plopped it on a beach in Florida and to watch all these people have their first pride during what isn't pride month. I don't I guess they schedule it for tourism reasons, but it was beautiful. It was so much less packed than the New York one,

which meant that a lot of kids could come and spend a day on the beach and then watch a short parade and then listen to some music. It was so reassuring to know that there's like a community of people that worked really hard on their own community and making it really inclusive and inviting a ton of local high schools to perform in their march.

It was really special and inviting a ton of local high schools to perform in their March. It was it was really special and I I was expensive and I've not been on a vacation in like the last eight years like a at all like a real vacation I haven't taken. That wasn't for work or something and it was I went with a bunch of friends from high school who are the only people I keep in touch with from any of the schools I ever went to and many of us are queer and the rest of them are allies and we had really a wonderful, wonderful time and I encourage anybody to put together like local community events.

It doesn't need to be based on an identity or it doesn't need to be based in a tourism spot. Like it was really heartening to see these people have their own thing and it was all locally done and it wasn't, they didn't import, I mean, other than I think Todrick came and performed, they didn't really imported a bunch of international pop stars to do it the way that we do it in New York. We have like Walmart and Kylie Minogue come in and do it for us.

It was really their local community that did it and I was blown away and I had a really, really good time. So that was my other nice thing. Trying to carry that through my day, living in a major metropolitan city is gonna be my challenge, but it was a nice thing. That's a wonderful, is that the end of your nice things? Yeah, I mean, it's just that their town

is idyllic and beautiful. Like they have public transportation options and little lots of small businesses, and I just thought like this is great. This is great, it's a great little place. Well, I, I, that's a really good nice thing. My nice things are never as good as yours. And I find that to be.

I imagine it will be better than the Lexus RX. I don't know. Anything could be. I don't know. No, I, I gotta say, this is gonna be really boring one. I don't know. No, I gotta say, this was gonna be really boring one. I had this weekend spent like a pretty good amount of time like sitting in bed doing nothing,

but reading magazines and playing video games on my Switch. And I think we all need to be doing things that are just total fucking fucking lazy ass downtime activities. And I don't know if everybody's doing it or not. I know people talk about self-care a lot, and I don't really know exactly what that means. But I got back into Dead Cells, which I think is such a phenomenal game.

We've talked about it before. Yeah, it is. Maybe this is a really bad, nice thing. But I just found it... Typically, what I do is when I'm not working, I'm still looking at my phone a lot, checking my phone a lot. And Kevin Russo at this thing in the New York Times, which I thought was overblown and a little bit like whatever,

because I don't think we all have such a need. He checks his phone when he puts his card. He was like, I have this habit of like, if I put my card in a card reader to like read for a credit card purchase like in the three seconds, it takes to like get the signature thing, like I'll check my phone. It's like, all right, that's a bit much.

Yeah, that's the thing. But I do find myself like looking at my phone a lot. I mean, this kind of goes back to the thing where Timbo's social media, but it's like, it's actually like within your power to like kind of stop feeling the way you feel by changing your behavior. And so like, I kind of instead, I like very purposefully, instead of looking at my phone when I was not doing

anything, because looking at my phone is kind of like doing something, I was doing things that were basically offline. And I do think you can kind of give yourself a break even if it does. You don't have a whole life cleanse or whatever. I did a little bit of that this weekend and I plan on doing more of it. And it felt really good. And I recommended for everybody, I think it's a good thing, like to just don't engage with the internet. Yeah, self-care is a reasonable definition, was like changing your behavior, to change your mind and taking time out to set up yourself

to react to things better. Now I think it just means buying face masks on Amazon, but yeah, I mean, no it does. And of course it gets turned into like this commerce thing, but the other thing that I did is like, you know, I like just laid around in like really comfortable clothes, which is something that I don't do that much. My favorite thing.

It's really good. I got like three pairs of gym shorts and like three t-shirts that I've used for two years and they're perfect and I'm never replacing them. That is what I live in. It's right. Oh, oh, and I have one other nice thing which is interesting which actually is sort of opposite

of this. I like to be hyper connected in the middle of the matrix. Do we work? I don't know. I don't know if it's a nice thing or not. I don't know much about it. I've only explored a little bit with it.

But have you heard of this thing, this app band lab? No. I got an Instagram ad for it. And I was like, what is this? So there's a social network. It's called band lab. And it is really interesting. It is a music sequencer.

It's like a looper slash literal garage band style, sequencing app. But also, it has a ton of libraries of loops and stuff that you can also record your own stuff. But it has a social media element where it's like you can post your songs and share them and comment on people's songs, like save, playlist. And I haven't really explored it at all.

I just started messing around with it a little bit because I was like, this looks interesting. And I have to say it was actually like one of the, it's one of the most interesting ideas for a social, it's in the way that like, it's almost like kind of how SoundCloud was. Like when you thought about like the kind of core SoundCloud community, which is like people making music at Upload and it's like very one to one and like you kind of get, you can follow like, that's like, you know, where SoundCloud rap comes from. It's like this huge like, just like of of ingenuity from people who are like making shit in their bedroom

This actually takes a one step further where it's like the thing is like a part of the app like the making it is a part of the app Anyhow, I thought it was really interesting. I don't know if it's like a halfway nice thing right now Because I really haven't played with that much and for all I know it's like owned by Facebook or it's like, you know, run by, you know, the Saudi prince or something. The Coke brothers will buy a stick and it's. Yeah, it's like, it's like, exactly. It's like, it's like, it's actually the Coke industry. It's like an app that they released to teach people about like how good like call is

or something. Um, no, but it's actually kind of cool. I don't really know much about it except that I saw an ad for it. I thought this was interesting. And by the way, fucking Instagram advertising, very good, very sneaky, but very good. John bought an engagement ring off of an Instagram ad. So I've given up.

Wow. At any rate, I thought it was really charming and interesting. And I don't know. It's a cross-platform app. They have it for Android and for iOS. The Android app seems very good. It's actually like, I also like have wanted something that's kind of like garage bandage from my phone

and have never really found anything that's quite simple enough but also like complex enough. And it's actually like, the sequence was like pretty good. Like I started making it here, wait a second. Let me, I started one song using some of their loops. Let me see if I can pull it up for you while we're talking. So it'll be the outro music. Where's my library?

Here it is, okay. You ready? You want to hear this? Yeah, one on. It's very Josh. Did you hear that? Mm-hmm. That pretty good, right? Yeah!

Just wait. It's got like a little sample and everything Any how you get the idea how do we get you to produce for Carly Ray? That's my question I'm ready Carly Call me can I call her Carly? Yeah, you have to car Carly Ray. me. Can I call her Carly? Yeah. If you have to call her Carly, right? Yeah, you can call her Carly.

Your friends. Whatever. Like I made that like 10 minutes messing around with some of their loops and stuff. Now, obviously I have a background in music production, so it might be a little bit easier for me, but like it's like kind of stupidly easy to play around. Okay. All I'm saying is I thought it was interesting. Now, there was an interesting take on social media in that it encouraged creativity in a very material way.

And I think, I think like, there's no way to make it out, not to do it. Like, well, that, you know, you just see that screwdriver is gonna get an account on there or something, but screwdriver's an oil band. I don't know if anybody knows what oil music is, but it's basically not to do music. The, it's like Nazi punk music, but the,

what's interesting is that in the way that tick-tock encourages you to pretend to be somebody else, it uses pop music's credibility to make you seem important. This is maybe make something on your own. That's awesome. That's cool. That, that's awesome. Anyhow, cool. So yeah, that's my nice thing.

What we'll talk to you soon. Alright, let's wrap up. Okay, yes, we should go, but we're going to be back later in the week with another episode. Now I gotta go get some coffee, I'm gonna die. Well, that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week, actually we'll be back this week with more tomorrow and then next week as well. Until then, I wish you and your family the very best. Though I've just been told that your family's test-finding court that Donald Trump has committed criminal acts while in office and nobody cares.

you