Tomorrow - 197: Harper's? Bizarre

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

This week's episode is an open letter to Tony. We have some deep concerns about your ethics and liberties. We also just wanted to say hey. Grab your alien buddy, we're hunting criminals in New Hampshire! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to tomorrow, I'm your host Josh Wittipolsky. Today on the podcast we discuss Disney World, aliens, and Reddit. I don't waste one minute. Let's get right into it. All right, Ryan, we're back. It's been a quiet, quiet week. Nothing big happening. Nothing monumental occurring. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,, you know, hours, just a few hours beyond a historic Supreme Court ruling that it's actually like a little bit nuanced, but Trump, I guess, has to show his personal financial records to like a grand jury, but not Congress. So anyhow, you know, there was this big Supreme Court case about whether Trump had to produce his tax returns or his financial records. Prosecutors in New York will be able to see his financial records, but not Congress.

So that's pretty huge. I mean, he's been blocking anybody from seeing his tax returns or any of his personal financial stuff since this campaign began, since his presidential campaign began. And it seems like there's some real serious reason he doesn't want people to see them and nobody really knows what to do. Yeah, I don't think this means it's going to get published in the New York Times anytime soon, but I do know that this means that people who have levers of power to hold him accountable for crimes will get to look at it. And that brings me so much joy.

Because even if they're squeaky, spotless clean, I would like to know that they're squeaky, spotless clean. Yeah, it must be, it must be so frustrating for Trump. I mean, to have like Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, you know, who like his boys or whatever, like vote against him, like it must be, I mean, one can only, I mean, because you know, I don't think those guys are great or anything, I think they suck, but there is, like you do, like when you're on the Supreme Court,

like there are, there do seem to be instances where you, like the judges actually do seem to exercise like a strong legal opinion over whatever their political leaning maybe. Or I mean, it's insane that we have the way that the Supreme Court has arranged is we have conservatives and liberals on it. That seems like the dumbest thing in the world to me. One of the criteria for a Supreme Court is a range is like we have conservatives and liberals on it. Like that seems like the dumbest thing in the world to me.

Like one of the criteria for a Supreme Court judge should be some sense, some way to say like you're not going to be politically aligned in any way, shape or form. And like you're actually going to try to like stick to what you believe, like the right perception of the law is. But of course, anyhow, we do have an extremely polarized Supreme Court. So it's just interesting to think about, you know, Trump like expecting these people to be like on his side and then seeing them actually exercise like the job, exercise

like the duty of the job in a way that it's supposed to be done, which is, which calls for some impartiality, obviously, and you hope for it. I mean, I do think that on some level, alleged rapist Brett Kavanaugh is enjoying being like, see, you all thought I was just a monster, but sometimes I can compromise, and I don't want to give him that. But I do know that literally any grain of sand that goes against Trump's direction and free eats him. And so like, I don't know. I just know he's having a horrible day and it feels so good.

After a terrible week, it's nice. Yeah, it's always good. So I jokingly tweeted actually the other day that, you know, a higher Bolsonaro is the president of Brazil has tested positive for coronavirus, you know, and I was like, do Trump nacks? You know, which is like, I mean, you know, the do acts nacks is like, you know, and people, somebody was like, this is, I can't believe you joke about someone getting a deadly disease. And it's like, look, it's like, look, I get it. I mean, like, but if anybody deserves to get the infectious disease more than Trump, I haven't, I haven't met that, haven't seen that person. You know, it's like, it's less about me wanting Trump to die.

And more about me wanting there to be some kind of cosmic, like some proof that the cosmos isn't aligned against us. It's the poetic perfectness that it would have. It would be so wonderful because he is the cause of 100,000 plus deaths at this point. I think we're estimating we're going to get to 200,000. It seems like that's going to happen at a rapid clip given the way the curve is going. If he was to be one of them, it would just be so, it would be just desserts. It would be a fitting punishment.

And everyone, like, I get it. We're all trying to be good people. And we're all trying to hold ourselves accountable and blah, blah, blah, blah. When it comes to Donald Trump, I don't need your fucking speech. Like, fuck him. I hope his fucking thing is full of crimes and I hope they find them. I mean, I agree. I mean, I have to assume that it is that his documents are full of crimes, but, you know, we don't know and we'll find out, I guess at some point. At any rate,

so, but, you know, it's, but I think it's the same thing with, with, with, you know, Brazil's leadership. It's like people who have denied and rejected science and acted like they can will this thing to just disappear on its own. And the reality is not only do they have no power over, I mean seemingly no power, no control over what happens with this virus, they're highly susceptible to it as well.

So the virus does not care about the personality issues your relationship with your father gave you. It's not exactly exactly. It will leap those, it will leap those walls, those shoddy walls that you've put up. So anyhow, so yes, so so that's so there's the Trump tax stuff that's happening there's the Trump tax stuff that's happening that which is wonderful. There is very good stuff. There is the rise of coronavirus

in America. Very bad, very bad situation. I remember like two months ago, everyone was like, good, New York is so gross, they'll live on top of each other. They look at the disease and it's like, now our whole situation is nice, clean and tidy and the rest of the country is falling apart. Well, I'm actually like, I'm actually, I mean, I'm like fucking mad. I feel like people in New York busted their ass to, we were fucking kitty pigs to fight this thing

and to stay at home and to work the program as you will. And we did it. And now it's like, oh, okay, so now some dumb fuck from some fucking place where they were like, this is mass, our optional, who cares? Is gonna come here and in fact a bunch of people. I mean, this is mass, our optional, who cares? Is gonna come here and infect a bunch of people. I mean, this shit is spreading like wildfire and it's doing it in all the places, by the way,

which everybody knew was going to happen. In all the places where they were like, it doesn't matter, science isn't real, you don't have to wear a face mask. Like, it's, you know, never before has been, being proven right, felt so horrible. It's like, I don't want those people to get sick. I do hope they're learning a lesson, but it's a horrible lesson to learn.

But also, it's like threatens everybody else, which is the whole point. The whole point is, it isn't just a disease that you can get that you have to worry about yourself. I mean, it's so it's just like again, I mean, we've talked about this a million times, but the whole coronavirus thing just really goes back to like our parties, our political parties in America and how they consider what they consider generally speaking what they're sort of like, you know, doctrine is when it comes to how they associate with other people, you know, the party of what I want to do is paramount and important, and everybody else and everything else is secondary to that. I think, listen, by and large, not entirely true with every Democrat, but generally speaking,

the Democratic Party has been the more generous of the parties. And certainly with people like Bernie Sanders, who are like, let's actually do socialism here. You know, it's like there's a real stark divide between like, I need to get mine before you get yours and how can I help you? Like just that's just a really different divide from an attitude perspective and like it's really on show right now. You know, a largely blue, largely Democrat state like New York, buckle down, took their medicine, did what was in the public interest and it worked. And a lot of

other places that are not blue, ruined by three Floridian elderly people, yeah, fucking side that they want to see Times Square or whatever. Exactly. All going to die. Right. Fucking Florida, you know. Okay.

And anyhow, it's like, yeah, it's very... But Disney World's open, so... Yeah, I don't, that shit I don't get. I truly do not understand what is up with that shit. What could be less essential than Disney World? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's so fucking insane. I can't believe they went through with it,

to be honest with you. I feel like it's a very bad look for Disney as a company. Horrible, but I think they're probably, I mean, they're definitely hemorrhaging money. They can't, well, yes, but they're fucking Disney. I know, but they're probably, I mean, they're definitely hemorrhaging money. They can't. Why, yes, but they're fucking Disney. I know, but they're Disney like Gavin, I'm sure there's a lot of pressure from stockholders. I'm saying that this is endemic to capitalism and Disney even though they have the pressure to be seen as like nice guys that that will crumble under the pressures of capitalism each and every time. that that will crumble under the pressures of capitalism each and every time. I mean, yeah, you're not wrong. It just seems like it's is a bad look.

Especially if people start getting infected at Disneyland, you know, Disney World. I mean, this is bad for everyone. It's like, you know, you might have seen a video went kind of viral on Twitter where news reporter was like, you know, so and so died. Nick Cordero actually they were discussing. The highway actor died after suffering for months and having limbs amputated, died of COVID. There was his lungs were basically all scar tissue at that point.

And then next to the newscaster discussing that was like, the numbers in America slowly like rising in real time. And then they cut immediately to a commercial where Applebee's is like, welcome back to Applebee's are so happy to have you. I saw this video. It's like really brutal. I mean, it's literally like the most depressing description of someone dying ever for zero

reason, except for because of coronavirus is spreading. And then it's like America's back at Apple D's. It's like, yeah, I don't know about that. I don't know if America is back, Apple D's. But it's a bad look for everybody because they're all fucking, I mean, this has been so illustrative of like priorities that as much as corporations can be like,

we are job creators and we care about our local communities. And we might be a chain restaurant, but we put a bunch of shit on the walls that's from your town. So we really care about you. And it's so illustrative that like, no, we don't. We will let you die if we can get $40 today. It's true madness, man. I mean, yeah, that commercial is like pretty perfect.

And it's dissonance, you know, that commercial and that broadcast. But look, I mean, that's America. I mean, that's just, I mean, it's hard to look at the news because there's so many people, so many bad opinions and they're just going for it, you know? And I- We're just out here signing, you know? And I-

We're just out here signing open letters in Harper's magazine. They're just out here exactly. Fucking, you know, being silenced by their critics. By publishing letters in- Illiberal free speech attacks on the fucking journalistic ethics in liberal free speech attacks on the fucking journalistic ethics that are underpinnings of Demogl. Listen, if you don't like Barry Weiss, that's illegal. That's what it comes down to. If you dare insult her column, yeah, man, it's fucking, I mean, it's sort of insane. We're talking about, I mean, you're making reference to this open letter that was published

by, I mean, Harper's about how, is very vague, actually. It was like, it was, it was no dog whistle. It was double speak. It was like, you know, people don't listen to ideas anymore. And we need a society society democracy is underpinned by freedom of speech. And our society needs to protect that as a value. And you're like, okay, that, I guess makes sense.

But then when it's signed by basically every writer or celebrity who's been criticized for transphobia, it becomes pretty clear that like what the intention behind the letter was is to say like, I don't like trans people and that's just my opinion man. And then they had a bunch of people who signed it because they just did not have any of that context. They just read this big thing and they were like,

well, if no Tom Skis doing it, I'll do it. And I mean, yeah, there's a bunch of people who are like, there's a bunch of people who are like, yeah, they're like, I didn't know that I was signing this GK Rowling in demnification. Yeah, I thought this would be a letter about, let's let it, let's make sure we have healthy debate. First off, it's like you read the fucking letter

and it's like, it's really vague in like what it wants. It's not really clear. Like, do you want us to do something? It's like, you don't want us to say we don't like what you're saying. Is that what you'd like? It really is like whiney as fuck. It's like these people who are like,

I'm sorry, JK Rowling, like listen, first off. It's fucking insane. JK Rowling can feel however she feels about trans people. She is totally, it is totally within her rights to feel and think whatever, it's also within her rights to say whatever she wants about trans people. I mean, I will say personally,

if I were a billionaire author of children's books, I might find a different place to channel my time and energy. Like, really, I... During the most of, one of the most oppressive and dangerous times in history. I think I'd find something else to contribute. Like I might have a little, I'd look around the landscape personally,

one, this is one man's opinion. I'd look around the landscape of things that are happening in the world and find a place where I felt there was a real match of like injustice and danger for people who are at risk and try to maybe like help those people out instead of going after a group of those people. That's just one man's opinion.

But, you know, and it doesn't have to be trans people. You could be like, I'm not fucking with trans people because that's not my bag, okay? But there's some kids over here I can help or whatever you could be doing with your time. But, so like she's perfectly within her rights to think what she thinks and to say what she says and to write what she writes. JK Rowling, if she wanted to tomorrow, for the most part, I mean, she could write a book about how trans people are bad and it would be published. It would be published in 70 fucking languages.

It would be- It would likely be a best seller. It would be in bookstores and a lot of people would read it. I'm not saying that she should do that or it would be good. But when you talk about people who are concerned about the platforming, which is what, you know, the ostensibly this letter was about, it's like, dude, you are not those people.

Malcolm Gladwell is not that person. And like, you're not fighting for whoever it is, you think you're fighting for it like Ryan Liza from the New Yorker, who's like a guy who got canceled from the New Yorker and is now on like CNN or whatever. You know, it's like, and I, it's like, I don't know the details of his cancellation, but I can tell you like, they fired him for a reason.

The New Yorker doesn't just randomly fire people for no reason. The point is, it's like, the point is, if you're a Jesse single and your whole fucking thing is, you can't stop thinking about trans people. If bothers you so much, you really think that there's a problem with people being the gender, they identify, you think that that's the whole thing

that you wanna fight. And you're gonna publish articles that are cover stories for the Atlantic. You're gonna start a podcast with another transphobic person and just sit around and talk about how pronouns are crazy and their ruining society. Totally, that's your bag, that's what you wanna do. I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to do it.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to monetize it. I kinda think, you know, we can't step on you doing that stuff until it crosses a point of actually threatening people in like danger and like calling for violence. If we step on those rights, it becomes too muddy and I don't think the government should have that power. Totally get that. But guess what? Not everyone on Twitter is going to be nice to you.

If that's the dude you choose to be. Right. You choose to be the dude that says a whole group of people is invalid and should probably, you know, suffer the consequences of the psychological torture that the medical establishment has agreed is comes along with misgendering and suppressing trans people. If you think that they deserve all of that because it's it's confusing to you, you have to be willing to hear from those people on Twitter who screenshot your shitty article and explain why it's bad. That's what D platform is. It's like, also, it's like, that's like consequences of your actions and the things you say. Yeah, so there's, but you know, it's like these people are like, it's like there's some weird straw man

that they wanna try to, like, that they're trying to, like, in their mind, there's some, like, person who's being de-platformed, who is not them, who is somebody else who doesn't deserve it, who I guess is like somebody who writes for a quillette or whatever, you know, and it's like, it's like, Barry Weiss, you haven't been fucking de-platformed. People were mad and mean to you on Twitter.

But you're right for that. Everyone dunks on you, but you're right for the New York Times. You're right for the New York Times. You're a bulk deal. I'm sorry, who are we defending? Tom Cotton's editorial on how we should use military force against American citizens on American streets. Like, that's the hill you want to die on.

It's like, the other thing is this. They're not, this is, I mean, obviously, like, we're kind of beating a dead horse here. But like, this concept of like, they're not, this is, obviously like we're kind of beating a dead horse here, but like this concept of like we're not allowing debate to happen. It's like there are a million places with massive audiences that would have loved to publish Tom Cotton's article about military force being used against Americans. There are a million places with tens of millions or hundreds of millions in audience size that would have relished publishing it.

People were mad about it being published in the New York Times, which they considered to have higher standards. And that's not de-platforming. That's saying, there are places where that should be, we think, and places where it doesn't deserve the prestige of the New York Times. Or think places where we don't think it deserves that kind of prestige. But again, when is the New York Times going to publish my op-ed that I think space aliens are controlling my butt and their center will really shit.

To undermine my poops. Why won't they write that piece? That's my opinion. Are you deplatforming me? I agree. The time has come. The light needs to be shined onto this shed, onto this topic.

It's very important topic concerning your butthole. But here's the thing. Anyhow, the point is the letters so dumb and these people are so fucking annoying. They're annoying more than anything. It's like, J.K. Rowling, she's so annoying to me because it's like, you could do anything with your life. The problem you're talking about,

let's pretend like, I think that like the root of JK Rowling's thing about trans people is like, she has a fear, this is the scenario I believe, it's like something like this. She's worried that like like a survivor of rape, a woman who's raped by a man might be in a scenario where this is like, I'm giving this is like a little bit of like the argument that I've essentially have gleaned from what she's saying. Could be in a scenario where she is forced to share an intimate space like a changing room with a trans woman,

who that woman who had the sexual assault would identify as a man and that would be upsetting. Not that the person would do anything to her. So like, but the scenario is so like, edge case, so fringe of like reality. It's like, you have to go through so many mental hoops to create the scenario for it to be a problem for you. It's like, let's pretend this is a problem.

Like the world's not a perfect place for everybody. I encounter people in scenarios that I feel uncomfortable with. It's almost a weird thing where it's like, it's like, these people are definitely the people who are like, safe spaces on college campuses are ridiculous, but they're kind of like, I have a safe space that I require

based on this extremely specific criteria. And if I don't get it, I'm being silenced. And it's like, guys, you sound like fucking idiots. Like, I'm sorry. We have, like, they're just bigger, much bigger, more important things to worry about in this world. And I feel like it's such a shame.

This is like, I think about this with Elon Musk all the time. Here's a guy with a massive platform who has done Some things that are pretty great in my opinion like some of the things he's done are are good But it's like you have this massive platform. You have all this money and your targets are so small-minded and so wrong and so like such a waste of everybody's time and energy you know and it's like I Just I just I

Get it like I get the I get the I get the concern I Get thinking a lot about how speech works and thinking a lot about how Communication works and going like wait a second. We've got to be careful that we don't silence voices that we need to hear just because they sound different from what we think. That's a really good, valuable thing to think about. Like I totally endorse the idea that we should hear opposing views. We should all be listening to what the other side has to say. Within reason, within fucking reason. Like, but if the other side, if the other side, yeah, it's, it's, they're like, if somebody's like,

do you all Jews are greeting? We should gas them. I'm like, I don't need to, no one needs to engage with this opinion. It's one, we heard the opinion many times. Well, that the other side, too, is there's never been more places to debate. That's what I'm saying. You can go, there are a plenty of websites that will that would love to host that content, but it's like, we don't all have to listen to it. It doesn't have to be on every website,

it doesn't have to be in every newspaper. The point is, but also when it comes to certain topics, it's kind of like, well, you think that the history of slavery in the South was good, and you respect the history of it, and your ancestors who lived there. And you think that like, uh, it's important that their statues remain up. And it's like, well, here's the thing. We know for a fact statues can be taken down,

statues which honor fucking torturers and slave owners can be taken down. And the history about those people can still be in books. You can still talk about it and think about it, but it doesn't, you don't have to subject a large portion of the populace to their fucking image as if they're some kind of hero, which they definitely fucking are not because they lost the war. And we've all decided in this country that slavery is bad and racism is bad and we're trying to stamp it out. So it's like, we don't need to have the debate about why you think the statues should stay up.

I don't fucking care. No one cares. It's like, you don't get to just have the things that you want because you really want them. If that was the case, I'd be on a pile of money surrounded by beautiful women all the time. But, you know, the reality is, you're not much, I'm a simple, well, you know, you don't have to say it.

The point is, like, like it's just such a whiny fucking dumb argument from these people that's like, if Barry Wise can't write about how, I don't know even what she fucking writes about at this point, dumb shit. She hates Palestinians and- Yeah, she hates Palestinians, right? If she can't write pro-Israel's Screeds

in the New York Times, her voice is being silenced. It's like, imagine all of the Palestinian writers whose voices are being silenced right now, who actually have the opposing viewpoint. Barry Weiss' viewpoint is the popular, politically accepted viewpoint, which is Israel is the boss Palestine can go fuck itself. Imagine if we heard from the other actual other side that has been silence, which is the Palestinians Who have been fucking depressed by the Israelis and like this is the thing that's the the the the the the hypocritical nature of the letter is so unbelievable and it's so

There right in front of these people and that they can't see it Is such an indication of their unworthiness of our attention. You know, anyhow, at the point is the letter is stupid and nobody should engage with these people and why we even spent 20 minutes talking about it. I don't know. I hate myself. I hate myself for doing it. All right, what else is going on out there? Um, well, I'll talk about this. Gilein max. Well, yeah, blockbuster. You published Gilein. Gilein. Gilein. So, yeah, so you published this PCS today, which is fascinating,

which is some people on Reddit have become convinced which is some people on Reddit have become convinced that there is this really, really powerful redditor, which I don't really, I'm not a Reddit person, so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. But this really powerful redditor, people have, well, they think that they have figured out or at least are investigating the possibility that Galein Maxwell, who is Jeffrey Epstein's like procurer of young of children.

Also, also an alleged pedophile in her own right. Let's not. A alleged pedophile. A feminine. Yeah, alleged procurer, whatever. Women can be the anything they put at their minds too. It's incredible, incredible.

The glass ceiling is finally broken in pedophilia. But no, but so that she also somehow was moonlighting as like a massively popular redditor with like a huge amount of power on the site. And like karma, which I guess is something you're awarded on reddit. Uh, when you do things, I'm a lurker on Reddit, which means I don't really post anything. I have like my account. If anybody wants to come send me a message, it's the same as it is on Twitter. I don't really comment occasionally when celebrity big brother comes around.

I'll dive into that, but then I'll delete my comments because I'm a coward. But I was scrolling through Reddit and obviously I'm subscribed to a million subreddits, two of which are R-slash Epstein and R-slash Conspiracy. And both of those subreddits tend to have wingnuts, but this theory was starting to catch fire that this user called U-slash Maxwell Hill, who is the eighth most powerful redditor and was the first to a million link karma

and was a charter member of the site, which means that the account was created very shortly after the creation of reddit itself in 2006. And has been like a daily poster, is one of those accounts that like has a bot setup so that it just sort of auto pulls headlines and posts them and subreddits to keep accruing karma, which is the points you get if you do a good job curating the site. And the thing that like not only is the account like her last name, which I know seems obvious, but like she's been known to create pseudonyms or usernames that are just basically her name. That account, which is posted every single day for 14 years, nearly stopped posting down to the hour a week ago when Galen was arrested by law enforcement and New Hampshire, and that the usage of that account had skyrocketed in the period when she was supposedly in New Hampshire and not leaving her house.

Obviously, we're in quarantine so that like there's an explanation if this isn't Galen Maxwell. But the post history actually also lines up in a number of other ways, for example, right after Jeffrey Epstein's suicide, it stopped posting for a couple days, right after Gelen's mother died, it stopped posting for a couple days. And it's also not insignificant that the account has commented on every major news story of the last decade and a half and has never commented on the Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell case, which seems unlikely as it is one of the biggest news stories of the last two years. And you know, in the instances where they did discuss pedophilia, in the instances where they did discuss pedophilia, the account seems pretty fixated on loosening child pornography

laws about sex, sexual offender laws, having overreach about like violence against children, about, you know, there's a lot of content that you would expect from someone who was a pedophile. And what's difficult is that, of course, there's no way to prove that this is her because it probably isn't. Like, if you think about it,

some of this stuff is coincidences, like the account says that their birthday is in December and so is Glend, or the posting history. I'm sure anybody who's a really prolific poster on any part of the internet, you could line it up in a convincing way with another public figure, especially if their account happened to be a similar name. And so like in all likelihood this account isn't her, but also we don't know because the account who has been tagged a million times and normally is very active on Reddit. and a lot of people are sad to a million times and normally is very active on Reddit.

Simply seems to refuse to disregard the theory or do anything to prove that someone's still using the account. And in any event, all of which to say, it's very odd, I don't know if it's her. It's a very interesting theory in any event. But what should shock you is that the account of this eighth most powerful redditor who has so much sway over these front page subreddits, like politics and technology and world news is indistinguishable from a pedophile. Like their account is also posting this horrifying stuff that would implicate them in some criminal stuff and that that kind of person can rise to power on Reddit because what Reddit

like rewards in influence is like an obsessive drive for more influence. Yeah, it's uh I thought that was the most one of the most interesting points about that in your story, which was thinking about the influence of these. I mean, this is so true of I mean, you just thought we just, you know, we read about this thing's Ben Shapiro thing about his, like, really weird, outsizing influence on Facebook and how it's like actually a coordinated effort with a bunch of like, you know, shadow accounts and stuff unsurprisingly, it's phony.

But it creates a real influence. Like, you know, but like, there's, there are people who are like steering this shit. They're not the they're not the people who build the sites. They're not the general users of the sites. You know, they are like the and they are just operating in this place of like total autonomy. Um, which is, you know, in one way is wonderful, like that we can have

these like incredible sort of like community sourced, you know, destinations, but it's also like sort of scary to consider like where is all the who is like swirling this information and synthesizing it. Why is it this person and not somebody else? You know, how does it, you know, how does that end up on the front page versus something else? And it's like, yeah, it's like often it's like popular, you know, popularity. But a lot of times it's like because of the, because of the thrust of these influencers. And that's, you know, it's pretty fucking, it's, it's worth interrogating and investigating, you know, for sure. And, uh, and your piece sort of starts to do that a bit. The sheer anonymity of that level of influence on such a big

source of the news. Imagine if your news anchors were journalists, were completely anonymous for Chan posters, like not every Reddit account is anonymous, obviously, is a choice you can make. But that someone who holds what I think most people would assume to be violent and inappropriate and kind of scary opinions or wants to engage with those kind of topics

can be completely anonymous and control a big section of the news with no accountability is it is unsettling. And I think Reddit is such a like core part of the internet and also a very scary section of the news with no accountability is, it is unsettling. And I think Reddit is such a like core part of the internet and also a very scary part of the internet because it has a huge mob mentality and it's extremely defensive. That we take that for granted,

like that's what it has to be. But this is similar to my YouTube thing, which is just like, maybe we shouldn't all have the ability to upload as much video as we want at all times with no editorial oversight and no limits and like no bands and no like literally anyone could just make an account and upload as much video as they want and it would be instantly available

and probably served up to the world on a silver platter if it meets certain algorithmic markers. Probably there shouldn't be a website that drives so much traffic and so much news that it's completely based on anarchy. That seems like a bad idea. Yeah. I mean, so this conspiracy theory is this true. I don't know.

It's certainly novel and interesting to fall down a rabbit hole. It certainly seems fairly harmless. But it isn't true, this case is still really illustrative of like what the internet is like right now. Yeah, I mean, I think, well, I mean, you mentioned YouTube, it's like then you have this whole like,

Shane Dawson shit that's been happening, which like, I don't, by the way, I don't follow any of those people at all, but I think to your point, it's like, oh yeah, Shane Dawesman's posting these like absolutely horrible, horrible fucking videos that are like racist and like weird like child sex stuff and like, I don't know the extent, maybe you can explain a little bit more, but like a lot of black face, a lot of pedophile jokes, a lot of beastieality, animal abuse,

and he's apologized for it, but like, you know, it's one thing to, like be like, oh yeah, I probably should have said that, sorry guys. It's another thing to like do the work and investigate, like why you did that and make amends and like use your power that you accrued through those really horrifying means to like make any kind of difference and Shane's never really been the kind of person that's like, sell those. And he's used his power

to basically rehabilitate people like Jeffrey Star who like Jeffrey stars violently attacked black people and called them slurs. Jeffrey star has, you know, said horrifying things about the trans community, even though Jeffrey Starer seems to be androgynous and queer himself. He's, he's said and done horrible things to women, mostly black women, for a long time. And Shane Dawson used the power he accrued through doing blackface to rehabilitate Jeffrey Star's image. It's just like, at a certain point, like, I think you, it stretches the bounds of believability that Shane Dawson is suddenly like a good person

when you take all of that into account. And at a certain point, like YouTube needs to reckon with the fact that like, to many people, Shane Dawson was like YouTube itself. Like Shane Dawson came out of shitty posted videos from 2007 and became a personality driven channel who does like long form videos that are sponsored by ad partners and like like he's the ultimate YouTuber in a sense. And that's their image and like, you know, if Shane wants to go off and do that on his own podcast or some independent

thing, he's totally free to do that. But I think YouTube needs to investigate like why their system rewarded this person to begin with. Like whether or not you want to take him down because you're like, you know, our images currently, Jeffrey star Shane Dawson and PewDiePieie. We should probably clean that up a little bit, not just for advertisers, but for ethical reasons. You should probably look into why those people were rewarded and are consistently rewarded by the system you set up.

Like, it's the same thing with the far-right conspiracy videos. I mean, why is the beauty community, like, why does racism and controversy and toxicity and violence rise to the top in the beauty community? What about the system you've set up has taken, could take something like makeup and turn it into like violent hate speech. And it's the same thing that like you can start watching a news video on YouTube and then you'll be suggested that you look at Fox News and then it will suggest you look at OANN and then it will suggest you look at far right,

like Tim Poole and then it suggests you look at race purity and then it suggests you look at like Nazi KKK stuff and then it suggests you look at Holocaust denial stuff and at a certain point, you logged on because you were like, what's going on with coronavirus? And then you came off of it with a lot being led down a rabbit hole of information that isn't true and is violent and dangerous. I just think while we're investigating and trying to revolutionize the systems in the real world. We should realize that the internet is also

the real world in a lot of senses. And like we, I think Twitter is maybe the only big giant social network or media site that I don't agree with everything they do. Certainly I would love to have a conversation with AtJack. But I don't, I think that they're at least trying. And amongst like YouTube and Facebook at the moment and Reddit and these places that really haven't done a ton, besides like ban the worst of the worst, but they haven't like systematically

changed anything with in their like internal structure. It's depressing because it's like all these companies post like Black Lives Matter, but they're not willing to like actually try to substantively change and help marginalized communities and the victims of violence. Like they don't actually, they'll pay lip service, but they don't actually do anything. Right. Right. I mean, look, I do, you know, we've tried this before, but it's like Look, I do, we've tried this before, but it's like some amount of gatekeeping on this, you know, like we do need to get better at like, what is, I mean, to your point, like this is, you know, you're sort of like, you know, this is what YouTube is, it's like, yeah, like, and that's not good.

Like, we shouldn't be like, wow, it's like, it's, it's troubling on many levels that Pewdiepie is so popular. Right? But the thing is they already do gatekeeping. They already keep pouring off. They already do some level of gatekeeping. And they don't allow copyrighted videos. So if they're already gonna do gatekeeping,

you're admitting that there are things that will be uploaded that the system will not automatically delete. And so we need to come up with ways to make it automatically delete that content because we don't want it. Apply that to stuff like PewDiePie because the moment the opposite is happening, PewDiePie is the biggest, most famous YouTuber in the world, cleaning up and throwing around Nazi

stuff. Right. I mean, the shingdaos and is in some ways like way worse almost. It's like, it's so much more insidious and seem so much more like a consistent part of his like previous, like whatever his previous iteration was of like existence. Like, yeah, it's just, it's just like, I don't know how you, I don't know how you, you know, how do you have things that are organic that come out of like an organic, um, sort of like growth, right? Like, dude, how to follow in and more and more people

subscribed and they found him charming and interesting and funny or whatever. And it's like, how do you allow organic things to happen? You know, while also trying to figure out who is going to be problematic or who is problematic. Like, I don't know. I mean, at this point, I think I feel like YouTube should be way better at it than they are. You know, they should be way better at it than they are.

They should have. They certainly have the data and resources. Yeah. It's like, you know, maybe they don't care. Maybe at the end of the day, they don't care. Maybe it's, I mean, is it impossible? I mean, why would they care? Their incentives are money. Right.

What's to make them care? Is it impossible to moderate such a thing? Is it impossible to say like, we're not going to do it this way? I mean, I don't think that's the case, but I do think that yeah, the incentives are all wrong. And so we end up with, you know, it's interesting. The other question that's interesting to ask is like, you know, who, like, how much of the fan base of these people is like, you know, they're sort of getting in whatever way, if Ratnought radicalizes, not the right word,

but they're becoming different people. So many of these fans are so young of the YouTube, and I'm not trying to be like the old guys, like the kids these days, but like so many such a huge amount of their fan base is young and their world of user being shaped by this in such a meaningful way. And it's like, I mean, I'm not saying like they're six,

but like, you know, they're 12, they're 15, they're like, these are like young people. And like there is, you know, there is something that is really, you know, disturbing about it. Just a retired generation who's been home for months, who's main source of information from the outside world is through the internet.

And they're 12 and 8 and 15 and 19. And it's really scary to me because I was fed a bunch of bullshit information from high school textbooks that were wrong or from bad TV sources or bad opinions from teachers or adults in my life that I think did damage my world view and took a long time to unravel and unlearn and I feel like I've had to work pretty hard

as an adult to get closer to what I think is both actual truth, but also like a functional world view. And I worry because we have literally no idea what wrong information these kids are getting. It's so much more extreme. It is so much, it's not like, you know, George Washington cut down a cherry tree is a lie. It's like, the Holocaust didn't like, you know, George Washington cut down a cherry tree is a lie.

It's like the Holocaust didn't happen and here's all the reasons why and some encouragement if you say that you agree. There's no oversight and no adult in the room on places like Reddit or YouTube. The adult in the room is indistinguishable from Galein Maxwell. That should really worry us. And so I mean, I think we're all obviously in agreement on this. I think like we're in agreement and I assume that Tony would understand at least this viewpoint. But I do think like, I don't know, please let me know if you have any information on this

Reddit account because I do think this is a really illiterate case. And no matter what happens, I think it should probably be kind of a reckoning for reddit. They should probably look at the mirror a little bit. Well, they've been having, they've been looking in the mirror. I mean, isn't, aren't they, is there an ongoing, you know, sort of reckoning happening with, with reddit right now? I mean, there's a change. Yes, I know. They've deleted a bunch of subreddits

that were toxic in the past, but were kind of dead at this point. But they haven't deleted other stuff. Like, there's still a pro North Korea subreddit. There's still a pro Chinese death camp subreddit. And those are really active, whereas they shut down like R slash the Donald, which was like a very toxic Trump supporter place, but all those Trump supporters

have now migrated to other subreddits and other conspiracy theories and stuff. And so it's really hard to keep up with because even if you slap one down, if you don't change the system that's making them, you know, you have to play Wackemoll. And then you, if that's what you want to do, you got to get really good at Wackemoll. And I don't think that they're like really good at it yet. They've certainly made some headlines for stuff like this. And I think it's a good precedent to set. But yeah, it's very depressing. I mean, honestly, it's a real downer.

I mean, did anything that wasn't a downer happened this week? That's a real question, you know. Mm-hmm. Trying to make the know. We were talking earlier about phones. I was like, I remember when I was so excited about phones. You know. And I was like, I cannot imagine being excited about phones at this point. Like, I'm happy about some of the apples,

some of the stuff that apples don't. I'm like, oh, this is cool. Like, these witches are cool. Like, I dig it some of the apples, some of the apples done. I'm like, oh, this is cool. Like these wages are cool. Like I did it. Um, it just like seems, everything seems so secondary to, you know, the state of the world right now. I mean, it's very hard to, to get to feel enthusiastic about almost anything that is like, especially like when it comes to stuff you need to buy. I mean, we're in such a, it's such a crazy, the world is in such a crazy financial state.

Life is like in this weird, like frozen, almost like stasis. I mean, Lauren, I were talking about this last night and it's like, when does this, when do things go back to normal? Like, like, there was a normal that I can remember. It's not just coronavirus, obviously that is a, the coronavirus stuff is like, truly has magnified and clarified just how insane the world is right now.

But, you know, almost immediately following Trump's election, I mean, even during before the election, I mean, that entire 2016 campaign. I mean, for 2015, it on felt weird. And like things had gone off the rails, but I think part of that might just be, it was brought to our attention how off the rails, things had been for a while.

Well, certainly there's a lot of that. I mean, there has been, I mean, if again, I hate to talk about silver linings in the situation we're in, I think what we've been seeing around Black Lives Matter and the protests that have been happening in America and continue to happen. And what, you know, how, well,

we're seeing some people take some steps to actually address this stuff. You know, it's sort of like this is this needed to happen. There needed to be a breaking point in some way. But I mean, that's a very, very bad and sad silver lining. But hopefully, you know, we can all look back and say, sure, it was the worst time ever, but it activated people in a way that they had not maybe previously been activated and perhaps will deactivate

some people. Deactivation culture, you know, that could be a thing. And I'm here for it. All right. Well, on that note, do you have any nice things before we head out into our freedom. I mean, I have really, I mean, my nice things have been very limited this week, but I started playing GTA 5 again, and I got, you know, I downloaded it for free when Epic was giving it away, because I have it for like several other platforms. And I've never really played it very much, but I have to say it's great right now

because I wish I could like travel to Los Angeles and be around people. And so, you know, it's about as close as you can get without actually doing it, which nobody should do because we're in the midst of like a horrible second wave of the coronavirus outbreak. So, you know, I would say my nice thing is like the, the escapism of Los Santos, AK Los Angeles, in Grand Theft Auto 5. Also, like I gotta say, it is entertaining. I mean, I know this can sound horrible,

but it really is entertaining to someone to just like plow into people, you know, like, I think we all feel it. I think we all feel it. The frustration of life sometimes, you know, you wanna like, we all feel it. I think we all feel it. The frustration of life sometimes, you know, you want to like, let it out. And I think a great way to let it out is to like, just like drive your car full speed into a crowd of people in a video game, where no actual person is hurt. And there are no repercussions.

That's, that's the only way violence should ever be done is inside of a video game. And yeah, that's my nice thing, which seems very dark. My nice thing is that for my birthday, John and I took, he made a ton of food, like with off the wall recipes that were delicious, and we would have never tried if it wasn't a special occasion. And I took a giant edible and we watched the new unsolved mysteries and got is it good. Here's the thing. Some of the episodes are good, but there is one episode about aliens that I thought was the stupidest fucking thing I'd ever seen in my life. And I'm there cackling with John because we're just like, I can totally see how these people have convinced themselves

of this, but like it's so ridiculous. And we're like laughing and laughing. And then I go on Twitter and a bunch of people happen to be watching it at the same time as us. And so I was like searching up people I news opinions on this aliens episode because I wanted to see like the memes.

People fully think that there were aliens and that these people are right, and they're not seeing what I'd see. What I'd see, yeah. What was it like, was it like aliens in the sky or was it like, abductions? Abductions. Oh no.

And people on Twitter were like, well that happened. And I'm like, wait, are you serious? And they're like, yeah, that was really convincing. And I'm like, wait, are you serious? And they're like, yeah, that was really convincing. And I'm like, are you kidding me? So I would say my nice thing is remembering that we can have different perspectives on things. Wow, wow, it's just like that letter that the Harper's letter, you know, it's really about

like we gotta allow all opinions matter. All perspectives matter. That's what I say. You know, it was the first time in a long time, you think your aren't abduction. It was the first time in a long time that I thought to myself, am I wrong? Because I was so high that I was like, I could be wrong. And then I woke up and the next day and I was like, oh, yeah.

No, that's insane. There are no aliens. I mean, not doing abduction. I mean, I don't think there, I believe there are aliens in existence. They're not levitating cows and like doing probes. I mean, I don't think they're like going into people's houses or whatever. I mean, there are these recent videos that are like, you know, the Navy put out. They're like, yeah, we think like we don't know

what these things are. But, which is, you know, raises questions. But like, I don't know, I don't think, I mean, listen, what do I really know? You know what, what do we know? Maybe there are abductions. Maybe there are alien abductions, you know? I don't think aliens are what they're pooping. I feel like we'd have a lot more evidence.

I think we'd have a lot more evidence if there were actual abductions. I think somebody would be able to like, there'd be some like fucking a paranormal activity type of shit. You know, somebody says I have a webcam and next thing you know, there's like some like tanical monster dragging you up to a ship.

Like we'd have something. Or alternatively, there would never be any evidence because they would be so good at this that they would have such mastery of the technology. Right. Why would this just like from Idaho be like, I remember floating like, no, you wouldn't. Well, this is like, I don't want to go down into a rabbit hole during nice things, but this is like the, which we didn't really discuss at all, but the way fair. Did we discuss this?

Hold on, wait, we did not discuss the way fair. This is like the, I mean, you know, not that I want to go down a rabbit hole, but the way fair child trafficking, QN and thing that's going on, that has been going on now for several days of the internet, which is like, you know, there's like a $13,000 or a cabinet named, like has the same name as a girl that's gone missing and they're like, that's it. And it's like, why would you, why would you put it on Wayfair with the same name if you wanted to be disc, you know what I mean?

Like, there are better ways to get the child traffic, I assume, than advertising her as a product on Wayfair that cost $13,000. Anyhow. The best response I saw to this wafer thing was someone who sincerely believed it and then followed it up by saying, do you think missing children flyers are actually advertisements for those missing children? And I was like, yes, to find to them. You think advertising to find them, not just sell them. I saw, I saw, unfortunately, because of your, because of your, Elaine Maxwell story, I unfortunately,

was in the conspiracy theory, read it for a little bit. And somebody was like, there's some awesome galaxy branch in there. Some people was like, why is this, why is this conspiracy getting so much attention? That's the real question It's like the real conspiracies. This is the one us. They want us to see this and have this conversation To distract us from the real real conspiracy They want us to talk about how they're distracting us so they can distract us. Yes Distraction is so awesome to talk about how they're distracting us so they can distract us with the distraction.

It's so awesome. They don't know that we know, they know, they know what that we know what they know. The one thing that I definitely know is that nobody is as good as the conspiracy theorist can like make themselves believe. Like the conspiracy theorists have a version of humanity that's like so much better than actual humanity

at doing things. They're like, this Trump is really taking out the child rapist and I'm like, Trump is barely able to change the channel. That's what I think, okay? He's like, barely able to stay on a fucking topic for two minutes. You know, they're like, he's an elite fucking stormtrooper of freedom. It's like, yeah, he can barely walk down a ramp, okay? Like, he's not taking out the billionaire elite

that have a child sex ring, which also, like maybe like in some, like the Epstein stuff like does suggest that there were a lot of people who were involved with a guy who definitely was involved with like some fucked up child sex stuff. But like to the extent that it was well organized and like everybody else knew about what everybody else was doing, like I have my doubts, you know?

Like there were some people who were doing like, you know, rapes and then there were probably a lot of people who were just like hanging out with other billionaires who didn't really, you know, it's like, all these pictures, I'm not by the way, not letting anybody off the hook, but people are like a picture of somebody

and Gilein Maxwell, it's like, there it is. And it's like, hmm, she was like a socialite who was at parties, like lots of people are parties. You know what parties, Harvey Weinstein was that? You know, like there were a lot of people at parties with Harvey Weinstein that didn't do shit with Harvey Weinstein that

didn't do shit with Harvey Weinstein. Anyhow, not to, I'm not defending anybody, but I'm just saying, like the conspiracy theorists are always sure that like there's an intricate network of people and plans that have been pulled off and that they've somehow cracked into, sorry, I know I'm, this is our nice stuff, they They somehow cracked into the secret, the great secret, the biggest secret, some might say. And now they've like, they can expose it. It's like, you're not, one, you're not that smart and two, they're not that smart.

It's the son of Sam thing where you're like, yeah, this guy was talking to his dog and did a bunch of murders. That is fucking patchy, crazy. I don't think he was talking to Satan. You know what I mean? Like, that's a jump to make to be like, yeah, so there was a billionaire pedophile.

But I don't think that means that there's like lizard people pedophile sex. I mean, that's like doing like fucking child murders to summon the youth to Hillary Clinton. Like, it's why you need to read the biggest secret. I think Bill's just a creep. I think he's the trucex creep. Well, the funny thing about the whole the whole

the whole P2Gate thing and this, you know, all this new stuff is it literally is all this stuff is like from books like the biggest secret, you know, my favorite book by David Ike, where he talks about these like, you know, these like cults and child sex slavery and like, black magic and all this shit that's like, all these people believe it's like, old school, this is like the same thing

they've been talking about for ages. And like, you know, just like when Trump is like, you know, somebody did something, it's like, me thinks that out, Doth protest, it's like, definitely you did it, 100%. So I'm always like, all these guys like Mike Cernovich, he's like, speech again, it's like, you seem a little bit too interested in who's a pedophile. You know, it's a weird thing. Like, like, there aren't that many of them.

There aren't that many of them like in power and like your obsession with the topic is somewhat concerning. And yeah, on that, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be on conspiracy, our slash conspiracy theory tomorrow, like Josh Tbilcki is, you know, alien child rapist. Chill for the chill. For the chill. Oh, no, there, so many,

so many actually on that, on that conspiracy theory that was like talking about your article about Gillane was like, the misinformation campaign has already begun. It's like the first thing, the first paragraph says it's nonsense. And it's like actually like you took it way more seriously than probably like, was like was advisable. You know, like it's like, it's like yeah, the disinformation gets,

you know, a campaign has already begun on input where we're like, this is kind of checks out. The whole campaign was me a little bit stoned in my bedroom trying to like work on this article for two days. That was the oldest information campaign. The team is exhausted. We're trying to come up with what our next move is,

but you know, that's how we started. How are we gonna, how are we going to destroy this, how are we to destroy this conspiracy theory so that the truth doesn't get out? That's all we think, what's all we do and think about? I just think about torpedoing our slash conspiracy for George Soros. And honestly, I should get back to it. Yeah, get back on there. All right, let's wrap this thing up. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Well, that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best, though I've just heard that your family is a Disney world, and there's aliens there. music