Tomorrow - 203: The Economics of Evil

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

This week's Tomorrow features Ryan and guest host and Input editor Evan Rodgers discussing the DNC, fan games, high school government and economics education, the Oculus Rift, and bad customer service. Never fear, dear listener, for Josh will return soon. Hopefully by then America will have gotten its long-needed glow up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to tomorrow. I'm not your host, Joshua Topolsky. This week on the show we talk about Bonapetit, the DNC, and Analog's customer service. I don't want to waste one minute. Let's get right into it. Well, hello and welcome back to another episode of tomorrow. I am obviously not our illustrious host, Joshua Topolsky, as he is, off trying to have some kind of summer vacation with his family, such as you can in these quote unquote, trying times, but in his stead,

we have a great guest in the form of Evan Rogers, editor at input, hello, Evan. Hi, how's it going? That's going well, that's going well. So you've been on the show before, so everyone should be at least mildly familiar with you, but do you want to tell us a little bit about how you came to work at Input?

Sure, so I have been sort of in the technology news publishing industry, I guess, for a little while. I started at the verge, then did some hard time at advice, and then it was at Engadget. And now I'm here as the guides editor. And I write about a lot of different types of hard gadgets. You know what I mean? Like the last thing that I just put up

was a network attached storage guide, which, you know. Yeah, you're like, the world is ending and you need like a pocket knife, dude. Yes. We're like, you have 15 televisions and you want them all to become a circular ball around you and watch them at once. Exactly.

Exactly. I got it. Ha, ha, ha, ha. You need need to make the panopticon chair up there. I'm like, I can't. Yeah. So this week has been so much, I mean, when we started this conversation, before we started recording, you were like,

what day is it? And I was like, Thursday. And I only knew that because I woke up today and was like, Friday. And I was like Thursday and I only knew that because I woke up today and was like, Friday and John was like, no. Oh. But for real though, it's like, I mean, we've all, you know, little peak behind the scenes here,

but like we have all been like pushing as hard as humanly possible. Kind of because Josh is not here. Yeah, I mean, we've got to show him up. Yeah, I mean, for real. You know, but we've had the pedal to the metal. Yeah, no, this week has been crazy workwise, like on, for real. You know, but we've had the pedal to the metal. Yeah, no, this week has been crazy workwise, like on real amounts of things that we're doing

and that are happening. Honestly, please visit the website because there's a lot of really good shit up there right now. But also, we have the DNC that happened every night this week. And if there's no other way, if there's no other way to end your hard work day, it's watching the Democrats like, I don't know, watching the Democrats do a victory lap for a contest that they haven't won yet. That is actually such a good description of it. It's, uh, it's kind of a trip because you go from like a really moving speech about gun control

from like Gabby Giffords and you're like, wow, you know what? We got to get it together, guys. Like, yeah, we're the scene party. Let's be liberal. I watched the first one and I can't do it. I just couldn't do it last night. Like, I know, I heard all, I mean, I heard the news stories about it like directly afterwards. I don't know know like 11 o'clock last night and After the first one I just can't there's moments where you're like on the verge of tears And then they smash cut to Nancy Pelosi like in a montage putting on sunglasses and getting on a private plane and being like girl Boss and you're like I know I can't well I don't want to hear from this real estate tycoon

about how she's having a feud with another real estate tycoon. Like I just don't, it's not just that it's like cringed to the absolute max, which it absolutely is. It's also like the whole concept of this convention is like, it's an info merchantmursho. Begging Republicans. Like instead of, you know, Trump basically rallied a core base, didn't give a fuck about anyone else, right? And you know, just got his like neat and tidy 42%

or whatever it was, right? And instead of activating the Democratic base, which is, you know, it is a diverse coalition as they love to remind us, you know. But instead of like getting democratic-sided, they're like Republicans, please, we're begging you. Please just make this end. I mean, it's, someone tweeted, I think Mark Harris,

oh, tweeted last night like hey Extremely online leftists just because you don't like this. Does it mean it's for you woke people and it's like Well, then who is it for is it for John Ksic fans? Is it for like my dad who is never gonna vote for a Democrat like I don't know what like what then what, then what is this? Because like, isn't it so much easier to get the people who are already inclined to like you excited and like intent on getting out there to vote? Then it is to like, completely change someone's entire worldview. Like the next logical step from I love Trump

is I'm ambivalent and not gonna vote. And so like, let's get those people there as opposed to like, like, let's get people to just be ambivalent and not gonna vote. And so like, let's get those people there as opposed to like, like, let's get people to just be ambivalent on that side and excited on our side, as opposed to like trying to do the full conversion. Like that's crazy. It's wild. So I don't remember very, like a very well-educated

and highly paid person came up with a strategy and I just, I didn't work in 2016. Why would it work now? But the thing is, it's like, the polling numbers, Trump's polling numbers are not that far off from where Obama's were at the exact same time in his presidency. And like, things the whole world is much worse.

So it doesn't seem like that's gonna change anyone's mind. Like, that doesn't seem like world events or evidence or facts has done anything to inform any voters. That's the thing is I just saw somebody, yeah, I forget who tweeted this, but there was a new poll that showed that like, Trump's approval ratings are like down to 40%. And like, the thrust of the tweet was like,

wow, like, you know, like, you know, it's really sinking down and I'm thinking like we're in the middle of a pandemic like I don't know how many even 9-11s Worth of deaths have happened so far record joblessness Like on the brink of a homelessness crisis everyone's dying the economy shot at 42% of people are like, this is what I wanted. This is what I would like to have happening. Because they can lie to themselves and say, it none of this is his fault and he's doing the best that anyone could, which is just like not true.

It factors the Democrats. If the Democrats would just stop blocking him, then he could fix everything, but that's not happening. So like facts are, in there they're completely invulnerable when it comes to facts so at that point like okay eighty percent of democrats want medicare for all why doesn't joe biden just got there and say like we're in a pandemic i'm gonna give everybody health care if you go and vote if you go and vote you

won't have to have that midnight worry about whether that headache you keep getting is a brain tumor and it's gonna bankrupt your whole family to even go get it checked out, let alone get chemo. Like that worry of yours will be gone. If you go out and vote, like your kids will absolutely get the best healthcare for the rest of their lives.

All it takes is for you to go out and vote. People would fucking go vote. But if you go up there and you're like, people love their health insurance companies. And what we're gonna do is create a tax incentive credit plan for people who need to get healthcare to pay $900 a month for bare minimum entry-level healthcare, from which you can earn better.

It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's why I sing into the goo. Just, you know that movie under the skin? Yes, for the black goo. It's you're just slowly, you're just slowly walking into the goo. I need to know Josh. If Josh were here, he would be yelling at us,

like, you know, be happy with what you got and Kamala is inspiring and stuff. And like, listen, Tony Tony if you're buying into all of Josh's bag of tricks there God bless I mean we're all voting for the same people. I just think like I want us to win really badly and it seems pretty obvious how to get people excited and unified and like and and and and passion. I mean it could be it could be the fucking Pringles can man up there saying that he's gonna give everyone health care and the Bernie Broke, right, quote unquote, would get right in line and be like, yeah, let's fucking get everyone health care

But the fact that that that for me, I know I keep crawling about health care specifically on this show But it's because it's such an obvious example and we're in a pandemic, sorry. Well, and like, no, I mean, I just think that it's difficult for people who have full-time jobs and they, you know, they're healthy, they, you know, number one, people that have full-time jobs and health insurance who are healthy, think that their insurance is good, but they have not put it to the test. You know what I mean?

If you like, totally. Shatter your leg in a car accident or like get cancer, like think of, you know, then you'll realize that that you know your your health plan that you thought was fine for just getting checkups and flu shots Is a little bit weaker than you might have thought but like those people Do not think about the people who are like you know I there have been times where I've been freelancing where it's like if I get sick or like if I fall off a boosted border something It is over. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you can't empathize with those people, it's you're not in the same place.

I mean, like for a year, I had health insurance in between my parents being on my parents plan and then not having health insurance. And then I didn't have health insurance until I got on Medicaid in New York State. And then that was really great. And then I lost that because I made too much money doing freelance at one point.

And I knew I was gonna be starting a full-time job. So then there was this grace period of six months and I swear to God, every time I got a cold, every time I fucking fell down, I was like, this is it, this is the end of my dreams. Like we're done. Like pack it up. You're moving back to your parents basement. Like I the fact that that that's the case for someone who trips or falls like that that that that kind of like lifestyle change could occur is

completely. It's unconscionable in the richest country in the world, especially during a global pandemic. And I saw the slid pass admittedly, I did not look into this. I don't remember which of the Biden campaigns, Stooges said this, but there was some chatter on my timeline earlier this morning about taking on the federal deficit during Biden's term and the word austerity rolled by.

And my brain just started leaking. And the thing is that I don't exactly what is happening, but even still just the other day, I just moved to a new apartment. I just sent in all my documentation for changing my address, for my voter registration and everything like that. And it is a huge pain in the ass to do. And we're not even being actively suppressed by New York State, you know what I mean? But we have this situation on our hands where it's like Biden is not the best.

This, what I saw that even this morning about just like some tacherisms just slide past casually, classic Democrat stuff, you know, like it's, you know, when Josh is like, you got it, you got a creature teeth and do it. It's like nobody's not talking about that, you know what I mean? Yeah, oh my God, nobody's even fucking, because the people who are considering not voting

are the people who are gonna find a reason every fucking year. Every year, it's some like fucking a Jill Stein green party like, and you know what, fucking do you, Marianne Williamson, I hope the like spinning in a field and praying and doing back flips like works out, but that's always gonna exist.

Exactly, that's what I'm saying is that like, you don't need to worry about those people because those people are always gonna be in in their own little contrarian world. But everyone else is like, I am close to death. We are close to a fascist police state. Maybe we should act. My bigger worry is voter suppression. And the post office thing is making me live it, Ryan. Well, so that's what I was gonna go into next,

was that the post office is being ripped apart piece by piece and before our eyes, like brazenly, and we're discussing post, whether or not we should have the post, we're talking about whether or not we should have mail in a pandemic. It's really interesting because like, you know, one of the things that the pod save America boys said the other day was that like, I think it was in a stupe point that like Democrats are obsessed with symbols, which is, I

would heard that I was like, wow, true. And it is, you know, like there's like, I'm a lot of the reporting this morning, people were talking about like the backgrounds of all the seekers at the convention yesterday. Yeah, I'm glad. It's like, guys, relax, just, it's fine. I mean, the hot takes an either direction

about the fact that Elizabeth Warren behind her in the classroom she was giving a speech from, like had aligned the alphabet letters to save me LM. Yes. It's like, in either direction, like do you think that's a silly little like ridiculous, like, oh, they're doing fan service, what the fuck thing? Okay. Do you think it's an important statement that she's defiantly putting in there, like, okay.

No, somebody, who the fuck is? I campaign manager was like, oh, it'd be fun if we did BLM and then they did it and then it was that was it. That was it. No, so what I was going to say though is this is just such an interesting time to be going through this situation with the post because at least for me because I just finished Death Stranding. Oh, yeah. And I started reading this novel that may or may not have been played some part in inspiring Death Stranding called The Postman. And like there's something so on the nose. I mean, before the internet, the post was literally the connective tissue in the country,

right? Like it is literally the thing that connected us. And just the, I mean, male predates, that connected us. And just the, I mean, mail predates railways, mail predates telegraphs, like without the mail as a basic form of communication or moving things, none of this exists. No, I mean, like all the letters from, you know, the founding points in the beginning of our country, like, it's just, there's something so perfect about, this administration trying to rip apart the core original connective tissue of the country. And like having just played death stranding, which for anybody who's listening

who doesn't really know what's going on in death stranding because it's, you know, Kojima sort of, you know, from the outside, it's a little bit difficult to get in. But like, basically, you know, America is fractured and shattered. Everyone has withdrawn from, you know, the larger society into their little bunkers and everyone's become divided. If this seems on the nose, it actually, the plot of it is actually extremely on the nose. And also this development before any of it's even happening. And also this is a job. And your job. And your job meant before any of it's even half of it. Yes, this is true.

And we're released before the pandemic. This is true. And then you literally have to, like by delivering people these packages, you're like reminding them that, you know, they have these like personal revelations of like, hey, I don't have to be hot. You know, I don't have to hide in my little bunker anymore. There is, you know, there can be a wider society.

We can work together. The postman, the novel is also kind of similar in that way too, where a guy is just like a, you know, there's like an extreme war that destroys everything and fractures the whole country. And a guy just like, who's just like surviving in the woods and like almost got killed, just like finds a jeep with a dead postman in it and he steals his clothes because somebody else stole his clothes and like just by

pretending to be the male, you know, he brings these communities, you know, back together, you know, he's just sort of living this lie where he's where he's the postman so that he can get by so he can get some like supplies of different things. And just the idea of being connected with these other little communities brings people together. You know what I mean? And it sounds corny, but there is something so perfect in this moment where the desperation for Trump to get reelected.

To do, by the way, to do a job he is not interested in doing. You know, it's just so out there. It's just we live in the craziest time. It's just so crazy to think about. Yes. Trump's fascism. It's not as if it's like a mastermind evil plan that he has, right? Like it's a combination of the people around him having a mastermind evil plan to create a fascist belief state and his own instincts as a narcissist sociopath, which I do believe that he is to

like those instincts lead you to that exact political outcome. And when you have basically limitless power and everyone saying yes to you, that's where you're going to get to. And so like the post office, he's taking it apart because he can't control it. And so it's just yet another thing that like, it's not that he doesn't want people dependent on the government. It's that he wants to be the government and have everyone depend on him and like love him and everything goes to him and through him and he controls everything. And the post office is this giant thing, similar to what he's doing on the internet, which

we should talk about, that he has no control over, that essentially exists to facilitate other people having power, and like he cannot have that, because I mean, that's the exact opposite of what he sees as success. I mean, I think there's a big thing happening, that where like, I think that boomers got the best public education that the United States has ever offered, right? And then they turned around and defunded public schools and, you know, I went to public school in like seven states, you know, I have a pretty good sampling of the East Coast public school in like seven states, you know, I have a pretty good sampling of the East Coast public school experience. I don't know. I don't move around so much. Well, my dad worked in explosives. Oh, wow. I mean, that's true, but now he was an

explosives engineer. So like blasting and you know, geology and that sort of thing. And after 9-11, you know, because the regulations got so strict, it consolidated the industry from like thousands and thousands of small explosives, mom and pop shops to like, there's only one or like the one or two. So that's, you know, we were, we were chasing the end of an industry post 9-11, which, you know, that's how it is. But, you know, I think that, I think that like we really have a situation on our hands where as the quality of education declined, and I went to school, I went to business school, I went to school for economics,

and I still didn't get a particularly good business education to be totally honest with you. But when Trump said, I want to run this country like a business. Everyone should have had the level of education they need to understand that there are some things that cannot be run like a business. FedEx and UPS do not run last mile mail or packages in extremely rural areas. Right? Because it is just not profitable. It's not areas, right? Because it is just not profitable. It's not profitable, right?

Like the reason that we pay taxes is because we agree that everyone deserves a certain standard of living, but be it electricity, you know, or just getting the mail, right? Running water. We all agree on that. And like, yes, you pay a little bit more

so that someone way the fuck down the road can have a standard of living running water. We all agree on that. And like, yes, you pay a little bit more. So this someone way the fuck down the road can have a standard of living that is humane. And up to the standards of American values. So just the core concept of running the country like a business should have been a nuclear red warning to everyone about this kind of infrastructure destruction. It's just wild to me that a lot of people saw that and said, yes, yeah, we absolutely should run the country like a business. It's like, that's a pretty big mess.

We're right now what we're doing is we're basically making every single person in America sit down and come to their own conclusion through like personal reinvention of the wheel, the idea of democracy or the idea of government, like just having a government. And I don't, I think a huge part of this is that our education system has well and truly failed. Like massively failed. If people don't understand that like a business has different incentives, then a government

should, and that's correct. Like a government's job is to take care of and provide for the people. And a business's job is to make money and create like exchange goods and or services. And they're built in separate ways for that specific reason, because we agreed that human beings have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Like that's the baseline that a child should have an education and enough food and water and enough medical care so that they can get to be 18 years old and have a life. Like, if we can't agree on that, and these are the same people who are always crowing about

like pro-life stuff. And it's because I don't think that they've truly sat down. And they're love of the Constitution. And I don't think they've sat down and like, stitched these things into a cohesive philosophy, like they're a reactionary takes, born out of ignorance and stubbornness, that they refuse to shift or change or admit were wrong and they can't stitch them into a cohesive like the Darwinistic like Atlas

shrugged and ran objectiveism doesn't jive with half the shit the Republicans want and would die on a hillover and what are the things that I think is absolutely nuts is that like my parents, right, like they are balls to the wall libertarians, right? And it is amazing to me to think that like if I went to them and I guarantee you this is the fact, or this is the case, like if I went to them and I was like, you know, schools are getting defunded, they have, you know, teachers get paid nothing, and the quality of the education is really terrible, they'd be like, yeah, well, you know, I don't think we should have to pay to educate everyone's kids. And like, if they had not had the public school system when I was a child, like my family would be destitute because my mom would not have been able to work. The only way we were able to pay for

anything is because both of my parents worked, you know what I mean? And to just immediately forget that everything that they have right now is predicated on some level of public infrastructure, it blows my mind. Like how I don't understand. I mean, it's the thing. And again, all of this is stuff that we, generations of people understood and were taught, and it was like a core, they were taught ethics and philosophy and morals and like, yes, there was also a time of like rampant racism, right? Like, there were some high highs and some low lows.

Nobody's arguing that like the founding fathers were perfect people. But there was whole generations of people in this country that like believed in those core ideas and were taught those core ideas and took them for granted that I think eventually, you know, you have the greed as good era and you have this like, when you, when you, when all of that baseline stuff is taken care of and the country is like super rich, you can start being like, fuck everybody. Like why does it matter? Like everyone will be fine.

And if they're not, then they should have said Fuck everybody and like you you being you when you don't have like a core of like a philosophy that you believe um and understand resulted in your current circumstances Of course you have no value of anything. Of course you you take everything for granted and You know these are discussions that I had in high school in like AP um you know, these are discussions that I had in high school in like AP US history courses or AP government courses like these are discussions that we had as a class and these are discussions that I had in Like higher education and I think I was very lucky to have teachers that were impassioned enough to do this with us because when I I did not have the world, yeah, they didn't have that.

And so they either came to this information through like forums on the internet, or books they took out of the library of their own accord. And it's frustrating for me because like, I would love to move on from this. Like I don't like, like even if you are a selfish sociopath, having public roads that are maintained benefit you. They benefit you because you can go places,

but also you want the people who are consumers of your goods and or services to have enough like ability and money to get to your store and purchase them. And that's what makes the world go round. And when all children are educated, they can come up with innovations when they're working for you. Like, I don't understand.

Even if you were a business tycoon sociopath, you want your populace to be able to like have a certain standard of living because it benefits everybody. And this like hoarding of wealth is so, it's not only shortsighted, it's nihilistic, it's fatalistic, it's just this twisted uglyness. Well, you know, I mean, that's the other thing too,

is that we have basically no, and again, I need to emphasize this, that I did not receive this education when I went to school for economics, but we don't have like history, like, you know, historical economics, right? So like, I don't remember, no, actually, I do. Like, we are past the point of inequality that we were in the gilded age,

early United States history. And like, you know, when the people in the Biden campaign, even if they're just like loosely associated, you know what I mean? And they're not making any policy decisions, are talking about austerity in the midst of, you know, a very, very, very severe depression. You know, like in the midst of, you know, also in the midst of like staggering inequality. And the Democrats are not talking about doing anything about it. The notion that the CEO of a company makes 300 times what the workers make is an extremely

modern phenomenon and is not the way the world inherently must be. That happened relatively recently, you know, post-industrial revolution and you know But but these but these groups of people they defend it as if it is it is the way it is not only always been But it would be un-American if it was any other way which is just like wild like false on its face Like the America you're talking about, the make America great again, the America in that statement, I imagine your thinking of is the 50s and 60s. And if that is the America you want to go back to, it's not gonna have CEOs making 300 times more

than the workers. That's not what a miracle was. That's the thing is, is that like when the thing that they wanna go back to is actually the new deal. They're like when they, the thing that they want to go back to is actually the new deal. They're like, they forget that that happens, that you know, like we had unimaginable investment in public works. We decided, we decided as a country to create and maintain the middle class. We said there should be a middle class so that people will be able to move between the classes and there is an

incentive Quote unquote for people to get up and be a part of society and be productive members of society And is that social engineering? It does it work that way? I don't know but we decided that we were gonna create the middle class for that reason and Like now they want the middle class back or they say or they like well that they want the middle class Yes, yeah, but they don't want to do any of this stuff that got us it in the first place It's just very confusing and well and you know when that middle class, you know part of part of the new deal You know part of the you know economic miracle that happened

Was World War two, you know, we made everything for everyone across the entire planet, right? But like that's not gonna happen again for God you know everyone across the entire planet, right? But that's not gonna happen again. Or God forbid that happens again, right? So if we believe in the middle class, which I think is a big question, if we believe in the middle class and we acknowledge the fact that we are not gonna have a post-war economic explosion,

then we have to raise everyone up. There's literally not another way to do it. So like, you, it's a pretty simple choice. Either we have a complete and total oligarchy in the, in the country, right? Or we invest in infrastructure and, and people in a middle class. Those are the two options. And like, you know, American nostalgia is actually middle class, right? Yeah. So it's pretty, it's a middle class. Those are the two options. American nostalgia is actually middle class, right? Yeah. It's a little confusing. Nobody's just, I mean, people some of you learn nostalgic for

the 20s, but nobody's nostalgic for like, you know, yellow journalism and the jungle. Nobody's nostalgic for like dying from scurvy or like dying of like uh, uh, uh, only the Oregon Trail polio or like a Dissentary. Yeah. Dissentary. Nobody's like dip theory. That's what I'm nostalgic. Yeah. People are nostalgic for the glories of war. The boom times of the 20s and the middle fucking class and that's it. And then there's some Madonna in there towards the end. Nobody's nostalgic for anything else. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, like, listen, the, and we've seen that, you know, this particular,

like instant instantiation of the GOP, right, where it's just grievance politics. It's just hate. It's just contrairianism. You know, it's just divisiveness. That can't solve problems. You know what I mean? There is no capacity to solve a problem like a pandemic when all you have is anger on the shelf. You just have different cans of anger, different flavors of anger that you've accumulated through your think tanks over the years. You can't pop any of those open and solve a problem like a pandemic, right? And you can't even really pop them open

and solve a serious recession-slash-depression, right? Like, yes, you can get a little bit of something something going from a tax break and a little bit of quantitative easing. But once it gets serious for real, those things don't actually work. So, you know, and I really hope, and the thing is, is that like on the one hand,

the fact that there's still a 42% of people out there who are supporting Trump is, you know, really discouraging. But at the same time, like, people are smart, you know? Yes, a lot of people are dumb, but like a lot of people are smart, and they might not know anything about politics or really the economy, but like, you know, there's enough people are dumb, but a lot of people are smart. And they may not know anything about politics or really the economy, but there's enough people out there, I think, that are like, has my life gotten better or has it gotten significantly worse in the last four years?

And also, let's remember that he didn't win the popular vote. As much as it's so annoying to keep saying it, it sounds like but her emails are like this one, the internet. But he did not win the popular vote. And so like even with all of these forces, even with all of this dogma, even with like a lack of education, voter suppression, he still didn't really win.

He only won on a technicality. So like there is some level of like hope that we have a resilience built up, but I don't know. Guys vote for Biden, but also like, it's okay to not enjoy the DNC. Well, once, I mean, that's the thing, this is that like, once Biden, God, hoping, God willing, you know, once Biden is president, we need to rip the Democratic Party to smithereens. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's comical. I remember before I was at input, we were at an outline party.

And I was ripping on Nancy Pelosi, and Josh was like, what are you talking about? Oh, yeah, Josh. Josh, Josh, Stan, Nancy Pelosi, for a little while. Huge, huge Pelosi Stan. But I absolutely agree that her, she is very effective at politics, but her idea of what the Democratic Party should do blows my mind. Remember the debate about whether, we were like Trump should be impeached,

and Pelosi was like, I don't know. I don't know if we have it. She's really good at a politics that is eroding away if it exists at all anymore. Like she's really good at the politics of like okay so we've got this info to move over here we'll make a deal with these people. We'll get some donors to do this. We'll move this around. This will keep the people happy and healthy but not give them too much. Then I've got to make a deal over here. And it's like, that's great in a world where like, you're not dealing with a cartoon character

with like cartoon bombs running around, fucking tweeting at the top of his lungs. Like, this is the idea of the theory. Yeah, just the idea that like reaching across the aisle is, and the other thing too is that like, you know, I, I'm not necessarily, you know, I'm not really like griefing Nancy Pelosi. There has just been such incredible missteps.

I mean, and she's responsible for them to a certain degree. Like, you know, they hold the budget. The fact that they didn't absolutely twist Republicans balls off immediately after the first the first one I mean even the first one was not enough You know what I mean like the knife was all the way in and they decided not to twist it for reasons I'll never understand you know, I mean And honestly, I think they're so rich that they just can't get it

But yeah, they're scared of the blowback, but like I don't think they understand that like Thanks to partially Trump, but also just because of the state of the current world, the media, the pace at which we live our lives, people don't fucking remember shit from three weeks ago. They're not gonna remember that you like, which is why he's president. Like wake up, it is not the 80s or the 90s anymore. Like you have to get with it.

We are in the fucking future. I need you been like, and I think there's a little thing, like they don't, they, you know, like establishment Democrats, I think really don't understand that the core strategy of these new Republicans in some states is not to solve problems.

It's not to legislate like the, what their constituents want is for them to own the lips. Their only function, like Matt Gaetz is not judged by what he gets done in any capacity. He's only judged by his constituents on how well he can own the lips. In any case, we're a loomer, just wanna primary

and she doesn't even own the lips well. She just intends to and tries to do it a lot She's just constantly trying to be a troll and so people like want to elect her to public office and it's like Did we read as that smug is did the westwing piss you off that much like no that's the question It's like I see this all the time. If you put in liberal, if you put in the words liberal and despise on Twitter, you will see an unreal number of people just out there being like, I despise liberals. And it's like, I mean, I'm pretty upset with the GOP

right now, but the instinct to use this sort of like dehumanizing language and like, you know, you're literally on Twitter telling telling people that you hate, you know, a fellow American. It's like, it's an interesting, well, I think a little bit of that is like a, it's a resentment of intelligence and anti-intellectualism. It mixed with good old fashioned racism and anti-Semitism, mixed with like a vague hatred for women, homophobia, and also like a class resentment. And when you mix all those things together,

you do get the modern idea of a liberal, which is like Will Truman and his like Tuxedo going to like an opera function. You know what I mean with his black boyfriend. And so you can pick whatever you want to hate there. And it's a little, I understand the like identity politics of it, but they're the same group of people who's like fuck identity politics. And it's like, wait, no, what you're doing it.

Oh, anyway. Yeah. All right. We shouldn't move on to something else, evil. We should. This week I wrote about, and you know, feel free to get mad, Tony. I wrote about the company analog and whether or not. Oh, yes. They're evil.

I love this piece so much. I really did. People don't like that. You don't like that. Yeah. Yeah, people didn't like that. People don't like that. But the thing is I was trying to be tongue in cheek and sort of like obviously we live in a world where like there's a lot more evil stuff, but also like they're a capitalist company

so they are also like quite obviously evil. But I wrote a piece about the company analog which I'm sure Tony knows about because we've talked about their products at nauseam. But basically I tried to come to a conclusion of whether or not by being like a big fan of theirs, I was rooting for the bad guy because they are a private corporation and they don't seem to be a very nice one. Like they work in the FPGA space where the community is very about open source and very into connecting and relationship building and sort of this utopian common ground

because we're all interested in this one thing and we're all passing roms around for free, right? And they came in and they created a closed source product that is extremely exclusive and limited quantities and they charge hundreds of dollars for each thing, and they don't participate in the community. And in fact, they create a hierarchy within a community that was very flat and egalitarian.

So I felt this growing resentment with them. I mean, they've got terrible customer service, which doesn't help matters. They like wildly overcharge for basic things. They do these exclusivity drops because they want their product to be more covetable, even though that's not the only way to make your product comfortable and buzzy, you know? And so I just grew to resent them pretty badly after the buzz of like getting

my pocket preorder in. Yeah. And I don't know. after the buzz of getting my pocket preorder in. And I don't know. I mean, did it reach you that I was way off base in bullying them? Because that's a response. I know. So I'm really glad that you wrote this piece

because if I had written this piece, I think it would have been a blood bath because I can't tell you how excited I was for the pocket. Like some of the consoles that they have, they're a little bit more expensive. I like that they exist, but it really didn't, they don't really speak to me. I mean, a lot of money to play Sonic.

Right, exactly. But when the pocket came out, I was so excited. And the thing is that I think that you were really measured because what analog is doing, this sort of like using drops, which just in case it's not clear, what they're doing is they're creating an artificial scarcity. And what analog has become really good at is You know is using it every psychological trick in the book to sell their products and like Marketing is flicker than Apple. It's like more manipulative than Apple. It's a while. Yes. They're so good in it They're so good at it, but the thing is is that like you know know, I understand that you know Nike and Apple, you know, Apple themselves, you know

You know, they need to use brand marketing to to you know, you know, you know Like shoes for example shoes work because it is it there's a season to fashion, right? And you need to get people excited about a thing that continually comes out that they may or may not need. After you get past your 10th pair of sneakers, I think it's pretty. You have a different type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. But analog is not that kind of product.

I was going to give them my money. I was going to purchase the pocket. I threw a little bit of a Hissie fit and I don't want to support a company that does this type of thing. So I decided not to purchase it. But like, low and behold, then they were sold out instantaneously. And like, I have talked to a lot of companies in the course of like reporting just in the last couple of months

who have all had supply chain issues. But everyone is telling me that their supply chain is going to normalize in like the next two months. So this is also the thing of they're placing a pre-order for a product that was announced a year ago, won't be delivered for a year, and likely won't do another round of orders like another drop for at least a year. So there's really no reason that's no excuse. Do you haven't built any yet? So you can't tell me you only have so many. Yeah, yeah.

So I mean, there's a lot of bullshit going on here. And that's what I'm saying is that when you contaminate my hobbyist nostalgia, it's all fun and games when you're downloading open source products. You were saying, and playing around with a mister, and putting boards together and raspberry pies. By the time you're using Apple, tier, psychological weaponry for marketing, not my favorite.

It's really ruins it for me. Well, the thing, and it's funny that I dropped this piece this week, and I got the blowback when I did because immediately after would later this week, the Telfer bag thing happened, which if Tony doesn't know because I wouldn't expect Tony to be like, you know, keeping up on the most fashionable purse, the Telfer bag is, it was called the Brooklyn Birken for a while because it is a slightly more affordable. It's only a few hundred dollars to purchase outright. The resell market isn't as insane as it is for a Birkin. If you don't know what a Birkin is, a Birkin is a purse you spend $25,000 on and you can't

get wet. It's forever since Jackie O. carried one. It is forever a staple of like making it like having insane wealth And so if you have a Birken, it's a big deal So the Telfer bag was available in limited quantities and it was vegan this vegan leather and it's very chic It comes in a limited amount of colors And it was just kind of this it item and Telfer decided that they didn't like that status It felt wrong

for their brand and for who they were. So they opened up pre-orders where instead of having to like hunt one a bag down on eBay and paste them and say, Marka, you would be able to just pre-purchase the Telvar bag. They would have it made for you by a certain date, like the end of the year, slash January of 2021, they're saying. But anyone could have one. And that moment of like a drop and there is exclusivity and you do have to kind of be in the know, but anyone can have it. And it's not that expensive. It's not so expensive in comparison to other stuff of its caliber and fashion was so revolutionary to me.

And it was, it was a, we're all at home now, right? Like so we're not buying fashion to show off that we have something you don't it Should something that like we want and so it's a better consumer experience if I know that like I want it and I can get it and I will get it and I might not have the chance to buy it again, and that's a little bit manipulative, but like It is a good feeling to be like it's a better Consumption to be able to purchase the thing you want rather than to feel this guilt or the item wake up in time or like this resentment that you didn't get a chance to have it.

That's a negative experience that you don't feel good coming off of. Right, and you don't want to have a person's primary interaction with your brand to be with a reseller on eBay. Like that sucks. Yeah, and that's what happened to me with analog products. So I bought an accessory from them, and like long story short, I bought an accessory from them.

They announced that they had produced them wrong and that they would damage your console if you used it. So I said, hey, can I get the replacement? And they said, oh, we're gonna give it to the person who originally bought it. And I was like, well, you only produced so many and the person who I bought it from purchased a bunch of the stock so that I wouldn't be able to buy it from you.

And so then I was like, I'll just pay you outright to fix it or for a replacement and they wouldn't sell it to me. So I had to wait for their time to drop and repurchase the same thing again. And like, no matter if it's my fault, no matter if you can come up with a way to blame me, it is a terrible consumer experience. I walked away hating that. That's the thing.

And you don't even need to do that. I'll give you an example, boosted board, for all the companies out of business now, and they were massively overhyped by the Casey Neistat, like YouTube explosion. No disrespect to Casey, I've just said, it just got way over hyped, but they would go above and beyond.

You've got a problem with your board, they're like, don't worry, we're gonna send you a whole new truck. They knew that they were trying to grow their business. They wanted to scale, they wanted to sell boards, right? And even though they took a bit of an L on the customer service, you know what I mean? That's why they had just an absolutely frothy user base. People were

going out there and evangelizing boosted boards to an incredibly annoying degree. But that's why is because these are things that, these are devices with moving parts, they break down. But the customer service experience was like, say no more. We've already, we've got a thing in the mail to you. It didn't matter if you bought it or not. They never asked anybody for any receipts for anything. They're just like, give me this serial number of what you got. And we'll send you something.

And it makes, I mean, listen, it makes a big deal. Or it makes it makes a big difference. Yeah, it makes a big difference to, I mean, less than it makes a big deal. Or it makes it makes a big difference. Yeah, it makes a big difference to, I mean, not only does it make a big difference to like your consumer base into their experience, but it also makes a big difference in someone's like day to day, right? Like because philosophically,

if your brand stands for exclusivity, if your brand stands for luxury and this idea of, and I mean, maybe it also ties into, so Bon Appetit, which is a food magazine, we can't get into all of it, but they did spend it over some racism scandals, even though they had just, they had like one of the biggest hits in old-fashioned media breaking through to new media, ever. Like they have the friends of YouTube. And they have this network of chefs that were just so likable and they all interacted,

and it was like a big sitcom, and it was a huge success. But they didn't want to pay their non-white performers as much as they were paying their white performers. And there was no world in which they decided there was no world in which they were going to do that. So most of the talent has left. And they basically ruined their whole thing. People are now like, well, Kandai needs to like,

how are they gonna change? What are they gonna do? Like, how can we hold them accountable? And I mean, it's the same thing that I'm feeling with like, we're talking about with analog, which is like, when your brand is built on luxury and exclusivity. That's always going to come back around to like, I don't like poor people, which because we live in a racist society is I don't like black people, or I don't like gay people. I don't like people who don't have as much capital to spend or can't get into certain places

because my job and I exist to either show you those places or to like advertise them to you or to a report on like New York society, right? Like if you're Bonapetite, it's to take me into restaurants I could never go to. And ingredients I can't get at my local supermarket. And people knew the Bonepetit chef's names, like all, like, I don't know, like 12 of them. They knew they're like kids names. People were like really engaging with these brands. And it was like a high low of like these ingredients

and these ideas are so high, right? But like they're just like us. But it's the same thing I feel. I mean, massive missteps, I mean, yeah, I mean, we don't have to go into the whole thing with Bon Appetit. I mean, massive missteps everywhere, but like from a basic show business standpoint, like, you know, people don't know. Friends with super racist, but they had a hate on their hands.

Yeah. Yeah, and that's just for, it's a blows my mind. It just blows my mind. Like, how could they not, how do they not have a meeting where they, like, you know, with the board and like, we listen, we just need more budget. We just need to pay everyone the right thing, and they just be like, sorry, now everyone gets paid good.

Like, I don't understand. It brings me back to the analog thing, which is like, I feel like your brand is built on exclusivity and luxury. So maybe at the end of the day, I just don't want that anymore. And I get that like, I don't want that. I've been wondering about Game Boy to play.

But I like exactly. I've been I wanted a Game Boy to play. I didn't I didn't necessarily want to buy into like a luxury lifestyle brand with like drops and like tears of like I got the collab version and I got the and you know all of which to say like I know that we've been talking. We've been talking this whole episode about inequality and about sustainability,

because like ends up, that's fucking everything right now. And so that's like the biggest thing in the world and it's shaping like every facet of everything. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is, is that like there's no, you need a community of goodwill to have a long-term business. There's a reason why people stand Patagonia so hard.

Because I mean, like, listen, Patagonia, REI, they try to be sustainable, right? But they're a corporation. But they try to be sustainable, right? You know what I mean? But they're a corporation. I mean, I mean, I mean, I have to co-op. But you know what I mean? Like, they're still existing in this sort of way. They exist in a capitalist system.

Yes, exactly, yes, thank you. But, you know, they're doing their best and the level of goodwill that people have towards them is what has created their businesses, right? Like the reason that, you know, these businesses are not these businesses are not still operating out of someone's garage is because they were able to scale because they have a big community behind them. That's also true of Apple and Disney. Yes.

Nintendo, too. Nintendo is not out there trying to, they want to ship as many switches as they possibly can. There have been some stock problems from Nintendo. I don't know what's going on there, but I kind of chalked that up to just Nintendo's not always the best operational business. Yeah, no, they're bad at a lot of things,

but they're good at IP management. Yes, exactly. Nobody's out there trying to, Apple's not like, sorry, you can't buy an iPhone. We ran out of iPhones. Sorry, not that we actually, correction, it's not that we ran out, is that we really only want to have some people to have them. So, I don't know, man, like, I don't know anything about the CMO over at analog, but like, maybe, you know, maybe the board wants to think about about the long term, you knowterm viability of their business with a short, this very short-term thinking for analogs, part, and not the best. In the news this week, it was announced to that Oculus, which is a subsidiary of Facebook that

creates VR headsets, was going to require every user of their product to log in with a Facebook account, which had previously not been the case, but similar to Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook is trying to fold in all their various different services so that you need to have a centralized account that they can have all your data linked to and they can also authenticate your identity. And people in the gaming community are furious about this. Well, there's not that many VR headsets that are really on the market, right? There's the Vive, there's the Oculus, and there's the Sony one, right? So like, you know, having one in this sort of locked down,

you know, Facebook infrastructure, it's really is. You know, a lot of, I imagine there's a lot of Oculus customers who want to use the Oculus because they are nice, you know, but don't really have an interest in being on Facebook proper. Yeah, I think it's similar to when people say they want to delete their Facebook, but they never say they want to delete their Instagram. It's that it was being run as a separate business and a separate entity for so long that people got this brand affinity or a product affinity.

And they didn't really sign up to have a Facebook account where their high school friends could DM them. And they didn't really sign up to be like in this giant world phone book, right? Like, and also they didn't sign up to be part of a service that is undermining democracy and it's taking strong political stances or non stances which are also political. And when you bought this product two years ago, nobody told you you were going to have to do this, right? It's kind of a bait and switch. And I think you buy into something like this, be it a game console, a VR headset, a phone, and you're thinking to yourself, like, this is a, this is a, in some sense, this is an appliance. And now Facebook is saying, no,

it isn't. In fact, it is a, identification system and a global data tracking like system, and we're going to use it to spy on you, essentially, with your permission. But you don't really get the option of saying no, so how much is that really permission? It's in the context of, just a couple of weeks ago, we had the antitrust hearings, which Mark Zuckerberg was a part of, and it's wild to see Facebook running as fast as it can to integrate all of its products. Because the closer everything is integrated, the more difficult it becomes to simply break it apart.

The crisis scenario for Facebook is some pieces of it start to get chopped off, pieces that it spent a lot of money to acquire, right? Like, you know, it would be very easy to be like, Oculus, you're your own thing now, bye. This is the strategy that Microsoft tried to use in the 90s when regulators stepped in. They said we can't take internet explorer away to default browsers,

because we tied it into the OS in all these ways. And it ends up the legislators broke them up anyway. And it was great for technology. Yes, that was and it was a wonderful, it was a wonderful thing that it happened because there was an explosion of innovation in the space. And is that a foreshadowing of things to come for Facebook? Who can say? But certainly I'd keep my eye on what's happening over in Zuckerberg's Kingdom. So it's been over 20 years since they got launched to the Dreamcast, which was its last console in the video game marketplace. And it ends up the Dreamcast as having a long, long, long life afterward, because fans who have never really let the console die continue to develop new games for the platform and distribute them online. And because the system was so easy to crack and so easy to work around its DRM, you can basically burn onto a CD, all of these quote unquote new high quality games.

And there's five of them coming out for 2020. It's nuts. And that's, you know, I had a Dreamcast and I bought it way after its lifespan, specifically because, you know, you can just run unsigned code on a Dreamcast. And, you know, just the nerd cred is so good. So to see five five real actual games,

it's like a really cool vindication of people like me who have very anti-D or M-stances because these games are cool and they're real. Yeah, and the thing that's so interesting is that Sega, for all of their missteps as a video game company, and if you're unfamiliar, Sega took a lot of chances in the 90s with a lot of different products

and a lot of them didn't work out and a lot of them competed against each other. And it ends up that wasn't a very good business strategy. But by the end, they had created the Dreamcast and this console was extremely experimental and it was extremely forward thinking. Like it was launched in 1999 and it had online gaming. It had

multimedia playback. It had a switch like accessory where there was a screen in your controller that you could take portably with you, similar to a gameboy whenever you left your console. It had just tons of features that you don't see even today properly integrated. Like Halo, Halo wasn't even like a glimmer in anyone's eye. When when Dreamcast was thinking about online gaming. Yeah, I mean, it had a game where it had a microphone you attached to your controller and you could talk to the character and it was basically like a pet simulator.

And those kind of forward thinking ideas created a community that is now launching games like Slave, XenoCider, Intrepid Izzy, Arcade Racing Legends, and Xeno Crisis, which will be launching in 2020. And these are all really high quality games. Like Intrepid Izzy looks to be an amazing platformer in the style of like Mario or Wonder Boy and Monster World, and you've got like arcade racing legends which looks like an incredible racing game in three days away. Like how did they make that?

You know what I mean? Like there's no like engine just out there that you know that you could just pick up and be like, I think I'll make a 3D game today. Yeah, this is fans commitment to actually seeing this happen. I mean, these were projects that took entire companies to do in the 90s and people are doing them themselves and not for really any profit. And it's that kind of like passion that you love to see because you know that a game isn't being like created in a boardroom to be the most marketable or the most monetizable thing. It's being created because it's someone's pure artistic vision.

So, if you have a Dreamcast, or if you've got a local used video game store in your area, I would recommend picking one up because all of these games are free. And you might be able to transport yourself back to a more simple, pure time when technology only made us good promises. I want to go back. Take us back. All right, well, I can't talk anymore about how the halves have and the have not do not. So let's talk about nice things. Did you have anything this week that was nice? Actually, yeah. So I just got my hands on a sewing

machine. I, you know hands on a sewing machine. I, you know, have had one before, you know, I've done some sewing projects before, but they've really been like, you know, I need to hem some pants, need to repair a shirt or something, you know what I mean? And this time I went in, I got a singer heavy-duty sewing machine because I needed to make a bag like a heavy duty like really strong bag to hold a battery inside this e-bike that I just made. But you know, this battery weighs like 10 pounds, so it needs to be like pretty serious material. And, you know, the first one I made, I made two the first day, right?

The first one I made, you know, it definitely did not look great. It was a very, very first ever product. But then I immediately went and just made a second one. And it honestly looks fantastic. And it was really fun to do. The first one took me like six hours. And then the second one took me like one hour. It was crazy. And very fulfilling, I will say, because I just, you know, I made something from, you know, total parts. and just it became something. Also, I will say that like being in New York is very handy for this because I went down to the garment district and I felt pretty fancy.

Because I was in that fabric store with all these very fashionable people. I was like, well, I didn't even know this existed. Cool. That's so interesting. Yeah, I've gotten a lot of like you set of, I mean, maybe like three or four times a year, but having a sewing machine and knowing how to use it, like it just saves you so much trouble. Like thing, it's a thing that everyone should know how to do.

Like everyone should know how to sew. And knowing how to do it, it's like knowing how to cook. Like you can actually like tangibly save yourself money and trouble. And it's honestly kind of fun to have like a little craft that you're doing. Yeah, I mean, if you use textiles, which is every human being,

like you should have. I mean, maybe a little bit less in quarantine. Well, I guess it's true. Well, that's true. That's true. But like, no, I met somebody the other day who was like, oh man, I gotta Riso, the zipper on my backpack. Um, and I was like, how are you doing that?

I was like, well, I'm going to do it by hand. I was like, oh, well, you know, it's going to take a really long time, but best of luck. Best of luck. Ha, ha, ha. Immediately elitist. I'm like, well, yeah, well, you're not in the sewing machine game. What about you? immediately elitist. I'm like, well, yeah, well, you're not in the sewing machine game.

What about you? So this week has not been a great or fun week, but I will say I have very much been enjoying. There's a television show on Netflix called Glow Up. And it's sort of, I guess, like the great British Bake Off or any of those competition shows that have evolved to be very nice. And it is about makeup artists who are competing to be the next makeup artist. And it's so interesting because obviously it's a very them art form, but it is very different than something

like RuPaul's Drag Race, because these are very much not performers. These are people who like really love the art of painting faces to be like works of art. So, you know, you've got people who just love making like sex bomb porn star looking faces, and you have the people who like love like the intricate detail of like traditional gaysha painting and there's the whole spectrum in between of like of artists and it's so funny and interesting. I mean it's set in the UK so a lot of the makeup is a little spackly. Let's say a little heavy-handed. But it is really fascinating to watch these artists who are like semi-professionals

and probably have nowhere to really, I mean like Instagram is a place that they, like make artists tend to have like an online community, but there's really no way to other than that to like celebrate your art form, right? Like you can get likes on a finished product, but other people are doing that digitally with like facetune and also earning those likes.

So to really show off your process beginning to end and the amount of work and skill it takes and the raw finish product completely untouched, unairbrushed, unfiltered, just like what you accomplished and what you pulled off just given a complete stranger skin, it's crazy. And it really opens your mind up to like, sometimes there is a value to just picking one thing in life. I'm very much a deletive. Oh, yes. I'm a jack of all trees. You're the same way where like you like to pick up lots of all the skills and know like a lot of that every little thing, which is great as a writer. Like for our job, that's awesome. But sometimes I'm like, there is value in finding your one niche

and just getting incredible at it. Yeah. Well, you listen, I watched the first season of Glow Up and at first it didn't really hook me, right? Because the beginning episodes are very like game show, like Netflix game show style, where you got a lot of people doing the eyeliner perfectly symmetrical in 30 seconds or whatever, yeah.

And you've got some jokers, right? Like you've got some jokers, but by the end, like, by the time they're down to the last four or five, you, at least I was really rooting for these people. It's no longer just a Bozo Netflix constructed scenario. It's like, these people. It's no longer just like a, you know, like a Bozo, like Netflix constructed scenario. It's like, it's like, I, you know, these people really want it. It's, it's cool. breed of reality shows because you know, I mean, everybody knows I love Real Housewives. Potomac is having a wonderful season.

I love drama, but these new breed of nice, nice reality competitions actually don't foster that kind of like clonery and behavior. But when you get to the end of these competitions for the most part, you just have like charming hardworking people who would otherwise be unremarkable if they didn't get to show off their talents. Like they wouldn't stand out in a room as like, well that's an obnoxious personality who's destined to get attention. They would just be like a nice friendly person who's really good at their thing. Yes, yes, they're trying the second season even hones in on that more and they're more selective about the people who are in the crowd and

there's one person I find very annoying and if anybody watches the show you're gonna know he's exactly pissing me off. Um, but for the most part, um, they're really supportive of each other and even when the competition gets really intense in towards the end, they're helping each other pull off their art because they do realize that at the end of the day, it's great to win the $100,000 or whatever. But everybody just really wants to show off what they can do on TV. And that's they can get a job. So they can get like a job at Sephora, honestly, like,

yeah. So they can get the Instagram followers and the like bookings to like, you know, do a cool thing with a magazine So anyway, I really enjoy glow up on Netflix. I would recommend anybody check it out even if you Tony have no interest in blush It is a fun interesting subculture and I'm all about diving into new subcultures. So That's how I got in the STD clinic anyway Okay, well that's I guess that's it. I think it is. Thanks for being our guest host.

Lose it, happy to do it. All right, we'll have you on soon. Bye, bye. Well, that is it 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 am hearing that Facebook is requiring you to log in with a Facebook account in order to be part of that family. So hope you didn't value your privacy. Thank you.