Tomorrow - Take It Easy

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Josh is recovering from pneumonia, but that won't stop him from celebrating a ne national holiday with Rani and the Spotify family. Also, Bluesky might be fun, The Onion might buy Infowars, and Enron is back? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, and welcome to tomorrow. I'm your host, Josh, what's up, Polsky, and I'm your other host, Ronnie Mola. And we are back after what I would love to describe as a relaxing Thanksgiving break. But for me personally, which is really all that matters, for me personally, it was a nightmare hell ride, the likes of which I've never experienced before. I actually, I was in the hospital Thanksgiving week. I went to the emergency room,

and it turns out I had pneumonia. I actually took the week off work. I'm like, hey, you know what? I just need to chill out everybody. I didn't even notice you were gone. I'm going to take a while. Okay. All right. You know what? I do matter. I actually feel really bad because you were really looking forward to Thanksgiving. I was looking forward to Thanksgiving. I was looking forward to having a break. I actually took off work. I was like, I'm going to spend the week. I was like, by the way, my fantasies,

my week off fantasies for Thanksgiving were very sad. I was like, I'm going to clean the garage. On the top of my list was like, I finally get to clean up my garage, which I've just thrown a bunch of stuff into and I need to organize. I'm going to clean up the house before we have a bunch of people here for Thanksgiving. Needless to say, I was felled by pneumonia on early Tuesday morning and had a horrible

lung infection. Anyway, so I've been recovering. I don't know if I sound stuffed up now. I've been very congested. I am high on the real Sudafed. I've taken one of the behind the counter Sudafeds that you have to show your ID for that you can make back up math with.

Are they kind of like all behind the counter now? Cause like you go to CVS, you have to like get someone with like keys to let you in. Your CVS maybe. I don't know. I've been to those CVSs. The CVS in my neighborhood. Like in Brooklyn. Yeah, the CVS in my neighborhood. Like in Brooklyn.

Yeah. The CVS in my neighborhood is they let you take whatever you want off the shelves. It's very... Oh, wow. They don't even charge you. They're like, the privileged class might as well just roll with it. No, anyhow, so yeah, so I had pneumonia over Thanksgiving. How was your Thanksgiving? Wait, did you have to cancel Thanksgiving? No, I did it anyway. I hosted Thanksgiving for 20 people.

So you got everyone else sick? No, I have, I aspirated. I actually have the type of pneumonia that is literally caused by inhaling something, a foreign something into your lung. And then that gets infected in your lung. That's what I had. Not like a viral, not a viral pneumonia,

but a bacterial pneumonia. It's a difference. So you toasted them anyway. Like that sounds like just like a nightmare to have to deal. No, no, no, I'm saying just have to deal with people when you're really sick. Well, they gave me IV antibiotics, and then I slept for like a day.

You know, I don't know, it's funny, because I was like, you know, this is definitely one of those situations where people are like, you should rest, you know? And I'm not one of those people who's like, no, I can power through or whatever, you know? But then I was like doing it, you know? I was like, oh, it's okay.

And I thought, this is it here. Like, this is how people like end up really in bad health, is that they are like, oh, it's okay. And I thought, this is it here. This is how people end up really in bad health is that they are told to rest, told to take it easy, told to recover, and then they don't. I did take it, I mean, for Thanksgiving, I took it somewhat easy. In my defense, the food was mostly catered, so it wasn't a lot of cooking.

In my defense, the food was mostly catered, so it wasn't a lot of cooking. There was preparation, but I had a lot of help. My friends and family helped. I think overall, yeah, I don't know. There you go, right there, there it is. That's me going. I could go on this podcast. I could die on this episode. Please don't. It be very it'd be great

But great ratings, I think for the show I think everybody would want to tune in to hear me die on air is that good podcast material like do you hear someone die? You know you have to be really dramatic about it. I think it depends on how they die I mean I think it depends on what how like dramatic their death is you know all right? I feel like I would put if you're gonna do it like really go all out I feel like if I were to die during the podcast, I would really play it up. I want everybody to really get a sense

of what I was going through in my final moments. But, and it was very- My Thanksgiving was fine. Normal, calm, not sick. Did you have, did you eat a turkey? No, my sister was up and she's a vegetarian. We just hung out, it was great. No turkey. No turkey.

No turkey. We had like a nice dinner. Stuffing? We did stuffing, cranberry sauce, and like, you know, vegetarian stuff. We normally have a lot of vegetarians, but this year it was actually weighed much more in the direction of non-vegetarians. And so, I mean, I always like, to me, like even when I was a vegetarian, I mean, maybe this doesn't count, but when I was a vegetarian, when Thanksgiving would roll

around, I would have turkey. Cause it's like you eat meat like the rest of them. That's right. Just like everybody else. Um, I was like, well, it's there, you know, it's been, the turkey has been murdered and cooked. I think I dishonored it by not eating it. And sort of like, for it, you're like, it's already here.

It's free. Well, I, I maybe, I guess I just guess like that was I mean, I think there were a couple of moments during the year where I would just be like, yeah, I mean, like someone made a turkey. It's all good. Someone's gonna eat the turkey, you know. Right. Why shouldn't I? There's another holiday this week. You want to know what it is? What? And today, there's a holiday today. Yeah, it's a Spotify wrapped day. I was like, OK, there's like Cyber Monday.

I was like, there's Black Friday, small business Saturday. We're giving Tuesday. We're doing Wednesday now. There's nothing on Wednesday. Now we're Spotify wrapped Wednesday. Spotify wrapped 2024, Spotify wrapped. I can't wait for Spotify to be like, you jammed out to plain sounds, white noise. That's like my most played song from Spotify.

You think like, this is like where I would like to see AI really do its stuff. Be like, hey, you know, like maybe don't include the white noise thing because it's not really like, probably not listening to that like for like the same kinds of reasons you listen to it. don't want to share like meditations for stress and then like you know my kids being like I want to hear wheels on the bus like get that out of there you would think that you know DJ acts you know the Spotify AI DJ who I'm constantly

listening to for a variety of reasons you think he would like be able to kind of DJ access hilarious actually speaking of this have I told this story already I was in the of reasons. You think he would be able to kind of... DJ X is hilarious. Actually, speaking of this, have I told this story already? I was in the car and Zelda loves to hear. She was with her friend and I was like, oh, let's listen to what DJ X has to say. Because he's always like, you've got commentary. And he's like, all right, here's some stuff you've been listening to a lot lately. You know, listened to a lot of lately. He's like, on this vibe or whatever. I'm like, okay, it's gonna be good. And it was like nature sounds. And it was like, and it was like,

It's solid bird. It was like literally like rain, a rainforest with birds. And then he like, and then I was like skip. And then the next thing was like ocean sounds. And then I was like skip. And then it was like white noise. And it's like, to me,

I think it's like a tremendous failure of, like a perfect example of how far we are from like AI being You know truly like intelligent. Yeah, it's like so you should know when I'm in my car and I'm listening to music using the DJ function that I probably don't want to shuffle through four different types of white noise sounds Yeah, and also like when you do my Spotify wrapped. I don't want that on there either. Like it's, you know, it's embarrassing. No, that's not what I'm saying. So, okay, so it's Spotify rap today. So you're saying if I look at Spotify right now,

you're seeing if I open it. Yeah, I'm gonna open up mine. Let's see what happens. Here we go. Actually nothing happened for me, but I've also got the family account. I don't think it's Spotify rap. 2024 in music made for you.

I don't see, I'm not seeing a rap here. DJ rap, I got DJ rap, is that the same thing? Oh, Raps, here it is, there's a little thing. Oh, you're Raps, okay, here we go. Oh, they have a whole like page for this. Wait, where are you finding it now? Now I'm- It's like in a tab at the top. I'm going. Okay, happy Raps day.

Yeah. Here we go. Look, it's happening for me right now. So if you think you want- Okay, yeah, this is a song that Zelda loves, drama. Okay, can I mute this? Yeah, I really like guided meditation apparently. Life moves fast, okay, here we go. All right guys, top song was I'm God by Clams Casino.

Okay, pretty cool, that's actually good, I approve of that. That seems like a good pick. It's a great track instrumental Mostly what I'm most interested in is the graphics here, which seemed to be generated in app as opposed to I'm very interested in what they're doing with like live graphics. I Feel like I'm learning nothing about myself through Spotify wrapped. Yeah, I think May was my royal core soft piano classical phase Okay, just remind me of like the old Netflix

Like micro subgenres. Did they have these? Yeah, it used to be like You know for women over 30 who are into like crime dramas and you're like a little specific I don't like it. Wow, that's like a blockbuster, they used to have these sections. I remember they had a section in- Oh, the predecessor to Netflix, yes. Yes, that's right. It was a store where you could go in. It was like a physical Netflix, where you could go in and you could take the streaming,

you could take a physical object that was like a streaming piece of content. It's like an NFT. Take it home. Kind of like an NFT, but like- Wait, no, an art piece. But a fungible. It was a fungible token. They used to have sections of Blockbuster that I thought were amazing, like super action,

which was like movies that were like action movies, but really crazy, like mostly B movies. Like the budget is over like 50 million? No, it's the opposite. The budget is under 5 million. It was like. It was like Dolph Lundgren, like C-movies or whatever. But anyway, alright, so Spotify wrapped. I thought it was interesting that their market cap went over $100 billion on Spotify wrap day to celebrate for the first time. You think, do you think that it's fueled by the excitement around Rapt?

I think it's always a big day for Spotify. It becomes apparent that it's culturally relevant, even though I'd argue that every time this happens, each consecutive year, I'm more and more bored by it, the Rapt in general. Well, I mean, Rapt is largely, I feel like it's performative. I mean, I think it's for the purposes of sharing, right? And so-

Of putting on Instagram or TikTok, yeah. I don't wanna see it. It helps to propagate like the kind of gospel of Spotify, of like this belief that Spotify is the de facto, kind of like the fallback. Like Spotify has become like, it is sort of, I don't know that there's an equivalent, I guess you could say maybe iTunes

in the peak of the iPod or whatever, but it's just this de facto, that's the place where everybody listens to music. If you throw somebody a playlist from Apple Music or from YouTube or something, it makes them very unhappy. They don't want you either using Spotify or not. I can understand why their stock will be doing well on a rap day because they're it's like it's like a real endorsement of this idea of Spotify is this kind of permanent fixture in music.

Right. And then they also get to enjoy like the cultural cache of being like, you know, music, the thing that is so near and dear to all of us. Like they're like, we do that for you. And it's like, I do that for you. And it's like, well, I do that for me. It brings us all together. Okay. Ronnie, I don't know why you're saying what you're saying right now.

I'm just saying that because I can't find my rap and I'm mad. Yeah, it's a little unfortunate that you're having a technical issue with your rap because I'm sure it's super interesting. No, as I was saying, I was dreading it. So I- You're dreading your rap, yeah.

Yeah, no, because of the things we mentioned before, how like kids' music's on here. Maybe they've actually solved the problem, because I would think they would tell me that I'm streaming white noise a lot. Because I listen to it. That didn't turn up as one of your top ones? I listened to it for hours. It didn't turn up at all in my top one.

Okay, so maybe this is a non-problem. I mean, maybe they've actually solved it. I found my last year's one but You're like it's just a complete complete miss for you Mountain goats, I guess and stuff young Stevens. What about goats? Not only are they great on Spotify but great on on social media. Yes, they are. Yeah, speaking of social media actually Blue sky everyone's talking about blue sky. We haven't, I don't think we really. Are you finally a convert?

Like you were a little. First off, I'm like one of the earliest blue sky. I mean, I'm in the tens of thousands maybe in terms of number. I might be able to tell you how, when I, what my number. This is just like a weird humble brag because it was like invite only at first, right? I don't think I'm being humble at all.

I think this is a completely shameless brag. There's a way to see you gave it to me. The big or see personally came down from heaven. He descended from from the clouds above and was like here you go bro. Here's I was meditating and I thought Josh should have should have access to blue sky. Look I'm trying to just like somewhere There's like in the app There's a place right you think you can see Account is it in here birthday password handle I'm not seeing it appearance. Is it under appearance again? We're gonna edit all this out. It's bad very bad stuff

Okay, so we're saying that like You are you sorry you were asking if I had embraced blue sky I was like obviously we're on it early, but like people are on early and then stopped using I'm going back I'll tell you what I regret Abandoning it because I liked it a lot at the beginning It was like a small it was like under I mean I was there when it was I liked it a lot at the beginning. It was like a small, it was like under, I mean I was there when it was like you know hundreds of thousands then like I remember it hit a million and it was like whoa and then I like you know it was like then threads happened

and and and there was mastodon was going on and it was like Twitter was still like you know maybe we're using Twitter still and I just like was like I can't post on all of these things. I don't even want to post, I don't even, I don I don't have any I mean I do have things to say but like it's become so unfund to post we've talked about this before it's because so unfund to post on most large-scale social media platforms that I kind of was like you know what I'm just not even going to engage right now and and honestly like I think I think blue Sky at the very least feels the most like what Twitter used to feel like.

I know it's still small, but it's definitely growing. It's like what, 25 million or 22 million or something. I think the daily actives are pretty high. A lot of people that I followed on Twitter are pretty active on there. And it feels to me like maybe it won't be a mainstream thing. Maybe it won't be like people finally go, hey, we don't need to be on Twitter because it's just got such inertia. There's so much momentum of just like, hey, I've been on here forever. Why would I stop posting? But I kind of regret not spending more time on Blue Sky

in the intervening year or few months or whatever. Southwick I need to because I only have a thousand followers, I assume that's because I just didn't use it. Kline I have a little bit more than that. But the engagement is great. People are actually really having conversations. I actually think that as a product, it has gone down a few times, but that's a real Twitter fail-w it works. I mean, it has gone down a few times, but that's like a real Twitter fail whale situation. That's like, you know, a victim of its own success. But yeah, I think it's most like the most comparable to like old Twitter.

It feels like Twitter. It acts like Twitter. It has much better moderation tools and policies than Twitter. I think it's got some really interesting features that will make it much harder for the kinds of widespread abuse, like mob, sort of mob rule abuse that is so prevalent on Twitter. I will say, Twitter is, I'm not like, I'm leaving Twitter. I do not enjoy looking at Twitter. I have not enjoyed it for a little while.

I think we talked about this on a few episodes ago. I've been posting because Sherwood is on there and I'm trying to make sure people see stories and there's occasionally stuff that I wanna share that I see from other people. But increasingly, and this isn't just like, oh, the election, it's like it had already been for me kind of difficult to go on there because just the way

the actual experience of Twitter has changed. Yeah, no, it's horrible. And you go on there and it's just a bunch of Elon stuff. Like he's pinned himself to the top. I don't want any of it. Yeah. Like it's. It's like, it's literally like a personal social network

for Elon Musk. And like the lowest, like,'s like it's literally like a personal social network for Elon Musk and like the lowest Like and like the bottom of the internet like, you know It's kind of like when they did the switch of like blue checks like yeah Like that became an indication of like you being a cretin and as opposed to like It made it impossible to to actually have like to to actually get a sense of like who you were talking to Yeah, that's one of them one of the one of many many problems I mean they literally there's like there was a study I can't remember if we covered it or not but there was a study that was done that basically shows that it's like it is prep it prefers to

show its audience on Twitter Elon Musk Musk tweets, and right wing, like basically right wing propaganda. And I don't care whatever political spectrum, whatever part of the political spectrum you fall on, I think it's preferable to see lots of different stuff instead of just a small amount of stuff from literally just one person and some people who agree with him. And so I think just his degradeed the experience is degraded so tremendously. The advertising is abysmal. The stuff I see ads for on there are just absolutely awful.

And it's not fun. It's just not fun to be on there. And I don't say that. I'm not like, oh, you know, like, oh, liberal tears or whatever. It's is it fun for the Republicans who are on there? It feels like it's like they're all in an echo chamber, like patting each other on the back. I mean, that sounds very fun for the Republicans who are on there? It feels like they're all in an echo chamber, like patting each other on the back. I mean, that sounds very fun for them. Maybe. It gives me no pleasure to just have people agreeing with me.

I don't think that's like not really good discourse either. But I think that gives Elon a lot of pleasure. He surrounds himself with people, yes men sort of thing. That's like you get in trouble if you speak out against him. So it kind of like goes with his whole view. Yeah, I think it's great for him. I mean, I think it'd be, although, I mean. Well, not ultimately.

I mean, I don't know. Personally, if you were like, hey, Josh, you can have a social network that you control where everybody will pay attention to you because you changed the algorithm to force them to pay attention to you. Every day when I woke up to use that social network, I would have a bad feeling of like, this is phony. Unless if an engineer did it secretly to make you happy because he loved you. Maybe, but I think it's like

You'd have to be kidding yourself to not see it I also think but you know me thinking, you know It's like to me it's like if you got the power of mind control and you used it to like Make a person that you were into fall in love with you like it loses. It's like like a lure then Yeah, I think you wouldn't you would not feel like I think you would be like, oh, this is not real Like this is I manufactured this feeling, you know, so I wouldn't I don't think I'd enjoy that very much You know what? I enjoy having like being the most popular account on a social network. Mmm I'm sure it'd be lucrative for me. It would be very lucrative. I

Don't know about Elon Musk. I mean, he's the richest man alive So I'm not sure that he needs to be them also the most popular person on Twitter His needs are endless. It appears like the hole that he's filling is endless He's he's got a lot of stuff going on. But um, so so threads I think because of blue skies Success threads has been finally changing, you know, they were like this holdout for so long It was like, you know, everything were like this holdout for so long. It was like, you know, everything was from a few days ago. It was never relevant.

It was like anti-news. And now you're allowed to like create your own feeds and like pin them as your default. Yeah, it's creds is shit. I mean, I'm sorry. It is shit, but like, it's funny that they're now like acquiescing and you can now search threads and like all this basic stuff.

I'm happy for them that they're coming out. They're getting like features that were like were the basic features of Twitter in 2007. But I have to tell you, I haven't been looking at it and I don't miss it. I actually found the threads experience to be increasingly sort of like, we talked about this months ago, that for you page experience. Threads was basically built on the attention.

Can I grab your attention on this kind of meaningless, like bad content? Because it's like, you know, it's like real, if it bleeds, it leads type of stuff. And I found it to be increasingly just like. Just on not unfunded the way the Twitter is, but just like not a, not a very useful experience, like to if you're trying to have a conversation. All the time I was seeing stuff, it's like, oh, this was posted three days ago and then people talking. It's dumb stuff. An AI picture of a lady and guys are trying to date her and that's the whole thread. Right. It's like Facebook, which is that same sort of content. It's funny because my threads

was actually pretty screwed up for a while and I just figured out what it was. I hadn't really used it much and turns out I had somehow pinned Kara Swisher, my old boss, to threads. So every time she said anything and she's very, she's on there all the time. It was coming up. She's always on there, which is fine. I just wouldn't have like pinned every comment she's ever said, you know, to come on to the top of my feet. And it was like ruining the experience for me until I was like, oh, I have to take this. I don't know how it got selected, but it was selected and now it's off and now she's back to regular levels of Kara Swisher. And it's good.

Kara, I mean, Kara is great. She's like cute, but it's like Elon posting levels with better opinions. Yeah, she's, and replies and everything, I was going nuts. She's an engager, which I love. I think that's awesome. Yeah. But yeah, I see a lot of Kara too, because I think she's just entertaining. You got her pinned by mistake?

I don't have her pinned by mistake. I have her pinned on purpose. No, but yeah, I don't. Now that I've been kind of like, I used to, yeah, I think't now that I've been like kind of like, you know, my like I used to. Yeah, I think blue sky feels like it really captures that Twitter vibe. And now that there's so many more people on it, it really is like is much more interesting. I think I. Yeah, I'm like trying to be I'm trying to engage. I just I feel like generally speaking, the experience of social media right now is a pretty just, you know, I just, I think maybe blue sky is interesting because it gets closer to like the original

idea which was I want to see certain things and I'm one of like, I don't like look at those and I want to see them kind of like, I want to like go back in time and see what people have been saying. It's not algorithmic. It's not like they have I think they have some algorithmic feeds you can look at. The main course is, you know, here's what people are saying right now. You know, here's what people are talking about right now. So when there's like a breaking news event, for instance, like, yes, sure, Twitter is

still probably a place where a lot of people are going, but the experience is better in a place like Blue Sky. And it's obvious that like, Elon is upset, you know, feels threatened by it. I know he's like had some tweets about it. He's calling it like, Peto Sky or something. Cause, you know, cause he doesn't have any other material, I guess. It's like, it's just pedophiles, you know, whatever his weird. It's top of mind for some reason.

It's so weird of him. Top of mind with him for reasons we can't imagine. But yeah, I think, you know, I think over time there is the thing that's interesting about a blue sky situation is if you look at Twitter, if you're like a, you know, media organization, or a politician, or an entertainer, there is going to be a critical point where you go, hey, like all the people I want to be paying attention to my the people that are going to like, kind of echo or build on

whatever I'm trying to say to the world, like I think politicians are a great example of this. They want to be in a place where the media will see what they're saying. Right. Like politicians use Twitter so that the media sees what they're saying. Sure, they're constituents, but that's not really the main. It's a little press release. They want, right. They want, you know, Ron DeSantis wants to get on Twitter and be like, we're, you know,

no more immigrants or whatever he has to say, and then gets picked up by the Times or gets somebody interviews him from the Washington Post or whatever it is. I think eventually there is, if the media still exists in the future, which is like, I think a question mark under the Trump organization. I think we'll actually talk about that a little bit. I think you do get to a point where there's a critical mass of kind of organizations and people that are just like getting the attention from the people they need there.

And it does, like if you had to compare, if it's apples to apples in terms of experience, I think, and if you can rebuild your network pretty quickly, I think that it's like a lot of people are going to go, well, this is like a better experience. I mean, I look at some people on Blue Sky right now, and they have like pretty huge followings. Like there's, I mean, what is it like AOC, for instance, right? She's a very popular account. She has 1.1 million followers.

How many does she have on Twitter? I don't know. It's for sure it's tens of millions, right? See, she has 12.8. Okay, but here's what I'll tell you. Of the 12.8 million people who follow her on Twitter. Those are robots. I mean, there's a lot of bots,

there's a lot of people who just don't like her and wanna like scream at her. I would not be surprised to find out that the core actual meaningful engaged part of her audience is probably a few million tops. And that's, I think, actually in some ways a lot of what's been happening on the internet generally is this idea of like, you know, right sizing, trying to understand what a real audience is versus like these like big, you know, this is in media, we talk about this stuff all the time. Like, what is an actual like meaningfully addressable audience on the internet?

Because you could make an argument, there are places with much, much smaller audiences that have a much larger impact on like Let's say the discourse, you know, for instance the New York Times has a Small audience by comparison to any social network and yet its ability to steer the conversation is Way outsized much bigger than Elon posting on Twitter like Right much bigger vehicle for conversation steerage or whatever as conversation steering and So I think there's a little bit of question of like what does it matter if you'd like this buzz fee

I just there's an article about BuzzFeed today about their like financial problems like BuzzFeed would don't talk about their hundreds of millions of audience, but at the end of the day like Who's really paying attention? Right. And what audience is important, as I keep saying on Twitter or Blue Sky or whatever, that these are my artisanal tweets. These are handmade. These are made with love. I mean, interestingly, there's also this speaking there's this speaking of Elon and his sort of, you know,

whatever attitude towards Twitter. There's this big Infowars thing happening, right? Like the onion was, is going to buy, is buying Infowars. Is working on buying Infowars and. And then Twitter has stepped in. With their lawyers. With Elon's money and lawyers to say, hold on a second, you can't take the Infowars Twitter account and these other things because we own them.

We own it and we own the content on it and that supersedes like any other party basically. And like it's a crazy argument to make right because it also means they they are essentially saying We are solely responsible for the content like their argument. They own your tweets your content Well forget about that. Forget about them owning your tweets for a second because they do I mean sure my tweets are not my property on Twitter They can do whatever they want with them as far as I know And they can erase my account tomorrow and who knows if somebody hears this and doesn't like it, maybe they will.

But the insinuation of the argument is like, it gets really into like the 230 stuff, the section 230 stuff, because it's like, they're supposed to be a neutral, non-publisher, non-content-producing party, right? If you follow net neutrality laws or you look at what has been established for platforms like Twitter and Facebook, they are not responsible for the content that is published on the platforms, which is how they skirt a lot of tons of different

things, both good and bad. But they can say, oh, well, if somebody posted hate speech on here, that's their, they're using our platform, but we have no Control or interest or stake in what they put on it right what they publish on it This is basically them going actually We are the like publisher of these accounts like we are the owner of the info Or this might come back and bite them in the ass Yes, I think I think there's a fairly popular political opinion about this them in the ass. Yes, yes.

Oh, amazing. I think there's a fairly popular political opinion about this. If you dig in on it, the argument is whether they win or lose the argument, it has somewhat detrimental impacts to the position of their business. That would be amazing. If they say, I think it's the kind of situation where if they were to win a case where the judge says, okay, you're right, you own the Infowars account and the content associated with it, that that's your intellectual property basically is what they're arguing. And it supersedes all other ownership and

all other whatever. Like you can't sell the Infowars account because Twitter owns it. They own Infowars. Wouldn't it be amazing if Infowars destroyed X? Yeah, it would be great. but I mean it would be hilarious. But the argument there then becomes like you're saying, you're basically taking responsibility as like the publisher of that stuff. And now you're opening yourself up to all kinds of lawsuits. Like for instance, a person who defames someone on Twitter.

Right, like calling someone a pedophile's say. You could sue Twitter, you could sue Twitter as owner of that account, basically, and say, well, you set a precedent that says you own the accounts and the content that's on your service. Oh, maybe. So how does that play out on a broader scale? Anyhow, but you know, it's interesting,

we're all, we're having all these fun. It may not matter if Elon is like installed in the government, you know, just say he'll just they'll just go to the Supreme Court and Supreme Court will just like toss it out in some like bullshit case like who knows, you know, super fun. The onion info wars thing makes me think of that, which is such a, you know, 2024 story that and like, Cards Against Humanity's suing, you know, 2024 story that and like Cards Against Humanity's suing, you know, Elon Musk for the Trump border wall land. But there's a, to hear about the Enron thing, you know, Enron company famous for, you know, fraud, investor fraud. I saw on Blue Sky, I saw people talking about it actually, if you want to know where I first

caught wind of it. I didn't dig into it because I was like, I don't care. Whatever. One way or the other, I just can't get invested in it. The TLDR is that it's not really Enron. Enron is not back as an energy company. But there is some big campaign going on. There's social media popping off. There's billboards apparently in Texas for like Enron. It seemed to me like when I saw it, I was like this is not a real thing. Yeah, it's not a real thing. Well, it's a joke, a parody.

It's like the birds aren't real guy is behind it. Oh, is that who did it? Yeah. OK. But also, Sherwood's Jack Reigns thinks it also might be a crypto play somehow too, because there's a lot of language and behavior and the terms of service and what

they're posting on the internet and what they're posting on Twitter. That makes them think that it might be like also like a coin might be coming as well. So it's always like all of those words like, you know, Enron this company coming back from the dead, just a weird confluence of characters and like crypto being involved. I was like, yeah, that sounds very present day. Yeah, we're definitely in like a Reagan-y 80s vibe, kind of like the... Postmodernism, too. It's like natural endpoint or something. Yeah, I also think there's just like a real thread of like cynicism and us versus them. And I mean, Enron very much encapsulates a kind of like, you know, a class of company that

clearly was like, did not care about, you know, the end user or the shareholders or lots of other things. And I think, yeah, it feels very on brand for this moment. I think like there is a selfishness that seems to be... Right, it's the selfishness and the nostalgia of the selfishness. Right, right. But there is a kind of, it is a kind of, but it is like a kind of boomer mindset. It is like this kind of, I mean, it is, Trump's like, it's a perfect moment for Trump because

he encapsulates like the cynicism and the boomery mindset and the closed mindedness and the, you know, the,, you know, the protectionist and all of this stuff that he's kind of pushing, you know, the tariff conversation. It's all very like, you know, it's us versus them. It's like a smaller group versus a larger group, less inclusive versus more inclusive. And I think to some extent, there is a cynicism amongst the electorate, which, by the way, is not totally surprising about the government's role in their life.

I think that in America, government and business, I think people are getting like absolutely, I mean, by the way, we're sitting here talking, there was this UnitedHealthcare CEO was assassinated today on the street in Manhattan, right, it was Manhattan, yeah? And I'm like, let me just get this, I don't wanna be disinfo, misinfo. And nobody knows why yet,

but there is obviously like a lot of conspiracy theorists that are like, oh, well, this is somebody who's disgruntled with the... I mean, yeah. People do not like healthcare. The healthcare industry in America is crazy, and it is really, really hard on the population. We do not have effective solutions in this country to take care of people from a healthcare perspective. And it's become, you know, it's a very, it's a huge for-profit business for these insurance companies and health care providers.

But I think there's like this like, yeah, you know, like the Enron thing is indicative of a period where, you know, that's like we were, it seemed like we had hit a point with like the financial crisis and some of the, you know, the kind of like Obama being, becoming president and these like sort of like seem like some of these neo- When was Enron? Hold on. 2004? In 2006, that's when the trial was. The Enron scandal was, the fraud became public in 2001.

Frankel Oh, OK. So, it was a real long... But yeah, the Bush years, right? And coming out of Bush, there was a lot of people who were really unhappy with the Gulf War, the war in the Middle East that was kind of a debacle, obviously, and ultimately motivated for all sorts of... Harjes I don't know what the parallels are. Frankel All sorts of... Motivated for all sorts of all sorts of all sorts of motivated and all sorts of for all sorts of weird reasons that have nothing to do with actually American and you know, like general like population interests. And anyway, just feels like the

Enron thing is perfectly placed given how like cynical and kind of mean everything feels the moment right and, info wars. Yeah. Cards Against Humanity, like the jokeyness to it. Well, you know, I don't. I don't think so. I don't know if Cards Against Humanity fits in. This is definitely kind of a, you know, I mean the-

I mean, that's like on the fun side of things. More fun, yeah, more fun, less serious. More fun, less like dire. But I do think there's a little bit of, not to go too far down a political rabbit hole on this one, I do think there's a little bit of a, we're kind of reaching the end of a certain moment in culture and I think it's,

and there's a beginning of a new one and it's really unclear what that moment looks like. And I think there's a lot of disparity. There's just a tremendous financial disparity in the world. And it is the number one. When you think about the thing that puts pressure on people, the number one thing that puts pressure on people in a capitalist, in a free market, in a capitalist society.

It's capital. It's capital. No, it is your ability to have and, utilize capital for a variety of reasons. Most people it's for like basic stuff, which I think is like, you know, you hear me talk about inflation, like in the economy and all, whatever. Like, yes, that's a huge part of what fueled, you know, this moment in politics and beyond, but I think there is like, there seems to be nobody addressing, not really addressing the disparity that is so huge and is probably only gonna get larger,

especially with things like AI and automation. Right. Speaking of which. Yeah. Anyhow, I'm spiraling. Speaking of which, you're spiraling. We're not rabbit hole, yeah, go ahead. No, but Sam spiraling. Speaking of which, you're spiraling. Yeah, go ahead.

Sam Altman today, he was at the Dealbook conference. And he was saying about AI taking jobs again. This is his book, right? It's going to take all the jobs. And he was like, I think what he said was that it's going to happen. We always say this is going to happen when there's new technology.

And there's always turnover with jobs. But it's going to be more dramatic than ever. That whole thing, I don't know. I always have to get ready to listen to him because I'm like, what grand claim is he going to make today? Someone asked if AI scaling laws might be hitting a wall and he was like, there is no wall. Like, you know, just going to go up into the right and like exponentially forever. And I was like, I don't know. Um, he's just a big salesman. I mean, that's his job. That's his job. But like, it's a little, it's ridiculous though, like the level of it. Well, he has the closest thing to a real business, I think in AI right now, to some extent.

There may be some smaller players, but his, you know, I think that, you know, it obviously plays a big role in the conversation about AI right now. He's a salesman. There is a wall. There are many walls. Only the most naive person would believe that there aren't both technical, there are many technical hurdles to a lot of the things that are promised with... And political. I have another quote from him that I think is also pretty naive.

What's that? What is it? He said, of Elon Musk, he said, it would be profoundly un-American to use political power to the degree that Elon has it to hurt your competitors. Oh, really? You know, like he's, I don't think Elon would do it. Maybe he said that? He doesn't think Elon would do it? He may be saying that because he can read the,

he can see the writing on the wall, which is like suddenly XAI is gonna become like a real favorite partner of lots of government contracts. Yeah, actually the full quote is like, it would be profoundly un-American to use political power to hurt your competitors and advantage your own businesses, which like, yeah, that's precisely what's going to happen. This stuff, we got to get people out of the habit of saying things like, well, Trump doesn't

really mean it or like, he wouldn't do that. I know, the shelf life is so short on this. There is no evidence that exists in the world. I was actually having this debate with some other editors and and they were like somebody was so many said like after he won They were like, well, you know, you know, maybe he goes more the you know, he plays it more level-headed and you know I'm like what would you've won about the past? What is the indication where you getting a signal that he'll do anything but everything that he says he wants to do? Why would he not? With Elon, it's like there's no question he will do everything to personally advantage himself and his companies.

And his six companies. By the way, I don't even knock it. I think most people given the position, if you were like, hey, you can make it easier on yourself and harder on your competition. I think most people feeling that there were no consequences, I mean, maybe to some extent, I don't know how people think, but a lot of people would go, hey, like, it's good for me and good for my company. Why wouldn't I? He absolutely will use his position if it lasts.

For however long it lasts, he will absolutely use his position to advantage his companies. And the only question is how much that will be actually physically possible in the time frame that he gets in Trump's, he's not even in the cabinet really, whatever his role is, which is like this non- It's like extra governmental suggestion engine where they suggest cuts. It doesn't exist as a part of the government.

It's not like, it's like, you know, they're talking about making RFK, like putting him in a role that is like an actual government position that has to be like, the Senate has to approve. An outside the government thing, but his idea would be him and the other guy, you know, the two people in the one position. This is like the guy who was like, I'm going to find fraud in the election results of 2020.

And it was some like firm that had no experience or expertise in anything like voter fraud. Just being like, give me a paycheck, give me some money and I'll like find the numbers that you're looking for. It's not like an actual facet of the government or something. But yeah, I mean, Sam Altman is maybe he's telling himself. This couldn't happen. Well, maybe he's like, you know, trying to speak something into reality. But or maybe he's trying to, you know, like he's talking to Elon Musk, because I guess they're

having beef, right? One of their many beefs right now. He might be talking to him, but Elon Musk is not going to be like, I mean, a guy like that's not going to be like, oh, you're saying it's un-American of me? Like, he doesn't care. He doesn't care. He's there. The definition of what America what looks American now is, is, is up for debate. You know, that's the that's like where we're at. Right. The first buddy is writing those rules.

Yeah. I mean, it's like, actually, I mean, I wanted to talk about this a little bit. It's a good, I mean, maybe a good pivot to the Cash Patel, which is like, I mean, it's like, actually, I mean, I wanted to talk about this a little bit. It's a good, I mean, maybe a good pivot to the Cash Patel, which is like, I don't want to get too far into like talking about the FBI because it's not really our beat, not really my beat or yours. And you know, I have my thoughts that Cash Patel is this like Trump loyalist who he's naming to become the FBI director. I think what's interesting about it is that Cash Patel, one, wrote a book that I's called like the plot against the king which literally has like a picture of Donald Trump on the cover like

In it in a crown and in like an outfit. Wow, and he was like signing books for people with the QAnon Dot the dog QAnon like where we go when we go all it's like whatever the letters are for that QAnon, where we go when we go all it's like whatever the letters are for that QAnon, of course is a You know completely fake You know conspiracy theory generated on 4chan and reddit About the government about the deep state or whatever. It is like total internet fantasy. It is literally like about the deep state or whatever. It is like total internet fantasy. It is literally like 4chan, like copypasta, kind of like not real at all. And it has, you know, many, many thousands, if not more people have become like convinced that it is, I mean, it is like, it is like

literally like, this guy's going to run the FBI. Right. So I think it's interesting. I mean, I think it's interesting like what kind of like era we're in for like, internet conspiracy to FBI director pipeline, QAnon to FBI director pipeline is like a thing. And it's crazy, it is, you know, we are in like a totally like hyper reality moment now where it is like all

All bets are I mean it feels like all bets are off. It feels like they're living, you know beyond living in a simulation It's like the simulation broke. It's like the simulation is on some kind of like chaos mode or whatever I think I just thought that was interesting the the tech connection there is like this is a guy who's been sitting reading internet conspiracy boards or whatever, and now he's going to have access to the most secretive, most fragile information that the US government has. Perfect. So who knows what happens with that? I mean, that'll be really interesting.

I guess the Republican senators are on board to approve whoever, which I think will be fascinating. We're on a fascinating timeline. Anyhow, should we do bugger feature? Feature a bug. Feature a bug, what do you call it? I'm sorry, I have brain fog. I don't know if you know this, but when you get pneumonia, you get a brain fog situation. Just have the AI fix that in post.

Jaguar has unveiled a new brand that people are very unhappy about. Have you seen this? Yeah, it's like the ad is very diverse and it doesn't have any cars in it. People are complaining about woke Jaguar or something. It's like it's like it's like the ad is like very diverse and it doesn't have any cars in it. People are complaining about like woke Jaguar or something. Too woke. Yeah, woke Jaguar. Now some cars have leaked supposedly that are like their new electric car in like pink and blue, which I feel like it's kind of fake.

But you know, if you if you haven't been caught up with this, I would just say it's like a very extreme. They've changed their logo and they've made it completely. That's true. That font that they did is real. The font's real. The font's real. And the rebrand and the ad with all these high fashion sort of people, it's very diverse. It's not just a bunch of white guys, rich white guys in Jaguars, which I assume is what the classic association with the brand is. Certainly, it's kind of an older brand

as an association that they have. I think, I mean, I saw some interesting commentary about this, which is like, nobody's talking about Jaguar. Like nobody's saying anything about it one way or the other. Nobody cares. Right. And now if you look at, yeah, if you use the, if you apply the kind of logic of modern reality and marketing, like people talking about it is huge for them.

Like there's been a huge spike in searches for Jaguar. Right? Thought about Jaguar forever. And now they're thinking about it, even if it's in a bad way. Right. And so feature, in my opinion, that's a big feature. Right? I don't think you can even disagree with that.

Yeah. That's a big feature, right? I don't think you can even disagree with that. Ron, if you're more familiar with it. So yeah, I was thinking bug because that is like the most cynical kind of advertising. It's like, okay, any news is good news, but like, let's be out there and hated. Like I find that just sort of like, Huh? Yeah. Yeah, I hear that. I hear that.

It's just like, if you're going to be out there and like changing your brand or doing something like, it's just much more interesting if you're liked for doing a good job. Well, I think if you have a good idea, I mean, maybe they didn't have any good ideas. Well, then if they're just like, you know, try to doll this up. Yeah, I don't like the new logo to be clear. It is bad. I have no I mean, it's it's not You know, everything is bad when it's new in some way a lot of times it's like, you know You see something unfamiliar and you're like, I don't particularly care for the typography. That's on a personal level Yeah, um how it plays on like a car how it plays to like gen z

Is a totally different question um I think that I just think I just think like it's it's hard to argue that uh like Gen Z is a totally different question. I think that I just think it's hard to argue that going from nobody caring about you or talking about you at all to people at least having some kind of discourse around your brand is a feature. But we can agree to disagree.

And in fact, I think it makes for better podcasting. Good content. Elon Musk Pay package, being paid just like one of those like just an unimaginable sum. Well, I mean, without what what happens, I think the question is what happens if I mean the pay package being knocked back when the shareholders voted for it. I think it's a that's a bug of the system. Because clearly the people who are like invested in the business want him to be paid that much. I think there's a real...

That's what Elon's saying. He's like, this is, you know, how dare you judge? I hate to I hate to side with the guy, but there is an argument here. It's like if they had voted against it. Now, that's one thing. But if your shareholders are like, yeah, we want you to be paid this much. And they're ultimately like, you know, holding the business, right? Like with their, with their,

with their ownership of it, to some extent, at least not the total ownership. But I think it's just, my feeling is there's clearly a lot of concern about like, what if Elon were to leave Tesla, right? Right. Like they're willing to pay him into leaving Tesla. If Elon were to leave Tesla, it seems to be, the feeling seems to be things might not go so great for Tesla. And if that's true, then it's a feature to get, I mean, it's a bug to not give him whatever the paycheck is that has been carved out for him.

Whether or not it's worth it is a different, but yeah, if the stock plummeted, if he were to be like, well, if I'm not getting paid enough, I'm going to leave, what's the point? Though I think he's too wrapped up in Tesla's success now to actually walk away from it. Yeah. I mean, I guess he's going to end up, I'm sure he'll end up getting paid and if not in this way in another way Like it's just not this particular pay package. They may have to rewrite it and vote again So so we voting on whether knocking it back saying no to it was it was a feature a bug because I think it's a bug Yeah, I think it's a bug. It's it's if it's not actually gonna

If it actually doesn't do anything in the end if he still gets paid a ton of money for this, I'm like, yeah, what was the point? I think it's also like, what's the point if this is what the people who, this is what the shareholders want, right? If this is what the people who ultimately are gonna, if they experience the impact of it, right? They voted for it, let them have it.

Right, exactly, exactly. Let them have it, that's what I say. All right, and final feature bug, what do we have? It's part of my raps, feature bug. Ah, well, That's what I say. All right. Final feature bug. What do we have? Spotify wrapped feature bug. Ah, that's a great question. I think Spotify wrapped feature a bug. I'm going to go for bug now because I... Because you can't get it. Because I can get it. There's clearly a bug within my own. Like I can't... I can only see last year's.

You're not experiencing an actual bug is what you're saying. Yeah, actual bug. And also because like, I don't think it's that fun anymore. Like I don't think it's exciting. I don't want to hear what other people's rap was. I don't want, like, I don't care about it. I think it's a little bit like when somebody tells you their dream. Oh God, yeah, horrible.

Horrible. And we've all been guilty of this, but I think your dream is probably a lot more interesting to you than it is to other people. Absolutely, exactly. So keep it to yourself. And I think Spotify Rap might be a little bit like that. And so it's masturbatory in a way.

Yeah, I think at this point it's sort of like not that. Yeah. Was a feature, now is a bug. Was a feature, is now a bug. I think it's approaching bug territory just in the sense that it doesn't seem like it matters or is that interesting anymore? I think there's like some I what I'd like to see is something more interesting about Like the overall Spotify list right and what that says about us. I'd love to hear more

Yeah I'd love to hear more about yeah, I'd love to hear more about like weird obscure things that people are doing on Spotify or like, like I'd love to see who listen to this like a song the most out of anybody anywhere. Who listen to the most sleep podcasts. Right, yeah exactly. It was me. I mean, or if like, if that overall is like secretly what people now listen to Spotify for. No one listens to music anymore. We're just trying to meditate. It is like a utility, right? It's like there's an element of Spotify that's a utility, right? I mean, Thanksgiving dinner, right? It's like, well, I got to put some music on, you know?

And it's like, let me put on whatever. I mean, it wasn't random. I picked some things, but I didn't make a playlist. But it is like, oh, I need background noise like Spotify is like the provider for that you know I think that the white noise is similar so yeah I mean that's but that's saying you know to talk about like whether or not it's a feature bug that Spotify wraps is still existing and doing what it does I think it's definitely a bug at this point because it's not really communicating anything of of interest to the audience that's you know that's what I think it's definitely a bug at this point because it's not really communicating anything of interest to the audience.

That's what I think. One man's opinion. All right. I think I don't even want to do you on tweets. What do you got? What do you got? I got, well, this one is, he said cancel culture has been canceled. I guess that means that Twitter has been successful in bringing everyone back that had been brought off and it's great

It's anti woke and the the world ceiling what I think is I think it's great Because as we all as we all know woke is one of the biggest problems in the world right now The woke with woke we're all suffering and once we can clear up woke Things are gonna be you know, the earth is healing, like you said. The planet is healing. And then I just, this is... His tweets are so, they're so dumb.

I know, yeah. He said cancel calls or is canceled is the actual tweet. It's just so, like, just from a pure, you know, sentence structure, ideation standpoint, it's like, so dumb. Give me one more. Give me one more. Okay, and the other one is just in regard to the pay package court case. Delaware activist judge Kathleen McCormick declined to reinstate his pay package.

Oh, it was a woman? Oh boy. Yeah, it was a lady judge. Oh no. And he says, absolute corruption. Just like anything that doesn't go his way is wrong. If it's free speech until it's him, like someone saying something he doesn't like.

It's absolute corruption until, you know. Absolute corruption, this cover says it all, I think. You know. Ardurysm system. I mean, everybody's so dramatic these days. I mean, so dramatic. All these guys. I was just saying men are too dramatic to hold positions of political power.

I mean, honestly, honestly, there's just a level of like, they're so petty and so dramatic. It's like, take it easy. You're still super duper rich. Like, I'm sure he's got uses for the... Is it $56 billion? Is that what it is? It was. I read that it now is worth like $100 billion with the current stock prices. Right. It's... whatever. I mean, it's just... I think he's going to prevail. I have faith. I'm sure he'll get his pay. I think, it's just I think he's going to prevail. I have faith. I'm sure he'll get his pay.

I think yes, he will. OK, so which one of these tweets is worse? Is it absolute corruption or is it canceled? Canceled culture is canceled is clearly the worst tweet to me because it's probably already been tweeted is the thing. It's been tweeted. Oh, believe me. Not maybe not by him, but certainly tweeted by other people. It's just like I think like in just an

objectively bad tweet, it's just not. It's dumb. I expect more from him. Even him. It's just dumb. I don't expect more. It's just a bad tweet. And like, you know, his feet is littered with like, just really bad, like, poor. But just not interesting, I guess. You know, and yeah, that's all there is to it. All right, we gotta wrap up. 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. Thanks for watching!