TRASHFUTURE - The Value Is Coming From Inside the House feat. Trevor Strunk

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome back to this. What day is it? It's a Thursday free episode. It's the free one. Yes, like a warm, annoying bath. I get into every week. The annoying bath you're listening to Riley and the bath. I hate this. I have a lot of questions about what would make an annoying bath. They're probably not going to like answer them on this episode. Having a bath with me. I feel like the only thing that would make a bath annoying is if it's at like a temperature that isn't quite warm enough to be enjoyable, but not cold enough to like be some sort of weird fitness trend. It's just like lukewarm in a really gross way. Oh, you know what you're talking about? You're talking about like an ancient Greek punishment for someone who didn't

Starting point is 00:00:59 really do much wrong in the afterlife. Sure. Oh yeah, like a smile. You're in Tartarus and you're just there in a bathtub, but like it's just you're not having a great time. Yeah, like the candle smells a bit bad and the podcast you've got on is like Barstool Sports. Yeah, that's it. That's what I'm doing after this. So yeah. And it's Riley, Milo and Hussein. And we are very pleased to introduce for the first time on this episode anyway. That's right. For the first time ever. We have not done several versions of this introduction that had audio problems or no, no, sir. And we say this every time we do one with no problem. And that's why we say it so that you the listener know that this is a smooth professional introduction as per usual. It is,

Starting point is 00:01:47 of course, my pleasure to introduce our guest today, America's Trevor Strunk of the No Cartridge podcast and author of Story Mode available at Fine Booksellers. Trev, how's it going? Oh, it's going pretty well. How are you guys? I'm thank God to know that because I didn't until just now know that it was going pretty well. It was it was really, yeah, your edge of your seat. I mean, you know, what I not that I've heard anything about your island before on a previous take. But you know, just where we're I'm coming to you all from the from the Great Plains and vast expanses of America, which I'm told by all of our state media is still the only superpower in the world. So we're just we're riding high. It's great. Oh, yeah, you guys are going from strength

Starting point is 00:02:28 to strength. We're killing it every day with now. What is this now? Like president who's awake and remembers stuff. It's all going well. Definitely doesn't have three different voices. That's the main thing about our president. Well, it's because they switch out the guys who are ventriloquizing him. And so it's always different guys. And they don't. And I mean, like, look, because Biden is just being constantly fisted by a guy who's a ventriloquist. Well, it's different guys because it's three of them are all like nephews of important people. And they all had to share. It's like how the Oxford Union, they like change the speaker, like the leader of it, like every two weeks so that everyone gets a chance to put it on their CV. It's the same thing

Starting point is 00:03:04 as this. Yeah, it's great. We love a cozy little club of powerful people doing each other favors in fancy robes. But we're here. We are talking about some some British stuff. They used to it. That's right. Then I've got a startup for us. But what I'm really excited to talk about is this understanding this growing intersection of gaming and crypto that is challenging the world to reimagine how gaming works by adding employment relations to it. Awesome, which is incredible to see. Very, very cool. Like, were you were you worried that the gaming community were getting dangerously cool time to introduce cryptocurrency? Right. But I did see just before just before we started this, I did see a tweet pointing out that like, they would have a great quote attached

Starting point is 00:03:58 to it, which is that they were talking about NFTs and said they reminded them of when Yahoo bought Tumblr and said that Tumblr would be the next PDF, which is a really amazing one. People won't know how to open it. That's right. Well, Tumblr is very hard to like open and use. So in many ways, in many ways, it was the new PDF. They manifested reality. Yeah. I've been sent all this cat girl porn on PDF. I'm going to scroll through it on my Amazon Kindle with one finger. Getting your glasses really low down your nose and just yeah, yeah. iPad in a leather case with a front flap, you know, scrolling through these pictures of my niece. Yeah, she's a cat girl jacked off from my iPad. Let's let's talk a little bit about about Britain first.

Starting point is 00:04:46 And Trevor, of course, I encourage you to I'll be asked to come in. My grandmother who is who is currently convalescing from an illness is a 100 percent Italian and for some reason, the biggest fan of the British monarchy that I know. So time to learn more about Queen. She just she's a huge Anglophile. I've never known why she's honestly, I thought it had I thought it had faded. And then we were on vacation this summer and she was reading the news and she started spouting off about Meghan and Harry and how much they were, you know, just like being ridiculous and ungrateful. And I was like, wow, that's it's not aligned with any of your beliefs. But I guess that's what happens when you love the crown. The British royal family versus

Starting point is 00:05:33 Harry and Meghan was such an alien versus predator scenario. Wow, I hate everyone in this argument. This is incredible. I just it's what I know what it was. I think because I have a particular burning hatred of the British press, I sort of had an instinct to be like, well, I hate one side more. But then when Harry and Meghan started doing like mental health for investing apps or whatever, I was like, no, fuck all of these people. Yeah, absolutely. But, Trev, you might be interested to know that when in government recently, a Tory minister appeared, in fact, called one Lord Marland was responding to a plan in an animal sentience bill to like give lobsters more rights or whatever,

Starting point is 00:06:15 responded to a because they can predict the World Cup. They need rights. That's right. They are productive members of society. So Lord Marland is responding to a plan by an environmentalist called Chris Packham to rewild royal estates by suggesting he said the following, most of us are terrified of Chris Packham. What's great about Chris Packham is that he used to be, do you remember there was like an a big Twitter account like 10 years ago called Gus the Fox? It was like a drill-esque kind of like pistachio of like a guy writing in character as a fox, but who's like playing pranks on famous people by like fucking a dead pigeon in their garden and then like coming all over their

Starting point is 00:07:01 rose bushes or whatever. But Chris Packham was like constantly featured. He was like Gus the Fox's main enemy and he was constantly like, just took a shit on Gus the Fox's lawn on Chris Packham's lawn. So that's what that name triggers for me is. Anyway, he's a TV, sharp for your benefit. He's a TV naturalist, kind of like a like a. Oh, okay. Yeah. And he is Steve Irwin. Exactly. Like a Steve Irwin. Cool. Like Steve Irwin. Yeah, absolutely. So he is a Marland, highlighted the TV naturalist petition to the Queen, which said that she must rewild her entire estate so that we can have bears and wolves back on it. Now, this is a metaphor for the Queen's pubes. We're going to rewild the estate.

Starting point is 00:07:41 That's the fifth estate, baby. Oh, yuck. The crown don't crack. So basically, of course, it's important to have wolves and bears like in the wild as apex predators. Otherwise, deer will basically prevent trees from growing. Right. They just overpopulate, need everything. The conservative peer said, imagine going out of Belmoral with your corgis and being confronted by a bear and a wolf. What? I mean, what sort of people are we listening to? We must protect the Queen for bears and wolves because as you know, of course, bears and bears and wolves are actually scavengers and do tend to go after dead bodies. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Because the weekend at

Starting point is 00:08:17 Bernie's scenario with the Queen must be allowed to continue uninterrupted by things from the Twilight universe. Absolutely. I like the idea that the Bernie and or not the Bernie, but the Bernie's employees in this situation are the corgis. She's being held up or like propped up between chairs or whatever by the corgis themselves. Of course. They're actually she's on roller skates like home alone style. Just like those corgis are actually Greek sailors that she shrunk and turned into corgis. They're entirely sentient. They just can't speak. That's exactly right. Thousands of years old. But some actual some stuff appears to have been more. More also things have been developing

Starting point is 00:08:53 in the psychodrama that is the question of did Boris Johnson have a sad party in Downing Street last Christmas? I think sort of things are things have developed in such a way right where you can say his popularity is dipping and the media is turning on him because what's going on is a palace coup or at least I think an attempted one where because if you notice the the Tories who are staying well clear of having been involved, who are staying well clear of mentioning that they who are also saying they don't support further lockdown measures and stuff. It's Rishi Sunak. It's Liz Truss. It's people who stand to possibly benefit from moving on from this guy, right? Liz Truss can't have been at that party. She was opening up new pork markets.

Starting point is 00:09:36 I genuinely do believe that it's number one. His popularity is still pretty like not unassailable, but I don't think it's going to be like people love him and because he's the fun guy who's going to be corrupt on their behalf, right? That's what they like him because we hate to say it, but he's cool, right? I mean like the fucking the whole thing with Peppa Pig World, right? There were a bunch of libs who were like trying to have a go. It's so embarrassing that he lost his place in his notes. It's like, yeah, but he was funny about it because he has charisma like as much as the guy's a dickhead. Like he knows that if you lose your place in your notes to go like, how many of you have been to Peppa Pig World? There's nowhere near enough. Like that's

Starting point is 00:10:10 funny. Whereas Kiyosawa would go like, well, this is embarrassing. And that's not funny. And so and this is why people love Boris Johnson. It's not difficult. Yeah, of course, because he's a good, he is a good media operator and that's just what it is, right? Well, it's I mean like, you know, it's passe to call anyone the Trump of anything, but like Johnson and Bolsonaro work as the Trump of the UK and Brazil, respectively, because they're both good at working the media, right? Like they both know what to do like a funny co-op or like appear with a llama or something. I think there's also was also crucial is that Boris Johnson isn't just good with media, but he understands the British media in a way that

Starting point is 00:10:48 no one else ever will just because of his history. Like it's like, again, like if we talk about like a leg or strass and stuff in this like section, you know, it's worth bearing in mind that her husband is the political editor of the spectator who came into his job basically under Boris Johnson's kind of leadership, or at least like he kind of entered that media world under that time. And like, I think people really don't understand just how influential Boris Johnson has been in the history of British media in terms of shaping it and its culture and something that still exists to this day and crucially, something that like journalists of this generation will fiercely defend above everything else.

Starting point is 00:11:27 Well, because of course, to them, a free and independent media means I get to do whatever I feel like doing at any given time. And also just like, you know, the fact that like the kind of perception that media is very much or like the real British media is very much like an inner circle and there are unwritten rules in that inner circle in terms of like how you act and like who you sleep with and all that stuff. And like when you take the mask and the K-pop and like Boris Johnson very uniquely understands that. So it doesn't matter like how many like libs get mad at him online. It doesn't matter how many like Facebook comments and stuff happen. Like the press will not go after him in a way that is like in any way kind of like damaging or cruel

Starting point is 00:12:06 just because of who he is and what he understands. Or I would take that a little further. I would say they won't unless they're given a better offer by someone. For example, if they if you get to be the columnist that launches Rishi Sunak's ultimately successful bid for the Premiership, then maybe you do turn on Boris Johnson because you have no loyalty to anyone or anything. Maybe, but I think, I think right there, what's what's happening and Toby Young, it's your time to shine baby. Oh yeah, that'd be so fun. I'd love Toby Young being the new press secretary. I think that'd be great. Redoing his stag do and it's just him and Rishi Sunak. I think the other thing right is that there is this idea that's been in British politics for

Starting point is 00:12:45 basically as long as there has been this form of British politics, which is that if there is a major embarrassment, then that embarrassment is handled, drawn a line under, and then gets put into history by someone resigning. Again, other journalists, so this sort of goes to your point you're saying, have been lining up to congratulate Allegra Stratton for resigning because she like made a joke about there being no party in Downing Street a year ago. But then I don't know, she's taken a job for a guy who just lies all the time and so she lied on his behalf and is now leaving. It's such a fucking sideshow. I can't believe people are falling for it. The whole thing about like, oh, well, you know, this bitch you've never

Starting point is 00:13:29 heard of, well, she's getting fired. So I think the matter's closed actually. And also because she made a joke about there being a party and about lying about it in this cutting room floor test video we made. So that's really the bad thing. It's not organizing the party or being at the party. Or also, don't forget, who cares about the party? That's being made the issue by an entire political and media ecosystem that has decided it is manifestly okay with all of the COVID deaths, for example, that were easily avoidable. It's so funny that it's being portrayed as though this party is like the worst bit, like the insult to injury. Like, no, I don't give a fuck about the party. What about the stuff that mattered? What about

Starting point is 00:14:17 the stuff that actually fucking happened? I don't give a fuck about that. I assumed they were having a party. Like, are you dumb? This is like when the fucking Panama Papers came out. It was all those Russian politicians who had billions of dollars and the reaction to the Russian public was like, of course, they are politicians. This is my reaction to this. Well, it's also just like, you know, when the whole party discourse was like happening. Like, you know, and lots of people, I pointed this out, but like the Nationality and Borders Bill was also like receiving its third hearing. And like, this is a bill that basically, you know, takes what was essentially like a denied conspiracy theory, like a decade ago,

Starting point is 00:14:53 about like British citizens getting their, getting their like citizenship revoked in like secret trials and secret courts, basically extending that international policy where anyone who like, you don't even have to have dual citizenship, like you can have your citizenship revoked if you're deemed to be like a threat to national security or whatever, right? Don't threaten me with a good time. And, you know, and again, like, I kind of think about this and I'm just like, well, when I was a journalist, like looking into this story, like the amount of denials I got that this was happening in spite of like all the evidence that was like collected by groups like Cage and stuff

Starting point is 00:15:26 about like successive Home Secretaries basically implementing these powers and using secretive courts as a way of like, you know, allowing it to pass through without kind of any sort of like public disclosure. Like this is an extremely dangerous and authoritarian bill from an extremely dangerous and authoritarian Home Secretary, who again is keeping very quiet because I imagine like, you know, this situation works to her advantage as well. But like, you know, one of the observations that's like worth making is that it's not like the dead cat situation that people are, you know, that people are kind of proposing, like, I don't think it's as sophisticated as that because I don't think they're capable of it.

Starting point is 00:16:01 But it is very much this kind of consequence of like having too much information. No one really knows how to kind of like prioritize it. And this party story is very much like a story about media in and of itself. So it's the idea that like this kind of established inner circle media group has decided that this is the story that like is not only kind of worth paying like attention and resources to, but it's one that like ultimately shapes the narrative of this political narrative much more than like institutional policy that is much more kind of consequential and stuff that people in probably like in a few years or like even in a decade's time will be like, oh, shit, that was like one of the most over like, you know, positioning

Starting point is 00:16:41 into this type of authoritarianism. And it's really weird how like we can't really talk our ways out of it now. I think that it's funny, like, I mean, obviously, I don't have a ton to add here that Hussein and you other two jokers haven't said better. That's how you're set up on my screen. I'm a joker too. I would like to clarify that I am. The three jokers. Yeah, I thought you were a midnight toker. Oh, yeah, nice. Well, who's the smoker? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:07 That's me. If we, it is Riley and Milo. I know it's Riley and Milo. People do call me Maurice, but that's Sam. No, I know your names. It was just funny to say the two jokers to me. All right. But the one the one thing I one thing that like strikes me about all this is listening is that like coming from the States hearing about the way that the parties have been dissected by the

Starting point is 00:17:33 British media, you know, not knowing the sort of like more baroque ways that the media works in your country makes it so that like it seems like you guys are all super concerned about this party. Like I saw like even like Rob Delaney retweeted Ant and Deck making fun of like the party that did or did not happen or something like that. And everyone was like, yes, Ant and Deck finally like they're going to take down Boris Johnson's herd. Ant and Deck the most people were like, you don't like Ant and Deck. You don't like people like they finally have like it's it seems to like an outside observer that like the entire nation is like, did they or did they not have a party, which is like

Starting point is 00:18:15 charming from an American context where it's like, yeah, no, people have these parties all the time is kind of super spreader events. I mean, we get Sturgis in the middle of a of a pandemic. Like it's no one is responsible here. So like it is it plays into that myth of and I think this is this is something to like it plays into that very interesting international myth of like the British as a set of very proper like sort of like tea cup holding like, you know, we focus on the rules kind of things and like that tea is full of cocaine. Yeah. Right. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting to hear that like, in fact, this is just the same kind of thing that happens when like, you know, the American press poses focuses on January 6th, instead of focusing on like a million of things

Starting point is 00:18:59 million things that have happened during the Biden administration that have like actively eroded rights. So kind of kind of fascinating to see how the press works in that regard to you, you know, even knowing that the British tabloid press is a is a mockery and a sham. Oh, indeed. Well, I think it's a bit like it's similar to like the turf stuff in a respect in that like, it's another one of these things where no one cares about it apart from 100 people who will happen to have newspaper columns. And so like the mood of the British, it's like, wow, like the British public are really transphobic. It's like, well, not really, but a bunch of people who have newspaper columns really are. And like similarly, a bunch of people who have newspaper

Starting point is 00:19:33 columns are really into this whole Christmas party thing, for some reason, I guarantee you the public do not give a fuck. That's interesting. Okay, yeah, no, I picked that up with the turf stuff, because I know so many people that are like, you know, not turfs that they're just like, stop being the 2% of people that care about this. But like, it feels like with the party, most normal British commentators like yourselves, and I mean, you have to follow the news, so you have to talk about it a little bit. But like, most normal British commentators are like, I don't care about the parties, stop talking about the parties, no one cares. Of course, they have the party. It's so funny that we need to investigate if they had the party. We know they had the party,

Starting point is 00:20:10 and we don't care. All right, all right, enough. Let's follow our own advice. And let's leave. Let's make an Irish exit from this party. I've got a startup. It's called planting a bomb. God damn it. I've got a startup. It's called Jupe, J-U-P-E. Trev, what do you think it does? I think it's an acronym. I think it is just using players efficiently. And it is about finding ways to mainstream fortnight strategies into building homes for the underprivileged. Okay, you actually have nailed one of the concepts of what they do, but I won't say which one. Oh, that is okay. It is not, however, an acronym. Who's saying Jupe? What do you think? Oh, I just had this thing, which was just like, what if the joker did goop?

Starting point is 00:20:59 Jupe. So like a joker makeup, but that like gives you good skin. Yeah. Unfortunately, that is not what it is. You know how I got these pores? Milo, Jupe. Is it Jupe in the sense of is it's tricking you into buying some products? Yeah, I guess so. Oh, okay. Yeah, ballpark, abstract, but ballpark. Yeah, okay. I'll add one of their log lines. It's just add land. Jupe, just add land. Fuck, is it like a way of selling land in the metaverse? No, we are going to be talking about something like that later though. Okay. Just add land. Is it like, that sounds like like an oval teen ad or something, like, or like that those Ode to Head on things, like apply directly to the head.

Starting point is 00:21:50 Aristocrat oval teen. Yeah. Now we need some land to enjoy it. Have a peasant. That's how you rewild. That's how we're going to re-rehabitate the queen. Just get her into a new place. We just add some land. It is a place that you can get someone into. We're going to try and breed the queen. We're putting her in a new enclosure with an elderly man from like Denmark. No, so this was given to me by a friend of the show, Shanti Singh. Just add land. Jupe is a dwelling unit inspired by the stars. Dwelling. Oh my God. Is it like luxury pods for homeless people? Yes, that's exactly what it is. For fuck's sake. But no, no. Here's the thing, right?

Starting point is 00:22:32 Anything luxury for homeless people is something I would sort of like sort of prima facie support. No, no, no. This is, they started it as a glamping tent, right? Right. Oh, Jesus Christ. Sure. Right. But that now they have some much broader ambition. At some point, someone took like an experimental serum and like now has super villain level ambitions for their glamping tent. Right. Okay, I see. Let's talk about it. Jupe is a dwelling unit inspired by the stars designed for new frontiers beyond the city and off the grid. It isn't just a place to stay. It's a gateway to the outside world. That's just what a house is. It has a door. Made in a team, made in LA by a team of SpaceX and

Starting point is 00:23:17 Tesla veterans. Oh, fuck off. Oh, so it's going to explode? Is that what they're saying? It's going to kill you? Yeah, that's right. Well, they had to say gateway so they remember to include a door. Otherwise, it would just be a prison and that's the kind of thing they would make by accident. I put my glamping tent on autopilot mode and it drove me into the LA River. Well, you know that Tesla did fake one of their original autopilot videos, right? I like the Tesla bolt. It was just a guy. Yeah. I know. They just put the car in a pre-programmed route and apparently it crashed a bunch. Awesome. They just filmed the part that it didn't crash in. So, Jupe's luxurious birch interiors are machined to the millimeter. It's

Starting point is 00:23:56 wrapped in the highest quality weather resistant canvas and the aluminium masks are milled to perfection. It includes a dimmable LED track lighting, a continuous double battery system, bedside USB charge stations. It has like a queen bed in it. It's like a very nice glamping tent. But now it's for the homeless. Are we to assume? Is this one of those things where the homeless get something they really don't need or want like USB charging stations? Well, check this out. This is from a job ad that I read of theirs. Hi. So, what problem are we solving together? So, again, remember, what we're starting with is a glamping tent made by some Tesla people. Okay. What did a half billion people don't have access to adequate housing?

Starting point is 00:24:36 So, we're going to, we've made this, we have, I guess, just imagining that the problem is that there aren't enough tents. And we are not going to change that. That's right. Because the guy that started it, Jeff Wilson, he wanted to experience what it was like to not live in a house. So, he voluntarily lived in a dumpster for a year. Like Oscar the Grouch? Yes, that's right. He just listened to pulp's common people while watching Sesame Street and was like, I got a plan. I love that he's managed to do something that isn't even really how homeless people live, in my understanding. I don't think homeless people are literally living in a bin. I don't think that's how, like, he's like, he's basically watched an episode of Top Cat and been

Starting point is 00:25:16 like, wow, people are really living like this. So, this is the quote. I lived in a dumpster for a year because I wanted to try to live using 1% of the volume and 1% of the energy of the average American home. Yeah. I also think this is a lie. Yeah. A dumpster uses, I mean, listen, I'm not here to defend America. I guess I am here to defend American people, but I'm not good at it. I will say a dumpster is 0% of the energy in American home. Like, what energy are you even using in the dumpster? Maybe he's got his laptop in there. He's got his laptop in there. He's podcasting from the dumpster. That sounds great, actually. All the garbage really kills the echo. Yeah, that's right. It's a very acoustically dry environment. Not a physically dry environment. And his previous

Starting point is 00:25:59 startup, which folded in 2018, made like, you know, like a wine bottle rack, right? Imagine that, but the size of like a small apartment building. And then instead of wine bottles, you slot in housing units. And that was his last idea. And surprisingly, it also failed. Just build an apartment building. It's not difficult to build an apartment. We've been doing it since like the ancient world. They had them in ancient Rome. Just barely they put houses on top of one another. It's an old technology that works. Just build more of them that aren't investment vehicles for cunts. It's that simple. How does a tent solve anything? It still takes up space on the ground, which is the expensive part. It's more expensive for building apartments.

Starting point is 00:26:46 What is wrong with these people's brains? Well, let's answer your question. They're building a hardware and full stack software platform to go after the shelter problem. Oh, fucking suck my dick. What the fuck does that mean? They only answered your question, Milo. I think like, I think it's time for an apology. They really explained why this is. I would like to give them a full stack of my dick to suck. That's what our infrastructure trust based software platform will allow communities to move, scale and pop up anywhere on the face of the planet. We call it universal autonomous housing. I call it the Mongol Golden Whore. They've invented the Huns by that same thing now. It's over. If you're a peasant in New Nevada or whatever

Starting point is 00:27:37 and you're subsistence farming for Steve Wynn's great grandson that's cut an Immortan Joe costume on, then you see over the horizon a bunch of cyber trucks driving towards you and a golden horde of tech bros is going to come and take you into bondage and force you to milk mares. But it's modular bondage. I mean, that's the thing, right? It's all modular, which means it's good. Modular comes from the Grecian Mod, meaning movable and Euler, meaning good. Yeah, that's right. So, but at our core, we're not just building tents. We're building a shelter platform for the software that will book and control it because also if you want jupes on your land, then they'll put them there for free and then you can split the rent with them.

Starting point is 00:28:27 So they invented sharecropping too. That's neat. Our one chassis can be reconfigured as a garden, a bathroom, a relief shelter or even Milo. Why would you need a chassis for a garden? That's just outside. That's just the bit outside your house. You don't need a chassis for that. What is wrong with these people? Milo, check this out. You're going to get the vein on your forehead that you sometimes get when I next tell you that. I'm trying to look good, Riley. Or even a ball pit. Oh, you got it. I saw it. I see it. Why? What? What? What utility does that have? I really see the vein. I can see it. I can see it all the way, like on the video. You guys are going to maximize. You can

Starting point is 00:29:12 actually see it from space. The vein has come out. Longer term, we want to get to helping the world by putting an entire city on a ship, not meaning like a city of popped up tents, but like an entire city worth of dwellings flat-packed onto a ship. What about water world, if you can see that? We'll be able to shift these around the world and reconfigure the fleet to whatever the greatest needs in the planet are to place and time, whether that means providing dignified housing for refugees or accommodating remote workers who want to stay in warm climates year round. There's nothing dignified about living on a big ship. So jot that down. Are we getting to the generation ships that show up in every single sci-fi thing where they have to

Starting point is 00:29:51 account for light speed travel, where they're just like, yeah, the Mormon's got on this generation ship and stayed on it for 700 years to cross the galaxy? Are we going to get there? It's SpaceX, right? We're going to put these on people on a spaceship soon. Here's what I think is very funny, though. It's not Jeff Wilson. It's actually the funniest character. It's a guy called Gary Tan, who is a Silicon Valley investor, and he's really, really, really, really, really, really loves going on Twitter and getting mad at people. Oh, okay. Oh, and he's Gary with two r's. He's the same as you and I. That's right. We're just like him. I'd be mad if I was called Gary, to be fair.

Starting point is 00:30:28 He has a firm called Initialized Capital, and I have a theory that they have invested over and over and over again in this kind of new form of living-type startups, new ways to distribute housing that just reproduced landlordism, right? Disruptive housing technology, specifically because he keeps getting into arguments with Shanti Singh and wants to prove her wrong. I think he has... No, this is based on nothing and just my supposition. I am pretty sure that he has a spite-based investment portfolio. Awesome. Uncritical support as I get to Shanti Singh. Yeah, that's right. I now like even more now that I know that she's eroding this guy's money. Jeff Wilson currently lives in a jupe unit in the middle of San Francisco.

Starting point is 00:31:17 So it's an apartment. He has an apartment in San Francisco. Yeah, exactly. He has a stupid apartment in San Francisco that's not very good. So an apartment in San Francisco. Absolutely. Anyway, that's jupe. I thought that was a lot of fun, right? That's exciting. I mean, honestly, I love that we're taking the boring company like car-tube technology and making it... I wouldn't have known this without Milo's vein-induced coma or palpate. I don't know what to call it. Reaction earlier, but there really is that tube technology brought into housing, which is so, so very exciting. We just have a single horizontal stream of housing forever. Get in the big homeless tube. That's what we want.

Starting point is 00:32:03 Yeah. I mean, I also love that their solution to homelessness still involves having a landlord, and it's like, do you not realize that's the only thing making people homeless is that they can't pay that? Like if people could afford the rent, they wouldn't be homeless. They're not stupid. They're not like, oh, I wish I could live in a tent. That's not. It's just because they don't have the money to live in a house. So if you've invented a solution that's as expensive as living in a house, that's not going to solve the problem. There are millions of people that think the homeless actually make a better wage than you and I and our secret millionaires. So I don't know. The ideas of why the homeless are... I think there's more than just seven-year-old children who are

Starting point is 00:32:43 like, why do homeless people not get a house? I think that's an actual question a bunch of 30-somethings have. Yeah. They haven't got all those expenses that homeowners have, like gas bill or the mortgage or whatever. So they must be rich. They're just pocketing all that money. Yeah. It's pure profit. All those sweet, sweet donations. That's right. Yeah. That's why they all have Maserati. Yeah. Taxman can't put his hand in their pocket. Yeah. If you don't have an address, the taxman can't find you. Yeah. It's just me, my crypto wallet, and my guitar. Oh, by the way, they also do pay you in crypto at Jupe. Your 401K is in crypto if you work at Jupe. We put you into this pyramid scheme as an investment. That's so terrifying.

Starting point is 00:33:25 Like, I think about it. My poor wife is much more financially literate than I am. So she's had a 401K longer than I have. And she'll keep a general sense of like, what's in her 401K. And like, I just think about her poor face. Like, it breaks my heart thinking about someone saying, now it's in Bitcoin. And they're having to like monitor crypto markets at like every time I try to like, oh, God, my 401K. Like, somehow even worse than the stock market. That's right. But speaking of markets and crypto and stuff, I want to move on to our main topic for the day. And Trev, your, well, all of your input on the Queen and Downing Street parties and Jupe is so appreciated. The main reason we have called you here today.

Starting point is 00:34:09 So basically, I was reading, as I often do, while I'm sort of thinking about the talk one of this podcast, I was reading an article that was on the Andreessen Horowitz website, because they publish a lot of fucking crazy shit. Is that Mark Andreessen? Yeah, that's the same one. Okay. Yeah. Insane man. Yeah. And so one of the things that, and that, that A16 Zed's into now, that's what they call themselves A16 Zed, because that's how many letters there are between A and Zed and Andreessen Horowitz. Yeah, that's why they call themselves that is real stupid. I was gonna say, no, no, it's 24. Yeah. Oh, that's really annoying. I really don't like that. I'm really really sounded like your

Starting point is 00:34:49 brother there just now. So they've written this long article about their positions in the future of gaming, right? And how that is tied in with crypto. I bet it's in a good way. Oh, of course. Oh, yeah. And so what I found sort of interesting about this, right? They say we're talking about, this is the transcript of a podcast that they did. We're talking about an emerging model of gaming called play to earn in which players make actual money based on how much time and effort they put into a game. Trev, what's your just the headline there, the headline concept? How does that strike you? It strikes me. So I had a friend who is an interesting guy. His name was Michael Moore, but he wasn't that Michael Moore. And he joined the special forces.

Starting point is 00:35:37 You heard of him as Guy Michael Moore. Yeah, it makes some movies. Now he joined the special forces because he felt so in he actually was inspired by Metal Gear Solid to join the Army special forces. That's the coolest thing anyone's ever done. He then he stopped being it. I don't they believe he's in them anymore, but he still has a real exclamation point over his head, though. But he he used to play Eve online and told me that he would go to his normal job every day, which was at a beer distributor, which I'm realizing is no. So a beer store. And then come home and play his second job, which was Eve online. And what I'm realizing is he didn't actually make real money from that. And now, like with this thing, he could have three jobs and make a little

Starting point is 00:36:25 extra pocket change on the side. I think it's like, you know, 24 hours a day, why not have three? Of course. Yeah, eight eight hours for work, eight hours for work and eight hours for work. And eight hours even. But it's like progressively stupid. Like eight hours for normal work, eight hours for like moderately stupid work, and then eight hours for just like completely insane work. And somehow the most insane work in that is the one that actually earns you money while playing the game. Like there's something so cracked about earning money while playing video games that like gets me even beyond like, you know, oh, gotcha games, you have to play for like, you know, the you have to pay sometimes to gamble to see what characters you get. Or like, oh, you

Starting point is 00:37:02 know, like, there's like a market or like a gray market for a gun, you know, like flair in in this encounter, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, like, you know, the Saudi Prince buys a bunch of command and conquer flair, like you can you can sell it for thousands and thousands of dollars, depending on what you get, or hats in in Team Fortress 2. That all makes sense to me in a certain way. The one where you get a paycheck from the game feels like a bridge too far. Like I'm unwilling to accept it. Because it immediately raises the question, where is the money coming from? And I suspect the answer is nowhere good. What's very funny is that the they're so the people at Andreessen are talking to

Starting point is 00:37:47 two people, one person who is the on their shoulder on each side, who's the head of this company Sky Mavis, which makes this crypto game called Axie Infinity, which is called Sky Mavis. It's who cares? Okay. They make a crypto game called Axie Infinity, which is like blockchain based Pokemon. Oh, I fucking hate it. So I mean, how long can we expect until the board apes are catchable by by our good friends in this game? I would like to catch and kill a board ape. I'd like to find a board ape and grot it. That would be my preference. But so right, they're talking to the one person from Sky Mavis and they're talking to another person from a yield guild, which is a company, a company that basically indentures people

Starting point is 00:38:34 who can't afford to start playing Axie Infinity. So they have enough money to buy their first NFTs, and then they work off the money they borrow. And this is horrifying. That's so bad. It's like it's like the plot of of any given like MMO where you're like, oh, well, you know, you need to join the adventurous guild. I'll cover you for now, but you have to do a bunch of quests to make it up for me. And, you know, you're just leveling up by killing slimes or whatever. But it's real. It's like your boss just emails you like, notice you didn't kill those seven slimes earlier today. Like we got we got kind of a client, you know, the client really wants this by tomorrow. So if you could kind of stay

Starting point is 00:39:16 late and kill some slimes, that would be huge. Thanks so much. Can I need those dead slimes on my desk by Monday? So here's the one thing. The guys from Andreessen are constantly trying to get the people they're interviewing, the people from Yield Guild and Axie, say, no, of course, this is an appearance scheme, right? They are trying so hard to get them to say it. And it's really, I find it really reassuring when people say, and by the way, this isn't a pyramid scheme because that's how I know it's not a pyramid scheme. Such as that company we talked about the other week who had on their website,

Starting point is 00:39:48 this is not a pyramid scheme. And I was like, well, no further questions. So they say, OK, so Andreessen says, OK, so people are paying to get in. So you have to buy several NFTs of Axies, which are like the Pokemon you play with, right? And then they battle. It's the same game mechanic as Pokemon, really. OK, so people are paying to get in and stupider and then interacting with their characters and they're competing and earning their rewards. But help me understand the sustainability of this business model. How do you think the underlying economics work here? Axie replies, Axie is a little bit of a growth dependent economy, just like any emerging market country.

Starting point is 00:40:26 Just like any conical shaped company, it's a company that's it's narrower at the top than it is at the bottom. No, it is a little bit dependent on capital inflows, meaning people paying in so that other people can get paid out. It's a trapezoid, this company. It's really important for us to have players that are in the economy spending because they think the game is really fun or that they see ways to trade like money for power or respect. And the more Axie becomes like a real social network, a nation, the more opportunities for those types of value exchanges arise. And then again, they say, but this isn't just about getting capital in and giving it to the people who've been in here longer, right? They say,

Starting point is 00:41:08 what are the key factors making play to earn sustainable? Like how do you think about potential ceilings in capital inflows and participation? They say, in many ways, these economies are going to be similar to real world economies. They're very complex. And I think that continuing to manage the capital and token supply and all the dynamics of the metaverse is going to be a real challenge. And so it's like a wizard will do it. Yes, actually, absolutely. Well, it's going to be hard to make this not a pyramid scheme. Anyway, we'll figure it out. Don't worry about it. So the way that it actually works, right? The way that this works as play to earn is that you buy your NFTs, you start playing Axie Infinity, right? And then as you get,

Starting point is 00:41:45 as you beat other Axies in battle, then you get like in-game tokens called smooth love potion. I'll fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off. No one involved in any of these things has ever had sex. It makes me so mad, right? So you can trade the SLP for cryptocurrency on online exchanges, and then you can trade that. Then that cryptocurrency is basically money, right? So what happens is the more you play, the more you get, the more you play, the more you win, the more you get tokens. It's kind of like that fantasy football startup that we talked about last week on the bonus episode, right? Where it's just you are, the more money you have going in, the more money you are able to earn because you're more likely to win and therefore win money.

Starting point is 00:42:31 Oh, it's like the economy. Exactly. Continuing to fund these exchanges is basically based on new money coming in, and I've never seen anyone convince me otherwise that it's not just based on getting money in to pay out money to other people. And I can't stress enough that it's not a pyramid scheme. A legal musician at the podcast isn't none of these things a pyramid scheme, right? And then lastly, I'll explain how work works here, right? Which is if you are just a person, usually someone who's, it's usually someone who is as wealthier, possibly you live in Europe, North America or whatever, you spend money, you get your guys, right? And then you give your

Starting point is 00:43:15 username and password to someone usually in the Philippines, and then they spend eight hours a day just grinding for you, right? And then you pay them a wage based on that you let them keep part of what they grind for you, but because you own the means of production, the Axie, you keep the vast majority of it. This is actually a part, like an actual part of the, is this built in or is this an exploit? No, well, it's neither. An imagined exploit. It's an imagined exploit, but when the developers of Axie saw this was happening because every crypto libertarian, their main form, their main thing, reason they'd like libertarianism, right? They said like crypto is that, and I think it's good for this, this idea of libertarianism that

Starting point is 00:43:55 they have is that they think that that libertarianism is when two people make a contract. So they love like employment contracts and wages and stuff. It's love slavery. Yeah, of course. But when you have an ownership relationship with something and then you relate to others through contracts. And so they don't like the fact that all of the ways that we were describing earlier, right, which are genuinely play to earn, like World of Warcraft, gold farming, selling counter-strike skins, all that, they don't like that because it depends on that central authority who gives you out a thing to sell. They like the idea that they are contracting one another to exchanging actual currency and so on and so on.

Starting point is 00:44:33 And so what, how this then works is they saw this happening and then they institutionalized it. So yield guild was started up and they have something called scholarships, right, where they bring in scholars who are players and then they loan them the money to get started or they just basically hire them out as employees to someone wealthier who then gets them to work at their factory more or less. So what they've done is they have created a version of Pokemon that involves a literal wage relationship by two people playing the game. Oh, yeah. Wow. Actually, it's better when you get children today. So I've got small hands and they can get down the back of the computer and pull the cryptocurrency out.

Starting point is 00:45:16 That's right. You know, it's, what's like, what's so interesting about this is like, I mean, I say shocking, but it's not shocking. Like what it is interesting, the sense of like how relationships between like value and luck and chance and all these things work in contemporary games is already like a big issue of conversation because so many games are heading towards like the loot box model, right, or the the gotcha model. And in there, like, you know, you put money in and you say, okay, like, or you, you know, you use the free currency and you say, well, my team isn't strong enough. So like, I'm going to pay to get this stronger character or like in the case of this game, Genshin Impact, people complained because

Starting point is 00:45:59 they said they had a like a, you know, a mental sort of like ship relationship with one of the characters that was on on purchase. And so they didn't want to put a bunch of money into gamble for a character they felt was like connected to them somehow. And so like, there's that, then there's also tier lists, right? So like, oh, the strongest guy is this or the strongest girl is this, right? Like, or the weakest one is this. And I'm just imagining like spending thousands to get an NFT. And then or like getting your parents to give you thousands of dollars for an NFT, which some kid is going to do for this game, whatever. And you find out it's like a mid NFT. And you're just like, you're looking at tier lists online, you're like, Oh, God, like,

Starting point is 00:46:41 my my ackee is like, is pretty like pretty weak, like, it's not going to ever get to the end game. You're just looking at these other ones, you're like, my crypto thing is bad. And, you know, you're taking it out in your Filipino worker, like it sucks. It's so bad. It's really awful. It's the it is it is hilariously bad. And what what I think about this, right? I have a lot of things I think about this. But like, it's what at this point, what is a game, right? If it's just your job, what is a game? It reminds me of it reminds me of the sort of Keynesian idea that you can jumpstart the economy by getting people to do like, you know, what what what David Graber or what anyone might call a bullshit job where you go like, OK, dig holes on a beach and then

Starting point is 00:47:30 fill them in and I'll pay, you know, like $20 an hour. And so people are getting money. You're technically employing them. But they're also like, you know, it's not a real job because, you know, there aren't real jobs right now. That's the Keynesian idea. So during the Great Depression, we just hire people to do nothing. You know, gas up the economy and then the rest comes. It's a basic capitalism idea. So, you know, whether or not it works is kind of up to your ideology. But like, it reminds me of that, except you need to it goes back to what you guys were talking about with Jupe, where like, you need a landlords all of a sudden, like it's it's the Keynes idea, except we need someone who can exploit your labor. Like if no one's being exploited,

Starting point is 00:48:10 it doesn't count. So you can't even like it's not even like, OK, joining this game and everyone gets the same stuff and just like jump around the map a little bit, you know, hit hit your slimes or whatever. And if you hit like 100 slimes will give you, you know, a dollar. And so everyone just does that on their free time and makes, you know, 10 bucks or whatever, still exploitative and weird. But not this like this is so hypercharged into being like late stage, crony, gross capitalism I'm honestly a little impressed. Yeah, it was also kind of provided and this makes sense, like coming from like Andreessen as well, because he's kind of been on like other podcasts to like talk about. I think he I think he's like one of those guys that sort of fetishes fetishize like

Starting point is 00:48:55 has a specialization over like the notion of like the libertarian city state. And just this idea of like basic like basically shadow economies, which are like hyper libertarian in like, economic activity in exchange, but also like, incredibly patriarchal and like, have the sort of travestistics and everything. Like he's kind of one of those really weird tech people who like moved to Miami because they really resent like Silicon Valley by which and when they talk about the excesses of Silicon Valley, what they actually mean is like, oh, shit, our workers are unionizing because of like woke leftist politics. So we all need to sort of move to the city state where we can like do all this weird stuff. But like their kind of premise

Starting point is 00:49:34 of both massiverse and just like the kind of virtues of cryptocurrency is this idea of basically creating like a shadow economy, which they believe will be like more prosperous and more like, they can kind of get welfare off that, right? And to do that, they basically need to kind of like create the aesthetic of like the shadow economy. And what's really interesting, but insidious about this one is that like, you're completely right in the sense of like, this is incredibly exploitative in a way that sort of accelerates the exploitative nature of like esports gaming and just like most video like most kind of collaborative video games right now. But what it does is kind of like present this false idea or like it coerces people into like make kind of forging these

Starting point is 00:50:20 exchanges in which like they take on like the burden of risk without the kind of any of the benefits. And again, it's like that classic sort of like massiverse criticism, which is like, ultimately, the platform still wins, right? Like this isn't like for all the kind of talk about like emancipation and decentralized like digital economies and web free and like, what you call it the creator economy and everything. What this essentially is is like putting more risk onto like users that you're basically coercing into being different variations of gig economy worker. And to build off that, I'm sorry to jump in again, but to build off that just like immediately, like it is also that funny libertarian thing of making the sort of

Starting point is 00:51:04 secret relations of capital obvious like like a communist would do or Marxist would do, but then saying like, it's good because I made it obvious to you so you can make the choice yourself, right? Like you talk about loot, loot crates and the general discourse, like I'm sure you guys have seen like they were banned in Denmark and like the EU is all over them. But like the discourse is always like these kids don't know what they're getting into, right? Like you spend $2,000 to your parents money on FIFA. They don't know that you're doing it. You don't know what you're doing. And then all of a sudden you're 2000 grand poorer, right? $2,000. Very few people spend $200,000 on FIFA, but I'm sure they're out there. Oh, people do. Yeah, that's almost the

Starting point is 00:51:45 weekly wage of football. And a podcaster. But yeah, like what's fascinating about this is, and it's coming from Antares' perspective, is it says upfront, what we're doing is exploiting you. Do you agree to this? And when you do, it says like, okay, great, then we're all on the same page. The exploitation is good because you acknowledged it. And that acknowledgement counts as some sort of almost like a sanctification of the relations where like all of a sudden it's not exploitative because someone has said like, yeah, I agree. It's kind of like it's almost like the argument that is kind of constantly made about like whenever someone tries to explain the value and virtues of NFTs to like any normal person, it's very much like source-sighted, believe me, bro.

Starting point is 00:52:35 You know, I say it's valuable there for it is, except like in this instance, it is like, it's very clear what's what's like happening, which is like these tech guys kind of know that once like Web3 is sort of built in like whatever stage that it is, and like once the kind of like infrastructure is built around it, you know, they can kind of decide what's valuable and what isn't. And in the same way that like platforms have been so adept to like, you know, really narrowing the way in which we like communicate and exchange and like, you know, share stuff online, they can sort of accelerate that further into like having even more control over like the financial exchanges and the types of like contracts and relationships that we

Starting point is 00:53:13 form with people in this hyper formalized way, which again, like ultimately benefits platforms. Like this is like, you know, for all the kind of like sophisticated language that people try to use to describe Web3 is again, like this decentralized network, really all it comes down to once again is that this is just kind of the further cementation of like the platform economy. And so I want to talk a little bit, we've been talking a lot about this idea of the value, right? That there is some value that is being captured here is being captured from work. It's being captured front by in this case, someone who is working a waged unproductive job, right? Because you're not actually doing or making anything. It is production, it is production with an

Starting point is 00:53:56 exploitative relationship, but without production is profit rather without any production, but with the exploitative relationship of production. The person from Andreessen says, we think that the people creating the value should be participating in the upside. But what is the value? Right? We see we say this concept that's just bandied around of value, you're creating value, we're creating value together, we'll find the value here. But what is the is it used value? Is it exchange? I guess it's pure exchange value, you are creating exchange value out of nothing. Yeah, nothing's actually being created. I'm not even saying that all production say needs to be material because it manifestly doesn't, right? You can create esoteric things

Starting point is 00:54:37 or things that aren't physical. You can give a your own full-time job. You can do a comedy speech, you can make a podcast. If only that was my full-time job. If only my full-time job wasn't the hundred other things I've had to learn to do just to be able to do that. Your full-time job is modeling, of course. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that's always baby. But no, I'm sending stuff from Ikea in my coupé. We're talking about this, right? We're talking about this concept of value. But what this is, the value here being produced is almost necessarily as something within the world of a game imaginary. And then you're exchanging money that is for it, that is also, I mean, all money is imaginary. It's all relational.

Starting point is 00:55:21 But this is money that's backed by a Pokemon game rather than, say, the administrative and military power of a country. Just a bit of a difference. But they're asking you, of course, that's why I always think it's very funny with the crypto people, right? Our cryptocurrency is great. Everyone loves our game. And what's really important is that our game has its own currency. But what we want is as much of your currency that's a boring old fiat currency, boo, give us or other people on our network a bunch of that. Because, of course, you don't actually pay a SkyMavis. You don't pay them the money to buy the Axis. You buy the Axis from someone else. They will mint Axis occasionally, but mostly they're just traded between one another.

Starting point is 00:56:02 And then if you're Axi, what do you have? You have all of this cryptocurrency. There's money that you've invented that's very valuable that you get to keep. And so when we talk about the value that's being created, the value that's being created isn't Axi experience points. It's not smooth love potions. It's not whatever. The value that's being created is the broad-based belief in the legitimacy of the currency itself, of the blockchain, of this particular blockchain. If you want to know where the profit is coming from in terms of money you can actually spend, that's where it's coming from. It's not coming from anyone doing any particular work-based task. But what we have done is because we have imagined

Starting point is 00:56:50 a future where people who are surplus to the requirements of production, because they specifically say in this interview that the people who are doing the waged work on this game are people who have lost their jobs and are living at home mostly in the Philippines. They lost their jobs due to COVID. So they have been almost replaced. They have new jobs that are not connected to production, but they still need to have a waged relationship with someone taking 30-40% of the tokens that they farm on a daily basis by playing this game. Value is coming from inside the house. What's so fascinating too is the way that we get this, and you've all brought up Web3, which I looked into a little bit more in prep for this. I didn't learn a lot, but

Starting point is 00:57:40 I learned that I just think about a BugDeals classic tweet where he says, I have it pulled up. I'm thinking of making a new email where there's no subject line. It's going to be called email2. And then there's a great response. You should go check that tweet out if you ever get a chance. BugDeals email2. It's a plug for the tweet. Do check out that tweet if you're a shout out. But that's what people think of when they think about Web3. Some sort of improvement on Web2. This is some sort of intensification or increasing. When you look at stuff like this, it's almost all re-justifications for keeping the status quo within a typically exploitative manner instead of accepting the fact that if we all agree that

Starting point is 00:58:33 we're entering some sort of post-productive phase with a lot of our labor, or some sort of idea that what we produce isn't productive or quote unquote productive in the same way that it was before, that really what we should be doing is de-instantiating the ways of wage relations that we've already set up. We're sort of like, everyone's obsessed with getting outside of a forwardest way of production and what that means, but we're also obsessed with saying, you'll still work. Don't worry. You'll still do something of value instead of saying, why aren't we just giving the money to the people who lost their jobs? If we truly believe that we're producing nothing by doing this, if this is truly just an excuse, literally the

Starting point is 00:59:16 total example of busy work, why don't we give them the money? Because the only thing it's producing is more wealth for the wealthy. At a certain point, I get why the wealthy want that, certainly. But at a certain point, people in the middle class or the lower classes or something have to start saying, wait, why are we trying to justify? Why are we trying to come up with another way to make me do some busy work that we all agree is in productive for the money that you said I was making before with my quote unquote productive labor that unfortunately isn't here anymore? It's a weird justification. Well, here's the justification they give. They say, right now, there is untapped economic opportunity in emerging markets to provide jobs by building a

Starting point is 00:59:58 virtual economy. So that's what exactly they're saying is we are going to build an imitation of the economy outside the economy. The potential may be untapped, but everyone who works at this company is completely fucking tapped. Let me tell you the rules. It's great. Yeah. It's just, you know, they read Neuromancer and said, why not me? They said, the way we define a quote unquote job is quickly evolving because of crypto and gaming. And we think we're just starting to glimpse what's possible in this realm. Yeah, dumb and annoying shit. So this is the person from Yield Guild. One of the hallmarks of the shift from web two to web three is that the communities are opt in an incentive aligned by shared economic ownership. But the kind of traits that lead

Starting point is 01:00:38 people to share the same affiliation again, opt in like a wage labor job, for example, is opt in. You can do it or you can not be involved in the real economy or in this case, you can do it or not be involved in the virtual economy. I think one of the yeah, opt in ultimately at the end, sorry to interrupt, but opt in at the end is just like you opt in or you start. Yeah, yeah. That's an option. You know, opt in. Opt in, opt in to jupe or be homeless still. Like it's all these sort of opt-ins that are just like obfuscating the actual opt in or opt out. So they go on. People stay here because they choose to be here and they help build the culture of this tribe. There's a shared economic incentive. There's a cultural incentive. But if people want to quit

Starting point is 01:01:18 the network and join another network, no one is preventing them from doing so. We see ourselves as a necessary layer to bring people from the real world into the metaverse, especially for those who can't afford it. This is about the indenture that you get basically. But once they're there and have an income, we actually encourage them to turn people from gamers to investors. And for me, it's like Web 2 reduced people into statistics that's about daily active users and clicks. And with Web 3, with this community-based acquisition growth, we're turning them back into individuals again, individuals who are creating content, learning how to play, earning money. And we see all these stories of people whose lives were profoundly changed by earning

Starting point is 01:01:55 this money. And I think that's really significant. Oh, my fucking god. But why weren't the individuals... I mean, this is just like, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but like, why weren't the individuals before? Like, what was so de-individualized about them that like they... Was it that they didn't have a job? Like, does that make you not an individual? It's that you don't own your Twitter page, right? You don't own your character in World of Warcraft. Blizzard owns your character in World of Warcraft. I guess, but ultimately, yeah. I mean, that's their argument, I think. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it's a funny argument because ultimately, it comes down to that NFT argument where like, yeah, I don't own... I play Final Fantasy 14 way

Starting point is 01:02:33 too much. And I don't own my character in that. Square Enix at any point could say, like, now we own this guy and we're going to use him in all our, like, marketing. Like, and he's going to be doing stuff like saying, money is really good. And I love, you know, I love venture capitalism. Sort of stuff that you say, Trevor. Yeah, the sort of stuff I say, but in a sarcastic voice. He'll be saying it, I only say it earnestly. But, you know, like, they could do that. But ultimately, like, I could take a screenshot of my character. I know what I've done with my character. I'm not the kind of person that comes up with backstories for my characters in games. But like, when people do, that's their backstory. Like, they did that. It exists. It's, you know,

Starting point is 01:03:14 it's the same thing as an NFT where you say, like, yeah, well, but I own the code for the picture. That's like, but what is that? What do you actually, like, what value does that give you as a person? Like, you can explain to me the technology behind it. I get it. It's there. It's blockchain, whatever. But like... The thing, isn't it? It's kind of like the Sylvester of argument when you kind of, when you kind of present the question of, like, okay, so if you own the code to this picture or whatever, like, what does that kind of like mean in material terms, right? Like, their thing is very much, it will mean something eventually, because when the kind of like aesthetic architecture of web free or whatever, like develops, then like this thing that I bought will have like this kind

Starting point is 01:03:55 of like tangible value, because these platforms will sort of coerce every kind of, you know, these platforms will kind of create a new infrastructure of value that you kind of have to abide to anyway, right? So for them, it's very much like this is, they kind of conceive this as a, as a long play. But what I was going to say was like, I don't think any sort of normal person has ever lost sleep on the idea that like, they don't own like Sephiroth or like whatever fucking character, like they do. I'm not like a games loser or anything. But I don't, I think that like, unless you are kind of like so entrenched into like your virtual world, or like you're so kind of like, you have such an affinity to your

Starting point is 01:04:34 Dungeons and Dragons. I mean, it's not, you can't even like apply to Dungeons and Dragons really, can you? Well, because Dungeons and Dragons, you literally own the same stuff you own in an MMO, which is like, essentially what they're building here. Like if it's all in my imagination, then I own, I own the things that I own in that game, whether I own them or not. This own is not even the right word to use really, right? Because you don't own what's in your imagination. You own it kind of in the same way that you own a franchise. Yeah. But right. So this is, I think that the thing here, right, is that what they've done is they've taken cryptocurrency to solve a problem that no one really has, and then use that as their

Starting point is 01:05:10 justification to have lots and lots of people buying their token for real money. And that's basically like, if you want to look at what the flywheel is here, that seems to be what it is. And there's like an important conversation here, because I think that like, I wrote about this like a few weeks ago, but I think there's like a real, there's like a tendency among like certain people on the left to like kind of dismiss all of this, like to kind of say that like all this is fake and it's like not worth engaging with and so on. And I kind of, and I agree with that. But I think this is just like another example of like, we have this crisis right now where no one can really kind of imagine what a better future looks like. And I don't think that's like something

Starting point is 01:05:43 that is kind of holding onto the left. I think that is like a much broader kind of problem that you are almost like transcends politics, almost goes beyond it. Like no one, like most people kind of realize that they're like, things are not working out, but no one can kind of imagine what an alternative is. And what these tech guys have done, they've kind of identified the same problem. But what they kind of, their kind of like proposed solution to it is not like, let's fix the problems that we've broken, or let's like use our kind of enormous amounts of wealth and resources to like, you know, try to kind of build a much more like democratic, equitable society or whatever. For them, it's very much let's kind of build and also like, let's build this

Starting point is 01:06:21 like virtual shadow economy or shadow society that can paper over like the material world where all its worst excesses can be accelerated. And yeah, like, I don't know, I think it's like worth kind of really countering that and but also recognizing that a lot of this like a lot of this dystopic stuff comes out of like the central question of like, what does a better society look like? And I wonder whether like people are kind of buying into the idea of like NFTs and crypto is the future in the same way that like, you have, I think like some well-meaning people who look at Elon Musk and kind of see but they and see this like visionary that is going to like change the world, right? Like it comes out of this place of wealth, the state's not going

Starting point is 01:07:04 to do anything. And if politics isn't going to achieve anything, then we may as well like put our faith into this guy. And I think like the NFT tendency is almost the same thing where it's like, okay, this might feel complicated. And this might feel kind of like out of my depth. But it's a, you know, at least it's kind of like a proposed solution to something that I know is kind of structurally wrong. And I think, you know, and then like, it makes sense that like these tech guys who again are very aware of this tendency and very aware of the politics that like induces it can exploit that. And, you know, even better that it's out of your depth in a certain way where you say like, you know, because one of the benefits of someone like Elon Musk is you say like, well,

Starting point is 01:07:39 he's, he's just smarter than me, right? Like, that's the idea. Like, well, he, you know, he knows stuff. I don't like he, you got, you got to have people out there. Maybe he's a jerk. Maybe he's like bad to his employees, but he comes up with these ideas. And like the answer is he doesn't like, I mean, no, no fan. But like, the, the blockchain is the same way where you just say like, well, you don't get the blockchain, but I promise it's like, it's super helpful. Like, it's effective. At that point, it's like, yeah, okay, I mean, better that I don't get it because then I can't find the flaws in it. Well, what, what really we talk about this idea of like visualizing a better world through the, for example, this combination of crypto and gaining

Starting point is 01:08:15 is the best world possible. That's right. Is that we say like, well, we can't have real things anymore. But what we can do is make representations of those things. And then you'll continue just acting as you were, but instead of being like, you know, a real, you know, employee, you're now a virtual employee, instead of making a product, you know, make a virtual product. You're still as exploited. You're still in a wage relationship. We have an indenture here somehow. But, you know, but in this is, this is, they say, they say that this is all them on the future of work. They say, I think that we'll see, at least within the Axie ecosystem, is different kinds of gamers will start to correlate to different professions. So there might

Starting point is 01:08:53 be someone who specializes in creating consumables like a potion maker or that might be the Axie version of a pharmacist. Potion maker, 2001, 2025 to 2027 references for potion maker. But what they're talking about is just a division of labor. They're just talking about jobs in sectors. Their vision of a better world is the same one, but with the Axie infinity graphics, that's what it is. And you still have a job. You still have a wage and you still have a boss. And if you're from the global south, you're still being fucked. There it is. I think they go on. I think that we'll see politicians arise in Axie infinity. People who are leading committees, for example, and thinking about the best use of funds that might be the treasury that be putting

Starting point is 01:09:39 forth governance proposals, might be creating requests or funding for different initiatives. You might have people who are focused on accumulating or harvesting certain materials. And that might beat need a version of a farm hand. So for someone who's going on Axie land, for example, and harvesting resources, I think that's like an archetype that we've seen in the past. But I think we've never truly broken out. And I think we have our breakout moment with the rise of Axie, YGG, Yield Guild, and similar institutions. They're talking about landlordism and divisions of labor and actual jobs. This is just in this pretend world in a pretend world where Christian like even if you're going to like think about it in the sort of like re like resource

Starting point is 01:10:15 heavy ways, like the platforms control the fucking resources, right? The tech companies control these resources. You cannot be a potion maker in a virtual world. I can't believe you have to fucking say this. You can't be a potion maker in a virtual world, right? There are no resources that you can gather. The only thing that you can do is like, and again, this kind of, again, it's just about like accelerating like the worst tendencies of the system that everyone knows doesn't work, right? Like in the idea that in the real world, you can sort of like, if you have a lot of money, you can accumulate resources really fast and you can get very wealthy out of like renting out those resources or like, you know, being a proper landlord. And in this

Starting point is 01:10:51 instance, it's very much well, if you don't have the resources in, if you don't have like enough money in the real world to do that, but you have enough money in the virtual world to do that, then you can basically replicate that problem by again, like outsourcing and exploiting labor, not just in the third world, but like in this country too, like in kind of like rich developed countries as well. Like it's kind of, it's just like exploitation on a much broader scale and for much dumber things. That's exactly right. And it's just like, and it's just kind of like insane when you read people, when you kind of read posts and like read blogs or like listen to podcasts from people who like take this so seriously and like, you know, the only reason

Starting point is 01:11:29 they take it so seriously is because they really want to be on the inside track, right? Like so much. I mean, this is like something for like another episode, but like we should, you know, for people who are like interested in this, like Mark Andreessen is like very much a poster, like very much someone who like goes on every like blog and like newsletter and like, you know, a crypto site and stuff and is kind of just like talking about, you know, trying to sort of be a kind of like Nick Lan character or like a kind of Curtis Yavin character, right? Like someone who like came from the tech world, but has like these kind of grand, like grand philosopher king theories about how the future of society should be. Like, you know, Andreessen very much does this

Starting point is 01:12:10 and when you kind of understand him in that way, like not only does his kind of vision of the future feel like seem even more insidious, but it's also like way more stupid as well. I don't know. I mean, like, again, it's something for another episode, maybe. Oh, of course. So actually, I think noting that we're sort of going long on time, I want to offer the last word, of course, to our guest, Trevor. Oh, my. Wow. That's a that's very, that's very nice. So I think what's fascinating about this, and you've all touched on it in different ways, like, I mean, that's why trash features such a good show. But well, you're welcome, of course,

Starting point is 01:12:44 but I only go on good shows. It's not true. But yeah, like, I think what's really interesting about this whole setup is the way that it, you know, it's one thing we haven't mentioned is the way that it sort of refigures play and like what will, you know, why people do things like grind on MMOs or or or even gotcha games or whatever, right? Like people like Andreessen or the people who are in these tech startups look at this and say, like, oh, people are willing to spend 50 hours a week, you know, doing something worthless, like trying to get a drop, right? And they're like, oh, you know, they want this helm, so they'll beat the same boss 70 times. What if we could make that productive, e.g. productive for us and our financial holdings?

Starting point is 01:13:32 And what's fascinating about this is that people will see that and say, like, oh, yeah, if I could earn money from that, that would be great. But the instant you introduce money into it, right, the instant you do that, it's no longer the thing that you were doing before. That play is changed forever. Like you can't have play that makes you money in a wage relation and maintain the concept of play. It's not you grinding for a helm anymore. It's you grinding for a helm for your boss, right? It's you even if even if you are the one who owned the NFT, you're still trying to make that NFT bigger so you can turn a profit with someone you don't even know who's richer than you. Like all the play there is sucked out in the case in like in

Starting point is 01:14:10 favor of wage relations. And what's fascinating is how it just ultimately like and maybe this is utopian of me. I'll just I'll throw it out there. I'll be utopian. I'll be I'll be vulnerable. I think the this kind of process will never work in part because the blockchain is not something that will work long term. But like also because like you can't manufacture a state of play like this that is work and actually make it keep going. Like the reason you've online kept going is because a bunch of something awful goons were willing to have a corporation because like you just got a bunch of goons together in a room and they'll do anything. But you know, like the the the concept of getting all these people including contractors in because they like video games is absolutely

Starting point is 01:14:58 illegible. And it's the same way that NFTs are illegible. Like I like art because I own it is such a such a horrible way to think about aesthetics that it stops becoming aesthetics entirely. And I think what's fascinating is watching how money and particularly crypto money has started to try and pervert like fairly human ways of interaction like aesthetic appreciation and play into profit and how it cannot seem to quite do it and how it keeps throwing tantrums as a result. That's right. And I think this just sort of goes circles back to our concept right where the whole mission of cryptocurrency is the financialization of things that were not thought to be previously financializable. But I want to say, Trev, thank you so much for coming

Starting point is 01:15:49 and hanging out with us today. It's been a blast. Absolutely. Yeah. And please go buy my book. It's at a you can get it's called story mode. I think most of them are on Amazon right now, although if you're in the UK or Australia or elsewhere, it's a you never know where it's going to pop up. But there's more hitting the market soon. I guess it's sold well, which is surprised to me, but very happy surprise. And and yeah, no, check it out. I think if you liked our conversation today, you'll like what's going on in the book. It thinks about video games through like a long duree. And and good news for Hussein, it is not it is not only for games nerds or games losers rather. It's it's for it's for people who have not played them too. So you can you can approach

Starting point is 01:16:26 it from either way. That's right. So do buy that book early and often. That's right. In the meantime, you could use three copies. That's right. Of course. Look, do you have a table that not doesn't need to be leveled, but does need to be raised a little bit? That's four copies right there. Is my book an NFT? If you want it to be sure it is. Why not? Buy it. Buy and find out. Maybe you can play a game with it. I don't know. Who knows? Only one way to find out, buddy. All right. I know. So don't forget as well. We have a second episode every week. It's five bucks a month on Patreon. You know how this all works. And other than that, I think we just have to say, yeah, thank you once again to Trev. Thank you to my wonderful coach for being here. Milo,

Starting point is 01:17:09 who you think he's been very quiet recently, has gone out to do a comedy gig or something. So he slipped away quietly. And otherwise, thank you to our listeners and our patrons, and we will see you on the bonus episode in a few days. Bye, everyone.

TRASHFUTURE - The Value Is Coming From Inside the House feat. Trevor Strunk

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.